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HomeMy WebLinkAboutZurich Herald, 1925-12-31, Page 7THE PORTRAIT .THAT CAME TO LIFE His package under his .arm, M. Bourdin walked out of the auction: xoom. He wa.s carrying home a pie- ture which the auctioneer had passed around among the bidders. It was an engraving by a little known artist of the head of a pretty and very attrac- tive young woman, The minimum bid was set at 100 francs. "One hundred and teal" cried M. Bourdin, .in order to eppear a con- noisseur in such things.' He was astonished to hear the auc- tioneer say, "Solei!" M. Bourdin stepped forward to set- ' 'tie. He said to himself: "After all, it is probably a great bargain." When he got heme he hung the por- trait on the wall of his parlor. There was plenty of room for it, as the walls' of the three rooms otitis apartment were practically bare, M. Bourdin found that the engraving made an agreeable decoration and that it was se pleasure to look et it after his meals, . when he sat in -an easy chair and smoked a cigarette Af'custotned to a nap on such occasions, he always cast a last glance at theyoung woman 1 before he closed his eyes and a first glance at her when he waked up. The presence of this unknown gave a sense 1 Of companionship to the old bachelor, • without deranging his existence in any way. It often happened that M. Boar - din passed through the parlor when he could just as well have used the hall to go from his bedroom to his dining -room, solely to have the satis- faction of looking at the seductive portrait. Having a rather timid character, M. Bourdin had never had any love ad- ventures. He lived modestly on a small income, was taken care of by an old servant, seldom paid visits, and even more infrequently received visitors.' One,fit venieg he . ran. across a flower'. '. 'vendee las he. was coming • home and bought a pot of daisies, which he placed beneath the unknown woman's picture. One of ' his Mends, the ac- countant Laborde, coming in to see him after dinner, noticed the portrait and the flowers. "If that is the picture of one of your friends," he said with a wink, "I sin- cerely congratulate you." M. Bourdin was dumbfounded and made no answer. In the course of his call ..Laborde renewed his allusions, stood he felt himself penetrated by a embroidering them with some com- hitherto unknown emotion. plaints about the secrecy of M. Bour- "I have had but one love in my life," din's loveaffair. 4-1111112 Four Strads', one of which le called "The Swan" because it*was made by the master in 1737, the year of his death when he was 93 years• old, have been acquired by Rodman Wanama.ker, New'York storeman. Dr. Alexander Russell, concert director, le shown holding the precious instrument. has been forgotten and I have grown' old, I also had my hour of celebrity „Blow, Blow Thou Winter Wind." then. Did you know me at that time? "Yes," stammered M. Bourdin, It would be difficult to choose among pushed invincibly in spite of himself the songs scattered through the plays toward the lie which had become a of Shakespeare that which ie the love - verity in his life. "And I can tell you liest, but the following lyric takes a that,I always loved you." j high place; "Is that possible?" "I knew that you would come some Blow, blow, thou winter wind, day and I waited for yose." 1 Thou art not so unkind It really seemed to M. Bourdin that; As man's ingratitude; he was telling the truth, and he' Thy tooth is not so keen thought: Why should two persons who I Because thou art not seen, had been in love in their youth' not! Although thy breath be rude, finish their days together after grow-' Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the ing old? A Poem Worth Knowing. green holly; He took his visitor's hand and kiss- Most friendship is feigning, most lov- ed it. With' --the dusk which softly - ing mere folly; penetrated the room in which they Then, heigh-ho, the holly! This life is most jolly. •m s a a r, he said. "I do not ask you who this lady is," he added. "Undoubtedly she is a woman of the world. That is very fine. I must tell you that your life has always seemed to me a little mysterious. Now I understand." The secret of M. Bourdin's life quickly circulated among his acquain- tances. Gertrude, the old housekeeper, The Road to Truthfulness. "Whatever else my .child is, I want him to 'be truthful," is the earnest de- sire of every true mother. But do we do all that we can to make the road to truthfulness easy for him? Very imaginative children are often Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky, Thou dont not bite so nigh As benefits forgot; Though thou the waters warp, Thy stfn gis not so sharp As friend remembered not. Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the the nations were reconciled: all the green holly; .metal of their •naw useless cannons Most friendship is feigning, most iov- was oast into this great statue of ing mere folly; Christ, the.Prinoe of Peace. Then, heigh-ho, the holly! divided her glances between M. Bour- condemned as untruthful. The cause This life is most jolly. Pigeon Identifies a Man. din and the portrait when she came for their remarkable "stories?' can of- ----e--. A homing pigeon was the means of into the parlor to wait on him. ten be traced to exceedingly imagine -discovering the identity of a man "Could Monsieur," she said at last, tive books and stories. Thin case 1.s found unconscious near Sheffield, Eng- "give me his friend's first name?" not hard. to handle. Since their mo- The Hindu- religion, probably the land' On the back of his: cycle was M. Bourdin had smiled and answer- tive in telling it be to attract the at- oldest on earth, is quite •quaint in fourud a basket containing hooting ed at 'a venture: •tentionof their elders it le usually beet ` "Agnes." to ignore the episode altogether. Or, The following month he saw a big at its •conclusion "That's a make -be - bunch Of.rosesunder the 'portrait. "To -day is St. Agnes's Day," Ger- trude explained. One afternoon when he left his rouse M:" Bourdinnoticed Laborde, who was following him` but trying to escape observation. "Alit" he said to himself, "Laborde "Peace Hath Her Victories." On the summit of a rocky pass in the Andes, looking out over the moun- talus on the boundary line between Chile and the Argentina, stands a colossal statue •of the Christ. The left 'The Sailor's Signpost. The mariner's compass seems to have been known to the Chinese from very early times. It is reported that in 2600 B.C. an action was fought in which the Emperor of China suocese- hand holds aloft a cross, the right fully navigated his fleet through a fog hand is raised In blessing; and over by the aid of an instrument which was the granite pedestal is engraved this probably a compae% inscription: The early Greeks knew that a min- "These mountains will crumble into dust before Argentinians, and Chileans, will break the peace which, at the foot of the Redeemer, they have sworn to keep." For many decades the people of Chile and the Argentina had been at pointed n war and in 1904 a fresh outbreak of bestilities seemed imminent. ' Two bishops of the Roman Catholic Church determined to do their best to save their countries from the suffer- ing and desolation of war and they proved upon. appealed to our King Edward VII., of- The invention of the .compass was of ten called "the Peacemaker," to act great importance since many voyages as an arbitrator between these two of discovery could now be undertaken nations. His efforts were successful; with greater prospect of success. Thus, sfhortly afterwards Columbus disoovered America, and Vasco do Gama succeeded in sailing round the Cape of Good Hope, noting incidental- ly that the constellations appearing at night over the southern seas were dif- ferent from those he had seen from Portugal. eral called loadatones would attract iron. Iran rubbed with loadstone also became able to attract other pieces of iron. About the year 1450 an. Italian, named Flavis Gioja, found that the magnetized iron, when suspended, orth and south. Using a circular card upon which the magnet- ized needle was hxed, Gioja made his compass by attaching the card to a cork placed in a basin of water. This arrangement was, however, soon Im- Freezing Fac4.. .,- y3eeessiee goose 'hdlde txr >.eh enerboneetee acid, i't is a vaaluable fertilises,. it i l white beeasu'se its orystaese refloat abbe rays of light, . Ise contains' an enoarn'iacsa Win. Lust ox latent beat. When eighteen soubio fnahes of wa'te'r ere ;peen, they become twenty of ice,' Tlie frozen water expaude bemuse see cryastale•do not ii•t so closely as w'tea. lktrtlele0. $now is merely frozen air vapor, while hail is rain frozen during its fall to the earth. In winter, a rise of the barometer betakeue frost. 