Carson's gang this rough rider was known as an Eastern dude of vast but modest scholarship, such critics were set down as envious calumniators.

A few years ago, there exhibited in the music halls of our leading cities a person who was called the "cowboy pianist." A wild-looking youth, with long red hair and neglected finger-nails, pounded the piano with a "perfect looseness," to use his own phrase. The music as music was not remarkable ; as cowboy music it was startling, the performance as of an untutored centaur, equally lacking instruction and practice. His tumultuous splashing among the ivory keys seemed an eighth wonder; but alas! wayfarers from the far West were ready with a tale that the cowboy pianist was merely a third-rate German music teacher from a country town in Texas. What remained was make-up, — unkempt hair, long finger-nails, and all. Briefly, as a Buffalo Bill or as a Paderewski he would have been a conspicuous failure; poised on the two stools, he had a season of immoderate suc

cess.

Many a literary man has salved a dubious reputation by a pretended affiliation with one of the professions. He is known among lawyers as one who writes; among writers, as a dull journalist, but a brilliant jurist; the mystery of the unknown in this case proving efficacious. Even churchmen have been observed to set aside their claim to piety to mingle in the tumult of politics, to tempt theatrical perils of oratory. There have been eminent preachers who were viewed askance by theologians, but applauded among their compeers for a political prowess which politicians regarded as worse than useless for their purposes, yet commendable enough in a pious clergyman. But we need not multiply instances. Let us have a new proverb with reference to the "two stools."

It Goes with- That unpleasing and un-Engout Saying. lish phrase, "It goes without saying," is rapidly invading not only the columns of our best magazines, but the pages, also, of many of our most highly appreciated books. Authors of quite good reputation, men and women, who pride themselves on the purity and grace of their style, and whose work is really able, think nothing, nowadays, of introducing a paragraph with the uncouth line. This offense against good English - this mortal sin, I

feel tempted to call it has grown to be the fashion within the last few years, and now one can hardly take up a newspaper or a magazine without being confronted by it. Cela va sans dire, of course, we can all understand. In French it is not meaningless, nor is it inelegant. As the French use it, it has a widely different meaning from the English version. There is no genuine equivalent for it in any language out of France, where it originated. Dumas uses it with good effect in La Comtesse de Charny, and other writers have followed him. The literal translation, as we have it, is not effective, it grates on the ear, and there is nothing strong or helpful about it. To my mind, it rather tends to weaken the force of the text. Why not say at once, and be done with it, "it is an evident fact," "it is a natural conclusion," "it is a truism," "nobody disputes it," "it is admitted"? But what " goes without saying? Can anybody tell?

Statistics could be produced to show how popular the objectionable phrase has become. In a single number of one of our most largely circulated magazines I have noticed it three times, and twice in one article. In the ordinary newspaper one meets it much more frequently, the editor in chief, the local reporter, the foreign correspondent, and the advertiser contributing the line in question constantly. It has taken such a hold that even the purely literary journals, on both sides of the Atlantic, do not scruple to disfigure their pages with it. That it ought to be expunged from the letterpress of at least our best writers certainly "goes without saying." Italian - By familiarity, we lose the Grace: Notes. figures of speech and poetic thought imbedded in our mother tongue, and perceive them only in languages which have not yet become trite to us; so I suppose the Tuscan peasantry are unconscious of the glamour which their soft idiom casts over homely people and things.

I remember being told by a woman near Lucca that her brother was so invaghita of my cook Graziosa that it was impossible to draw him away from her, though she was not suited to him at all, and was "much too fat to work in the fields." The word told its tale of the realm of fancy in which the youth dwelt, deeming his love vaga; that is, lovely with a nameless grace, beautiful in

a subtle, indescribable way. To the world outside she was a stout, slatternly young woman; within that fairy ring she was gracious and beguiling, like her name.

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In talking with a deft little Lucchese maid about getting a place, she said to me, “ Ah, I should like to go into a family where they would keep me all the year round, for I am ambiziosa di far carriera” (ambitious to make a career). Do you wonder that a damsel who so dignified sweeping and dusting was always in demand?

Returning once, with a party, from Ninfa, the vine-entangled Pompeii of the Middle Ages, our donkey man remarked, waving his hand towards a fleet-footed English girl who was well on in front, "How swift she is! She flies like the thought of man."

As I finish a piece of work, my loyal Phyllis exclaims, "Ah, God bless you! You have hands of gold!? And when I inquire if the shops are open on a certain feast day, she replies, smiling, "Eh no! Even the birds do not turn over their eggs on Ascension Day."

I asked my washerwoman whether she was a Roman, and she answered, with a deprecatory shrug, "A Sabine, but it is just the same; the Romans stole our women." (As if it were a little matter of yesterday!)

