ASHES

applies itself to the cultivatior of wild oats A. last he had eclared that he would become a Painter; partly because he had always had an idle knack that way, and partly to grieve the souls of the Barnacles-in-chief who had not provided for him. So it had come to pass successively, first, that several distinguished ladies had been frightfully shocked: then, that portfolios of his performances had been handed about o' nights, and declared with ecstacy to be perfect Claudes, perfect Cuyps, perfect phænomena: then, that Lord Decimus had bought his picture, and had asked the President and Council to dinner at a blow, and had said, with his own magnificent gravity, "Do you know, there appears to me to be really immense merit in that work?" and, in short, that people of condition had absolutely taken pains to bring him into fashion. But, somehow, it had all failed. The prejudiced public had stood out against it obstinately. They had determined not to admire Lord Decimus's picture. They had determined to believe that in every service, except their own, a man must qualify himself, by striving, early and late, and by working heart and soul, might and main. So now Mr. Gowan, like that worn-out old coffin which never was Mahomet's nor anybody else's, hung midway between two points; jaundiced and jealous as to the one he had left; jaundiced and jealous as to the other

he couldn't reach.

Little Dorrit, Book I., Chap. 17.

ASHES-of a home.

The ashes of the commonest fire are melancholy things, for in them there is an image of death and ruin-of something that has been bright, and is but dull, cold, dreary dust-with which our nature forces us to sympathise. How much more sad the crumbled embers of a home; the casting down of that great altar, where the worst among us sometimes perform the worship of the heart; and where the best have offered up such sacrifices, and done such deeds of heroism, as, chronicled, would put the proudest temples of old Time, with all their vaunting annals, to the blush.-Barnaby Rudge, Chap. 81.

ASPERITY-The expression of.

terchange of ideas going on among them; that no man considered himself or his neighbor by any means silent; and that each of them nodded occasionally when he caught the eye of an other, as if he would say, "You have expressed yourself extremely well, sir, in relation to that sentiment, and I quite agree with you." Barnaby Rudge, Chap. 33.

ASTHMA-The want of breath.

"I smoke on srub and water myself," said Mr. Omer, taking up his glass, "because it's considered softening to the passages, by which this troublesome breath of mine gets into action. But, Lord bless you," said Mr. Omer, huskily, "it ain't the passages that's out of order! Give me breath enough,' says I to my daughter Minnie, and I'll find passages, my dear!'"-David Copperfield, Chap. 30.

AUCTION SALE-of Dombey's furniture.

After a few days, strange people began to call at the house, and to make appointments with one another in the dining-room, as if they lived there. Especially, there is a gentleman, of a Mosaic Arabian cast of countenance, with a very massive watch-guard, who whistles in the drawing-room, and while he is waiting for the other gentleman, who always has pen and ink in his pocket, asks Mr. Towlinson (by the easy name of "Old Cock,") if he happens to know what the figure of them crimson and gold hangings might have been, when new bought. The callers and appointments in the diningroom become more numerous every day, and every gentleman seems to have pen and ink in his pocket, and to have some occasion to use it. At last it is said that there is going to be a Sale; and then more people arrive, with pen and ink in their pockets, commanding a detachment of men with carpet-caps, who immediately begin to pull up the carpets, and knock the furniture about, and to print off thousands of impressions of their shoes upon the hall and staircase.

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The men in the carpet-caps go on tumbling the furniture about; and the gentlemen with the pens and ink make out inventories of it, In a hard way, and in an uncertain way that and sit upon pieces of furniture never made to fluctuated between patronage and putting down, be sat upon, and eat bread and cheese from the the sprinkling from a watering-pot and hy-public-house on other pieces of furniture never draulic pressure, Mrs. Clennam showed an interest in this dependant. As there are degrees of hardness in the hardest metal, and shades of color in black itself, so, even in the asperity of Mrs. Clennam's demeanor towards all the rest of humanity and towards little Dorrit, there was a fine gradation.-Little Dorrit, Book I., Chap. 5. ASSOCIATION-The influence of.

