The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 07, No. 41, March, 1861 A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics, by Various

"Which of the German universities would be the best adapted to my purpose?" is the question of many an American student, who, having gone through the usual course in the United States, looks abroad for the completion of his scientific or liberal studies. Of Göttingen and Heidelberg he will often have read and heard; the reputation of the comparatively new university of Berlin will not be unfamiliar to him; but of Tübingen, Würzburg, Erlangen, Halle, or Bonn, even, he will perhaps know little more than the name. In the majority of the last-named places, foreigners, especially his own countrymen, are rare; none of his friends have studied there; they have followed the current, since the last century, and spent their time in Göttingen or Heidelberg, perhaps a winter in Berlin. They have found these institutions good, and affording every facility for study; but would not Munich, or Leipzig, or Jena, or any other one of the twenty-six universities of Germany, better answer the purpose of many a student?

During the last winter, in many conversations with a retired professor in Berlin, who manifested a special interest in American institutions, mainly in the American educational system, he was very particular in inquiring as to what we meant by our term College. He had read the work of the historian Raumer on America, and declared that from this he could get no notion whatever as to what the term meant with us. The very same thing occurs daily in the United States in regard to foreign, or, more properly, the Continental universities. Accustomed as we are to the prevalence of the tutorial system, the use of text-books,—in many parts of the Union not defining clearly the difference between the terms University, College, Institute, and Academy, giving the first name often to institutions having but one faculty, and that at times incomplete, with no theological, and often no law or medical department, forgetting that the University should, from its very name, be as universal as possible in its teachings, comprehending in its list of studies the combined scientific and literary pursuits of the age,—we are apt to look upon foreign schools of learning as similar in nature and purpose to our own, differing not in the quality or specific character of the teaching, but rather in the scope and extent of the branches taught. Yet nothing is farther from the truth. The result is, that many a one starts for Europe full of hope, to seek what he would have found better at home,—or, when prepared and mature for European travel, is left to chance or one-sided advice in the choice of a locality in which to prosecute further studies. Often with only book-knowledge of the language of the country, accident will lead him to the very university the least adequate to his purpose.

Having now spent some time in four of the leading German universities, and contemplating a longer stay for the purpose of visiting others, the writer has thought that some general remarks might call attention to points often disregarded, and serve to give some insight into the nature of the institutions of learning of the country,—rather aiming to characterize the system of higher education as it now exists than to give detailed historical notices, including something of student-life, and the professors,—in fine, such observations as would not be likely to be made by a general tourist, and such as native writers deem it unnecessary to make, presupposing a knowledge of the facts in their own readers.

The German universities are the culminating point of German culture. They concentrate within themselves the intellectual pith of the country. Dating their foundation as far back as the fourteenth century, as Prague, Vienna, and Heidelberg,—or established but of late years in the nineteenth, as Berlin, Bonn, and Munich,—they attract to themselves the mental strength of the land, forming a focus from which radiates, whether in Theology, Science, Literature, or Art, the new world of thought, which finds its way to remotest regions, often filtered and unacknowledged. They number among their professors the most distinguished men of the century, whether poets, philosophers, or divines. All who lay claim to authorship find in the lecture-room a firm stand and rank in society, as Government is ever ready to insure a life-position to distinguished scholars. To mention only a few examples of men who would scarcely be thought of in a professorial career,—Schiller was Professor of History in Jena, Rückert Professor in Berlin, Uhland in Tübingen.