An Italian never says to the obtuse foreigner, "You do not understand," but prefers the softer phrase, "I have not made myself clear," or, "I expressed myself ill."

The little words Prego and Anzi (like the German Bitte), as a response to thanks, seem to lift and disperse the weight of obligation in a gentle way which is lacking in English. It would take too long to try to enumerate the graceful, courteous little formulas of Italy.

A shabby coat is described as one that "wept upon the wearer," and in some parts of Tuscany the beggars appeal to the passer with the touching expression, "Little brother [or, little sister], do charity."

Most grace notes lose their delicate music in being translated, but many possess the charm of a veiled thought, and there are few more delightful books to the student than Abbate Giuliani's Moralità e Poesia del Vivente Linguaggio della Toscana. He lingered long on the "olive-sandaled Apennine," garnering the honey of unlettered but graphic speech from the lips of

the peasants. Mentioning their common use of the word abbandonarsi, he says: "It is beautiful to observe how this people turn it into metaphor, convincing one more and more that figurative speech is really the natural and common speech. Cicero wondered that rustics should say gemmare vites luxuriem esse in herbis lætas segetes, but really it is they who produce similar figures to form their habitual language."

Hear a ploughman describing the beechtree: "Under the cold, the beech abandons itself, becomes mortified, can stand out no longer, and grows black; it seems as though the cold broke its heart." See this in a reference to a careless farmer : "He who abandons the vineyard is abandoned by it.” The use of the word ammutolire (to grow dumb) is also interesting: wheat ammutolisce, ceases to flourish. Sap and fire grow dumb when they cease to flow and to burn. Stagnant water is spoken of as "sleeping," and the culture of land as "taming the earth." Here are a few expressions gathered at random through the book: part ings are a file to the heart; I counted the days with drops of blood; in leaving he wept like a severed vine; how did that caprice graft itself in you? when there is peace in the home, one embraces more willingly the cross which God sends; where there is a cross God is near; children are like flowers, they wilt quickly, and quickly revive; the bread of the poor costs sorrow and sweat; my heart is knotted up when I think of it. Blindness is thus described: "It is growing dark, and the world flies before its time." A thief is referred to as "one who dries the pockets of others, and would steal the very cloak of St. Peter."

The charm of many of the peasant expressions lies in their rhythmic beauty of sound, as for instance: "Vecchio, avea nel cuore l'ardenza della gioventu." (Old, he had in his heart the ardor of youth.) "At home," says another Pistoian," is my grandfather, and I love him with my whole soul; I have always found shelter under his shadow." Again: "If one reflects, it is true that life is a continued chain of love; we come out from one love and enter into a greater when we marry." A mountain maiden, speaking of her love and jealousy for her sweetheart, says, "It makes my heart ache that even the air should look upon him ;" and a young rustic of Val di

Greve expresses himself, "In my work I think of my dama, I do not feel fatigue, everything pleases me; there is great delight when love illumines the day." There is a whiff of old Arcadia in the pretty Tuscan words damo and dama to denominate the country youth and his fair.

It is, I fear, a graceless task to tear out these petals of speech, but perhaps from the mutilated little specimens some may reconstruct the plant, and set it in imagination against its own background of sunny skies and vine-clad hills.

Silent Partner.

- In the days of the American merchant marine, - years ago when there was a merchant marine, — it was the custom to send out a son or some young relative of one of the owners of a vessel, to "learn the business practically." The nautical débutant advanced in his profession so rapidly that his promotion was no small surprise to landsmen. As he strode serenely over the heads of briny "shell-backs" who had been at sea so long as to have forgotten everything about the land, the question naturally arose, How can the owners entrust a valuable vessel to such inexperience? But the problem had been met by the expedient of providing what was known as the " сарtain's nurse." In these cases of youthful commandership, there always went forth, as second in charge, a very shrewd and expert first mate, on whom, virtually, all responsibility rested. Hence, many an achievement recorded in marine lore as the feat of a young sea lion was, by those familiar with the facts, met with a significant shrug, and the remark, "He sailed with a 'nurse.' Furthermore, when some deserving youth, who had risen to the quarter-deck by pure merit, made a voyage that brought reputation, cynics in sou'westers would inquire, "Who was his nurse'?" as if incredulous of all claim to independent action.

