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Ressed him for payment within doors, while the bailiffs beset him
without; that he was drinking himself drunk with Madeira to drown care,
and fretting over a novel
which, when

finished, was to be his whole fortune; but he could not get it done for
distraction, nor could he step out of doors to offer it to sale. Mr.
Johnson therefore set away the bottle, and went to the bookseller,

recommending the performance, and desiring some immediate relief; which
when he brought back to the writer, he called the
woman of the house directly to partake of punch, and pass their time in
merriment. It was not till ten years after, I

dare say, that something in Dr. Goldsmith's behaviour struck me with an
idea that he was
the very man, and then Johnson confessed it was so; the novel was the
charming "Vicar of Wakefield." There was a Mr. Boyce, too, who wrote
some very elegant verses printed in the magazines of five-and-twenty
years ago, of whose ingenuity and distress
I have heard Dr. Johnson tell some curious anecdotes,

particularly that when he was almost perishing with hunger, and some
money was produced to purchase him a dinner, he got a piece of roast
beef, but
could not eat it without

ketchup, and laid out the last half- guinea he possessed
in truffles and mushrooms, eating them in bed, too, for want of
clothes, or even a shirt to sit up in. Another man, for whom he
often begged,
made as wild use of his friend's beneficence as these, spending in punc

Rk goes Where Traffic blows, From lands of sun to lands of snows;--
This happier one, Its course is run From lands of snow

to lands of sun. Oh, happy ship, To rise and dip, With the blue
crystal at your lip! Oh, happy crew, My heart with you Sails, and
sails, and sings anew!

No more, no more The worldly shore Upbraids me with its loud uproar!
With dreamful eyes My spirit lies Under the walls of Paradise! ROBA DI
ROMA. ENTRANCE. It was
on the 6th of December, 1856, that I landed with my family at Civita
Vecchia, on my return for the third time to Rome. Before we could make
all our arrangements, it was too late to think of journeying that day
towards the dear old city; but the following morning we set forth in a
rumbling, yellow post-coach, with three horses,

and a shabby, gaudy postilion,--the wheels clattering, the bells
on the horses' necks jingling, th

its entire requirement. There are few more beautiful sights in all the
world than a field of coffee trees in blossom. One writer has likened it
to "millions of snow drops scattered over a sea of green." They blossom,
in Cuba, about the end of February or early in March, the fruit season
and picking coming in the autumn. Coffee culture is an industry
requiring great care and some knowledge, and the preparation of the
berry for the market involves no less of care and knowledge.
The quality of the Cuban berry is of the best. It is the misfortune of
the people of the United States that very few of them really know
anything about coffee and its qualities, notwithstanding the fact that
they consume about a billion
pounds a year, all except a small percentage of it being coffee of
really

inferior quality. But coffee, like cigars, pickles, or music, is
largely a matter of individual preference. Cuba produces a variety of
vegetables,

chiefly for domestic consumption, and many fruits, some of which are
exported. There is also a limited production of grains. Among the tubers
produced are sweet potatoes, white potatoes, yams, the arum and the
yucca. From the latter
is made starch and the cassava bread. The
legumes are represented by varieties of beans and peas. The most
extensively used food of the island people is rice, only a little of
which is locally grown. The imports are valued at five or six million
dollars yearly. Corn is grown in some quantity, but nearly two million
dollars worth is imported yearly from the United States. There are
fruits of many

kinds. The banana is the most important o

Iberal belief. A guest appeared
among them, and it was known only to one or
two that this man was a sincere Catholic.
As the talk turned upon religious discussion, one of the guests so
directed the conversation as to bring out the information that the
stranger was a Catholic by faith and rearing. This was a very kind and
appropriate thing to
do. It acquainted the hostess with a fact of which she was ignorant; and
it gave all present a feeling
of security in whatever they might say. A hospitable host and hostess
will not absorb the conversation at their table. They will render the
gracious service of furnishing a background for the cleverness of
others, rather than display unsparingly
their own brilliancy. Indeed, a man or woman does not have to be
brilliant or intellectual to succeed in this most gracious of social
arts. The host or hostess who possesses sympathy and tact will surpass
in dinner-giving the most brilliant person in the world who selfishly
monopolizes conversation at his own table. If guests cannot go away from
a dinner-table feeling better
pleased with themselves, that campaign of

hospitality has been a failure. When the self-satisfaction on their
faces betrays the subtle art of the host
and hostess in having convinced all their guests that they have made
themselves interesting, then the acme of hospitality
has been achieved. One of the most good-natured but most inane of men

was one day chuckling at having been royally diverted at a dinner-party.
"He was at Mrs. X's," said some one. "How do you know that?"
"Indeed! Don't I know her way? She'd make a raven go home rivaling the
nightingale." To be able to make your guests better
pleased with themselves is the greatest of all social accomplishments.
"An ideal dinner party," says a famous London hostess, "resembles
nothing so much as a masterpiece of the jeweler's art in the center of
which is some crystalline gem in the form of a sparkling and sympathetic
hostess round whom the guests are arranged in an
effective setting." It would seem quite as necessary that a host prove
a crystalline gem in this masterpiece of the jeweler's art. To be
signally
successful at dinner-giving, care to make
the talk interesting is as necessary as care in the preparation of
viands. Really successful hosts and hostesses take as much precaution
against fatalities in conversation as agains

Ohn Beattie Crozier's autobiographical
volume entitled "My Inner Life." The author is an English philosopher,
who was born

and lived until manhood in the backwoods of Canada. He tells us how as
a young man groping about for some clew to the mystery of the world in
which he found himself, he tried one great writer after another--Mill,
Buckle, Carlyle, Emerson--all to no purpose, for he was not ready for
them. At this period he read with great profit the "Recreations of a
Country Parson," which, as he says, "gave me precisely the grade and
shade of platitude I required." But more important
were the weekly sermons of Henry Ward Beecher. Of him Crozier says: For
years his printed sermons were the main source of my instruction and
delight. His range and variety of observation ... his width of
sympathy; his natural
and spontaneous pathos; the wealth

of illustration and metaphor with which his sermons were adorned,

and which w