job. The work dragged a little, as it is apt to do by the hour. The plumbers had occasion to make me several visits. Sometimes they would find, upon arrival, that they had forgotten some indispensable tool; and one would go back to the shop, a mile and a half, after it; and his comrade would await his return with the most exemplary patience, and sit down and talk, always by the hour. I do not know but it is a habit to have something wanted at the shop. They seemed to me very good workmen, and always willing to stop and talk about the job, or any thing else, when I went near them. Nor had they any of that impetuous hurry that is said to be the bane of our American civilization. To their credit be it said, that I never observed any thing of it in them. They can afford to wait. Two of them will sometimes wait nearly half a day while a comrade goes for a tool. They are patient and philosophical. It is a great pleasure to meet such men. One only wishes there was some work he could do for them by the hour. There ought to be reciprocity. I think they have very nearly solved the problem of life: it is to work for other people, never for yourself, and get your pay by the hour. You then have no anxiety, and little work. If you do things by the job, you are perpetually driven: the hours are scourges. If you work by the hour, you gently sail on the stream of Time, which is always bearing you on to the haven of Pay, whether you make any effort or not. Working by the hour tends to make one moral, A plumber working by the job, trying to unscrew a rusty, refractory nut, in a cramped position, where the tongs continually slipped off, would swear; but I never heard one of them swear, or exhibit the least impatience at such a vexation, working by the hour. Nothing can move a man who is paid by the hour. How sweet the flight of time seems to his calm mind!

If ever a Northern wanderer could be suddenly transported to look down upon the Piano di Sorrento, he would not doubt that he saw the Garden of the Hesperides. The orange-trees cannot well be fuller: their branches bend with the weight of fruit. With the almond-trees in full flower, and with the silver sheen of the olive leaves, the oranges are apples of gold in pictures of silver. As I walk in these sunken roads, and between these high walls, the orange boughs everywhere hang over; and, through the open gates of villas, I look down alleys of golden glimmer, roses and geraniums by the walk, and the fruit above, gardens of enchantment, with never a dragon, that I can see, to guard them.

a sense

All the highways and the byways, the streets and lanes, wherever I go, from the sea to the tops of the hills, are strewn with orange-peel; so that one, looking above and below, comes back from a walk with a golden dazzle in his eyes, that yellow is the prevailing color. Perhaps the kerchiefs of the dark-skinned girls and women, which take that tone, help the impression. The inhabitants are all orange-eaters. The high walls show that the gardens are protected with great care; yet the fruit seems to be as free as apples are in a remote New England town about cidertime.

I have been trying, ever since I have been here, to ascertain the prices of oranges; not for purposes of exportation, nor yet for the personal importation that I daily practice, but in order to

give an American basis of fact to these idle chapters. In all the paths, I meet, daily, girls and boys bearing on their heads large baskets of the fruit, and little children with bags and bundles of the same, as large as they can stagger under; and I understand they are carrying them to the packers, who ship them to New York, or to the depots, where I see them lying in yellow heaps, and where men and women are cutting them up, and removing the peel, which goes to England for preserves. I am told that these oranges are sold for a couple of francs a hundred. That seems to me so dear that I am not tempted into any speculation, but stroll back to the Tramontano, in the gardens of which I find better

terms.

The only trouble is to find a sweet tree; for the Sorrento oranges are usually sour in February; and one needs to be a good judge of the fruit, and know the male oranges from the female, - though which it is that is the sweeter I can never remember (and should not dare to say, if I did, in the present state of feeling on the woman question), or he might as well eat a lemon. The mercenary aspect of my query does not enter in here. I climb into a tree, and reach out to the end of the branch for an orange that has got reddish in the sun, that comes off easily and is heavy; or I tickle a large one on the top bough with a cane or pole; and if it drops readily, and has a fine grain, I call it a cheap one. I can usually tell whether they are good, by splitting them open and eating a quarter. The Italians pare their oranges as we do apples; but I like best to open them first, and see the yellow meat in the white casket. After you have eaten a few from one tree, you can usually tell whether it is a good tree; but there is nothing certain about it, bough that gets the sun will be better than another that does not, and one-half of an orange will fill your mouth with more delicious juices than the other half.