19uniug a frost, water contracts in v00.1,1nte until it fails, to 40 degees. Then it expand& until it freezes. Snow obstructs' the passage of .eouatl. Frost assists it. In winter, river water is several de- grees wagoner than the air:. Solid ice le much lighter than its equivalent bulk of. water. Dark clot ea', owing to their peculiar quality of gathering heat from the air, are the wartiest for winter' wear. Below the surface of the ground le much w•arnmer--even in the hardeae frost—than on the top. Gold weather le the beet tient to do menial work. The abasuce of flogs dieing frost is because the vapor which ordinarily would have became fog isi frozen on the ground, as hoar -frost. before it -can rise. Until ice ie two inches thick, it is not renally safe fox walking upon, al though at an inch and a half it will bear a fast skater whose weight, na- turally, iso never dead weight. Ise five inches thick will bear the weight of a motor -car, while at six inches it is safe for a crowd of people. During the winter of twenty-three years ago, ice of 'twenty-five inches• in thickness formed in many pieces in England. • many respects. One thing is drilled into the brains of the devotees, and that is that Man must always be so Neve story, isn't it?" spoken in a mat- c table as so oof love et en his e - ter -of -fact way, usually disposes of it , satisfactorily. Stories about truthfulness are use- fu1. The familiar old story of the boy who cried"Wolf, wolf!" when there was no wolf makes( a deep impression on the •childish iniad. Other stories wants to find' out where I go to meet may be invented that show the advise - Agnes." bility of having a reputation for hon- • He haired a taxi in order to mystify esty. 'his friend. After a while, when cer- Sometimes we are tempted to "try" tain of his relatives met him, they al the children. "Did you coarse straight ways asked discreetly: home from school, John?" when. we "Are you still happy?" "I am still happy," M. Bourdin an- swered: Heehad thus from day to day be - Come so habituated' to seeing those know that the forbidden swimming hole proved irresistible. Is this just fair? Do we elders always tell the whole truth when "cornered?" Pt seems' like a good occasion to ap- about him coneider the woman of the ply the Golden kende. "My mother fs portrait a real person, whom he knew well, that he himself, at certain mo- ments, no longer took account of the fiction which had entered into his life. A woman shared his'' existence. A woman whom` his friends knew, of whom they spoke to him, whom they even called by her first name—and on -account of whom they all envied him, Sometimes M. Bourdin was surprised. 'to find himself hurrying home, as if a woman whomhe loved were awaiting 'him He was a little upset when he entered the varier ashes Gertrude said to him with a most knowing smile: • "I see that Monsieur has been out walking to -day with his friend." Hew agreeable it would have been to know so,. charming a woman and (who can tell?) to beloved by her. When winter came M. Bourdin de- cided to take a trip south for his health. He put in the newspapers an advertisement offering to sublet his apartmen=t. ; •A few days later a woman appear - %,td who wished to look at, the apart- :,nent. She.was small and old, with a slightly wrinkled face, but still rosy , cheeks. She }yore a violet silk dress and a velvet hat. As she. was discus- sing tering with M. Bourdin she cried 'suddenly, pointing to the engraving: "What! You have my ..portrait here?" . "Is that you?" exclaimed M. Bohr din. "It was" forty years ago," the ,little old woman explained, "that I posed for tiffs eicture. The painter • was a easy te tell things, to," one email `boy boasted proudly. A fine recammenda-• tion, eure]y. ..If we slay "Now, Jailib I want you to toil me why you did not come straight home from school as I told you and—I want you to tell me the truth!" we imply his untruthful - mess and the chances are 'very good that John will live up to our implica- tion. If we begin, "I know all about what you did, ao it'a no use your try- ing---" Join either believes he is hopelessly trapped or he believes we are "binning." But if we say in a pleasant though unmistably business- like way, "Now, John, how about being late. from school. this' afternoon?" Chances, are nine to ten that John will tell the truth like a man. Make it easy for the little folks to tell the truth until they have acquired a habit of truthfulness and the prob- lenr of untruthfulness will seldoin have to be solved. Hold Your Own,, What is true at last will ten Few.at first will place thee well; Se/ag,,te° low .would have thee shine, Some too high—no fault of thine. -- Hold thine on, and work thy will! Year will graze the heel of year, But seldom comes tho poet here, And the oriities rarer still. •. . --Tennyson. Tree Hospital in Pars. Paris has a unique hospital, located on the banks of the Setae. ' Trees "ivrliiclt grow weak along the boulevards .