Wine and Water.

Western Star, Issue 1548, 28 March 1891, Page 2 (Supplement)

Wine and Water.

Wine, wine, thy power and praise Have ever been echoed in minstrel lays J But water, I deem, has a mightier claim To fill up a niche in the temple of Fame. Ye who are bred in Anacreon's school May sneer at my strain a 3 the song of a fool; Ye are wise, no doubt, but have yet to learn How the tongue can cleave and the veins can burn. Should ye ever be one of the fainting bandj With your brow to the sun and your feet to the sand, I should wager the thing I'm most loth to spare ~ That your Bacchanal chorus would never ring there: Traverse the desert, and then ye can tea What treasures exist in the cold deep well} Sink in despair on the red, parched earth, _ And then ye may reckon what water is worth* Famine is laying her hand of bone On a ship becalmed in a torrid zone; The gnawing of hunger's worm is past* But fiery thirst lives on to the last. The stoutest one of the gallant crew Hath a cheek and lips of ghastly hue ; The hot blood stands in each glassy eye, And "Water, oh, God," is the only cry. There's drought in the land, and the herbage is dead, No ripple is heard in the streamlets bed j The herd's low bleat and the sick mans P&nt Are mournfully telling the boon we want. Let heaven this one rich gift withhold. How soon we find it is better than gold. And water, I say, hath a right to claim The minstrel's song and a tithe of fame. An Inventor's Hard Luck- The life of Mr. Daniel Drawbaugh, who claims to be the original inventor of the telephone, like that of many men of his class, is a story of poverty, of hardship, and a constant battle for fortune; He was born in 1827, in the village of Eberley's Mills, Cumberland County, tJ°S. A He attended school a part of five winters', up to the time he was sixteen years old. When he was about twelve years old he made a clock and an automatic machine for sawing waggon felloes, and continued throughout his life to manifest a genius for mechanical inventions. Durinc the years 1859 and 1860 he conceived the idea of transmitting articulate speech electrically through a telegraph wife, and he started to make a machine through which, it is alleged, conversation could be carried on at a distance of twenty, miles. This was done by the use of what, is known as the "carbon telescope," which is constructed on the same principle as the Blake transmitter. Some of these instruments, counsel said, were made as early as 1867* Prior to the war Drawbaugh invented a machine that was largely used for agricultural purposes in the South, and when the war broke out he had a large amount oi money owing to him that he was not able to collect. He was therefore obliged to go into bankruptcy. From 1869 to IBSO he was in extreme poverty, with a large family, and his only source "of income was payment for the doing of odd mechanical work in the houses and on the farms of his neighbors. The latter saM of him that his bobby was electricity, and that he was a man of great inventive genius, but it was frequently very hard work for him to borrow five shillings from an rone. A Chinese Restaurant-—You have never dined, reader, at a Chinese restaurant.. You enter and perch upon a stool near a large, square table. The next moment the attendant has put down in front of you a tea pot filled with fresh, boiling tea, a teacup one-third the size used by Australians, two ebony chop sticks, a porcelain spoon, a tiny liqueur-bowl, and a saucer filled with a> chocolate fluid, called se-yu. This is a hybrid between salt and dilute Worcestershire sauce. The first course is cold roast chicken, served with pickled, perfumed turnip. The flesh is tender, snow white and free from sauce. It is cut into small pieces, but these are arranged so as to preserve the outline of the fowl. You seize a piece with your chopsticks, dip in the sauce, and then eat it in solemn silence. The next course is fresh fish, steamed, boiled, or fried whole and covered with a dark and -very aromatic sauce. With it is served a bowl heaped to overflowing with rice. It is cooked as only the Chinese can each grain soft and tender and di3tiuct from its fellows. Next appears a bowl of chicken soup, on whose surface floats a few thin slices of some green vegetables. Then follow roast duck with pickled carrot, chowchop sue (a ragout of chicken liver, lean pork, bamboo tip, celery, bean-shoots, and onions), dried fish, steamed chopped pork, maccaroni and chicken, and dainty dumplings filled with spiced, hashed meats. With the foods are served tiny pitchers of liqueurs. One is a brown rice arrack, the second & date brandy, and the third an orange gin. All the dishes are well cooked and served, and are a novelty to the most blase gourmet. The Parisienne —The Parisienne lives in a whirlwind. Eager for amusement, greedy for sensation,the one unforgivable sin, the one insupportable circumstance of life is dullness ; graceful, febrile, intelligent, superficial, aflve to her finger-tips, she is always on the move—coming, going, here, there, everywhere—she has solved in her person the problem of perpetual motion. She reads little, she studies less; but she observes everything ; she participates in everything. She is not exactly pretty, but she is piyuattte, dainty, distinguished in her air. A suggestion of mutinous coquetry marks her bearing. Her talk is animated and incisive; 'her gestures eloquent. She mingles her topics with a light hand, mixes philosophy with chiffons, politics with fashions. Shehas a clear, crescendo voice, a gay, vibrating laugh. Her costumes are always beautifully harmonious, apt for every occasion, and sufficiently varied to suggest her view of existence to be a masquerade. Her home, be it a single room, an apartment or a chateau, is always cared for in every detail of its arrangement, and becomes a characteristic background to her own personality. Her impulse, in one word, is to make her life artistic, vivid and emotional. The Parisienne is alert from the moment she wakes. If she takes her chocolate and hot roll in bed, (she glances over the Figaro as she takes this early meal. Its columns bring all Paris to her bedside—its fetes and its charities, its scandals and occupations. She does not want more. Outside of Paris nothing exists for her In Paris she holds, you live ; elsewhere you vegetate. Publishing a Book-—Nowadays, a great many books carrying the imprint of well, ■known publishers are not issued at their risk. Books that promise a ready sale for any reason are issued usually at the expense of the publisher, who pays a royalty to the author. If there is any reason to doubt the complete success of the venture the author is required to contribute to the expense of printing, and in some cases he is obliged to pay the entire cost. I sometimes have men come to me with manuscripts who claim that they can sell five hundred copies to their own friends. In one such case I. told the gentleman that I doubted whether he would sell fifty copieson any such basis. He was at first inclined to resent such an outspoken opinion, but cooled oil, and having such confidence in the po tency of his name in the town where he lived he assumed the entire risk of publishing the book. Now, how many do you suppose he sold, in the territory where he expected to sell five hundred? Of course you can't guess, but. as a matter of actual fact he sold just twenty-five copies. The publication of a book is purely a business matter; if people do not want it very few will buy it simply because they know the author. I have sold over eighty thousand copies of a book by a man whose name had never been heard of beyond a small circle, but, you see, the book had something in it.