one

and

The oranges that you knock off with your stick, as you walk along the lanes, don't cost any thing; but they are always sour, as I think the girls know who lean over the wall, and look on with a smile: and in that, they are more sensible than the lively dogs which bark at you from the top, and wake all the neighborhood with their clamor. I have no doubt the oranges have a market price; but I have been seeking the value the As I walked gardeners set on them themselves. towards the heights, the other morning, passed an orchard, the gardener, who saw my ineffectual efforts, with a very long cane, to reach the boughs of a tree, came down to me with a basketful he had been picking. As an experiment on the price, I offered him a two-centime piece, - which is a sort of satire on the very name of money, when he desired me to help myself to as many oranges as I liked. He was a fine-looking fellow, with a spick-span new red Phrygian cap; and I hadn't the heart to take advantage of his generosity, especially as his oranges were not of the sweetest. One ought never to abuse generosity.

stood untended in the street; and selecting a large orange, which would measure twelve inches in circumference, I turned to look for the owner. After some time, a fellow got from the neighboring cobbler's shop, where he sat with his lazy cronies, listening to the honest gossip of the follower of St. Crispin, and sauntered towards me. "How much for this?" I ask.

"One franc, signor," says the proprietor, with a polite bow, holding up one finger.

I shake my head, and intimate that that is altogether too much, in fact preposterous.

The proprietor is very indifferent, and shrugs his shoulders in an amiable manner. He picks up a fair, handsome orange, weighs it in his hand, and holds it up temptingly. That also is

one franc.

I suggest one sou as a fair price, a suggestion which he only receives with a smile of slight pity, and, I fancy, a little disdain. A woman joins him, and also holds up this and that gold-skinned one for my admiration.

As I stand, sorting over the fruit, trying to please myself with size, color, and texture, a little crowd has gathered round; and I see, by a glance, that all the occupations in that neighborhood, including loafing, are temporarily suspended to witness the trade. The interest of the circle visibly increases; and others take such a part in the transaction, that I begin to doubt if the first man is, after all, the proprietor.

At length I select two oranges, and again demand the price. There is a little consultation and jabber, when I am told that I can have both for a franc. I, in turn, sigh, shrug my shoulders, and put down the oranges, amid a chorus of exclamations over my graspingness. My offer of two sous is met with ridicule, but not with indifference. I can see that it has made a sensation. These simple, idle children of the sun begin to show a little excitement. I at length determine upon a bold stroke, and resolve to show myself the Napoleon of oranges, or to meet my Waterloo. I pick out four of the largest oranges in the basket, while all eyes are fixed on me intently, and, for the first time, pull out a piece of money. It is a two-sous piece. I offer it for the four oranges.

66

No, no, no, no, signor! Ah, signor! ah, signor!" in a chorus from the whole crowd.

I have struck bottom at last, and perhaps got somewhere near the value; and all calmness is gone. Such protestations, such indignation, such sorrow, I have never seen before from so small a cause. It cannot be thought of; it is mere ruin! I am, in turn, as firm, and nearly as excited in seeming. I hold up the fruit and tender the money.

"No, never, never! The signor cannot be in earnest."

Looking round me for a moment, and assuming a theatrical manner, befitting the gestures of those about me, I fling the fruit down, and, with a sublime renunciation, stalk away.

There is instantly a buzz and a hum that rises almost to a clamor, I have not proceeded far, when a skinny old woman runs after me, and begs me to return. I go back, and the crowd parts to receive me.

and am ready to depart. Hesitation and renewed conference; but at last the proprietor relents; and, with the look of one who is ruined for life, and who yet is willing to sacrifice himself, he hands me the oranges. Instantly the excitement is dead, the crowd disperses, and the street is as quiet as ever; when I walk away, bearing my hard-won treasures.

