"My trouble is," said he, "that, bad as I want to, I can't scratch 'em."

of the sun, and wonder what power there is in the atmosphere near the horizon to magni

Of course, the feeling excited was wholly fy so greatly his apparent diameter. We

nervous.

A similar nervous trouble, though of a more dignified character, occurred in the case of a young lady who suffered intensely from pain in the point of a forefinger. Her physician, erring in his diagnosis of the case, endeavored, without success, to relieve it by poulticing, blistering, and applying anodynes. One day a medical friend being present whose neurological information was of a higher order, he remarked to her jocosely:

"I think, Miss M, that you are mistaken as to the seat of the pain."

The opportunity being afforded, he put his finger upon one of the vertebræ between the shoulder-blades, and gave it a gentle pressure, when she screamed:

"Doctor, you are right! The pain is in my back."

"Well, now," said he, "having discovered the seat of the pain, I think we can relieve it."

He applied a counter-irritant directly over the ailing spot, and in the course of a few days the finger was well.

Among the illusions of the sense of feeling we must not forget to mention that curious deception, familiar to most boys, in which they cause one marble to seem to be two by rolling it in the palm of one hand by two of the fingers, crossed, of the other.

Another deception of this sense is not so generally known. If three tumblers be filled with water-one hot as the finger will bear, and one cold aз can be obtained, and the third, the middle one, a lukewarm mixture of the two-and a finger of each hand be held for a minute one in the hot and the other in the cold tumbler, then both plunged together into the tepid, the water in this last will seem, at the same moment, hot to one finger and cold to the other.

Illusions of the senses of smell and of

can readily conceive that the refraction of his rays will render the face visible some minutes before the actual rising, and will keep it visible for as many minutes after the actual setting, but what is there to increase so greatly the general diameter ? It is with almost incredulity we learn from those who test this phenomenon by careful instrumental measurement that the apparent increase of magnitude is all an illusion, and that the sun's disk subtends no greater angle at the horizon than it does when, in mid-heaven, it appears to have shrunk to one-half or onefourth its size. The only explanation offered of this mysterious difference is that at the horizon the eye makes an unconscious comparison with objects whose dimensions are familiar, while in mid-heaven no such objects are visible. The same is true of the moon.

On a cloudless evening soon after sunset it is not unusual to see the heavens arched from west to east by alternate stripes of light and shade, convergent at their termini, but spread widely apart overhead, like the seams which divide the lobes of a cantaleup, or the plugs of a peeled orange. When, however, we learn-as, in the course of time, we probably do that the dark stripes are caused by shadows thrown athwart the sky from small clouds intercepting the sun's light below the western horizon, we are convinced of having experienced another illusion. Those lines are not arched, as they seem to be, but are in right lines, as are all other rays of light and shade; and they do not diverge from the west and converge to the east to any perceptible degree, but are virtually parallel, and their appearance to the contrary is attributable to the effect of distance.

No optical illusions are more common than those connected with magnitude and distance. The magnitude of objects perceived by the eye is usually calculated by the angle which they subtend, corrected by the conjectured distance; for, the nearer the object, the greater the angle. And the distance of objects is usually conjectured from the angle they subtend, taken in connection with the brightness or haziness of their appearance; for distant objects are usually dimmed by the intervening atmosphere. It sometimes happens, however, that an object close at hand is dimmed by an unobserved haze, so as to seem to be at a distance; in which case, unless the spectator is able to correct the mistake by the force of reason, the object will assume in his conception gigantic proportions. A few years since a gentleman, well educated and by no means nervous, in riding along a public highway, saw in an adjoining field what seemed to him to be a wild beast of terrible aspect and monstrous proportions. Its body, equaling that of the half-grown hip

taste seldom, if ever, occur, possibly from the fact, in the first named of the two (if it be a fact, which no man with a faithful nose can easily believe), that we have no recollection of odors. That illusions of the sense of sight should so greatly outnumber those of any other sense or of all the others combined, may be readily accounted for by the fact that impressions on the eye are so much more vivid; but this reason leaves us at a loss to account for the fact that illusions of the sense of hearing are so few in proportion to those of sight, and especially that they should be few compared with the usually-popotamus in size, far exceeded it in uncouthsupposed-less-vivid sense of feeling, unless we adopt the opinion held by many that the sense of feeling, so called, is not one sense, but many. Leaving these points, however, without discussion, we proceed with our main subject.