In nothing can Germany manifest a better-grounded feeling of national pride than in this, its university system. Politically inert, divided into petty states, powerless, the ever-ready prey of more active or ambitious neighbors, it has played a pitiful rôle in the world's history, with annals made up of petty feuds and jealousies and tyrannical meannesses, never working as one people, save when driven to extremity. With countless differences of dialect, manners, customs, it is one and national in nothing save in its literature, and feels that, through the high culture of its scholars, through the new paths its men of science have opened, through the profound investigations of the learned in every sphere, it holds its place at the head of every intellectual movement of the age. It feels that its universities are the laboratories whence issue the thoughts whose significance the world is ever more and more ready to acknowledge. France even, selfish and proud of its past supremacy in all things, has within the last quarter of a century laid aside much of its exclusiveness, and a Germanic infusion is perceptible through all the mannerism of the latest and best productions of the French school. Comparatively of late years is it, that the English mind has fairly come in contact with this German culture. Its first loud manifestation may be heard in the prose of Carlyle and his school; yet even now its influence has permeated our whole literature so much, that, when reading some of our latest poetry, tones and melodies will come like distant echoes from the groves on the hillsides where warble the nightingales of Germany.

A most unpractical people, however, the Germans, who have been so active in almost every possible field of speculation, have produced nothing which could give one unacquainted with their university system a true notion of its workings and actual state. Much has been written on Pedagogy, its history general and special, the common schools and gymnasia; but until 1854 there was not even a general work on the history of the universities. To Karl von Raumer, former Minister of Public Worship in Prussia, we owe the first Beitrag, as he modestly calls it, the fourth volume of his "History of Pedagogy" being devoted exclusively to these. Partly made up of historical sketches, partly narrations of the writer's personal experience as student from 1801, as professor in various places from 1811, it does not aim and is but little calculated to give a clear idea of the system itself. Special works, as the one of Tomek on Prague, and of Klüpfel on Tübingen, do exist, but otherwise nothing but personal observation can be made use of. Statistics, every information, in fine, concerning the present intellectual wealth of the nation, must be acquired either orally, or from the catalogues, programmes, and hundreds of local pamphlets that are issued yearly. The work of the Rev. Dr. Schaff, "Germany, its Universities, Theology, and Religion," (Philadelphia, 1857,) rather aims to characterize the nature and tendency of German theology, the latter part being taken up with interesting and well-written sketches of the leading divines.

Before proceeding to these high-schools themselves, let us glance at the general system of German education. In spite of political differences, there exists much uniformity in this throughout the Confederation. The German States are exceedingly paternal in the care they take of their subjects. They extend their parental supervision even to the family interior, every relation of life regulated by fixed laws, and even after death the inhumation must be conducted the forms and with the precautions prescribed. The new-born child must be baptized within six weeks after birth. If the parents neglect it, Government sees to it,—unless they claim the privileges of Israelites, in which case the rites of their religion must be followed. Between his sixth and seventh year the child must enter some school or receive elementary instruction at home. So far is education compulsory; beyond, it is optional. When duly prepared, he enters, if the parents desire it, the Government Gymnasium or Lyceum, answering pretty much to our College; it fits the youth for entering the University. It confers no degrees; only, at the conclusion of the studies, an Examen Maturitatis takes place. The youth is then declared ripe for matriculation. Without having undergone this examination, he can never become a regular student. Even should he have attended regularly any of the many private academies, or the Realschule, where thorough instruction is given, but with less special, though no slight attention to Latin and Greek, and more to mathematics and practical branches, even then he must acquire from one of the gymnasia the exemption-and-maturity-right. In the slang of student-life, the gymnasiast is styled a Frog, the school itself a Pond; between the time of his declaration of maturity and his reception as student, he is called a Mule.

The course is no light one the candidate has gone through,—nine or ten years of classical training, Latin the whole time, Greek the last six or seven years, Hebrew the last four, generally optional, though in many cases required at future examinations. The modern languages have not been neglected: French he has pursued seven years, English or Italian the last three or four. Beside all these, the elements of Philosophy, Moral and Natural, History, Mathematics, etc. In fine, the certificate of maturity would in most cases equal, in many surpass, what our colleges is styled the degree of A.M. Of course, the parallel must not be understood as existing with respect to many of the older institutions in the United States, which presuppose, in the entering freshman, a preparatory course of several years.