In that larger world which sailors call the "dull, tame shore," analogous instances are not wanting. There seems to be a quality in the minds of some men that leads intuitively to the rejection of the obvious as a first cause, and to the adoption of a remote or unrecognized factor. Such are not content to regard Franklin as the original kite-flier; they must needs go rummaging in obsolete newspapers and old archives for traces of earlier effort in that direction! There is, of course, much to

sustain their position in the gradual processes of evolution, which finally result in a great discovery, a great invention. Thus, the same summer saw enacted at Paris, at Glasgow, at Philadelphia, a trial similar to the one that succeeded on the Hudson River. Fulton's alone achieved the hopedfor results. Again, Dr. Jackson, of Boston, declared, and I believe proved, that long before Morse's famous discovery he himself had a telegraph in full operation at his own house in that city. The controversy as to precedence in the invention of the telephone is still extant; and it would seem that every important discovery ultimately took shape in a manner somewhat analogous to the composite photograph. The various electric lights were, to use a bookseller's phrase, "published simultaneously" in America and in every part of Europe. So, the class of critics herein arraigned find special delight in claiming for an unrecognized obscurity the glory which, by common consent, has been awarded to the living kings of invention. This tendency to acknowledge and applaud the silent forces which are supposed to impel great actions would appear altogether admirable in human nature, were it not that the accredited inventors have some rights as well as have those supposititious persons for whom the principle of omne ignotum pro magnifico is so readily applied. Even conquerors, whose results are deemed most explicit, are not exempt: no matter how well established on record their achievements may be, they are sure to be attributed by these critics to some unknown subordinate. "Kings are sometimes useful to their ministers," exclaims the wily Richelieu, one of the most accomplished exemplars of power behind the throne ever furnished by history.

Much of this tendency to go back of the records, in search of that modest genius who has done the work whereof others have reaped the benefit, is due to an egotism of perspicacity, a passion for originality, on the part of the critic. "Washington's only a figure-head,” growled the malcontents of the Greene and Gates faction. "A fine Virginia gentleman, of commanding stature and awful presence, the hereditary lord of acres and negroes, he makes revolutions respectable. But when it comes to fighting". and then would follow numerous allegations in favor of lesser magnates. It might be expected, as regards the victories

of a sovereign, whose varied tasks of kingcraft and statesmanship would compel him to relegate military matters to his marshals, that he would find his Waterloos accredited to Wellington or Blücher, his Magentas to MacMahon, his Gravelottes to Von Moltke. But in the case of the great commanders themselves there is nearly always some popular underling who (with mysterious hints) is suspected of having shown his chief "how it was done." Take a modern instance. Sherman's victories in the West were, by certain critical commentators, deemed the result of the military scholarship of MacPherson, who, it may be observed, enjoyed the highest reputation among engineers. After MacPherson's death, the series of victories continuing unabated, some other secret source of power must be discovered; and discontent seized upon Thomas as the one whose conspiring hand had won the day. In due time Sherman separated from Thomas, and proceeded on his famous march to the sea with undiminished vigor and success; but had not the war come to a triumphant conclusion with the surrender of the forces before Sherman, no doubt hypercritics would have gone on discovering successors to Thomas !

In the field of letters. Here too we find ourselves confronted by the indefatigable searchers for "the inheritors of unfulfilled renown." The mystery of the Noctes Ambrosianæ has never been cleared up to the entire satisfaction of the reading public. To the partisans of the champions engaged, there has been no mystery at all. Why, of course," says an Irishman, "it was Maginn who did it all. Don't you see that the wit is Irish under a thin veneering of Scotch

brogue?" "Wilson did it," contends an Edinburgh man. "No one in his senses can pretend that the Ettrick Shepherd could have been capable of the language ascribed to him by his admirers."

But what age has escaped? From the Iliad of Homer, by certain German philologists characterized as a collection of folksongs antedating all stylus and papyrus, down to that sonorous but inoffensive ballad, The Burial of Sir John Moore, attributed in the past to Marshall, Wolfe, and others, there have not been wanting commentators who have insisted upon a yet unvindicated cause for all that is done. Indeed, I have often thought that if a Chronique Scandaleuse had been as sedulously kept in the old Hebraic dispensation as it was in the times of the Valois kings, we should find the psalms of the sweet singer of Israel attributed to some wild-eyed poetaster of King David's court, otherwise unknown to fame, and the proverbs of Solomon claiming as their author some bearded wiseacre of the weatherprophet order!

Theology itself has not been spared by this tendency of the human mind to seek in unknown darkness for that which bringeth great light. The following offers an excellent illustration. There have dwelt for centuries in Bohemia an order of zealots who devote themselves to the worship of Satan. According to their cultus, Satan was the rightful heir, but defeated antagonist, of God; in other words, was the Jefferson Davis of his Abraham Lincoln ! Like the unreconstructed rebel, they cling tenaciously to their fallen deity; and their common form of greeting is, "May he who has been wronged salute thee ! "