We watch the majestic rising and setting

ness, and resembled nothing ever seen by him before, or described in books of natural history. Contrary to all rules of animal structure, its enormous body was nimbly borne by legs disproportionately long and slender. And what was strangest of all was that this enormous creature was suspended in the air by a

rope, to which it clung by some contrivance in its feet, and by which it slowly descended until, having reached a den or hole in the midst of a distant thicket, it plunged therein and disappeared. He was so astonished by the unearthly vision that he stopped his horse on the broad highway and watched the scene to its end. How was he to account for it? For, however incubus-like the scene, it was no dream, but a reality, to which his senses testified as positively as to his own existence. He watched and reasoned, and soon the mystery was revealed. The monster had disappeared, but the rope along which it had so strangely traveled was still in view. Carefully scanning that rope through the misty air, he discovered that, instead of its overhanging the field afar off, one of its ends was attached to a twig distant from him only a few steps, and that, instead of his having looked upon a monster comparing in size with the hippopotamus, he had only been watching the motions of an enormous spider, which had passed down one of the cables of its web to the entrance of its den. Oh, the relief to his mind! Had he not held on until the mystery was explained, he must have labored to the end of life under the impression that either he had been mentally deranged, or that he had beheld a monster such as was never before seen on earth.

Persons traveling upon a railroad for the first time, at the speed of forty or fifty miles the hour, will sometimes be horrified and sometimes amused at what they seem to see. For instance, in rushing at this rate through a rugged "cut," if they will fix the eye steadily upon a projecting crag or rock on the side of the cut and upon a level with the eye, it will appear to increase in size so rapidly that the mind, unaccustomed to observe such rapid movements, can account for its increase only on the supposition that the rock or crag is projected at them, and they will be tempted, under the vivid impression, to draw themselves quickly back from the seeming missile, or, in other words, to dodge it. Also, whoever, while traveling at this rate, will occupy a place on the rear platform and let his eyes skim along the rail directly beneath, will hardly be able to escape from the conviction that the rail, instead of being a fixture on the road, is not running forward at a speed almost equal to that of the

car.

In passing by rail over a wide, grassy prairie, or by steamboat through the immense levels of green marsh bordering our Southern seaboard, the head becomes almost giddy with the ceaseless whirl which is visible around any point as a centre on which the eye happens to be fixed, all objects nearer than that point seeming to run rapidly back, and all farther objects as rapidly forward. This gyration is so graceful that the observer is tempted to watch it long. After a few minutes, however, unless forewarned, he is liable to experience an illusion which for a moment or two may give him serious disturbance-at least such was the experience of the writer. On a bleak winter's day he was passing by steamboat through a wide and beautiful marsh, and was enjoying the apparent motion just described, from the warmest place at

to whisk out of sight the cheaply-painted theatre, to repeople entirely the immense ellipse with full, brown faces, bright garments, and to magnify the hum of the thousand into the murmur of fifty times that number. The upper row of benches cut off, for those scated lower down, any view of the town or country beyond, but the wide arches behind the spectators framed in beautiful pictures the sunlit streets and the broad piazza-pictures dancing in the heated air like the reflections in an unquiet pool. How many times have eyes weary of slaughter turned to gaze upon these peaceful pictures of flat-roofed houses with the sheaves of grain drying in the sun, the women knitting in the shade of the doorways, and the scrubby fig-trees casting sharp shadows of the broad leaves and plump figs on the dazzling white of the walls! The sound of wheels and the cries of children have come up then as to-day faintly through those arched openings, reminding the spectators that the sequel of the drama enacting before them little influenced the busy world outside, bringing back the sympathetic spirit to his habitation again—a welcome break in the tension of too great preoccupation with the exciting human struggles going on in the arena below, and wafting in with the cool breeze a little odor of peace, and home, and domestic comfort, to reach even the senses of the homeless wretches doomed to play with their lives for the entertainment of tyrants satiated with sensual pleasures, and for the diversion of a thoughtless people.

