DEC. 48 
Jor Momeit. 
CONDUCTED BY MISS FAITH RIPLEY. 
THE GREAT SPIDER.’ 
DEDICATED TO SALOON KEEPERS. 
A spider Riit in Mb basement (Jtn, 
Weaving his snares for tho souls of men. 
“ I will not work with my hands,” quoth he; 
" An easier pathway must, open for me." 
He spreads his tables of xTeeneat baiae. 
And many a cunning trap ho lays. 
The marble balls are smooth and white, 
The den is Ida/.ills' with floods of light. 
Behind the bar the spider stauda; 
There is not a wise man in the laud 
But will lose his wit and and become a fool 
If he yields himself to the spider’s rule. 
There is not a man so strong and bravo 
But the spider will disc him a shameful weave. 
There is not a youth so noble and fair 
But will learn to drink, aud gamble and swear 
In the Bidder's den. But do not, pray. 
Dare to dispute the spider’s sway ; 
If you sweep the den with the law's strong broom , 
Perhaps you might make a cleaner room; 
But then men are tearful—a little afruid. 
In fact—on the spiders to make a raid; 
’Twoi!Id stir up excitement, aud spiders must live ; 
So our dear household treasures we patiently wive. 
The spider still sits in his basement den, 
Lying in wait for tho souls of men. 
[j! trs. E. J. Hichmond. 
What! rob a poor man of his hour. 
And give him good victuals instead t— 
Your heart’s very hard, sir, I foar. 
Or else you are soft in the head. 
W'hat! rob a poor man of his mug, 
Aud give him a house of his own: 
With kitchen and parlor so snug?— 
’Tis enough to draw tears from a stone. 
What! rob a poor man of his glass, 
And teach him to read aud to write '! 
What! save him from being an ass '! 
’Tis nothing but malice aud spite. 
What! rob a poor man of his ale, 
And prevent him from beatiug Ills wife, 
Prom boiug locked up in a jail, 
With penal employment for life ) 
What! rob a poormau of his beer, 
And keep him from starving his ehild i 
It makes one 1'eeJ awl'ul queer, 
Aud I'll thank y ou tu drew it more mild. 
[John JJ. (lough 
LETTERS FROM A COUNTRY GIriL -No. 19. 
MAiUiAKET K. UAKVKY. 
A French Talk. 
Where is that little girl (or big one), who is gen¬ 
erally to be found In every obscuw corner of the 
country, who ♦* wants to learn French,” but whom 
almost everybody delights in telling that she 
“can't do it without a master,” •* short, methods 
are humbugs,” “it won't do any good.” and "it's 
all a waste of time?” Well, mademoiselle, l was 
that girl once. Then, 1 had a remote suspicion 
that, after all, 1 might know my own business 
best; now, 1 kuow I do. 
For my part, I say that the acquisition of any 
knowledge, even under the most favorable circum¬ 
stances, Is Impossible, without plenty of will; and 
uudor the greatest of discouragements, It Is easy 
toUli that same amount of will. You know about 
Ellhu Burrlti and Grace Anna Lewis, so I need not 
tell you wha t they did. 
Those people who tell you that you can't learn a 
language are either very pedantic, or very Ig¬ 
norant. Don’t mind the first, and prove to the 
second how much mistaken they arc. .So far from 
Its being very difficult to learn a foreign language, 
you will be astonished, w hen once you have ralrly 
entered upon tho pursuit, to liud how many, many 
little helps there are, all along the way. And when 
you have learned one, you have already accom¬ 
plished more than half of another. 
The reason of all this is plain. Modern European 
languages are only modifications of three or four 
aneleut tongues, notably Celtic, Gothic, Latin and 
Greek, which themselves were direct outgrow ths 
of one still more ancient mode of speech prevalent 
in India, which to-day is known as Sanscrit. All 
subordinate dialects, whether ancient or modern, 
may be traced to this classic Hindoo language, so 
tar as is yet known, ido not mean to go Into 
comparative philology,—I maybe touching upon 
Important side questions which l am incompetent 
to answer,—but i do want to indicate this fact, 
that however much modern languages may vary 
externally, there Is a similar principle running 
through them all. 
But they don’t differ so very much, either. Al¬ 
most any word In English, which Is not unmis¬ 
takably Saxon, you wlU be likely to had very little 
altered, In French and Latin,—In many cases, the 
spelling Is Identical. You will be surprised to dis¬ 
cover how otteu this Is the case. 
