The Doctor Kept The Letter-Bag On His Knee, Then, Presently, Opened It, Looked At The Letters Contained There, And Read One Or Two Of His Children's Letters, His Face In The Meanwhile Lighting Up.

He asked me to tell him the news.

"No, Doctor," said I, "read your letters first, which I am sure you must be impatient to read."

"Ah," said he, "I have waited years for letters, and I have been taught patience. I can surely afford to wait a few hours longer. No, tell me the general news: how is the world getting along?

"You probably know much already. Do you know that the Suez Canal is a fact - is opened, and a regular trade carried on between Europe and India through it?"

"I did not hear about the opening of it. Well, that is grand news! What else?"

Shortly I found myself enacting the part of an annual periodical to him. There was no need of exaggeration of any penny-a-line news, or of any sensationalism. The world had witnessed and experienced much the last few years. The Pacific Railroad had been completed <1869>; Grant had been elected President of the United States; Egypt had been flooded with savans: the Cretan rebellion had terminated <1866-1868>; a Spanish revolution had driven Isabella from the throne of Spain, and a Regent had been appointed: General Prim was assassinated; a Castelar had electrified Europe with his advanced ideas upon the liberty of worship; Prussia had humbled Denmark, and annexed Schleswig-Holstein <1864>, and her armies were now around Paris; the "Man of Destiny" was a prisoner at Wilhelmshohe; the Queen of Fashion and the Empress of the French was a fugitive; and the child born in the purple had lost for ever the Imperial crown intended for his head; the Napoleon dynasty was extinguished by the Prussians, Bismarck and Von Moltke; and France, the proud empire, was humbled to the dust.

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