The classical training so strictly required of natives who enter these high-schools is not so rigidly inquired into in the case of foreigners,—though in this respect the regulations differ in various states. In Prussia and generally, the passport is all-sufficient; but in Würtemberg, a diploma or some certificate of former studies must be exhibited before admission. The officers of some of the universities, as Tübingen, for instance, are very particular in enforcing all the rules, inquiring of the applicant, whatever be his age or nationality, whether he has a written permission from his parents to study abroad and in their university, whether he has the money necessary to pay the debts he may contract, and such other minute questions as will strike an American especially as particularly impertinent. The precaution is carried so far, that, when no positive information is given as to means of subsistence, the letter of credit must be delivered into the hands of the beadle as security. Yet such little incidents are but slight annoyances at most, which a little good-humor and desire to conform to the habits and ways of doing of the country will remove. He who goes abroad always ready to bristle up against what does not exactly conform to his preconceived ideas of propriety, measuring and weighing all things with his own national weights and measures, will be continually making himself disagreeable and unhappy, and in the end profit little by his absence from home.

The conclusion of the training-system in the gymnasia usually occurs before the nineteenth or twentieth year. With the reception of the certificate of maturity the youth may be said to have donned the virile toga. He enjoys during his university years a degree of liberty such as he never enjoyed before, never will enjoy again when his student-days are over. Having taken out his matriculation-papers, and given the Handschlag (taken the oath) to obey the laws of the land and the statutes of the university, he has become a student,—a Fox, as the freshman is styled,—he chooses his own career, his own professors, hears the lectures he pleases, attends or omits as he pleases, leads the life of a god for a triennium or a quadrennium, fights his duels, drinks his beer, sings his club-and-corps songs.—But of student-life more in due time.—There is no check, no constraint whatever, during the whole time the studies last. At the expiration of three or four, sometimes even five years, an examination takes place before the degree of Doctor can be conferred,—not a severe one by any means, confined as it is to the special branch to which the candidate wishes to devote himself. In the Medical and Law Departments it is more serious than in the Philosophical. This examination is followed by a public discussion in presence of the dean and professors of the faculty, held in Latin, on some thesis that has been treated and printed in the same language by the candidate. His former fellow-students, and any one present that wishes, stand as opponents. This disputation, whatever may have been its merits in former days, has degenerated in the present into a mere piece of acted mummery, where the partakers not only stutter and stammer over bad Latin, but even help themselves, when their memory fails utterly, with the previously written notes of their extempore objections and answers. The principal requisite for the attainment of the Doctor's degree, when the necessary amount of time has been given, in the Philosophical Faculty at least, is the fees, which often mount quite high.

From the ranks of such as have attained this title, for so it should be called, every office of any importance in the State is filled. Through every ramification of the complicated system of government, recommendations and testimonials play the greatest rôle,—the first necessary step for advancement being the completion of the university studies—And by public functionaries must not be understood merely those holding high civil or military grades. Every minister of the Church, every physician, chemist, pharmaceutist, law-practitioner of any grade, every professor and teacher, all, in fact, save those devoting themselves to the merely mechanical arts or to commercial pursuits, and even these, though with other regulations, receive their appointment or permission to exercise their profession from the State. It is one huge clock-work, every wheel working into the next with the utmost precision. To him who has gone so far, and received the Doctorate, several privileges are granted. He has claims on the State, claims for a position that will give him a means of subsistence, if only a scanty one. With talent and industry and much enduring toil, he may reach the highest places. He belongs to the aristocracy of learning,—a poor, penniless aristocracy, it may be, yet one which in Germany yields in point of pride to none.

