SEPT.13 
©ORE’S RURAL WEW-YORMER. 
BEAUTIFUL THINGS. 
Beautiful faces are those that wear— 
It matters little if dark or fair— 
Whole-souled honesty printed there. 
Beautiful eyes are those that show, 
Like crystal panes where hearth-fires g low, 
Beautiful thoughts that bum below. 
Beautiful lips are those whose words 
Leap from the heart like songs of birds, 
Yet whoso utterance prudence girds. 
Beautiful hands are those that do 
Work that is earnest, and hrave, and true. 
Moment by moment, the long day through. 
Beautiful feet are those that go 
On kindly ministries to and fro— 
Down lowliest ways, if God wills it so. 
Beautiful shoulders are those that bear 
Ceaseless burdens of homely care. 
With patient grace and daily prayer. 
Beautiful lives are those that bless— 
Silent rivers of happiness, 
Whose hidden fountains but few may guess. 
Beautiful twilight, at set, of sun, 
Beautiful goal, with race well won. 
Beautiful rest, with work well done. 
Beautiful graves where grasses creep, 
Where brown leaves fall, where drifts lie deep 
O’er worn-out lands—Oh, beautiful sleep! 
#itr 
BACK WIHDOWS, 
A GOOD LOVE STOEY FBOM A DIAKY. 
April 13, 13—. —In utter ennui and despera¬ 
tion I have at. last begun a diary. Did I ever 
believe that I could descend to such a mlsalsh 
expedient ? But no one knows what he is capa¬ 
ble of until he trios, and “the times that try 
men’s souls" develop strange and uusuBpected 
resources.” 
Is this one of the aforesaid times ?" Well, all 
things considered, I should rather say It Is. 
Here am I, Philip Leigh, an utter stranger In 
the city, just about launching on a commercial 
career under the most favorable auspices, 
“ eager-hearted as a boy when first he leaves his 
father’s field." and all the rest of It. That la 
what I was two weeks ago, and the first clause 
still holds good. What am I now? A bundle 
of aches, a thing of nerves and sensibilities. 
Bab ! what it Is man hood worth If a slip on a 
bit of orange-p col, a twist of the knee, can re¬ 
duce one to such a pitiful level ? 
No use grumbling ? No, my philosophic soul. 
Would that you always ruled this mortal frame! 
Unluckily, you don’t. Human nature Is weak, 
given to roplnlngs, and much haunted by black 
spectres of gloom and ennui. What defenses 
have I against their too frequent Incursions? 
Plenty of pens and paper: certainly, but to 
what use ? I have no friends to whom I care 
to pour out my woes—which is lucky for the 
friends. Books? my library Is cer-/* u 
tainly limited. I did not come here I 
to lead a bookish life, and beyond a 
Bible, ShakBpeare, and one or two y 
other volumes rny shelves are bare. y' 
Women never seem at a loss to dls- / 
pose of their time. What do they do, / ' 
1 wonder ? Sew, 1 suppose; but, alas! / ^ 
that panacea is denied me. Oh, my /= 
mother and my revered grandmothor, 
why did you lot me go out Into the 
world thus unprovided for? 
Well, If I am to write adlary.soine- 
thing must be written; that. Is clear. 
Shall I feel my mental pulse, and 2S=1^V 
record Its variations with tender soli- 
cltude? Hardly, I think, for I have 
a strong convlotlon tnat "that way 
madness lies," and what I am specially 
beginning this diary for Is to avoid 
morbid Inspections and Imaginings. 
What then? to journey round my 
room after the fashion of Lcmaiatre ? 
Genius might, extract something from Prefe -yll 
the aspect of a bachelor’s room, In 
the “ three pair back " of aNew York *- ~ 
boardlug-house, but I confess that Is ^ 
quite beyond my abilities- It is all 
new and prim. I have no time to fit 0||y|igj 
myself to my nook, nor my nook to Ssggpi 
me. 
Well, then, outside. Outside there 
are yards—city yards—and a row of ' “ 
houses with the wrong-slde-out look 
peculiar to the backs of city houses, 
The fronts are brown stone, I know. 