"Shoo, fly!" in a Roman amphitheatre! The conventional double-length shoes; the three-story collars; the nondescript garments of blue-and-white stripes; the shiny, black faces, with the raw, red mouths suspicious of a last pull of the needful in the wings; the tell-tale spots of florid skin around the eyelids and behind the ears-real American minstrels, and no discount. The rattle of the banjo reverberated probably for the first time between those walls; the limping, halting, shuffling walk-around; the India-rubber leaps and jointless poses; the lisping solo and spasmodic, hearty chorus, doubtless rarely reechoed before in this solemn ruin. But the song-and-dance men gained consideration only from the hideousness of the make-up and the extravagance of their leaps. The spirit of the dance and the character of the music was wholly lost on the public. Indeed, my friend the Chinaman had informed me at the café that the song-and-dance men, or minstrels in general, were a profitless attraction on the bill. It seemed to be the general opinion around me that the dancers were Moors from Venice, since all the darkies seen in Verona are presumed to have come from the seaport; and it was loudly discussed whether it was a war-dance or a religious ceremony. My assertion that I had been in the country where the people had such entertainments betweenmeals found no believers. The black pair shuffled off, and a dumpish figure waltzed in in true coryphée style. The musicians were seen to fumble their scores, and, after some hesitation, goaded on by decided language on the part of the dancer, the orchestra reeled off, rather deliberately, the Highland fling,

sailor's hornpipe, Rory O'More, a clog-dance, the czárdas, and various other national dances, the lively little English girl dodging behind a screen and changing her dress, reappearing in an instant, always in costume to fit the part.

The flying-trapeze, with the "brothers," of course, was next swung out upon the stage, and, strangely enough, the skill and strength of the performers excited no comment, while the unfailing and simultaneous way in which they swung up into place side by side on the bar at the end of each feat called forth a thunder of bravos. My friend the Chinaman strutted a few brief moments on the boards, slicing the air with three or four bright knives, and nimbly slipped out by the wings while the audience was expecting a still greater exhibition of skill. Nevertheless he was cheerfully encored; truly it is part of an actor's art to give an impression of reserved powers. Another Chinaman played with a fresh egg; still another gave the ever-new fan-trick; and so there was no pause in the interesting series of games. But a model variety-show wasting its attractions on the unappreciative senses of a thousand Italians is truly a sad spectacle. And there was no reason why it should not have been an unqualified success. Time: the cooler hours of the daylight tapering off into approaching twilight. Place: the grandest of all theatres. Admission: four sous; children in arms (no limit as to age), half price.

But, interesting as the performance was to one for years away from the spleen-dispelling influences of the genuine variety-show, the study of types and characters in the audience was twice as entertaining and quite as profitable.

Among the spectators the vigorous inhabitants of the valley of the Adige were easily distinguishable from their more indolent neighbors of the plain, and their stronglymarked, rugged features furnished a type of the honest, happy mountaineer, with spirit as restless as the wind that blows through the gorges of the rapid stream, fed by the glaciers of the Alps.

The sunny, fertile slopes of the Italian Tyrol lend much warmth and glow to the hearts of the people who cultivate the vine there, and the moment one begins to leave behind the chill regions of Southern Austria, peopled with victims of the goître, crétins, and human animals of only sufficient strength of character to be unmitigated bigots in religion, that moment the warm rays of the Italian sun bring cheerfulness and merry hearts to al!-fire to the eye, color to the cheek, and symmetry to the form. After the hideous faces of the Austrian Tyrol, the pure oval of the Italian type is grateful to the eye nor is there found in any national type more diversity than in the type which is recognizable as Italian. Every one of the spectators at Verona would be recognized in Boston as Italian, and there were among them eyes as pale-blue as opal, and hair as light as the most bleached Saxon locks. Still, the Italian character was plainly marked in such faces; there was a childlike twinkle about the eye, a careless, improvident look that marks the common people

