On one of the battle-fields of South Africa a young chaplain found a Highlander sorely wounded and with life ebbing quickly away. He asked him to allow him to pray, but the soldier said gruffly, "No, I don't want prayers. I want water." The chaplain secured, with great difficulty, some water, and then asked the refreshed man if he might read a psalm. "No," said the soldier again. "I am too cold to listen to a psalm." The chaplain instantly stript off his coat and wrapt it tenderly round the wounded soldier. And then, touched by the chaplain's sympathy, the man turned and said, "Chaplain, if religion makes men like you, let's have that psalm." When Christians prove themselves loving and considerate for the sick and suffering, even the hardest heart melts.
(3480)
WIVES OF GREAT MEN
It is an oft-quoted saying of Dr. Johnson
that "a man in general is better pleased when
he has a good dinner on the table than when
his wife talks Greek." Racine had an illiterate
wife and was accustomed to boastfully
declare that she could not read any of his
tragedies. Dufresny married his washer-*woman.
Goethe's wife was a woman of
mediocre capacity. Heine said of the woman
he loved, "She has never read a line of
my writings and does not even know what
a poet is." Therese Lavasseur, the last flame
of Rousseau, could not tell the time of day.
"How many of the wise and learned," says
Thackeray, "have married their cooks! Did
not Lord Eldon, himself the most prudent
of men, make a runaway match? Were not
Achilles and Ajax both in love with their
servant-maids? Seven hundred people sat
up all night to see the beautiful Duchess of
Hamilton get in her carriage, but would one
in a thousand lose a wink of sleep to get a
glimpse of the learned wife of the pundit
Yainavalka, who discoursed with the Indian
in Sanskrit on the vexed problems of life?—The Interior.
(3481)
Woman Suffrage—See Retort, a.
WOMANLY WIT
Foster, the State news paragrapher of the
Cleveland Press, published a paragraph to
this effect: "A Marion girl started her
graduating essay as follows: 'I am fairly
worried out with the incessant pratings of
the lords of creation on the duties and sphere
of woman.'" The paragraph closed with the
somewhat dangerous assertion that the editor
would bet a new spring hat that the author
of that discourse on woman's sphere could
not bake a loaf of bread. Two days later
Mr. Foster received from Marion a large
box. It contained sundry light loaves of
bread and cake marvelously toothsome. An
accompanying affidavit bore the solemn oath
of the sweet girl graduate (who possesses
the pretty name of May Williams) that she
had, unaided, made the wheat-bread marked
"Exhibit A," the two specimens of corn-*bread
marked "Exhibit B," and the chocolate,
"Exhibit C." The notary's seal of office
was affixt to the affidavit, and it was
settled beyond a doubt in Mr. Foster's mind
that his wager had been accepted. He therefore
went out and lavished his week's salary
on a new spring hat.
(3482)
WOMAN'S SPHERE
She's a woman with a mission; 'tis her heaven-born ambition to reform the world's condition, you will please to understand.
She's a model of propriety, a leader in society, and has a great variety of remedies at hand.
Each a sovereign specific, with a title scientific, for the cure of things morbific that vex the people sore;
For the swift alleviation of the evils of the nation is her foreordained vocation on this sublunary shore.
And while thus she's up and coming, always hurrying and humming, and occasionally slumming, this reformer of renown,
Her neglected little Dicky, ragged, dirty, tough, and tricky, with his fingers soiled and sticky, is the terror of the town.
(Text.)—Tit-Bits.
(3483)
WOMAN'S STRENGTH
There is no physical reason why a woman
should be more feeble or diseased than
a man. Stanley was furnished with two hundred
negro women to carry his stuff into the
interior of Africa, and he found them the
best porters he had employed, altho he felt
very doubtful about accepting their services
when first proposed. The Mexican Indian
woman is able to carry her household goods
on her back with two or three babies on top
when a change of location is desirable.
Meanwhile her husband trudges bravely
along carrying his gun. On the continent
of Europe most of the heavy work is done
by women. In Vienna women and dogs are
