EXTRACTS FROM BOOKS.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 4206, 12 September 1874, Page 3

EXTRACTS FROM BOOKS.

Old Letters.—l have all my life had a bad habit of preserving letters and of keeping them all arranged and doequeted; but seeing the future use that is often made of papers, especially by friendly biographers, who rarely hesitate to sacrifice confidence and delicacy to the promotion of sale or excitement, I have loqg resolved to send them all up the chimney in the form of smoke; and yesterday the sentence was executed. I have kept Richardson’s and Jeffrey’s, and some correspondence I had during important passages of our Scotch progress ; but the rest, amounting to several thousands, can now, thank God, enable no venality to publish sacred secrets, or to stain fair reputations by plausible mistakes. Yet old friends cannot be parted without a pang. Tho sight of even the outsides of letters of fifty years recalls a part of the interest with which each was received in its day. And their annihilation makes one start, as if one had suddenly reached the age of final oblivion. Nevertheless, as packet after packet smothered the fire with his ashes, and gradually disappeared in dim vapor, I reflected that my correspondents were safe, and I was pleased.—“ Journal of Henry Cockburn.’ Peasant* Life in Japan.—The rent and value of hill or forest land, which is not ploughed or sown, are immensely less than in the case of what is arable. The owners of the land can build as they like, without applying to the lord for permission, so long as the consent of the other villagers ia obtained, but objection is usually made to building on fields, because tho allotments are so small that a house erected on one of them would keep the sun from the crop of the next. The houses of the peasants are therefore usually erected on what is called yashikichi or building land, which pays a slightly higher tax than arable. The peasants naturally hold to their land, aud they look upon it as their absolute property, which no superior lord can touch. Ask a countryman, as has been done in my presence, whether the government could not resume possession of the land at will, and he will reply with indignation that it cannot ; he will argue that the upper classes are dependent on tho lower, not the lower on the upper, and that if the peasants did not cultivate the land, the upper classes would simply starve. In other matters the peasants are in general easily governed; in the matter of money, the government can take such liberties with them as could not be dreamt of in Europe. They can, and do, flood the country with paper money, without producing any distrust among the people, but could not venture with impunity to touch the land.—“ The History of Japan.” By Francis Ottiwell Adams, F.R.G.S. Jet. —Jet, a sort of semi-jewellery in its usual applications, is one of those many substances which have a kind of mysterious brotherhood with coal. The beautiful pearly white paraffin for candles comes from coal; so does the benzoline which we use in our handy little sponge lamps ; so do the gorgeous magenta and aniline dyes and pigments; aud so, some people think, does jet. In this lastnamed instance, if coal is to be mentioned at all, we should rather say that it is a kind of coal, not that it is produced from coal. Be this as it may, jet, a shining black substance, is found in seams dissociated from all other black minerals ; not in the coal regions, but in other districts of England, notably near Whitby, in Yorkshire. It occurs also in Spain, in Saxony, and in the amber districts on the Prussian shores of the Baltic. Scientific men, in the language of mineralogy, say that jet ia a variety of coal; that it occurs sometimes in elongated masses,sometimes in the form of branches, with a woody structure; that its fracture is conchoidal or shelly, its lustre brilliant and resinous, and its color velvet black ; that it is about 20 per cent, heavier than -water ; that it bums with a greenish flame, emits a bituminous odour while burning, and leaves a yellowish ash. But the Whitby folks can adduce many reasons for thinking that jet, in some of its forms at any rate, must have been at one time in a semiliquid state, quite unlike coal derived from a ligneous origin. —All the Year Round ,