almost universally, and every movement of the features betrayed the impulsiveness of the Italian nature. Comelier faces than those of the Verona girls are rarely seen. Piles of powdered hair adorn the head, and a black veil, daintily adjusted, gives grace to every pose; nor do they scorn to plentifully besprinkle the rich skin of their faces with a coarse white powder, which heightens by contrast rather than subdues by superposition the rich, glowing, yellow complexion. The noisy romps of the girls in the old ruin, after the show was ended, put altogether out of the question any indulgence of my inclination for solitary meditation, and I retreated, leaving them masters of the arena, as the lineal descendants and legitimate heirs of the constructors and proprietors thereof.

EDITOR'S TABLE.

WE

E give place here to a brief paper by one of our contributors, which touches upon a subject we have often discussed. We cannot agree altogether with the writer's estimate of lower-class dwelling - houses abroad, but in the main the views expressed are quite sound, and our national deficiencies, so well pointed out, call for attention. Many of the poorer dwellings in the London suburbs are to us excessively ugly, and many of the better class are wholly uninteresting in their style of architecture. But, however mean or ineffective an English house in itself may be, it is always rendered in a manner attractive by the adornment of flowers and vines; and everywhere in England supreme neatness is the rule. The slovenly streets of American towns, the untidy condition of railway-stations, village roads, and commons, the generally unkempt air that pertains to all our country-houses and city-dwellings below the best, strike one fresh from English travel very forcibly. At the same time he discovers more variety, vivacity, so to speak, and picturesque character in many of our town as well as country houses. In England the houses are flat and bare to the light - necessarily so, perhaps, in that climate while with us the deep porch, the veranda, and the balcony, break up and vary the surface with picturesque projections. English streets are often very bare, cold, and uninteresting, on account of the long, flat line of houses, although the mellow tints of Once age often in part redeem the fault. transplant here English neatness and care of detail in garden, lawn, and street, and then we shall not have cause to fear, taking our structures as a whole, a comparison with modern domestic architecture anywhere. But hear what our contributor has to say upon this subject:

"One of the greatest charms to American tourists in Europe consists in the finish and simple adornment of the outsides of the homes of the lower classes. The natural order of things would lead us to suspect elegance in palaces, but, from our usual association of thought at home, poverty is synonymous with roughness of exterior arrangements. Of course, we are painfully impressed nearly everywhere in Europe by the squalid wretchedness of the habitations of large classes of the people, but side by side with these indications of ignorance and misery are significant marks of refinement and an old civilization. The history of the architecture of these dwellings of the poor is difficult to reach, but some obvious features of it have certainly arisen from the circumstances of climate and from the supply of building materials. The deficiency of wood, excepting in Switzerland, makes brick or stone to be used nearly everywhere; and the great heat of Southern Europe, and the necessity of making the house a stronghold, to some degree, against outside violence, have led to

the building of very thick walls. The Swiss chalets, with their low, overlapping roofs, shed the snow readily, and their eaves furnish convenient lean-tos, where fagots and household commodities are conveniently stored. But almost everywhere in Europe we see striking evidences of good taste and industry in the decoration of even the rudest dwellings by means of flowers, and, in many parts of the Continent, by the use of home-made lace as an ornament. The women of Europe, in fact, seem to use their hands more industriously than our women generally do, and are seldom idle, even when they are watching their children or sitting beside baskets of fruit or flowers in the market-place, and the fruits of this universal industry present themselves not only in the lace of commerce, but in the lace that beautifies their homes internally, and in the external ornament of lovely flower-gardens. As we walk through the clean, winding streets of Antwerp, or toil slowly up through the Swiss valleys, in many a nook and at many a turn we see two little windows clad in the whitest net-work of lace, made by the poor people in the midst of their important duties; and behind or above this simple lace drapery the room glows with flowers, varied and thriving as a conservatory. In the dark cottages of England the same sight appears, and where these adornments do not exist, the beholder instinctively feels that hope and cheerfulness are absent as well as the flowers. In scraps of ground so small that in America they would be almost sure to be wasted, around the little railroad stations on nearly all the lines in England, and in the little strip that divides the sidewalk from the house, are splendid clumps of roses, mignonette, fuchsias, and the best of our hot-house plants, most carefully tended and trained to cover a homely wall or to convert an ungraceful door or window into a pleasing one.

