People's Pilot, Volume 3, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 November 1893 — PERSONAL AND LITERARY. [ARTICLE]

PERSONAL AND LITERARY.

—Prof. Henry Drummond, the Glasgow teacher, says the universities in the United States are something the country has reason to be proud of, and their chairs of philosophy are, as a rule, worthy the admiration of Europe. —Edward Picard, a celebrated Belgian advocate, announces publicly his intention, in conformity with his democratic views, to abandon luxury and live henceforth as simply as does Count Tolstoi. Brussels society has been stirred up by the announcement. —An interesting fact in connection with the life of Maria Mitchell, of bei loved memory, is that she was never able to overcome her fear and dread of lightning. The heavens were to her i as an open book, yet this of their mari vels was always awful and mysterious to her. —Prof. David P. Todd, of Amherst college,has already begun making preparations for an expedition to Japan with other scientists in 1890 to view the total eclipse of the sun scheduled for August 9of that year. The party will be a large one and the instruments numerous and of the most improved kinds. —Mrs. Arthur Davis, of Washington, has received permission to take up the graduate course at the Johns Hopkins university with the view of taking the degree of Ph. D. She will be the second woman to enjoy this privilege, the doctor's degree having been conferred last June upon Miss Flora Bascom, the daughter of ex-President Bascom of the university of Wisconsin. —The late Lucy Stone was the eighth of nine children, and the night before her birth her mother milked eight cows. When she learned the child’s sex she said: “Oh, dear, I am sorry it’s a girl—a woman’s life is so hard!" Lucy, even when yet a child, became indignant at the injustice done to women by the world and resolved with infantile spirit to remedy the matter when she grew up. —Prof. Koch, the Berlin bacteriologist, who recently secured a divorce from his wife and married an actress, has told his friends that if they want his society in future they must receive also his wife. Berlin has made no outspoken objection, but in the little Hartz mountain village of Clausthal, where Prof. Koch was born, the women have torn down the tablet which had for years marked his birthplace. —Mr. 11. 11. Rogers has presented to the Millicent library, in Fairhaven, Mass., a collection of autograph letters written by seventeen of the presidents of the United States. They are all sin-gle-page documents, and are framed separately in oak, each with a steelengraved portrait of the writer. Mr. Rogers promises to add autograph letters from all the presidents as fast as he can obtain good single-page specimens. —An amusing story of Schumann is told by a veteran Vienna critic. The composer once accompanied his wife, who was even then a celebrated pianist, to the palace, when she went to play before the king of Holland, and was gratified by the monarch’s compliments of her performance. The composer was somewhat surprised, however, when the king turned to him and courteously inquired: “Are you also musical?”