Review of Reviews, I/TjOG. 



In the Days of the Gomet. 



95 



a realm that was ruled by neither sun nor furnace 

 — the universe of stars. 



This was the scene of many a talk we two had 

 held together. And in the da)time we went right 

 over the crest and looked westw^ard, thexe was farm- 

 land ; there were parks and great mansions, the spire 

 of a distant cathedral ; and sometimes, when the 

 weather was near raining, th<_- crests of remote moun- 

 tains hung clearly in the sky. Beyond the range of 

 sight, indeed, out beyond, there was Checkshill ; I 

 felt it there always, and in the darkness more than 

 I did by day. Checkshill and Nettie! 



And to us two youngsters, as we walked along the 

 cinder-path beside the rutted road and argued out 

 our perplexities, it seemed that this ridge gave us 

 compendiously a view of our whole world. 



There, on the one hand, in a crowded darkness, 

 about the ugly factories and work-places, the 

 workers herded together, ill-clothed, ill-nourished. 



ill-taught, badly and exj)ensively served at every 

 occasion in life, uncertain even of their in- 

 sufficient livelihood from day to day, the chapels 

 and churches and public-houses swelling up amidst 

 their wretched homes Uke saprophytes amidst a 

 general corruption ; and on the other hand, in space,, 

 freedom and dignity scarce heeding the few cot- 

 tages, as overcrowded as picturesque, in which the 

 labourers festered, lived the landlords and the mas- 

 ters who owned pot-bank and forge and farm and 

 mine. Far away, distant, beautiful, irrelevant, from- 

 out of a little cluster of second-hand bookshops, 

 ecclesiastical residences, and the inns and inciden- 

 tals of a decaying market-town, the cathedral of 

 LowThester pointed a beautiful unemphatic spire to- 

 vague incredible skies. So it seemed to us the- 

 whole world was planned in those youthful first im,- 

 pressions. 



(To be continued.) 



Sttiiogniph Cif\riflil, ;9ofi.] 



li'iidcni'ooti and I'litlini-ootl, Loudon. Scii' York iiiid M<ilh'iirit 



The Olympic Games in the Stadlon at Athens. Young Greeks preparing for 

 the great games which commenced on April 22. 