To take up a language as a study, be sure first 
that you are thoroughly grounded in English gram¬ 
mar. Unless you know the structure or your own 
vernacular, 1 cannot Imagine how you can make 
any progress In another tongue.—that Is, If you ex¬ 
pect to study without a teacher. The reason why 
students spend so many years over French, Latin 
and Greek, la beoauso they have to begin at the 
beginning and learn the grammar, It they take 
up a foreign language curly, the supposition Is 
that they don’t yet kuow their own. But when I 
say, l&urn grammar, I don’t mean, wade through a 
two-luch volume of controversies,—a little ab¬ 
stract, such as Hurt’s smaller book, will be more 
than you need. It gives the essentials of the 
language, and If you find yourself In doubt over 
some technicality, you can refer to the authority, 
Uoold Brown's Grammar of Grammars, in the pub¬ 
lic library. 
We will suppose that you "kuow your gram¬ 
mar." Then you have won half the battle, 
THE BUBAL UIW-V0RKE1R 
for the grammar of other languages (French and 
Latin at least), Is substantially the same. The 
slight differences aro no more than you can see 
ami comprehend for yourself. But I will briefly 
point out a few of the most Important In the two 
languages above mentioned, for I am not familiar 
with any Olliers. 
You will probably notice first, of all, the great 
amount of transposition in both, notably In the 
latter. In French, the adjective frequently fol¬ 
lows the noun; as, has him-, blue stocking. The 
object, of a verb, when that object Is a pronoun, Is 
usually placed before the verb, directly after the 
nominative; as, Je voux alms, I love (or like) you. 
Akin to this last construction, we have tho re¬ 
flective verb, similar to the passive voice (though 
there Is a passive voice, also. In French.) in which 
the agent acts upon himself, this being specified 
by two pronouns placed before the verb, one of 
which Is nominative, the other, objective. What, 
in English would ho an Intransitive verb, will 
most likely be reflective tn French. For instance, 
we would say, r walk; a Frenchman would say 
literally, I walk. myself, (Jeine promene.) 
some constructions lueorrect,, though common 
enough, In English, are perfectly proper In French. 
Especially Is this the case with the double nega¬ 
tive, which occurs everywhere, tn the latter lan¬ 
guage. We could not say this here and that■ there, 
but the French can and do. It is me, it is her , It 
ts him, are shocking lu English, but all right lu 
French. Further than these, there are no very strik¬ 
ing Idioms, other than that there is no neuter gen¬ 
der, everything, even inautmafe objects, being 
masculine or feminine. Out of this fact grow a 
few Important considerations. A word in the femin¬ 
ine gender is usually denoted by the termination e; 
adjectives, articles and possessive pronouns—In 
short words qualifying nouns- have their gender, 
Anybody can translate, but not everybody—not a 
great many, In fact—can so master a tongue 
as to write It, speak it, think It, as though It were 
their own. But If he could at last, he would 
most likely have to translate at first. 
He couldn’t, though, and you couldn’t, take up 
Victor Hugo's Incomparable work Les Mlserables, 
and write It out In an elegant form worthy to be 
given to the world. That kind of translation must, 
ever be reserved for master minds. The kind you 
undertake must, be so far from ambitious as 
scarcely to escapb from the privacy of your own 
room. 
It matters not what language you start to learn, 
the mode of procedure will be the same. Latin, it 
seems to me Is especially valuable, not as an ac¬ 
complishment, but as the foundation of an educa¬ 
tion, because English, French, Spanish and Italian 
are largely derived from it, and because its terms 
enter Into every department of Science, Medicine, 
Botany, Mathematics and what not. French Is 
also valuable because, next to the English, it Is 
most, widely spoken;, because of Its priceless 
scientific literature, notably on Chemistry and 
Physics, and because it is a new, vigorous, growtng 
tongue, not confined like many others within a 
limited area. By the way the French are not the 
light, frivolous creatures they are often supposed 
to be. No nation lu the world can boast brighter 
mimes among Its phllosphers and novelists and 
poets. Witness those of Ganot, Lavolster, victor 
Hugo, Madame de stael and Fenelon, 1 know 
nothing of German, other than what I have 
gleaned through translations, but surely, Schiller, 
Goethe, Jean Paul and Herder are worthy to be 
read In the originals. Italy and Spain offer to us 
Dante and Petrarch, Cervantes and Lope de Vega. 
Italy and Germany, however, spealc to us In a 
diviner language, the universal one of music. 
DESIGN IN ArPLIQUE AND EMBROIDERY. 
as also their number, to correspond with the nouns 
to which they belong. It will’ not do to say, Un 
beau table, however pretty the table may be; the 
noun table is In the feminine gender, consequently 
tho adjective and article must be also, une belle 
table is correct; so, If I mean a particular one, La 
belle latile, (not le: la and le both mean the.) If the 
table Is mine, I cannot say mon table, for rnon is 
masculine. Nor. were it •• rhino” could I say ton 
table. 1 must have It; mi table or to table. Tf It 
belonged to you and me in partnership, noire table: 
to you and some one else, votre table, Were there 
more than one, I could speak of them as mes table, 
CBS tables, nos tables, or nos tables, as I could 
whether the noun happened lb be masculine or 
feminine, the possessive plural being the same tor 
both mon and ni«, ton and/u. while notes and mire 
are already singular as to the object possessed, 
plural as to the possessore, nos and ms plural as 
regards both possessors and possessed. 