*?ashiorstb.,o artist of that period, l<ie are taken there to recover, 4V The ancient Hindu Bible, the Veda, says; "Even the tree does not with- draw its welcome shade from the wood. cutter." The Unicorn. The "unicorn" mentioned in the Book of Job was peobabi., the aurochs, a kind Pigeons _of which the 'Police gook •charge. All the usual attempts to identify the man failed until the po- lice liberated two of the pigeons with notes attached to their lege. Shortly afterward they received a message from one of the owners of the pigeons, giving a clue to the man's identity. Clock Device Lights ,Stoves. A new appliance for gas stoves and heaters is a clock, device which auto- matically lights or extinguishes the of voila cattle now extinct. burners at any specified time. ADAMSON'S ADVENTURES Woods That Disagree. When certain trees are oonverted into timber, they do not agree, if used together. On contact, . decay sets in, though each kind of woody on. its own, is thoroughly durable as timber. Cy- press, for example, is a very quarrel- some uarrelsome wood, disagreeing as it does with both walnut and cedar. One Kind of Gentian Left. Though the fringed gentian of the eastern United St ees• has become rare and is threatened with extinction in many pia cee the fringed bentian of the western mountains is still ex- edingly abundant. • HERE F1174:3) STOP PLAy,riG Wlfli THAT • 1024, n. (CeP3'^40,1• ;h*iia_w.i�v.15y,idiote. Frosted Pane. When I wakened, very early, All my window pane was pearly, With a sparkling little picture. traced iu lines of ,shining white, Some magician with a gleaming, Frosty brush, while I was dreaming, , Must have 00,111,0 and by the starlight worked All through the night. He had painted frosty people, And a frosty churoh and steeple, And a frosty bridge and river tumb- ling over frosty rooks, Frosty mountain peaks that glimmered And fine frosty ferns that shimmered, And a frosty little pasture full of frosty little frocks. It was all touched in so lightly, And it glittered, oh, so` whitely', That I gazed and gazed in wonder at the lovely painted pane; Then the WW1 rose high and, higher With his wand of golden fire, Till, alas, my picture vanished and I looked for it in vain! About Violins. Violins and bows come in different - sizes, like shoes and suits of .clothes; . and it is very fanportant for a child to have a violin and bow of the proper size. A violin which is too large, or a bow which is too long, results iu the pupil acquiring all sorts of faults in position and movement. Music stores usually keep in stook, quarter, half, three-quarters, . seven, eights and full size violins: The seven. eights size is known as the "lady's violin." Such instruments are very. close to full size and differ only slight- ly at first glance, but are made to ac- commodate women players who have short arms and fingers. In tone quality these slightly smaller instruments• are quite equal to those of full size, if of good make. Violins• are sometimes made to or- der, somewhat smaller than quarter size, for very young children to begin practice upon; but such violins are more like toys than real fiddles. They, eau be played upon practically, how- ever, and are sometimes used for humorous musical sketches in vaude- ville perfcrmauces. Cinderella's Slipper. The pantomime sleaso.n never comes and goes without a presentation of the fairy story of Cinderella and the Glass Slipper. It is •curious, however, that we owe this slipper of glees to a mis- take make by the.. person who first translated this famous story from French into English, . In the seventeenth ceutury fur was worn only by the grandest folk, and was as much a sign of ,distinction as the rarest dowels. Consequsptly, When Madame dd'Aulnoy wrote that Cfnder- eila's fairy-go•dmcther bestowed upon the, little down -trodden girl "pantou- fies en vair," it was a pair of fur slap- pers that she gave. The English translator mixed up "vair" (fur) with "verre" (g1aEs). It wa.s sen'e:y one of the happiest or- ;rors in literature, for the little glass slippers' are to -day the most fascinat- ing part of Cinderella's attire. True to Form. A fanner, well known for his tight Bated qualities, had his arm badly in- jured in a corn sltreddea. "Say, doe," ho inquired of tlte,p�hysi- cion who ]tad been called to dregs it. "wall I have, to loss the arta?" "Yee, Dave," Ii tl rep ie, the doctote "I'm afraid it will have to Como off." "Humph!' was. the er:'r.otional re- ply. "It'd been oheasar to lot the al'�[lilirl''; Thshrectiter have it,"