We proceed to the Professors. It is within the power of all to attain the position of Lecturer in a university. The diploma once obtained, the farewell-dinner, the comilat, and general leave-taking over, the man's career has commenced in earnest. If he turn his attention to education, he may find employment in some of the many schools of the State. Does he look more directly to the University, he undergoes, when duly prepared on the branches to which he wishes to devote himself, the Examen Rygorosum, delivers a trial-lecture in presence of his future colleagues, and is entitled to lecture in the capacity of a Privat-Docent. As such be receives no remuneration whatever from Government; his income depends upon what he receives from his hearers, two to six dollars the term from each. All who aspire to the dignity of Professor must have passed through this stage; rarely are men called directly from other ranks of life,—though eminent scholars, physicians, or jurists have been sometimes raised immediately to an academical seat. After a few years, five or more, the Privat-Docent who has met with a reasonable degree of success may hope for a professorship,—though many able men have remained in this inferior position for long years, some even for life. If their hearers are but few, they resort to private lessons, to book-making, anything that will aid them in maintaining their position, always with the hope that "something must turn up."

The Privat-Docent system, though condemned by some, has been much extolled by many German writers. It is, say the latter, a warranty for the freedom of teaching, no slight point In a country where all is subservient to the political rulers, forming men for the professorship, and giving them a confidence in their own powers, as they must rely exclusively for their support on the income they receive from their hearers. From among their number are chosen those constituting the regular faculties; and thus there are ever at hand men ready to fill the highest places upon any vacancy, men not new or inexperienced, but whose whole life has been one training for the position they may be called to occupy.

The Privat-Docent may be raised directly to a seat in the faculty, but more generally he passes through the intermediate stage of Professor Extraordinarius. The Professors Extraordinary receive no, or at most a very small, income from the State; they are merely titled lecturers, and nothing more; yet in their ranks, as well as among the more modest Privatim-Docentes, are often found men of the greatest learning, whose names are known abroad, whose contributions to science are universally acknowledged, whose lecture-rooms are thronged with students, while the halls of some of the regular professors may be left empty. No vacancy may have occurred in their department,—or, as is unfortunately oftener the case, some political reasons may be the occasion of their non-advancement.

We come to the regular faculty of the university, the Professores Ordinarii. They enjoy the fullest privileges, are appointed for life, and receive beside the tuition-fees regular incomes. They may be elected to the Academic Senate and to the Rectorship, the Rector or Chancellor not being appointed for life, but changing yearly,—the various faculties being represented in turn. He is styled Rector Magnificus.

The faculties are usually four in number. In several universities, of late, a fifth has been created,—the Staatswissenschaftliche, Cameralistic; so that in institutions where both Catholic and Protestant Theology are represented, there are in fact six faculties. The Philosophical Department stretches over so wide a field, that, were it separated into its real divisions, as Philosophy proper, Philology, History, the Mathematical and Natural Sciences, the faculties would extend far beyond the present number. In France, it is divided into a Faculté des Lettres and a Faculté des Sciences. The present comprehensive use of the term is but an extension of the Middle-Age division of the liberal arts into the Trivium,—Grammar, Rhetoric, Dialectics,—and the Quadrivium,—Arithmetic, Music, Geometry, and Astronomy,—as expressed in the verse,—

The term Magister Artium Liberalium, so often met with, refers to these. Those pursuing these studies were denominated Artisti. As the number of studies increased, the name was changed, and the department now includes all branches not ranged under one of the heads of Theology, Law, or Medicine; so that every student, whatever his pursuits may be, if he does not confine himself exclusively to them, will wish to hear one or more courses of lectures in this faculty.

The Professors Ordinary and Extraordinary, together with the Privat-Docents, form the active force of the German university. In Tübingen are Repetenten, who lecture or comment on classical and Biblical writers and form classes in the ancient or modern languages. Those teaching the modern languages exclusively are styled Lectors. The title, Professor Honorarius, as of Gervinus in Heidelberg, is conferred merely as a mark of honor, the bearer lecturing only when he pleases. To complete this enumeration, it may not be unnecessary to state, connected with each university are masters for riding, fencing, swimming, gymnastics, and dancing, regular places appointed for these exercises, beside access to museums, the university library, scientific collections, etc.