In Latin, you may especially remark the absence 
of the articles, a and the . the abundance and fre- I 
quent recurrence of emphatic words; and the ex¬ 
cessive use or the participle. 
mmctaTY ok a new language. 
The real difficulty In learning a new language Is 
to master the declensions or variations of the 
form of words. In French, these are found only 
In the verbs, which though proiesalug to have but 
four modes of conjugation, have, In fact, so many 
irregularities as to amount to over eighty. Don't 
belltve anybody who tells you that the English 
language is tho most difficult to learn. The spell- i 
Ing may be hard, but the verbs are nothing— 
French verbs are barbarous, in Latin, though far 
less capricious seemingly, the veib3 are almost as 
formidable; and added to which Is the stubborn 
fact that Hie tiouus. adjectives and pronouns also 
change their form to express gender, number, per¬ 
son and case to agree with other words in a sen¬ 
tence. There Is no necessity, however, for you to 
learn all the declensions at once. 1 f you attempt 
it. you will probably discover nothing more than 
what a dry study you have taken up. Don't be 
startled It I tell you to begin right away and tran¬ 
slate. 
" Translate!” you exclaim, “How oau l it' l dou’t 
understand the language ?” Weil, let me unde¬ 
ceive you a little. Contrary to general belief, tran¬ 
slation la tho easiest part of acquiring a language. 
Spanish, I am told, Is exceedingly easy—so easy 
that any one could learn It In six months, or, with 
a moderate knowledge of French as a foundation 
In three. Italian, also. Is far from difficult, closely 
resembling French and Latin. 
now TO BEGIN. 
Provide yourself first with a good though Inexpen¬ 
sive dictionary—Fleming and Tlbbln’s for French, 
Ainsworth’s for Latin, some friends can probably 
inform you whose for other languages. Tables of 
all the verbs are given In the front of the French 
dictionary, while for the Latin paradigms you can 
procure a little work containing them, from any 
great publishing house, for twenty-five cents. 
Don’t, as yet, bother with grammars. For trans¬ 
lation, procure a copy of some work tout) which 
you are already jtunUtar, so that lu case of doubt 
you can easily refer to your English version. For 
several reasonsprobably the best book tor this pur¬ 
pose is the Now Testament. First, Its cheapness, 
you can buy a Testament in French tor twenty-five 
cents, one In Larin for titty; second, your pre-sup- 
posed familiarity with It; third, Its correct diction 
and its pre-eminent, place among the classics of all 
civilized languages; fourth, It will indirectly aid 
your faith and Christian knowledge. 
Armed now with Testament, dictionary and pen 
and ink begin to work. Hunt out every word, and 
write out a literal translation, it will be time 
enough to render It Into correct English when you 
know more. Grapple with every difficulty boldly, 
pausing when you come to a different form of a 
word long enough to learn it, and don't refer to 
your English Testament except as a last resort. 
Persevere in this, even If you don’t write more 
than a quarter of a chapter a day. It won’t be 
many months before you can easily finish several 
at a time. When you see exactly what the de¬ 
clensions are for , why then, learn them verbatim. 
Of course, there Is to be no play’ about all this. 
Such a pursuit may be carried over several years, 
the time being lengthened or shortened, aocordlbg 
to your perseverance. But within a year you 
ought to know your French Testament well enough 
tu read it without assistance, and six months later 
to comprehend auy extended work In that lan¬ 
guage, while at the end of two years, you should 
read almost anything—that is, enough to know 
that you are very near the goaL U you have no 
other pursuits on hand, 1 don’t see what need pre¬ 
vent your accomplishing It all in about six months. 
PRONUNCIATION. 
French, I helleve, is almost the only language In 
which speaking materially differs from writing. 
The tongue, as It were, lightly skips from word to 
word, seizing each by the beginning and jumping 
from It ere reaching the end. It is said that a true 
French pronunciation cannot be attained without 
a native teacher. Perhaps not—but certainly 
something better than the mongrel American 
style can. Try and remember the following prin¬ 
ciples ; 
1. The French never pronounce the final conso¬ 
nant of a word (except that consonant be c, f, i, 
and r ), unless the next word begins with a vowel, 
In which case the final consonant Is joined to that, 
next word. Thus, Je nous aline, is pronounced, 
/.he, row satme, s sounded Uko z, mu, like row, and 
the e In je like e In hen. 
