Literary Extracts.

LITERARY EXTRACTS .

How Cn . VB . NA . cE GOT HID OF THE TAILOU ' S HOUSE . — Charnace had been one of Louis the Fourteenth ' s pages and an officer in his bodyguard . He had a long and handsome avenue to his chateau in Anjou , in Avhich a peasant had a little house and garden Avhich had stood in the samo spot long before the avenue AA as planted , and and Avhich the rustic could never be prevailed upon to sell

on any terms . Chanaee pretended to let the matter drop , and for a long time said no more about it . At last , disgusted that a paltry cottage should intercept the SAveep of his fine avenue , he conceived a scheme to get rid of it . lb chanced that the owner of the cottage was a taiior , and Avorked at his trade Avhenever an opportunity offered . He lived alone , having neither Avife nor

children . One day Charnace sent for him , and said that ho Avas suddeuty ordered up to Court to fill an office of great importance , that he Avas anxious to get there as soon as possible , and , as he had no liveries for his servants , he Avished him to mako them fortlnvith . The tailor agreed , and the bargain Avas struck on the spot . Charnace stipulated , however , that to avoid unnecessary

delay ho should do the Avork at the chateau , and if he promised not to quit it until it Avas finished he Avould pay him something over and above besides board and lodging him . The tailor set to woi-k on tho spot . In the meantime Charnace gob an architect to make an exact plan of the house and garden , the rooms , tho furnitureand even the kitchen utensilsHo then sent

, , Avorkmen to pull down tho house , take away everything that AA'as in it , and reconstruct it exactly as it had boon , internally and externally , at some distance from the a-veuuc , Avith every article in its place , and the garden exactly as it had been . They then cleared away all traces of it from the ground it originally stood upon , so that nobody could guess that it had ever been there at

all . This Avas completed before the tailor , Avho Avas carefully watched , had finished his liveries . When the liveries Avere completed Charnace paid his man well , kept him to supper , and then dismissed him . The tailor set out for his home at nightfall . He found the avenue unusually long , thought he had gone too far , retraced his steps , and looked about for the well-known

trees near Avhich his house stood . The night Avas dark , and he groped his Avay through them as well as he could ; but Avas astonished to find his house nowhere . He passed tho whole night in this Avay . "When day broke he saw that he had not gone astray , but that house and all had disappeared , and he came to the conclusion that he was the sport of some evil spirit . After Avandering about a

good deal he perceived at a considerable distance from the avenue a cottage Avhich . greatly resembled his own , though he knoAV that there never had been one in the same place . He approached it , examined it closer , and the more lie did so the more he Avas struck Avith the exact resemblance . He Avas curious enough to try whether tho key he had in his pocket would fit the lock .

It did fit the lock . He opened the door , Avalked in , and Avas thunderstruck on finding not only the rooms Avere the same , but that every single article of furniture Avas the same and precisely in the same spot as Avhen he left them , He Avas near fainting Avith fright ; he fell on his knees and prayed , for he religiously believed that the demon had layed him this trick . The following day

p , however , he learnt the truth from the mocking and laughing of the villagers to Avhom he told his story . He got furious , Avcnfc with his complaint to the Iuteudant of the province , aud insisted upon getting satisfaction ; bub he only got laughed at . The King heard tho story , and laughed more than anybody , and Charnace had his avenue as he Avished it . —2 femoirs of St . Simon .

PENMANSHIP . —A veteran living statesman has taken occasion , more than once , to notice publicly the rarity of good penmanship in our ago , as compared Avith former times . It is , in our opinion , a Avell founded complaint .

FeAV gentlemen now a days Avrite a perspicuous hand , or anything better than a scrawl . How often , when a stranger addresses you , do you find one-half of his sentences unintelligible , and his signature so utterly enigmatical , that you are forced into the impoliteness of cutting out the name and pasting it on the envelope of your answer ! If you cast your eye over auy extended

manuscript or sheaf of letters of the early part of the last century , the Avriting is generally of a very different character . The writer of this note possesses a manuscript of ten volumes , written at different times between 3 746 and 1773 by a clergyman , and in the Avhole of it he has never detected an e or an I without its loop , or an i Avithout its dot ! neither , in reading , Avas he ever at a

loss about tho meaning of a single sentence .. We cannot say much for the handwriting of ladies of that or auy earlier age , for a tolerable education for women is a matter of later date . But certainly there Avas a timewhat may be called the era of our mothers—Avhen feminine handwriting was both elegant and intelligible . Old ladies still , as a rule , Avrite betber than young ones .

•— -Chambers ' s Journal . Aiiciliiisnop WIIATELY AND ELOCUTION . —The opinion of the late Archbishop Whately has influenced manyof his readers . I agree Avith his objections to all artificial systems ; bub because arbificial sysbems have failed to made good readers or speakers , there is the more reason not to discontinue the study , but to practise according

to simple principles founded on nature . The reader or speaker must be throughly practised in tho management of tho breath , pausing , speaking upon different pitches of the voice , and in A arious rates of movement ; and by reading and reciting the finest passages of the best authors have the tones of feeling developed ; and also have tho action polished , invigorated , and brought out —in fine , have all the physical powers that should attend on eloquence so developed and brought under coutrol that ho can execute ivell that which lie conceives

or feels . Nearly all orators who , like Spurgeon , are naturally great , apparently Avibhout study , have , like him , unusually fine and easily manageable voices . But for one of these men so gifted there are thousands Avho might have their indifferenb voices improved by training to a Avonderfnl extent ; and if they then fully understood and felt Avhat they read , they would produce

effects far greater than by depending on understanding and feeling Avibhout physical aids . But to neglect all training and study , and to trust entirely to nature , as the archbishop advises , is as monstrously absurd as it would be to say that a man need only be in earnest to be a firsfc-rato cricketer or boater , Avithout previous and great practice , according to the rules deduced from

experience . What Avould the archbishop have thought of the logic of a man who argued that any party of gentlemen thoroughly understanding and feeling intent on the game of cricket , or the roAving of a boat , could , Avithout great and proper practice , ever equal the Oxford or Cambridge eight , or bhe Eleven of All England ?—0 . W . Smith ' s Clerical Elocution .

GRAVESEND TO LONDON BY WATER FIETY YEARS AGO . —On the morning of a June day , I had gone to Gravesend by coach . It Avas then a pleasant , thinly-inhabited country village , no Rosherville to tempb Cockney travellers , no booths on Windmill Hill , no prebenbious houses of refreshment to attracb tho Aveary . The Margate hoy called there once a day , and there Avere boats to and from

Loudon , Avhich , in the height of the summer , made the voyage tAvice in the twenty-fours hours ; but during fully eight months of the year , a single journey per diem was all thab could be attempted , for the number of passengers rarely exceeded a dozen . Gravesend had many charms then ; its vicinity was extremely picturesque , and the vieAV doAvn or up the river , « in bright Aveather , extremely fine . I Avished to return to town before night , and at tAVO o ' clock p . m . reached the deck of a small fast-sailing boat ( so it Avas thought ) , fully ex-