The number of professors—and under this name we include the three divisions of lecturers—varies from forty to one hundred and seventy and upwards, according to the size and importance of the institution. In Berlin, last winter, there were one hundred and sixty-nine; in Erlangen, but forty-four; in Munich, one hundred and eleven. The University of Kiel, with not one hundred and thirty students, numbers fifty professors. These each deliver at least one course of lectures; most deliver more,—some as many as four or five. In Prussia, each is required by law to read one course, at least, gratis (publice); otherwise the lectures are privatim, a fee being paid by the hearer,—say four or five dollars on the average for the term. The privatissime are private lessons or lectures, the when and where to be settled with the lecturer himself.

The year is divided into two terms, varying somewhat in different places. The summer session is the shorter of the two, lasting from near the middle of April till August, when the long vacation takes place. The winter semester usually commences in October and lasts till the latter part of March.

As to the scope and variety of the lectures, it is unlimited, and varies yearly. In Berlin, during the winter semester of 1859-60, there were no less than three hundred and forty-six courses in all, besides the clinics, demonstrative and practical courses, philological exercises, and the like. These were divided as follows:—

  In Theology . . . . . . 38
  " Law. . . . . . . . 56
  " Medicine . . . . . . 78
  " Philosophy . . . . . 174

  In Philosophy proper . . . 18
  " Mathematical Sciences . . 19
  " Natural " . . 45
  " Political Economy, etc. . 10
  " History and Geography . . 12
  " Aesthetics . . . . 19
  " Philology . . . . . 51

But Berlin is by far the most complete university in Germany, however much it may be surpassed in many points by others. Lesser institutions do not exhibit half this number of courses, though there are always enough to satisfy the student who does not devote himself to a narrow speciality. Private tuition can always be resorted to.

Beside the lectures, there are also occasionally Seminaren, mostly conducted in Latin, where classical or Biblical authors are explained and read by the students, or where discussions take place, in presence of a professor, on philosophical, historical, or philological subjects,—resembling, however, in nothing our debating-societies.

It is only since the middle of the last century that instruction in the higher branches has been usually carried on in German. Latin was formerly in general use; it is now seldom made a medium. There is occasionally a course delivered in English, Italian, or French,—in Berlin often in one of the Sclavonic languages. Modern Literature and Philology are by no means extensively cultivated. Lectures on the Provençal, the Langue d'Oïl, the Old-German, the Cyrillic, are not uncommon, though but poorly attended. The study of the modern languages themselves must be pursued with private teachers. A knowledge of these, as well as a thorough preparatory training in Latin and Greek, is presupposed. Modern History, on the contrary, has of late years become an important branch of study. The "Period of Revolutions" is fully treated every semester, and always draws crowds of students. The spirit that animates them is the unity of the Fatherland. Classical studies, though not holding the same undisputed ascendency as in former times, are yet very actively pursued, embracing Greek and Roman history and antiquities, comments on classical authors, lectures, critical and minute in the extreme, where every line is made the subject of microscopic investigation, and different readings are weighed and compared, with often an unlimited amount of abuse of editors who have differed in opinion from the lecturer. The German philologers are not remarkable for mildness when speaking of each other; and many a one, as Haupt in Berlin, will enrich his vocabulary with ever-varying, new-coined epithets to characterize the ridiculousness, tameness, and stupidity of emendations proposed, and that, too, when speaking of such men as Orelli and Kirchner, his own colleagues in the profession. A laugh raised at the expense of a brother is enough to justify the severest slash. Comparative Philology, which owes its existence and progress to the labors of German scholars, and whose first representative, Bopp, is still living and teaching in Berlin, is more and more pursued of late. Sanscrit is now taught universally; and lectures are delivered on the affinities of the Indo-Germanic languages with each other and with the mother-tongue of all. A perceptible movement is being felt to introduce this study into the preparatory departments. Such a change would result in a complete revolution of the methods formerly employed in elementary classical tuition. The higher laws of affinity, as applied to the Romanic languages, are also daily more a matter of investigation. Diez and Delius, in Bonn, are at the head of this movement. In Philosophy, properly so called, the list of studies is often very full, comprising lectures on Logic, the Encyclopedia of Science, Metaphysics, Anthropology and Psychology, Ethics, the Philosophy of Nature, of Law, of History, of Religion, the History of Philosophy, general and special, and the Philosophy of Art, or Aesthetics,—the latter general, or branching into specialities, as Music, Painting, Sculpture, Ancient and Modern Art. Special points are also treated,—as the Philosophy of Aristotle, of Kant, of Hegel, etc. Mathematics and the Natural Sciences are not always cultivated to the same extent as the above-named branches. They are made the subject of particular attention, however, in the numerous Polytechnic Schools, the most celebrated being those of Hanover and Carlsruhe. They have risen in reputation and attendance of late to such a degree, that in the Grand Duchy of Baden, for instance, a perceptible diminution is felt in university attendance, while new appropriations have been made for the enlargement of the Carlsruhe school.

