I linger by my shingly bars, 11. And out again I curve and flow For men may come and men may go, But I go on for ever. Alfred Tennyson. LESSON 113. HATS. HE hat is the climax of all the dress of man. THE It finishes him. It tops him off. A man can metamorphose himself by a change of his hat sooner than by that of any other garment. What is a knight without a helmet, a Turk without a turban, a Bonaparte without a cocked hat? Would a trapper be a trapper without a wolf-skin cap with the tail dangling between his shoulders? Where would the stage Yankee be without the bell-crowned hat? What would become of the ideal Ethiopian queen of the plantation without a red ban danna ? 2. It is n't the tailor that makes the man, neither nine nor nineteen of them. It is the hatter. The broad-brim is essential to the Quaker, and these modern friends that wear plug-hats may be just as good, and, for aught we know, better than their fathers who wore broad-brims, but we would n't give two cents for a follower of Fox in a modern hat. All the picturesqueness is gone as soon as the broad-brim hat vanishes, and if you take away the picturesqueness, the Quaker looks much the same as other good Christians. Our advice to young Quakers is to stick to their wide hats. We like variety. When our eyes are weary of the black chimney-pot hat in Broadway, we like to meet a rosy-cheeked young Irish priest in his priest's cap. It relieves the eye. 3. What anybody wants with a modern beaver, we do not know. What demon of ugliness prompted the first inventor of the things to introduce them? There is no form or comeliness to them that they should be made or worn. There is not a graceful line in their contour. In vain the ingenious hatters change them and seek out new devices, widening them atop and turning them up at the sides, and then reversing the process. All is vanity and vexation of spirit. They are ugly, first, last, and all the time — ugly continually. These cylindrical " stove-pipe," "nail-keg" things, as the boys call them, have nothing that can recommend them. They are hard. They are cold in winter. They are hot in summer. They destroy the hair. They do not shelter the face. They do not protect the eyes. They disfigure the man, and they want. no quality possible in a hat that could make them more uncomfortable. 4. The very glossiness of the high-crowned top-dressing is a disadvantage. Instead of sheltering the wearer, as they pretend to, they have to be sheltered. Ten drops of rain are sufficient to impair their luster. The wind has every chance at them. They are too delicate to travel in. They are too nice to wear around home. They are generally unfit for use, and worse than worthless for ornament. 5. What a martyr a well-dressed man is to his hat! He dusts it with a soft brush bought on purpose that he may not scratch its surface. He cherishes its gloss with his sleeve and his pocket-handkerchief. In a crowd he gives his whole attention to the preservation of his beaver. At his destination he deliberates where he shall put it. In a rain he shields it. In the cars he bandboxes it. And in a wind-oh! in a wind, how he holds it! Not too tightly, lest he put it out of shape. Not too loosely, lest it escape. Not with one hand, but with both. And if it should escape-oh! fearful catastrophe! How it rolls! How does the nice eccentric of the brim give it a graceful limp, like the gait of Grecian-bender? How it is now poised on the brim like a velocipede, and now rolling the glossy crown on the dirty sidewalk! And as the panting owner tries to seize it, how does it elude him! 6. Inevitably it makes a graceful curve, as if by a nice calculation of sines and co-sines and tangents, toward the mud-puddle or the gutter. And when the panting proprietor of a hat, who has lived solely for that hat, wholly consecrated to the welfare of his beaver, when at last he claps impatient hands upon the truant whirligig, he is like the boy that caught the butterfly. The gloss of his nine-dollar beaver has disappeared. And the shape. It is now that most pitiful of objects a shocking bad hat. Anonymous. IN LESSON 114. RECEPTION OF COLUMBUS. N the spring of 1493, while the court was still at Barcelona, letters were received from Christopher Columbus, announcing his return to Spain, and the successful achieve. ment of his great enterprise, by the discovery of land beyond the western ocean. The delight and astonishment raised by this intelligence were proportioned to the scepticism with which his project had originally been viewed. The sovereigns were now filled with a natural impatience to ascertain the extent and other particulars of the important discovery; and they transmitted instant instructions to the admiral to repair to Barcelona, as soon as he should have made the preliminary arrangements for the further prosecution of his enterprise. 2. The great navigator had succeeded, as is well known, after a voyage of natural difficulties, but which difficul ties had been much augmented by the distrust and mutinous spirit of his followers, in descrying land on the 12th of October, 1492. After some months spent in exploring the delightful regions, now for the first time thrown open to the eyes of a European, he embarked in the year 1493 for Spain. One of his vessels had been previously foundered, and another had deserted him; so that he was left alone to retrace his course across the Atlantic. 3. After a most tempestuous voyage he was compelled to take shelter in the Tagus, sorely against his inclination. He experienced, however, a most honorable reception from the Portuguese monarch, John II., who did ample justice to the great qualities of Columbus, although he had failed to profit by them. After a brief delay, the admiral resumed his voyage, and, crossing the bar of Saltes, entered the harbor of Palos about noon, on the 15th of March, 1493, being exactly seven months and eleven days since his departure from that port. 4. Great was the commotion in the little community of Palos, as they beheld the well-known vessel of the admiral re-entering their harbor. Their desponding imaginations had long since consigned him to a watery grave; for, in addition to the preternatural horrors which hung over the voyage, they had experienced the most stormy and disastrous winter within the recollection of the oldest mariners. Most of them had relatives or friends on board. They thronged immediately to the shore, to assure themselves, with their own eyes, of the truth of their return. 5. When they beheld their faces once more, and saw them accompanied by the numerous evidences which they brought back of the success of the expedition, they burst forth in acclamations of joy and gratulation. They awaited the landing of Columbus, when the whole population of the place accompanied him and his crew to the principal church, where solemn thanksgivings were offered up for their return; while every bell in the village sent forth a joyous peal in honor of the happy event. 6. The admiral was too desirous of presenting himself before the sovereigns to protract his stay long at Palos. He took with him on his journey specimens of the multifarious products of the newly-discovered regions. He was accompanied by several of the native islanders, arrayed in their simple barbaric costume, and decorated, as he passed through the principal cities, with collars, bracelets, and other ornaments of gold, rudely fashioned; he exhibited also considerable quantities of the same metal in dust or in crude masses, numerous vegetable exotics possessed of aromatic or medicinal virtue, and several kinds of quadrupeds unknown in Europe, and birds, whose variety of gaudy plumage gave a brilliant effect to the pageant. 7. The admiral's progress through the country was everywhere impeded by the multitudes thronging forth to gaze at the extraordinary spectacle, and the more extraordinary man, who, in the emphatic language of that time, which has now lost its force from familiarity, first revealed the existence of a "New World." As he passed through the busy, populous city of Seville, every window, balcony, and housetop which could afford a glimpse of him is described to have been crowded with spectators. 8. It was the middle of April before Columbus reached Barcelona. The nobility and cavaliers in attendance on the court, together with the authorities of the city, came to the gates to receive him, and escorted him to the royal presence. Ferdinand and Isabella were seated, with their son, Prince John, under a superb canopy of state, awaiting his arrival. On his approach they rose from their seats, and, extending their hands to him to salute, caused him to be seated before them. These were unprecedented marks of condescension, to a person |