A little while after, as I sat upon the outer wall of the terrace of the Camaldoli, with my feet hanging over, these same oranges were taken from my pockets by Americans; so that I am prevented from making any moral reflections upon the honesty of the Italians.

There is an immense garden of oranges and lemons at the village of Massa, through which travellers are shown by a surly fellow, who keeps watch of his trees, and has a bull-dog lurking about for the unwary. I hate to see a bull-dog in a fruit-orchard. I have eaten a good many oranges there, and been astonished at the boughs of immense lemons which bend the trees to the ground. I took occasion to measure one of the lemons, called a citron-lemon, and found its circumference to be twenty-one inches one way by fifteen inches the other, about as big as a railway conductor's lantern. These lemons are not so sour as the fellow who shows them: he is a mercenary dog, and his prices afford me no clew to the just value of oranges.

I like better to go to a little garden in the village of Meta, under a sunny precipice of rocks, overhung by the ruined convent of Camaldoli. I turn up a narrow lane, and push open the wooden door in the garden of a little villa. It is a pretty garden; and, besides the orange and lemon trees on the terrace, it has other fruit-trees, and a scent of many flowers. My friend, the gardener, is sorting oranges from one basket to another, on a green bank, and evidently selling the fruit to some women, who are putting it into bags to carry

away.

When he sees me approach, there is always the same pantomine. I propose to take some of the fruit he is sorting. With a knowing air, and an appearance of great mystery, he raises his left hand, the palm towards me, as one says hush. Having despatched his business, he takes an empty basket, and with another mysterious flourish, desiring me to remain quiet, he goes to a storehouse in one corner of the garden, and returns with a load of immense oranges, all soaked with the sun, ripe and fragrant, and more tempting than lumps of gold. I take one, and ask him if it is sweet. He shrugs his shoulders, raises his hands, and, with a sidewise shake of the head, and a look which says, How can you be so faithless? makes me ashamed of my doubts.

I cut the thick skin, which easily falls apart and discloses the luscious quarters, plump, juicy, and waiting to melt in the mouth. I look for a moment at the rich pulp in its soft incasement, and then try a delicious morsel. I nod. My gardener again shrugs his shoulders, with a slight smile, as much as to say, it could not be otherwise, and is evidently delighted to have me enjoy his fruit. I fill capacious pockets with the choicest; and, if I have friends with me, they do the same. I give our silent but most expressive entertainer half a franc, never more; and he always seems surprised at the size of the largesse. We exhaust his basket, and he proposes to get

more.

When I am alone, I stroll about under the

heavily-laden trees, and pick up the largest, where they lie thickly on the ground, liking to hold them in my hand and feel the agreeable weight, even when I can carry away no more. The gardener neither follows nor watches me; and I think perhaps knows, and is not stingy about it, that more valuable to me than the oranges I eat or take away are those on the trees among the shining leaves. And perhaps he opines that I am from a country of snow and ice, where the year has six hostile months, and that I have not money enough to pay for the rich possession of the eye, the picture of beauty which I take with me.

** THE YANKEE PHILOSOPHER-FROM BACKLOG studies.

A popular notion akin to this, that the world would have any room for the departed if they should now and then return, is the constant regret that people will not learn by the experience of others, that one generation learns little from the preceding, and that youth never will adopt the experience of age. But if experience went for anything, we should all come to a stand-still; for there is nothing so discouraging to effort. Disbelief in Ecclesiastes is the main-spring of action. In that lies the freshness and the interest of life, and it is the source of every endeavor.

If the boy believed that the accumulation of wealth and the acquisition of power were what the old man says they are, the world would very soon be stagnant. If he believed that his chances of obtaining either were as poor as the majority of men find them to be, ambition would die within him. It is because he rejects the experience of those who have preceded him, that the world is kept in the topsy-turvy conditon which we all rejoice in, and which we call progress.

