of the southwestern Pacific. The storm-waves dashed against the cliffs of the Philippine Islands can often be seen pouring back in torrents resembling the water-falls of large rivers; and Varenius, in his "Geographia Naturalis," describes the typhoons of the Chinese seas as "storms which rage with such intensity and fury that those who have never seen them can form no idea of them, and which would often tempt one to say that heaven and earth wished to return to their original chaos."
The navigators of the Japan seas, too, must often feel inclined to consider the name of the "Pacific" a preposterous misnomer. The "regions of calms" specified on mariners' charts represent merely the interspaces of the trade-wind tracks, and are by no means specially exempt from the visitation of destructive storms. Of all seas thus far discovered, that advantage can be claimed most fairly for certain sheltered bays of the eastern Mediterranean; of all terra firma regions, for the upper valley of the Sacramento River, in northern California.
Felix L. Oswald.
BOOK-TALK.
SUCCESS AND PHILANTHROPY.
Miles Coverdale, in discussing the character of Hollingsworth (in "The Blithedale Romance"), speaks of "that steel engine of the devil's contrivance, a philanthropist!" And certainly, be the reason what it may, to call a man a philanthropist is to take sixty per cent off his character. Philanthropists are disliked mainly for two reasons: first, they are suspected of insincerity and self-seeking,—of studying their own temporal advantage under cover of ministering to others; and secondly, if they really are so altruistic as they appear, it is an oblique reproach to other people who are less paradisiacally disposed. Philanthropy, in short, is an anachronism; either the time for it has gone by, or it has not come yet; and whoever adopts the profession or trade (as the case may be), being anachronistic, is a crank, if he is nothing worse. Moreover, as he is almost always a poor man, with long hair, fringed trousers, a shaven visage, and dingy black garments, he is obliged to seek from others the means to carry his philanthropic schemes into effect. There is a philanthropic tone of voice, a philanthropic expression of face, and a philanthropic manner, all of which are revolting and infuriating to ordinary people. But the first is not so common as it used to be. What has become of it? Some say that the quondam philanthropists are now employed as agents by insurance companies. They are given good clothes, and wear their back hair short, but they talk and behave very much as before.
But what of the philanthropists who are wealthy? There are none,—none of the male sex, at any rate; though rich female philanthropists are relatively common. It might be said that Ruskin is a philanthropist; but, besides that he is mad, and very feminine in many of his ways, he is not the kind of philanthropist we are talking about. He is an idealist and a reformer, and he accomplishes some real good, which the true philanthropist never does. There, again, was George Peabody: he is called a philanthropist, and he certainly had
