THE AMATEUR NATURE-LOVER 169

FROM AN OBSERVATORY 174

THE MODE IN MONUMENTS 177

HOW I DIED 182




CERTAIN PERSONAL MATTERS




THOUGHTS ON CHEAPNESS AND MY AUNT CHARLOTTE


The world mends. In my younger days people believed in mahogany; some of
my readers will remember it--a heavy, shining substance, having a
singularly close resemblance to raw liver, exceedingly heavy to move,
and esteemed on one or other count the noblest of all woods. Such of us
as were very poor and had no mahogany pretended to have mahogany; and
the proper hepatite tint was got by veneering. That makes one incline to
think it was the colour that pleased people. In those days there was a
word "trashy," now almost lost to the world. My dear Aunt Charlotte used
that epithet when, in her feminine way, she swore at people she did not
like. "Trashy" and "paltry" and "Brummagem" was the very worst she could