made to be eaten on, and seem to have a delight in appropriating precious articles to strange uses. Chaotic combinations of furniture also take place. Mattresses and bedding appear in the dining-room; the glass and china get into the conservatory; the great dinner service is set out in heaps on the long divan in the large drawing-room; and the stair-wires, made into fasces, decorate the marble chimneyWhether people, by dint of sitting together pieces. Finally, a rug, with a printed bill upon in the same place and the same relative posi-it, is hung out from the balcony: and a simi tions, and doing exactly the same things for a lar appendage graces either side of the hall great many years, acquire a sixth sense, or some door." unknown power of influencing each other which serves them in its stead, is a question for philosophy to settle. But certain it is that old John Willet, Mr. Parkes, and Mr. Cobb, were one and all firmly of opinion that they were very jolly companions-rather choice spirits than otherwise; that they looked at each other every now and then as if there were a perpetual in

Then, all day long, there is a retinue of mouldy gigs and chaise-carts in the street; and herds of shabby vampires, Jew and Christian, over-run the house, sounding the plate-glass mirrors with their knuckles, striking discordan octaves on the Grand Piano, drawing wet forefingers over the pictures, breathing on the blades of the best dinner-knives, punching the squabs

of chairs and sofas with their dirty fists, touz- than in the month of August. Spring has many ling the feather beds, opening and shutting all the beauties, and May is a fresh and blooming drawers, balancing the silver spoons and forks, month, but the charms of this time of year are looking into the very threads of the drapery enhanced by their contrast with the winter seaand linen, and disparaging everything. There son. August has no such advantage. It comes is not a secret place in the whole house. Fluffy when we remember nothing but clear skies, and snuffy strangers stare into the kitchen- green fields, and sweet-smelling flowers-when range as curiously as into the attic clothes- the recollection of snow, and ice, and bleak winds press. Stout men with napless hats on, look has faded from our minds as completely as they out of the bedroom windows, and cut jokes have disappeared from the earth-and yet what a with friends in the street. Quiet, calculating pleasant time it is! Orchards and corn-fields spirits withdraw into the dressing-rooms, with ring with the hum of labor; trees bend beneath catalogues, and make marginal notes thereon, the thick clusters of rich fruit which bow their with stumps of pencils. Two brokers invade branches to the ground; and the corn, piled in the very fire-escape, and take a panoramic sur- graceful sheaves, or waving in every light vey of the neighborhood from the top of the breath that sweeps above it, as if it wooed the house. The swarm, and buzz, and going up sickle, tinges the landscape with a golden hue. and down, endure for days. The Capital A mellow softness appears to hang over the Modern Household Furniture, etc., is on view. whole earth.-Pickwick Papers, Chap. 16. Then there is a palisade of tables made in the best drawing-room; and on the capital, AUSTERITY-Its chilling influence. french-polished, extending, telescopic range of Spanish mahogany dining-tables with turned legs, the pulpit of the Auctioneer is erected; and the herds of shabby vampires, Jew and Christian, the strangers fluffy and snuffy, and the stout men with the napless hats, congregate about it and sit upon everything within reach, mantel-pieces included, and begin to bid. Hot, humming, and dusty are the rooms all day; and-high above the heat, hum, and dust-the head and shoulders, voice and hammer, of the Auctioneer, are ever at work. The men in the carpet-caps get flustered and vicious with tumbling the Lots about, and still the Lots are going, going, gone; still coming on. Sometimes there is joking and a general roar. This lasts all day and three days following. The Capital Modern Household Furniture, etc., is on sale.

The dignified old gentleman turned out to be Lord Lancaster Stiltstalking, who had been maintained by the Circumlocution Office for many years as a representative of the Britannic Majesty abroad. This noble Refrigerator had iced several European courts in his time, and had done it with such complete success that the very name of Englishman yet struck cold to the stomachs of foreigners who had the distinguished honor of remembering him, at a distance of a quarter of a century.