And yet I confess I have a soft place in my heart for that rare character in our New England life who is content with the world as he finds it, and who does not attempt to appropriate any more of it to himself than he absolutely needs from day to day. He knows from the beginning that the world could get on without him, and he has never had any anxiety to leave any result behind him, any legacy for the world to quarrel

over.

He is really an exotic in our New England climate and society, and his life is perpetually misunderstood by his neighbors, because he shares none of their uneasiness about getting on in life. He is even called lazy, good-for-nothing, and "shiftless, the final stigma that we put upon a person who has learned to wait without the exhausting process of laboring.

I made his acquaintance last summer in the country, and I have not in a long time been so well pleased with any of our species. He was a man past middle life, with a large family. He had always been from boyhood of a contented and placid mind, slow in his movements, slow in his speech. I think he never cherished a hard feeling toward anybody, nor envied any one, least of all the rich and prosperous, about whom he liked to talk. Indeed, his talk was a good deal about wealth, especially about his cousin who had been down South and "got fore-handed" within a few years. He was genuinely pleased at his relation's good luck, and pointed him out to me with some pride. But he had no envy of him, and he evinced no desire to imitate him. inferred from all his conversation about "piling

I

it up," (of which he spoke with a gleam of enthusiasm in his eye.) that there were moments when he would like to be rich himself; but it was evident that he would never make the least effort to be so, and I doubt if he could even overcome that delicious inertia of mind and body called laziness, sufficiently to inherit.

а

Wealth seemed to have a far and peculiar fascination for him, and I suspect he was visionary in the midst of his poverty. Yet I suppose he had hardly the personal property which the law exempts from execution. He had lived in a great many towns, moving from one to another with his growing family, by easy stages, and was always the poorest man in the town, and lived on the most niggardly of its rocky and bramble-grown farms, the productiveness of which he reduced to zero in a couple of seasons by his careful neglect of culture. The fences of his hired domain always fell into ruins under him, perhaps because he sat upon them so much, and the hovels he occupied rotted down during his placid residence in them. He moved from desolation to desolation, but carried always with him the equal mind of a philosopher. Not even the occasional tart remarks of his wife, about their nomadic life and his serenity in the midst of discomfort, could ruffle his smooth spirit.

He was, in every respect, a most worthy man, truthful, honest temperate, and, I need not say, frugal; and he had no bad habits, perhaps he never had energy enough to acquire any. Nor did he lack the knack of the Yankee race. He could make a shoe, or build a house, or doctor a cow; but it never seemed to him, in this brief existence, worth while to do any of these things. He was an excellent angler, but he rarely fished; partly because of the shortness of the days, partly on account of the uncertainty of bites, but principally because the trout brooks were all arranged lengthwise and ran lengthwise and ran over so much ground. But no man liked to look at a string of trout better than he did, and he was willing to sit down in a sunny place and talk about trout fishing half a day at a time, and he would talk pleasantly and well too, though his wife might be continually interrupting him by a call for firewood.

I should not do justice to his own idea of himself if I did not add that he was most respectably connected, and that he had a justifiable, though feeble, pride in his family. It helped his self-respect, which no ignoble circumstances could destroy. He was, as must appear by this time, a most intelligent man, and he was a wellinformed man; that is to say, he read the weekly newspapers when he could get them, and he had the average country information about Beecher. and Greeley and the Prussian war, ("Napoleon is gettin' on 't, ain't he?") and the general prospect of the election campaigns. Indeed, he was warmly, or rather luke-warmly, interested in politics. He liked to talk about the inflated currency, and it seemed plain to him that his condition would somehow be improved if we could get to a specie basis. He was, in fact, a little troubled by the national debt; it seemed to press on him somehow, while his own never did. He exhibited more animation over the affairs of the government than he did over his own, an evidence at once of his disinterestedness and his patriotism. He had been an old abolitionist, and was strong on the rights of free labor, though he did not care to exercise his privilege much. Of

course he had the proper contempt for the poor whites down South. I never saw a person with more correct notions on such a variety of subjects. He was perfectly willing that churches (being himself a member), and Sunday-schools, and missionary enterprises should go on; in fact, I do not believe he ever opposed anything in his life. No one was more willing to vote town taxes and road-repairs and school-houses than he. you could call him spirited at all he was publicspirited.

