Category: Evening Book

There is an unaccountable antipathy to clever women. Almost all men profess to be afraid of blue stockings that is, of women who have cultivated their minds ; and hold up as a maxim, that there is no safety in matrimony, or even in the ordinary intercourse of society, except with females of plain understandings. […]

Near the town of Orotava, in the island of Teneriffe, there is an enormous many-headed palm of the species called the Dragon-Tree (in French, Dragonnier), which has been described by the scientific traveller Humboldt, and more recently Dy Maria Graham. This tree is situated in the garden of M. Franqui. There are existing documents, which […]

Wolves–The following narration may have before met the eyes of many of our readers : it is certainly of a nature not to be easily forgotten. We may premise that in Russia, during a severe winter, the wolves are often induced by hunger to prowl around the city of St. Petersburg in search of food. […]

Persian account of the origin of Wine.— Jerusheed, the founder of Persepolis, is by Persian writers said to have been the first who invented wine. He was immoderately fond of grapes, and desiring to preserve some, they were placed for this purpose in a large vessel, and lodged in a vault for future use. When […]

The cacao is a native of South America, where it was not only used for food, but the seeds served as money. The tree is not unlike that of the cherry in form, and seldom exceeds twenty feet in height. The leaves are oblong, and pointed at the end, and when young are of a […]

The following extract is from a work recently published in England, with the title of ” Pen and Pencil Sketches; being the Journal of a Tour in India. By Captain Mundy.” Some peculiarities of style will be obvious in the captain’s narrative; but few can object to his hilarity and buoyancy of spirit : ” […]

A curious catalogue might be made of the shifts to which ingenious students in different departments of art have resorted, when, like Davy, they have wanted the proper instruments for carrying on their inquiries or experiments. His is not the first case in which the stores of an apothecary’s shop are recorded to have fed […]

There is a very general opinion, which has been adopted even by some eminent naturalists, that several species of serpents possess the, power of fascinating birds and small quadrupeds, by fixing their eyes upon the animal, so that the poor victim is unable to escape from his formidable enemy. Dr. Barton, of Philadelphia, published, in […]

Duelling in England was carried to its greatest possible excess in the reigns of James I. and of the two Charleses. In the reign of the latter Charles, the seconds always fought as well as their principals; and as they were chosen for their courage and adroitness, their combats were generally the most fatal. Lord […]

You may recollect the mention, in one of out-. conversations, of a young man who wasted in two or three years a large patrimony, in profligate revels with a number of worthless associates calling them-selves his friends, till his means were exhausted, when they of course treated him with neglect or contempt. Reduced to absolute […]