Are the characters of the inhabitants 
as different In the front aud rear, I ^ 
wonder? Have they all back doors, 
where the mean little higgling vices 
come and go, while the lordly virtues ; ■ 
stalk grandly up and down the front , 
steps? How muoh could one learn 
of one’s neighbors’ oharaoters from *?a . v .. 
these same literal baok doors, I won- f-.V., 
der? 
The house opposite looks rather 
more attractive, or less repulsive, — 
than the rest. The scrap of a grass 
plot Is fresh and green, and tbe bor- : if?'? 1 !* 
ders are brown with the rich unge of r -^3- 
nowly-raked mold. Two children are S&t& Y&iIr 
skirmishing abont the yard with the 
futile howls to which boys of tender 
age are so marvelously attracted. 
“ Etta! ” calls one of them. In a shrill squeal. 
A girl’s head appears at the window above. 
“My fish has come unburled!” plaintively 
wails the infant, who has been closely examin¬ 
ing a spot of ground out of my range of sight. 
“ Etta ” laughs. 
“ Bury It over again, then,” she calls, in one 
of those sweet, low-pitched voices which, be 
they raised ever so high, do not jar upon the 
nerves. 
She Ungers a moment, looking down at the 
child. Where Is my opera-glass ? Yes, as L 
thought, a pretty face, a very pretty face, fair 
and soft, with a Bickering rose bloom on t.he 
rounded cheeks, and cloudy, golden hair, wav¬ 
ing rather low above dark, straight brows. Tbe 
eyes arc dark, too, 1 think, and the mouth is 
firm and yet tender—a little haughty, perhaps, 
but the smile brings out a tiny dimple at each 
corner, and shows such white, even teeth that 
you don’t mind that. Not a perfect face at all, 
not even a beautiful one, but sweet and fresh 
and refined, with a lock of purity and health, 
moral and physical, about It. The figure, as 
much as 1 can see of It, is light and firm-one 
of those figures which cannot be other than 
graceful, let them do what they will. 
A bell clangs In the house: luncheon, of 
course. “Etta" vanishes, and only a blank 
wall and empty, staring windows are left for my 
Inspection. Not Interesting, decidedly not In¬ 
teresting: and up at home, among the New 
England hills, the willows are veiled In their 
soft greeu mist, and wave after wave of verdure 
is sweeping up the htllaidoR day by day amoug 
the great granite boulders, grim arid gray. Does 
the sun shine there, and does the foliage glim¬ 
mer, I wonder? And are the brown mountain 
streams dancing downward, with their whirling 
flakes of white foam, between the mossy rocks? 
“God made the country,” they say; but He 
must have had some little hand In the city too, 
I fancy—at least In the making of such creatures 
as that “ Etta ’’ over there. 
April 20.—This “Etta" is becoming quite a 
fascinating study — fascinating because be¬ 
wildering and perplexing. What la she? Has 
t.he girl two natures, or is the mystery only In 
me? I hope my brain is not giving way under 
pressure; but why do As she do such provoking, 
unaccountable things? Not that anything she 
does Is remarkable in Itself, now that I come 
to think of It, only her looks and acts and ways 
at different times contradict each other so 
strangely. After all, I believe the difference Is 
In rny own mind, and not In her. How else can 
it be that whereas at one time I feel such a 
strange attraction toward her, at another 1 feel 
an equally strange repulsion ? No, iepulslon is | 
too strong a word ; it Is rather an absolute In¬ 
difference, utterly devoid even of admiration. 
So strong has this feeling grown that the In¬ 
stant she appears I foci, “ Now I shall like her," 
or,“Now I shall hate her," and the Instinct 
never deceives. 
Last night Etta wont to a ball or something 
of that sort. At. any rate she came to the win¬ 
dow gorgeous In some whtte shimmering stuff, 
with wreaths of pink heath fl think) trailing all 
ver it. She stopped a moment to clasp a 
bracelet on her round white arm, and the subtle 
charm and attraction were stronger than ever. 