If

And with all this he was never very well; he had, from boyhood, "enjoyed poor health." You would say he was not a man who would ever catch anything, not even an epidemic; but he was a person whom diseases would be likely to overtake, even the slowest of slow fevers. And he wasn't a man to shake off anything. And yet sickness seemed to trouble him no more than poverty. He was not discontented; he never grumbled. I am not sure but that he relished a "spell of sickness" in haying-time.

An admirably balanced man, who accepts the world as it is, and evidently lives on the experience of others. I have never seen a man with less envy, or more cheerfulness, or so contented, with as little reason for being so. The only drawback to his future is that rest beyond the grave will not be much change for him, and he has no works to follow him.

**

ROBERT B. ROOSEVELT.

MR. ROOSEVELT is a descendant of an old Knickerbocker family of New York city. He was born August 7, 1829, within the limits of the district which he represented in the FortySecond Congress, 1871-3. He was educated for the profession of law, and entered actively into practice in 1850, in partnership with his brother, S. W. Roosevelt. As shooting and fishing formed the relaxation of his leisure hours, he soon began to notice with a sportsman's eye the rapid diminution of wild birds and fish, with the consequent injury to farmers by the increase of destructive insects. To arrest this decrease in an important article of natural food, he aided in uniting the various clubs of the State into a permanent association, that could secure the passage of laws needed to preserve the game.

Mr. Roosevelt's literary writings have included many contributions to the press and magazines. His first article in print was on the condition of Poland; it appeared in the Tribune, and introduced its writer to the friendship of Horace Greeley. In 1862 he published his first book, The Game Fish of North America, with an elaborate article on fish culture. an art till then almost unknown in America. It appeared with merely the signature of his middle name, Barnwell. Superior Fishing, a companion volume, was issued in 1865, and next year followed The Game Birds of North America. These works were popular, and were accepted as standards in sportsmanship. In 1867 a Fishery Commission for New York State was organized at his suggestion, and he was selected a member, with Hon. Horatio Seymour and Mr. Seth Green, the celebrated pisciculturist, as colleagues. Besides distributing large quantities of young fry, hatched artificially, to waters which had been

depleted, this commission issued a number of reports, prepared mainly by Mr. Roosevelt, which led to similar efforts in other States. A condensed statement of the condition of pisciculture in America was prepared by him in 1869 for the European Statistical Congress, at the request of the American Commissioner, Hon. Samuel B. Ruggles. This article gave the first reliable information to foreigners of the great progress recently made in the United States, and was translated into the European languages by order of the society.

Mr. Roosevelt entered actively into politics as a reformer and "War Democrat," to aid in the suppression of the rebellion, and also served a short term on regimental duty near Washington. He helped to organize the Loyal National League of New York city, and was one of the

founders of the Union League Club. He also allied himself with the Citizens' Association, to reform local abuses in the city government, and was elected its secretary. As chairman of its executive committee, he aided in the creation of an efficient paid fire department, an able health department, and in instituting various sanitary reforms. The New York Citizen became the organ of the Association in 1866, under the editorship of Mr. Roosevelt and Col. Charles G. Halpine, better known as "Miles O'Reilly." After the death of his associate, he merged The Round Table with his paper, and conducted the consolidated journal till the pressure of political and congressional duties compelled him to give up the editorial chair in 1871. Mr. Roosevelt throughout his public life also took a prominent part in resisting the extortionate acts of the "Tammany Ring. He delivered an address on behalf of the "Com