t Alexandria, the
Hanging Gardens at Babylon, the Olympian Zeus, the seven wonders of
the world, grew day by day into enduring monuments to the greatness of
humanity. By individual effort the grand result was at last achieved.
So the ideal manhood and womanhood, so earnestly prophesied, will
become living realities in the future. Remember it took three hundred
years to build an Egyptian pyramid. Allowing four generations to a
century we have twelve generations of men who passed their lives in
that one achievement. Was not the work of those who first evened the
ground and laid the foundation-stones as important as of those who
laid the capstones at last? Let us, then, begin in our day by the
discussion of these vital principles of social science, to even the
ground and lay the foundation-stones for the greatest wonder the world
is yet to see,--a man in whom the appetites, the passions, the
emotions are all held in allegiance to their rightful sovereign,
_Reason_. The true words and deeds of successive generations will
build up this glorified humanity, fairer than any Parian marble,
grander than any colossal sculpture of the East, more exalted than
spire or dome, boundless in capacity, in aspiration, limitless as
space.

[Illustration: Amelia B. Edwards (signed "Amelia B. Edwards")]

MY HOME LIFE.

BY AMELIA B. EDWARDS.

It has been suggested to me that an article descriptive of my ways and
doings at home might be acceptable to readers of this journal; and it
has furthermore been proposed that I should write the said article
myself. There is a straightforward simplicity of purpose about this
proposition which commends it to me. Also, it has the recommendation
of being quite novel.

As a rule, the person whose home life is to be made the subject of an
article is "interviewed" by a gentleman of the press, who
cross-examines the victim like an old Bailey counsel, and proceeds to
take an inventory of his furniture, like a bailiff.

Now, it seems to me that the conditions under which such a visit is
paid and received are radically unsatisfactory. The person interviewed
must be more or less uncomfortably self-conscious, and one cannot help
doubting whether the interviewer ever succeeds in seeing his subject
and his subject's surroundings in exactly their normal _dishabille_.
It would ask more than Roman virtue not to make the best of one's self
and one's house when both were sitting for a portrait; and dif