I have often wondered how housemaids acquired the apparently innate genius they possess for breaking things. It certainly amounts to genius; for it happens automatically and suddenly, as if prompted by divine and authentic inspiration. The gift is apparently shared by steerage passengers in a liner. The chief officer of the liner in which I travelled from England told me, before we had reached Fremantle, that twelve hundred glasses had been broken in the steerage. (There were eight hundred passengers.) Sailors and Chinamen never break anything; but, on the other hand, there is nothing that children will not break. Children are like white ants; they are entirely destructive, and they construct nothing, except sand castles. And sand is the best safety-valve for the terrible and unlimited powers of childhood that exists. This has been noted by the poet, who says:-- “On the other hand, Children in ordinary dress May always play with sand.” * * * * * In reading through the last pages that I have written, I am struck by the fact that there is very little about travel in these supposed notes on travel. The word longitude has not yet occurred, and no scrap of information that could be of any possible practical use to any one has yet been given. Does it matter? [Illustration: YOU MUSTN’T THINK OF A GREEN HORSE] Practical information can be sought for in guidebooks. I say _sought for_ purposely, for it can really only be obtained by experience. As for geographical details, I cannot think that the perusal of them is very interesting. And then, in writing on random subjects under a misleading title, I am only following well-known precedents. For instance, if you buy a modern book on “Gardening,” what do you find? You open the book, say, at the chapter headed “June,” and you find this kind of thing:-- I don’t think the pictures in the Royal Academy are so good this year as they were last: but the average level is on the whole higher. I remember Lord Melbourne saying that the Academy was the only picture gallery he really enjoyed, because the pictures told one stories and there was no damned nonsense of art about them. I am sorry that the girls of the present day are no longer taught sketching. Every girl should be able to sketch badly. Albums of sketches, made on the Continent, are a great resource on rainy Saturdays, and do well to sell at bazaars. Italy is a good subject for sketching. Apropos of Italy, I came across the following poem in the South Wiltshire “Gazette.” It was said to be by Wordsworth, but a kind correspondent tells me that it is really by Miss Ellen F. Winthrope, who died at Beverly, Massachusetts, in 1887, at the age of seventy-three:-- _Lines written at Florence_