BLAB. (From the Liberal Review.) It ia popularly supposed that the English are a taciturn people. Like many other suppositions, this one has little foundation in fact. It may be true that the natives of -this country are not so remarkable on the score of their loquacity as are the inhabitants of France aiid Italy, but this is not saying a great deal on account of their love of silence. As a matter of fact, a tendency to excessive garrulity appears to be a failing common to humanity generally. It is a somewhat unfortunate one. If men did not possess the power of speech, the likelihood is that there would he a great deal more peace in the world than there now is. Without questioning that the ability to articulate is generally a blessing, it may fairly be maintained that the exercise of it has induced a larger number of blows than kisses. As a rule, where there is much foul talking there is comparatively little kissing, and where the conversation runs riotous until it degenerates iuto fierce shouting, it is extremely probable that ouo will be enabled to see plenty of kicking and cuffing before all the parties concerned have been satisfied. The majority of men have to be talked to for some time, and in a vigorous fashion, before they will rise in their wrath and use their fists, but it requires absolutely no inciting discourse to prevail upon them, under certain circumstances, to make their lips meet somebody else’s. Once set a woman of a certain type talking, and there is every probability that before she has finished she will be in a thoroughly had temper, aud that those to whom her remarks arc addressed will have good reason for considering themselves insulted. Many more similar examples might he quoted. Tho truth appears to he that of the large number of people who possess tongues in thorough working order tho vast majority do not know how to use them. They either talk too much or they talk at tho wrong time. Many hours of their lives are rendered miserable by the unpleasant reflection being forced upon them that they have said that which they never intended to, and the utterance of which causes a cold shiver to run through them every time they think of it. But tho unpleasant consequences —aud these are by no means few nor trifling—which individuals of this sort bring down upon themselves by their recklessness are as nothing compared with those which they entail upon other people. One of their chief objects in life appears to ho to take pronounced cognisance of everybody's affairs, and to proclaim how intimately acquainted they are with the business and secrets of their neighbors. Men may die, they may be reduced to abject poverty, they may bo victims to lingering disease of the most agonising description, and no one will deem it worth while to come hear them with succour and comfort. But plenty of people are ready to chatter about tho poor wretches, and the follies, and the worse than follies which have brought them to their miserable condition. The snob will talk volumes about obscure beings whom he would not condescend, for any consideration, to speak to on aught hut a strictly business matter. The blah belongs to tho very worst class of talkative people. He can neither guard his own secrets nor other people’s. When he goes

abroad he keeps his eyes open and his mouth in the same condition. It would simply be a waste of time to endeavor to convince him that a still tongue showeth something more than a wise head, to wit, a considerate nature. As a rule, he is one of those stolid, unimpressionable people, whose self-consciousness is such that they can never he induced to depart even from an evil course. Fond of a joke, he is utterly careless at whose expense he gets it ; proud of being the retailer of news which at once gains him an- attentive hearing, he is by no means particular who suffers so long as his vanity is gratified by him being regarded as an interesting person. Go abroad with a party of which ho forms one, aud his eagle eye will never cease to follow you, detecting yom- movements in the most remote and gloomiest of corners. In the event of your speaking civilly to Brown’s wife he will gleefully dance about, declaring if he were Brown he would look after her, and you too. Have the smallest bit of a “tiff” with your hatter half, and he will rejoice at being afforded some slight ground for saying that you aud she lead a terribly cat-and-dog life, and that it would not surprise him if there were an application for a judicial separation before long. Let young Smith hand Miss Eobinson a plate of bread aud butter, or a cup of tea, and he is on the qai vice at once; while, if the gallant gentleman goes so far as to inquire of ■ the lady, in a seemingly confidential manner, whether she is warm or cool, or what not, his state immediately becomes one of not a little excitement, aud he is afterwards acutely on the alert to detect the further acts of enormity into which those who are the objects of his disinterested scrutiny may he led. If they will but slightly detach themselves from the main body of the company they may happen to be in, and appear as if they are a trifle interested in each other, his raptures and jocosity rise to an indescribable pitch. Eight willingly he squares tho circle of his acquaintances, and inquires of them, after he has gaily poked their ribs, whether they have noticed this, that, and the other, his queries being accompanied by a number of suggestive winks, significant gestures, and entertaining grimaces. He seems to deem it his duty to report all that he sees to people whom he meets, long after the occurrences related have grown old, aud it is a curious thing that the oftener his reports are retailed, the more florid they become, until, at last one might he excused for thinking that they had no connection, remote or otherwise, with the affair they related. When matters have reached this amusing stage, blab number two, in the form of one of those good-natured friends of whom the world ia so' full, steps in, and does his best to make matters worse. The unhappy young man is informed of a great deal that has been said by blab number one and other people, also of a great deal that has not been said. Ho is told in a roundabout fashion.that he is thought to be a fool or a villian, as the case may he ; further, that the impression is that he is making an ass of himself or being made an ass of, he being kindly left at liberty to choose which view of tho case he deems most flattering to himself. All this is confided to the helpless being’s ear as if it were a profound secret, but it is a very great mistake to suppose that the hlah mil do otherwise than his best to make it common property. It appears to he his aim to make people thoroughly uncomfortable by confiding to them what he declares confidentially other people say, and there is good reason for believing that he does not always content himself with mere humdrum reporting, but frequently makes his powerful imagination do good service. If you are on bad terms with any individual, he will take care to let you know that this individual is in the habit of avowing the greatest contempt for you ; if yon have written a book, painted a picture, or made a speech, ho will kindly lead you to understand that many persons are laughing at you on the score of what you have done.