Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 January 1885 — Crossing the Pasture. [ARTICLE]

Crossing the Pasture.

Mr. J. A. S. Monk’s etching, “Crossing the Pasture,” which is given to all subscribers to the Magazine of Art for 1885, is as tempting a bait as a publisher ever heild out to an art-loving publio. Mr. Monks’ water-color drawing, from which he made this etohing, was recently exhibited in the National Academy of Design, where it attracted a gret deal of attention and praise. In the etching the effect of color is wonderfully well given, and to a certain extent the work of the needle is more pleasing than that of the brush. The feeling of twilight is caught with more success in the etching, and the peculiar quality of the sheep’s wool is shown with great fidelity. There is a great deal of charming sentiment in this picture, which, when appropriately framed, will be an attraction to any wall, or in a portfolio, will honor any collection. —Cassell £ Company, New York. When Prof. Nordenskjold was in Japan, after he had made the northeast passage, his attention was drawn to the very rich literature of that country prior to European influence. He decided to collect and take home a Japanese library. He bought between 4,000 and 5,000 volumes, which are now in the Royal Library at Stockholm. M. Leon de Rosny, professor at the School of Oriental Languages in Paris, has Just catalogued the Nordenskjold collection, which he says contains nearly all the works of any prominence, and furnishes complete materials for-the study of Japanese literature and culture. The area of the British Empire is estimated at teh millions'of square miles, or one-fifth of the habitable globe,with a coast line of 28,500 miles The population in the countries directly or indirectly under British control was computed at 315,000,000, of all religions and nationalities. , . O. R. Talmage, of Savannah, has invented a machine that he is confident will navigate the air without any difficulty. He calls it a steam "bird.

I began to court Miranda Gray. Miranda had been eddicated at Vassar, and her sadly illiterate father was mtenslyqSroud of her. Alas, that Miranda did not always reciprocate this pride. No doubt education ia a fine thing, but it very often educates children to be ashamed of their less fortunate parents’ gaucheriesi Miranda had frequent reasons to blush at her parents’ —candor of expression—let us call it It was a custom, in the good old times—a custom more honored in the breach than the observance, aa all lovers of tender age will agree—for the young fellow who went sparking to “set up” and talk with the old folks for awhile, and then, at a certain hour, sheepishly retire to the parlor at the beck of his blushing inamorata. Father Gray was a true bine of the old school, who liked to see “what kind of a chap war a sparkin’ his darter Mirandy." So every night I visited Miranda I had to run the gauntlet of at least two hours’ talk with the old man. The talk was neither instructive, amusing, nor elevating. There is no doubt spavins, hogs, manures, and pumpkins are engrossing subjects to some, but scarcely to a lover burning with impatience to hug a blushing expectant maiden to his palpitating Chineselaundried bosom for all he is worth. And then when things are spoken of in a matter-of-fact way, which before school may have seemed perfectly right and natural, but which Yassar and Yale have taught them should be like Hades, never mentioned to ears polite, it becomes sometimes extremely embarrassing. For instance, Farmer Gray, like the ignorant boor that he was, could never

be brought by Miranda to speak of the tumor on the animal’s limb, but persisted in talking vulgarly of a spavin on the mare’s leg. Then when Miranda would begin to expatiate on the lovely appendix of the pea-fowl* the coarse old man would try to be witty, and ask, if “that air last war a new kind of bird.” He could never see how much more genteel and proper it was to speak of incubating eggs than hatohing, and thought manure just as good a word as fertilizer. And so it went. I remember once, it was about the time our riflemen went over to England, and kicked the spots out of the British, that Miranda was entertaining me with a sweet account of how much oftener our men had been able to shoot into the eyes of the gentleman cow than the English, when the old man broke in with one of his reminiscences. i “I don’t call that air shootin’ much ’count. I remember onct —old Muley had just come in with her fust calf—l saw a chap, one of them Injin doctors that could hit the bull’s eye every time he tuk aim. Ha! Ha! Ha! That war the same chap that old Towser got arter onct, and tuk Sway the whole seat of his pants, so ’the bed to skip through the town boldin’ on his coat-tails. It war a terrible windy day, an’ I tell ye it war a sight.” The old man was constantly making just such sad breaks as this into our refined and cultured conversation. On such occasions Miranda blushed rosy, I ditto. Neither of us wanted to catch the other’s eye, but both wanted to see how it affected the other, and our efforts to look one way and seem to look the other, made the scene more ridiculous than ever. And all the time the old fool would sit there as unconcerned as a graven image, with the placidly superior expression on his face of one who thinks he has said something smart, and “tuk down that air eddicated feller a peg.” I appeal to any intelligent man, woman, Or child if forbearance under such circnmstances would not cease to be a virtue. If it had only happened once there would have been no growling, but when it occurred every time, it became unbearable. Miranda was just as sweet as she could be, and I loved her with whole, unbleached, full-width, 18-karat affection, but, really, I could not go her father. So ended our love. Died of father-in-law. Miranda—peace to her ashes—is now the fat, freckled mother of three candidates for the penitentiary, and I am still on the lookout for a pretty girl with a pair of deaf and dumb parents. Shouldn’t care if the girl was dumb too.— -Peck’s Sun.