Browning’s History of the Hugonots.

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LOVE.

When she learned the vocabulary, she did not find that admiration meant love; she did not find that gratitude meant love; she did not find that habit meant love; she did not find that approbation meant love; but in process of time she began to suspect that all these put together produced a feeling very much like love.

Rank and Talent.

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HUGONOTS.

Various definitions of this epithet exist.  Pasquier says it arose from their assembling at Hugon’s Tower, at Tours; he also mentions, that in 1540 he heard them called Tourangeaux.  Some have attributed the term to the commencement of their petitions, “Huc nos venimus.” A more probable reason is to be found in the name of a party at Geneva, called Eignots, a term derived from the German, and signifying a sworn confederate.  Voltaire and the Jesuit Maimbourg are both of this opinion.

Browning’s History of the Hugonots.

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A ROUT.

A great, large, noisy, tumultuous, promiscuous, crowding, crushing, perfumed, feathered, flowered, painted, gabbling, sneering, idle, gossiping, rest-breaking, horse-killing, panel-breaking, supper-scrambling evening-party is much better imagined than described, for the description is not worth the time of writing or reading it.

Rank and Talent.

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PLEASURE.

  We are mad gamesters in this world below,
  All hopes on one uncertain die to throw;
  How vain is man’s pursuit, with passion blind,
  To follow that which leaves us still behind! 
  Go! clasp the shadow, make it all thine own,
  Place on the flying breeze thine airy throne;
  Weave the thin sunbeams of the morning sky;
  Catch the light April clouds before they fly;
  Chase the bright sun unto the fading west,
  And wake him early from his golden rest;
  Seeking th’ impossible, let life be past,
  But never dream of pleasure that shall last.

The Ruined City.

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GERMAN LIFE.

One day (says a late adventurer,) that I was quartered in a farm-house, along with some of our German dragoons, the owner came to complain to me that the soldiers had been killing his fowls, and pointed out one man in particular as the principal offender.  The fact being brought home to the dragoon, he excused himself by saying, “One shiken come frighten my horse, and I give him one kick, and he die.”  “Oh, but,” said I, “the patron contends that you killed more than one fowl.”  “Oh yes; that shiken moder see me kick that shiken, so she come fly in my face, and I give her one kick, and she die.”  Of course I reported the culprit to his officer, by whom he was punished as a notorious offender.