He was now in retirement, and hence (in a ponderous white cravat, like a stiff snow-drift) was so obliging as to shade the dinner. There was a whisper of the pervading Bohemian character in the nomadic nature of the service, and its curious races of plates and dishes: but the noble Refrigerator, infinitely better than plate or porcelain, made it superb. He shaded the dinner, cooled the wines, chilled the gravy, and blighted the vegetables.

Then the mouldy gigs and chaise-carts reappear; and with them come spring-vans and wagons, and an army of porters with knots. There was only one other person in the All day long, the men with carpet-caps are room: a microscopically small footboy, who screwing at screw-drivers and bed-winches, or waited on the malevolent man who hadn't got staggering by the dozen together on the stair-into the Post-Office. Even this youth, if his case under heavy burdens, or upheaving perfect jacket could have been unbuttoned and his rocks of Spanish mahogany, best rosewood, or heart laid bare, would have been seen, as a displate-glass, into the gigs and chaise-carts, vans tant adherent of the Barnacle family, already to and wagons. All sorts of vehicles of burden aspire to a situation under government. are in attendance, from a tilted wagon to a wheelbarrow. Poor Paul's little bedstead is carried off in a donkey-tandem. For nearly a whole week, the Capital Modern Household | Furniture, etc., is in course of removal.

At last it is all gone. Nothing is left about the house but scattered leaves of catalogues, littered scraps of straw and hay, and a battery of pewter pots behind the hall-door. The men with the carpet-caps gather up their screwdrivers and bed-winches into bags, shoulder them, and walk off. One of the pen and ink gentlemen goes over the house as a last attention; sticking up bills in the windows respecting the lease of this desirable family mansion, and shutting the shutters. At length he follows the men with the carpet-caps. None of the invaders remain. The house is a ruin, and the rats fly from it.-Dombey & Son, Chap. 59.

AUGUST-Nature in.

There is no month in the whole year, in which nature wears a more beautiful appearance

Little Dorrit, Book I., Chap. 26.

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In the course of a couple of hours the noble Refrigerator, at no time less than a hundred years behind the period, got about five centuries in arrear, and delivered solemn political oracles appropriate to that epoch. He finished by freezing a cup of tea for his own drinking, and retiring at his lowest temperature.

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Chap. 26.

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The dinner and dessert being three hours' long, the bashful member cooled in the shadow of Lord Decimus faster than he warmed with food and drink, and had but a chilly time of it. Lord Decimus, like a tall tower in a flat country, seemed to project himself across the tablecloth, hide the light from the honorable member, cool the honorable member's marrow, and give him a woful idea of distance. When he asked this unfortunate traveller to take wine, he encompassed his faltering steps with the gloomiest of shades; and when he said, "Your

health, sir!" all around him was barrenness possessions. Austere faces, inexorable disciand desolation. pline, penance in this world and terror in the next-nothing graceful or gentle anywhere, and the void in my cowed heart everywhere-this was my childhood, if I may so misuse the word as to apply it to such a beginning of life." Little Dorrit, Book I., Chap. 2.

AUTHOR, MAD

'Yes, sir," I answered; "for a short time." "Do you recollect the date," said Mr. Dick, looking earnestly at me and taking ap his pen to note it down, "when King Charles the First had his head cut off?"

I said I believed it happened in the year sixteen hundred and forty-nine.

"Well," returned Mr. Dick, scratching his ear with his pen, and looking dubiously at me, "so the books say; but I don't see how that can be. Because, if it was so long ago, how could the people about him have made that mistake of putting some of the trouble out of his head, after it was taken off, into mine?"

In fact, I found out afterwards that Mr. Dick had been for upwards of ten years endeavoring to keep King Charles the First out of the Memorial; but he had been constantly getting into it, and was there now.

David Copperfield, Chap. 14.

AUTHOR, MAD-Mr. Dick's diffusion of

facts.

I was going away, when he directed my attention to the kite.

"What do you think of that for a kite?" he said.

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I answered that it was a beautiful one. should think it must have been as much as seven feet high.