A few minutes afterward I saw her in the 
parlor. The gas was turned up to Its full hlght. 
and the windows were wide open. Apparently 
she was posing and practicing before the pier- 
glass. Nothing In that? Of course not. We 
all like women to be at tbelr case, and how can 
they be that If they are not. sure of looking svell, 
and how could they be sure of looking well If 
pier-glasses did not exist? But surely she need 
not have pranced and ambled as she did before 
that mirror, with sidewise sweepings of her 
train, with airy fiutterlngs of her fan, with 
brldlings and mincings, porklngs of chin aud 
drooplngs of eyelids. I was glad when the car¬ 
riage was announced and the house was left to 
darkness and silence. 
April 27.—No chance of my being out and 
about, for two weeks yet, so the doctor tells mo. 
Perfect stillness under penalty of lameness for 
life. Wretched for a man in full health to be 
tied by the leg In this way! Once In a while I 
am tempted to give it all up and go out Into 
life again. I am tired of fighting this Incessant 
thirst to be In the midst of the stir and bustle, 
one of a mass of struggling atom3, aud not a 
mere solitary, sluggish, molecule, a. sort of her¬ 
mit crab, sitting here “ my lane ” and fighting 
off ennui. But—lame for life? Well, It wouldn’t 
be pleasant. The words gave me rather a Bhl very 
feeling as they dropped so glibly from tbe doc¬ 
tor’s lips. To hobble through life a mere dis¬ 
torted wreck of a man ? No, on the whole, I 
had better eat. ray heart out here a little longer 
than to knaw It lu vain for the rest of my life. 
I wonder If I am becoming too much inter¬ 
ested In that girl over there ? Certainly I watch 
for her eagerly, and count the day blank when 
I have not seen her! Nonsense! It Is only the 
utter lack of any excitement In my lire which 
makes mo think of her at all; and then the 
mystery about her or about my feelings towards 
her keeps up the Interest. Only let me get out 
once in the great surging sea of New York and 
mix with otner men, aud then Etta may go—It 
would be ungrateful as well as Impolite to sug¬ 
gest “ Jericho " as her goal—she may go whither 
3he will. 
But suppose, just suppose, the feeling should 
not, be shaken off? Well, it would be awkward, 
certainly. But that id out of the question. I 
am morbid and nervous now: but let ine only 
regain my full strength once more, and all these 
dreams and imagiuiMgs will vanish like u morn- 
lug mist. 
Tbe back room in which Etta ofteneat appears 
Is not her bed-room, evidently. It soems to be 
a sewing.room, study, nursery-a sort of city 
refuge for the odds and ends of household life. 
Sometimes 1 see her sitting at the window and 
sawing. Somehow I think I like her best then. 
Her little fingers Uy in anil out so deftly, with 
such dainty twists and turns, which dimple the 
knuckles and show the pretty wrists in a hun¬ 
dred new and graceful attitudes. I look at my 
gioat clumsy fingers, and laugh to myself to 
think how miserably I potter over a single but¬ 
ton, and what a miserable botch It Is when it is 
sewed on at last. 
* 
* 
l < 
■A.3NT A.JlTTTTJVIJNr SCENE. 
She Is a busy bee this Etta. I hardly ever see 
her unemployed. I never particularly admired 
energy or industry in women. It Is apt to make 
them uneaBy and uncomfortable to deal with. 
Their energy is given to breaking out In unex¬ 
pected directions, and t.helr Industry to running 
into new and startling channels. I think I like 
a woman to be rather slow and lazy and Indif¬ 
ferent, content to sit quiet and do nothing but 
look pretty and talk gently and sensibly. This 
being the case, I wonder why I like Etta least 
when she 1 b idle? Sometimes she comes into 
the room with a slow and stately sweep. Then 
1 know at once that she will do nothing but 
stand at the window, or saunter about the room 
In a futile, purposeless way, and my Interest 
dries up and vanishes like dew in the sunshine, 
I like to watch her with the children—her 
brothers, I suppose. They are romping, rollick¬ 
ing boys, hearty, sturdy little fellows, both of 
them, full of spirits end mischief. She m full 
of fun, too, and can romp with them (In a 
lady-Uke way, of course; Etta could not do 
anything unlady-Uke, I think), and Interest her¬ 
self In their pursuits. Homotimea they hang 
about her while she tolls them stories. I can tell 
that that is what she is doing by t he motions of 
her lips and the lighting up of her face. Such 
a bright little face! It grows upon one strangely, 
until f am almost roady to swear that it la aa 
classically beautiful as that of the Venus di 
Milo. I can hear the peals of laughter from the 
boyB’ lips, but If Etta laughs too, tho sounds are 
too low to reach me. 