The Theological Faculty ranks the highest, and comprises a wide range of study. We quote from Dr. Schaff:—

"In modern times the field has been greatly enlarged by the addition of Oriental Philology, Biblical Criticism, Hermeneutics, Antiquities, Church-History and Doctrine-History, Homiletics, Catechetics, Liturgies, Pastoral Theology, and Theory of Church-Government. No theological faculty is considered complete now which has not separate teachers for the exegetical, historical, systematic, and practical branches of divinity. The German professors, however, are not confined to their respective departments, as is the case in our American seminaries, but may deliver lectures on any other branch, as far as it does not interfere with their immediate duties. Schleiermacher, for instance, taught, at different times, almost every branch of theology and philosophy."

The Law Department, to which the celebrated school of Bologna served as a first model, extends over a far wider field than similar institutions elsewhere. Starting from the Roman Law, it embraces lectures on the History of Jurisprudence, the Pandects, Civil, Criminal, and Common Law, and Natural Rights, besides History and Philosophy, as applied to legal studies,—branching into specialities for German Law and Practice, local and general. To Americans, of course, only the first part of these studies would be at all desirable. Moreover, the advantages are not all of a practical nature.

The Medical Faculty embraces all the studies pursued in our medical colleges, more specialities being treated,—the time required being scarcely ever less than five years for the course, often more. Examinations are severe. The faculties of Berlin, Munich, and Würzburg are in especial repute,—Vienna also affording many advantages. In some of the smaller university towns the means of study are limited for the advanced student, extensive collections and large hospitals being wanting. Medical studies are attended with more expense than any other.

The Cameralistische Facultät is devoted to those preparing themselves for practical statesmanship. It is new, and established only of late years in a few of the universities. In others, the branches taught are still comprehended under the philosophical. Munich is in especial repute. It comprises lectures on Political Economy in all its branches, Mining, Engineering,—in fact, whatever is necessary to fit one for service in the State.

Let no one, from the above comprehensive list of studies, form the idea, that the outward incarnation of the German intellect, in speech or deed, corresponds to its inner worth and solidity. The name Dryasdust must cling to many a learned professor more firmly than to the most chronological of the old historians. Germany is not the land of outward form. To one accustomed to public speaking, the lecturers will often appear far below the standard of mediocrity in their manner. Though such men as Lasaulx in Munich, Häusser in Heidelberg, Droyson and Werder in Berlin deliver their lectures in a style that would grace the lecture-room of any country, yet the great majority are far, very far, from any eloquence in their delivery. Timid and bashful often to an extreme, they ascend their rostrum with a shuffling, ambling gait, the very opposite of manly grace and bearing, and, prefacing their discourse with the short address, "Meine Herren" keep on in one long, never-varying, monotonous strain, from beginning to end,—reading wholly or in part, often so slowly that the hearer can write down every word, often only the heads and substance of paragraphs, definitions and the like,—and that so indistinctly, so carelessly of all but the very words themselves, that it is not only unpleasant, at first, but even repulsive to many. This dictating of every word, a relic of the times when printing was yet unknown, is fast dying away. Many, both students and professors, are loud against it, yet the tedious method is still pursued in many places. The introductory remark of a celebrated lecturer is characteristic. Seeing all his hearers, on the first day of the course, ready with pen and paper, he began,—"Gentlemen, I will not dictate: if that were necessary, I should send my maid-servant with my manuscript, and you yours with pen and paper; my servant would dictate, yours would write, and we in the mean while could enjoy a pleasant walk." This is, however, not the only point that will be likely to produce an unfavorable impression. To see a man whose name you have met in your reading as the highest authority, whose works you have so often admired, his style energetic, fiery, and impressive,—to see him ascend his rostrum with every mark of negligence, uncouth and awkward in his appearance, with every possible mannerism, talking through his nose, indistinctly and unsteadily mumbling over his sentences, careless of all outward form and polish, awakens anything but pleasant feelings, as the preconceived ideal must give way to the living reality. And yet so it is with many!