"In striking contrast to this tasteful and elegant finish, formed out of the cheapest and most accessible materials, are the rough, uncared-for towns and villages so generally found in the United States, and which are said to be consequent on a newly-settled country and the high price of labor. There is a great difference of taste as to the merits of a highlyartificial landscape, but in regard to the general qualities of the color of dwellings and the beauty of simple adornment there is no question. Within a few years, a number of wealthy and intelligent New-Yorkers, who make their summer home in one of the hill-towns of New England, have carried out the idea of improving the appearance of the village by forming a club with the permanent inhabitants, in which simple principles of good taste in dwellings and landscape gardening are discussed. The influence of this club has been most encouraging, for the staring white cottages and houses that formerly appeared bare of vines and destitute of shrubbery in the midst of rough fields, stony and overgrown, are now turned into unobtrusive dwellings, brown with the tints of natural wood and the earth, the doorways shaded by woodbine and delicate and beautiful flowers lighting up and lending elegance to the little streets.

"In these days of household-art, when it is sought to put beautiful and useful furniture within the reach of simple families, the adorning of the outside of our houses does not seem to have kept pace with the embellishment of their interiors. In a visit this summer to a popular New England resort, where sea, mountain, and climate, have done their best to make the place beautiful, the sight of the rough and vulgar door-yards made a dispirit

ing impression, strong enough at times to eclipse the charm of all that Nature had done in the large features of the place. Succory and sorrel sprung up in every direction, interspersed with patches of rough earth and unkempt grass. Scarcely a cultivated flower appeared in the town, and no bit of garden, even a couple of feet square, gave indication that the least interest in the tasteful side of life existed in the mind of one of the inhabitants. Yet these people have time enough, and, except in the short summer season, are' without pressing employments. Geranium slips planted in boxes of earth in the winter, or verbenas or mignonette started in the stormy days of spring, with a little thought and a little time could relieve this disheartening aspect of a neighborhood whose untouched wild beauty has been blighted by man.

"The resources of flowers and vines are generally known to the wealthy class of Americans, and in their country-houses they have usually availed themselves of landscape-gardening. But it is only very lately that plants and vines have been introduced as an element of architectural effect. In the new houses in our cities whose walls are varied by balconies and by bay-windows of different shapes and of different colors of brick and stone, vines trail from story to story, and parlor gardenboxes full of flowers of every hue combine in a graceful mass one story of the house with another. Mingled with these are birds in their hanging cages, and tall plants growing in pots on the marble floor of the vestibule, which modify the dry, hot character of the house, and substitute for it coolness, elegance, and repose. But these villas and elegant town-houses form but a minor feature of the aspect of our country, and it is especially on its great democratic middle and lower class that we must rely for indications of the civilization and character of the people at large. The apostle of a good household taste in arranging and furnishing the interiors of our houses does real good, and helps to promote a healthy condition of society. In the same spirit we believe that whoever teaches people how they can make their villages and farm-houses more attractive does a really patriotic act, while he pleases and cheers the mind of everybody who looks upon a house and door-yard which, though humble in its material and construction, has been made beautiful by the expenditure of a little thought, and time, and taste. No house is so plain and homely that a woodbine, or ivy, or morning-glory, growing on a trellis over door or window, may not soften its rugged lines, and gray colors that tone with the landscape are usually more pleasing and not more costly than plain white paint. In time picturesque architecture will come everywhere, we doubt not, with red roofs, clustering chimneys, and pretty projections; but in the mean time, and while we cannot pull down and build over again our plain, square farm-houses and tedious rows of dwellings all alike in the village street, let all in town or country do what they can to vary and make beautiful their own and other people's bit of landscape."