The other day, though, sho did something 
that puzzled me. It was not my Etta, bat the 
other Etta that, did It, for I have learned to dis¬ 
tinguish them thus lu rny own mind. She was 
reading in the window, dressed Tor the after- 
noou, evidently. In some sort of pale green stuff 
that brought out tho rose bloom of her cheeka 
aud the gold lights of her hair wonderfully. 
The book, by the cover, was a novel, ami sho 
was too deeply absorbed lu it to stir when one 
of the boys crept up behind her. I could not 
eee what ho was doing, but I oould see his face 
or sly, impish delight as ha stood there after he 
had finished Ills work, apparently awaiting tho 
catastrophe. It came lu a minute. At a quick 
motion of Etta’s head the whole torrent of 
golden hair came ripling aud waving down. 
Tbe breeze from the window sent It streaming 
far aud wide, until she Boemod enveloped In a 
halo of golden mist. The little wretch bad 
slyly pulled out every halr-pJn us he stood there, 
and now ho clapped his hands and laughed 
aloud a hearty peal of boyish merriment. 1 saw 
Etta’s face ; the rose bloom was all drowned in 
one scarlet flush which extended from chin to 
forehead, a flush of rage which almost trans¬ 
formed her, and turning on tbe boy, she gave 
him one ringing box on the ear, and fled. Tho 
child burst Into a howl of mingled pain and 
rugo, of course. Weil, lie deserved It; he cer¬ 
tainly did. It was veiy provoking, and she has 
such beautirui hair; but I wish she had not 
dono It. At least, If she must do It, I wish I 
had riot seen her face. I wonder IT r shall re¬ 
member It when l see my Etta again? It is 
very odd how clear the distinction is In my 
" 3 lnd, as clear as If there were really two of 
them, lustead of one whimsical, ca¬ 
pricious, changeable, inconsequent 
girl. What a safety-valve adjectives 
sometimes prove! Blessings on the 
man who first Invented them ! 
I May 7.—May-day Is safely over. I 
have been haunted by a fear lest my 
opposite neighbors should be seized 
by the “flitting" mania which per¬ 
vades New York at this season. It 
I gave me rather a shock to realize 
| what a blank life would lie u> me now 
without Etta to wutch and speculate 
about. Of course It will not last, but 
just at present It Is my only excite¬ 
ment, and 1 feel much the same sort 
of interest that one takfcH in a woll- 
construotod novel, or a well-written 
and well-acted play. I don’t In the 
least realize that Etta is a real flesh- 
and-blood woman. She is to mo only 
an abstraction, a study, a puzzle, and 
I catch myself wondering, “ How will 
it all come out? What did the author 
mean by this ?’’ Perhaps if 1 really 
met her face to face, spoke to her, 
and heard her answer, it would all be 
different; but at present site is no 
more real to me than the Undine 8 
ind Loreleis of tho Gorman fairy 
May 13.—My siege is nearly over at 
ast. Dr. Petrie tells me that I may 
try the strength of my knee In a short 
walk with the aid of a stout cane 
Thank Heaven ! I don’t think Iquite 
realized before the terrible tedium 
»nd ennui of this long confinement, 
knew Illustration of, “He tempers 
tbe wind,” So o., I suppoee. I wonder 
if the prisoner ever realizes all his 
misery until the order for hlB release 
is signed, and the prison door3 swing 
outward to let In the bright sweet 
sights and sounds of nature to his 
_ ! j weary eyes 1 
May 19.—I am progressing rapidly. 
m^sl My knee seems quite restored, though 
I have not, yet discarded my “ oaken 
ggggj stKff.” Somehow my interest in Etta 
5 Sf| does not diminish as I thought it 
£||£=! would. While I am out I catch my. 
■* self continually wondering, “What 
is she doing now? Is my Etta or the 
other Etta there ?” and the first thing 
