Category: Evening Book

It is certainly surprising, that this most interesting city should have remained undiscovered until so late a period, and that antiquaries and learned men should have so long and materially erred about its situation. In many places masses of ruins, portions of the buried theatres, temples, and houses were not two feet below the surface […]

Next to a thorough grounding in good principles, perhaps the thing most essential to success in life is a habit of communicating easily with the world. By entering readily into conversation with others, we not only acquire information by being admitted to the stores which men of various modes of thinking have amassed, and thereby […]

It must be observed, that the Sloth does not hang head-downwards, like the vampire. When asleep, he supports himself from a branch parallel to the earth. He first seizes the branch with one arm, and then with the other; and after that, brings up both his legs, one by one, to the same branch, so […]

One of the most beautiful of cats is the Ocelot. It is smaller than the leopard, being generally about three feet in length and eighteen inches in height. Upon a gray ground, slightly tinged with fawn, are marked longitudinal bands, of which the margins are perfectly black, and the central parts of a deeper fawn […]

The honey mentioned in the Apocalypse was sweet in the mouth, but bitter in the stomach; but we cannot say that honey is ever very sweet to us, because we keep thinking of the cruel method of taking it from the bees, which generally prevails. The following method, said to be pursued in Cash-mere, though […]

The earth which we inhabit is not precisely a spherical body, but a spheroid flattened at its poles, similar in shape to an orange. Its shortest diameter is about 7940 miles, its longest about 7966 miles ; their difference being about 26 miles. This body passes through its orbit, which is nearly a circle of […]

(Agave Americana.) The flowering of this plant used to be considered as a very rare occurrence, and as not taking place till it attained the age of one hundred years; but the specimens being now numerous the delay in flowering is found not to be fact. Its interest as a marvel has, consequently, fallen off; […]

Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory, do we come, From God, who is our home. Heaven lies about us in our infancy WORDSWORTH I may begin with the question of Henry IV of France, when found by an ambassador at romps with his children,—” Are you a […]

On the Continent of America the works of nature are on a great and extensive scale; and in estimating their magnitude, the mind is actually lost in wonder. When we think of the valley of any river in this country,” says an English writer ” we have only in view a district of ground measuring […]

The narrations of a frontier circle, as they draw round their evening fire, often turn upon the exploits of the old race of men, the heroes of the past days, who wore hunting-shirts, and settled the country. In a boundless forest full of panthers and bears, and more dreadful Indians, with not a white within […]