It may have contributed not a little to the reputation of Göttingen and Heidelberg with foreigners, that a good and clear German is spoken in both places by the professors. In Tübingen, on the contrary, even in Munich, to a great extent, the local dialect prevails to such a degree, that students from Northern Germany, many of whom frequent these cities in the summer session, find it difficult, nay, almost impossible, to understand at first, especially the broad Suabian of Tübingen. Here, however, as the system of dictation prevails, the slowness of utterance compensates in a measure for its indistinctness and incorrectness.

In some places, where academic freedom, as the students style it, exists to a high degree, a general scraping of the feet admonishes the lecturer to repeat his words or be more distinct and clear in his enunciation. This pedal language, though often disregarded, still does not fail in the end in producing the desired effect.

With such characteristics, it cannot be a matter of wonder, if some time be required to be spent in hearing lectures daily before the full benefit can be fairly appreciated. Many will appear slow in the extreme; and the constant recourse to notes, and the tedious manner, will create a feeling of weariness hard to overcome. However, these peculiarities are soon forgotten in the excellence of the matter, and their disagreeableness is scarcely noticed after a few weeks, except in extreme cases. The mannerism fades away, and the hearer learns to follow from thought to thought under the guidance of an experienced leader, whose living words he hears, whose thought he feels as it is communicated directly to him.

Not so much from the actual things heard, the actual facts mastered, is the lecture-system valuable to the student, as for the method of study which he derives from it. He is no longer like an automaton, a school-boy guided by his teacher and text-book, but is spoken to as an independent thinker. Authorities are quoted, which he may consult at his leisure. No subject is exhausted,—it is only touched upon. He learns to teach himself.

Far different is the mental training thus acquired from that gained in the same amount of time spent in mere reading. Thought is stimulated to a far greater degree. The lecture-room becomes a laboratory, where the mind of the hearer, in immediate contact with that of a man mature in the ways of study, of one whose whole life seems to have prepared him for the present hour, assimilates to itself more than knowledge. The lecturer gives what no books can give, his own force to impel his own words. His mind is ever active while he speaks. The hearer feels its workings, and his own is stirred into action by the contact. It is not given to all to enjoy the conversation and intercourse of the master-minds of the age: in the lecture-room they speak to us immediately; we feel the current of their life-blood; it pulsates through all they say.

That seeming exceptions may occur, as in the case of professors who year after year deliver the same written course, can have no weight against the system. The tone and gesture, the very look, must animate the whole;—and these very written lectures, read and delivered so often, are no dead stalk, but a living stem, which puts forth new leaves and blossoms every spring.

Nor is the hearer himself without his corresponding influence. His attention and eager desire for knowledge stimulate new thought in the speaker day by day, hour by hour; and many a German scholar must have felt with Friedrich August Wolf, when he says,—"I am one who has been long accustomed to the gentle charm which lies in the momentaneous unfolding of thought in the presence of attentive hearers, to that living reaction softly felt by the teacher, whereby a perennial mental harmony is awakened in his soul, which far surpasses the labors in the study, before blank walls and the feelingless paper."

THE STUDIES.

