Of course everything is "fixed" instead of
being arranged, or settled. "Weddin-fixings"
mean sumptuous food, high living; to use a
very vulgar English phrase, "good grub."
"Homely" means ugly, and ugly means vicious.
To "recuperate" is to recover. A medical
man at Philadelphia said to me, "I suffer a
great deal from fatigue, but I recuperate rapidly
during sleep." You "locate" not place,
anything, and a place is usually a "location." You
are bound to do anything; Anglicè, you ought to
do it. In the words of the very classical and
elegant song, "We're bound to go the whole hog or
none." What we call here a leading article is
in New York an "editorial;" and the staff of
contributors to a journal are spoken of as its
editors. To enjoy yourself is to "have a good
time." This phrase, which I peculiarly dislike,
from a kind of silly quaintness there is in it,
was in every one's mouth. "To be raised" is to
be brought up, or reared. "To judge" is to think
or to imagine. "I should judge, Mr. P. Q. Z.,
that you are in very excellent health." In
some of the newspapers the rule of writing
appears to be never to use a short word when
you can find a long one. Thus you must not say
to give, but to "donate."  "Right away " is
quickly in the English language. The first night
I slept at the Parker House, Boston, I rang my
bell in the morning, and quietly asked the boy
who answered it if I could have a warm bath?
"Want a warm bath rigged?" said the juvenile, in a
brusque manner. "I should like a bath," I replied,
and after a considerable delay it was ready. The
next morning I rang my bell very loudly, and,
upon the youth arriving, shouted at him, "Rig
me a bath right away." The boy seemed quite
delighted by my promptitude and the accuracy
of my conversational style, and my bath was
"rigged" in two or three minutes. There was
one odiously affected and absurd phrase creeping
into the newspapers at the time I was leaving.
The writers of paragraphs about the weather
took to calling the hot days of July and August
"the heated term."

Our Cousins have some, but not many,
peculiarities of pronunciation. It is
"obliggatory" on you to recognise somebody. I
heard the chief justice of the court for the
District of Columbia at Washington talk of an
ïnqûiry. It is very usual to shorten the penult
of words of three syllables. They always talk of
"the compônent parts" of a thing. Even the
fashionable folk pronounce the word lévee, lêvee.

There is one element in Transatlantic talk
which I mention with reticence, both because of
the nature of the subject itself, and from an
earnest wish not to give offence to a great
people, whom I sincerely admire. I allude to a
special and pre-eminent gift of swearing oaths
of a most blasphemous character inherent in
the lower orders of America. To hear swearing
brought to its highest perfection, I believe
one should visit Texas, where the inhabitants
pride themselves upon the elaborate ingenuity
and exquisite fancy of their long-winded
imprecations.

The most daring flight in the way of swearing
I have ever heard, was an observation made
on board one of the Mississippi steam-boats. A
Western farmer, though excessively drunk and
noisy, had been playing poker, euchre, whist,
and other games, with such transcendent success
that he had literally "cleaned out" all his friends
and acquaintances on board of their last "green-
back" or "yellow-belly." When every one had,
for obvious reasons, refused to continue playing,
he threw the cards down with a thump on the
table, and jumping up, exclaimed, "So, I guess,
I've cleaned you all out, eh? And so I would
clean out any soul on this airth this night. I
am in such a humour this night, / am, that I
would undertake to play the Almighty for the
stars, and to leave him in total darkness in
fifteen minutes."

SPRING RAIN.

The Eastern wind came sweeping through
Spring's first triumphal arch of blue,
   Trod hard her soft'ning lands,
Shook from her grasp into the storm
Lamb, bird, and flow'r, that just kept warm
   While breathed on 'twixt her hands.
Shone on closed doors and sear-white street,
And shivering beggar's purpled feet,
   The sunlight's brassy gleam;
Shone mockingly on pastures bare,
Where patient cows, with roughened hair,
   Bent to the shrinking stream.
O'er the gaunt trees with leaf-buds burned,
The iron winter seemed returned
   With thicker spots of rust;
A stony blue was overhead,
And Nature seemed not only dead,
   But dried and turned to dust.
Till yesterday, at morning tide,
Came bulging landward clouds that dyed
   The sky one leaden stain;
We had scarce marked the softened cold,
When lo! the dust, so pale, so old,
   Had dimpled to the rain.
Bright rain not rocked on Winter's gale,
Nor wreathed in stealthy Autumn's veil,
   But Spring-time's fairy daughter,
Who, when she speaks, drops diamonds round,
That twinkle on the streamy ground
   In pools of dancing water.
A sweet confusion everywhere,
A voiceful gladness on the air,
   Poured out in ample measure;
The very stones seem clapping hands,
And ev'ry lifted face expands
   As though 'twere raining pleasure.
Fall with crisp patter on the trees
Spring's clear out-spoken promises;
   E'en now their perished leanness
Swells 'neath her dainty finger-tips.
How bashfully her fresh young lips
   Will kiss them into greenness!