AUTUMN SCENERY

Martin by degrees became so far awake, that he had a sense of a terrible oppression on his mind; an imperfect dream that he had murdered a particular friend, and couldn't get rid of the body. When his eyes opened it was staring him full in the face. There was the horrible Hominy, talking deep truths in a melodious snuffle, and pouring forth her mental endowments to such an extent that the Major's bitterest enemy, hearing her, would have forgiven him from the bottom of his heart. Martin might have done something desperate if the gong had not sounded for supper; but sound it did most opportunely; and having stationed Mrs. Hominy at the upper end of the table, he took refuge at the lower end himself; whence, after a hasty meal, he stole away, while the lady was yet busied with dried beef and a saucer-full of pickled fixings.

It would be difficult to give an adequate idea of Mrs. Hominy's freshness next day, or of the avidity with which she went headlong into moral philosophy, at breakfast. Some little additional degree of asperity, perhaps, was visible in her features, but not more than the pickles would have naturally produced. All that day she clung to Martin. She sat beside him while he received his friends (for there was another Reception yet more numerous than the former), propounded theories and answered imaginary objections, so that Martin really began to think he must be dreaming, and speaking for two; she quoted interminable passages from certain essays on government, written by herself; used the Major's pocket-handkerchief as if the snuffle were a temporary malady, of which she was determined to rid herself by some means or other; and, in short, was such a remarkable companion, that Martin quite settled it between himself and his conscience, that in any new setItlement it would be absolutely necessary to have such a person knocked on the head for the general peace of society.

"I made it. We'll go and fly it, you and I," said Mr. Dick. "Do you see this?"

He showed me that it was covered with manuscript, very closely and laboriously written; but so plainly, that as I looked along the lines, I thought I saw some allusion to King Charles the First's head again, in one or two places.

"There's plenty of string," said Mr. Dick, "and when it flies high, it takes the facts a long way. That's my manner of diffusing 'em. don't know where they may come down. It's according to circumstances, and the wind, and so forth; but I take my chances of that."

David Copperfield, Chap. 14. AUTHORESS-Mrs. Hominy, an American. Mrs. Hominy was a philosopher and an authoress, and consequently had a pretty strong digestion; but this coarse, this indecorous phrase, was almost too much for her. For a gentleman sitting alone with a lady-although the door was open-to talk about a naked eye! A long interval elapsed before even she, woman of masculine and towering intellect though she was, could call up fortitude enough to resume the conversation. But Mrs. Hominy was a traveller. Mrs. Hominy was a writer of reviews and analytical disquisitions. Mrs. Hominy had had her letters from abroad, beginning "My ever dearest blank," and signed "The Mother of the Modern Gracchi" (meaning the married Miss Hominy), regularly printed in a public journal, with all the indignation in capitals, and all the sarcasm in italics. Mrs. Hominy had looked on foreign countries with the eye of a perfect republican hot from the model oven; and Mrs. Hominy could talk (or write) about them by the hour together. So Mrs. Hominy at last came down on Martin heavily, and as he was fast asleep, she had it all her own way, and bruised him to her heart's content.

Martin Chuzzlewnt, Chap. 22.

AUTUMN SCENERY.

It was a warm autumn afternoon, and there had been heavy rain. The sun burst suddenly from among the clouds; and the old battleground, sparkling brilliantly and cheerfully at sight of it in one green place, flashed a responsive welcome there, which spread along the country side as if a joyful beacon had been lighted up, and answered from a thousand stations.

How beautiful the landscape kindling in the light, and that luxuriant influence passing on like a celestial presence, brightening everything! The wood, a sombre mass before, revealed its varied tints of yellow, green, brown, red; its different forms of trees, with raindrops glittering on their leaves and twinkling as they fell. The verdant meadow-land, bright and glowing, seemed as if it had been blind, a minute since, and now had found a sense of sight wherewith to look up at the shining sky. Cornfields, hedgerows, fences, homesteads, the clustered roofs, the steeple of the church, the stream, the watermill, all sprang out of the gloomy darkness smiling. Birds sang sweetly, flowers raised their drooping heads, fresh scents arose from the invigorated ground; the blue expanse above extended and diffused itself; already the sun's