2. /V at the end of a word Is not precisely 
dropped, but sounded somewhat like no In sornj. 
A’generally, Is one of the. Indistinguishable na3al 
sounds. 
3. The combinations tn, ain, etn, are pronounced 
like an In can, while im and aim, are sounded as 
am In Iamb. The n and m sounds, however, are 
more nearly alike than tn English, both being 
nasal. Never say merino,— say merang,— lor 
meringue. 
4. En and em are pronounced nvg. Thus, the 
word temps sounds almost exactly as though 
spelled tong. 
5. E alone Is nearly like our loDg a, as In my ; i, 
like e in me. 
s. Gn has the sound of ny. We have a word 
anglicized which contains this combination, 
mignonette, whose correct pronunciation Is mln- 
yo-nette. 
T. Ll Is as much like ye., in yes, as I can write It— 
sounded very lightly, however. Thus, In mervelUe, 
pronounced mer-vPye, the ye Is little more than a 
lengthening of the preceding i. 
8. oi Is like ina in wall. 
9. A alone Is either like a tn ah or In at. 
10. On Is nearly like one in lone, except that the 
g sound is slightly apparent. 
It. A u is like o tn hope. 
12. In re and le the consonant sound is so shortly 
pronounced as scarcely to touch upon the «, as In 
centre aud people, pronouuced sontr and pupl. 
13. Ea Is the hardest sound for an American to 
make. He either gets it like u in under, or nr In 
bur. But we have the exact sound lu English—b 
Is like the e In her, the i In jir and the o in work. 
Give the vowel in each, clipping off the r, and you 
have It, Utile wave aDd all. 
14. Generally, when two vowels are combined, 
the combination Is sounded like the last simply. 
For Instance, at and ei are pronounced like i, as In 
life. 
15. The final x tn a plural Is not sounded, nor Is 
the previous consonant, which would not be If 
alone. The s, however, Is carried over to the next 
word, If beginning wuh a vowel. 
16. The various terminations ol a verb, except 
ons and out, both pronounced ong. are not sounded. 
IT. The French do not accent any syllables ; 
every syllable has exactly the same value us every 
other. Accents tn French have nothing to do with 
emphasis. 
18 . The principal exceptions to these rules are 
In the words ei and Jits. The r lu et is never pro¬ 
nounced, while jlls is read as though written Jiss. 
Make It a point always to read your lesson over 
aloud, and by this means you will soon become 
familiar with the spoken as well as the written 
language. 
I don’t say all tills will teach you to converse, 
for It won’t. To do so requires a fluency of 
thought, a thorough acquaintance with the Idi¬ 
oms, so as to have them at your tongue’s end, and. 
above all, confidence In yourself and constant 
practice. For all this you want a teacher; but 
until you aro ready, I repeat, to begin actually 
aud converse, you dou’t need any Instruction at 
all, other than you can, by steady application, 
give yourself. If you can afford to spend only a 
small sum upon language lessous, save it for the 
last, the finishing; there is no earthly use in giv¬ 
ing any man or woman a dollar, or even fifty cents 
an hour, to hear you define a word or repeat a 
conjugation, unless you are one of those unfor¬ 
tunate Individuals who cannot, learn anything 
alone. If you can’t lay out any money at alL, why 
you need not be discouraged, nor will your labor 
be lost if you succeed in reading the choice works 
In foreign literature, even If you never open your 
lips save in your mother tongue. 
-- » 
DESIGN IN APPLIQUE AND EMBROI¬ 
DERY. 
This design placed at equal spaces on the can¬ 
vas, Is suitable for chalr*seats, cushions, stools 
etc. The applique may be of cloth or velvet. 
The foundation is canvas, and the grounding Is a 
diaper pattern of wool. The outline of the leaves 
is tn cording stitch, with coarse silk; the colors 
may be selected according to taste 
--- 
FEMININITIES IN BRIEF. 
_ f 
Martha Washington handkerchiefs In black net 
with Jetted frills are stylish. 
Beetles and bugs In natural tints have taken the 
place of the reptiles popular last winter in adding 
the dnishing touches in bonnets and hats. 
Silk handkerchiefs are favorites tor neck-wear. 
They are manufactured In rich, dark and brilliant 
colors, both plain and figured, the designs being 
noticeable fur their oddity and variety. 
For evening enterulumeuts, matrons who wish 
vc wear dark colors will choose a costume of all 
black or garnet, as much handsomer by gaslight 
than deep gray, Blue, brown, green or any of the 
similar shades. 
For your piano cloth fashion demands that It 
shall be white or cream-colored velvet, hand- 
painted in water-colors, or wrought with the finest 
silk brorclene In wreaths of holly, In fronds of fern 
or in garlands ol violets and smli&x, 