The first entrance into a German auditorium or Hörsaal, as the lecture-rooms in the universities are called, will show much that is characteristic. But little care is bestowed on the decoration of the apartment. Whatever aesthetic culture the nation may have, it finds little manifestation in the things of daily life, and elegance seems little less than banished from the precincts of the learned world. The academic halls present to the view nothing but dingy walls, rough floors coated with the dust and mud of days or weeks, and, winter and summer, the huge porcelain stove in one corner,—that immovable article of cheerless German furniture, where wood is put in by the pound, and no bright glow ever discloses the presence of that warmest friend of man, a good fire. For the students there are coarse, long wooden desks and benches, with places all numbered, cut up and disfigured to an extent which will soon convince one that whittling is not a trait of American destructiveness exclusively. Here are carved names and intertwined lettering, arabesque masterpieces of penknife-ingenuity, with a general preponderance of feminine appellatives, bold incisures, at times, of some worthy professor in profile,—the whole besmutched with ink, and dotted with countless punctures, the result of the sharp spike with which every student's ink-horn is armed, that he may steady it upon the slanting board. The preceding lecture ended when the university-clock struck the hour; the next should begin within ten or fifteen minutes. One by one the students drop in and take their places,—high and low, rich and poor, all on the same straight-backed pine benches. The days fire over, even in title-loving Germany, though not long since, when the young counts and barons sat foremost, on a privileged, raised, and cushioned seat, and were addressed by their title.

As the hearers thus assemble, they present a motley appearance,—being, in the larger cities especially, from all lands, all ranks of society, and of every age. Side by side with the young freshman in his first semester, the Fat Fox, as he is called, who has just made a leap from the strict discipline of the gymnasium to the unbounded freedom of the university, will be a gray-haired man, to whom the academic title of Juvenis Studiosus will no longer apply. Here sits, with his gaudy watch-guard, the colors of his corps, one of those students by profession who have been inscribed year after year so long that they have acquired the name of Bemossed Heads. Were his scientific attainments measured by his capacities for beer-drinking and sword-slashing, he would long ago have been dubbed a Doctor in all the faculties. He hears a lecture now and then for form's sake, though it is rather an unusual thing for him. By his side, but retiring and earnest, may be one of the younger professors, who the hour before stood as a teacher, and now sits among some of his former hearers to profit by the experience of his older professional brother. Where the court resides and many officers are garrisoned, the hall presents a spangled appearance of bright epaulettes and glittering uniforms. It is no unusual thing for young men during their years of service to attend the courses regularly. The uncomfortable sword is laid on the knee, where it may not dangle and clink with every motion of the wearer,—no easy task in the very narrow space left between desk and desk. In the last century, it was a universal custom for all students to wear the sword; but this academic privilege, as it was considered, leading to numerous abuses, laws were enacted against it, as well as other eccentricities in dress.

The regular students are provided with portfolios, or rather, soft leathern pouches, which they can fold and pocket, containing the heft or quire of paper on which the lecture is transcribed by them wholly or in part. These hefts are often the object of much care and labor. Each plants his ink-horn firmly in front of him. As the time approaches, and all are in readiness with pen in hand, there is a universal buzz throughout the room. Though, when the auditory is large, many nations are represented, as well as the various provinces of the Confederation, still the language heard is predominantly that of the country. Though Poles and Greeks, English and Russians, may be in abundance, still they rarely congregate in nationalities,—save the Poles, who speak their own language at all times and places, and cling the more fondly to their own idiom since they have been robbed of everything else. After some fifteen minutes of expectation the professor enters. All is still in an instant. He advances with hasty strides and bent-down head to his rostrum, an elevated platform, on which stands a plain, high, pine desk. He unfolds his notes, looks over the rim of his spectacles at the attentive hearers, who sit ready to write down the words of wisdom he is about to utter, and begins with the short address, "Meine Herren." There is then an uninterrupted gliding of pens for three-quarters of an hour, until, above the monotony, rarely the eloquence, of the speaker, the great clock in the centre of the building gives the significant sound of relief to busy fingers and rest to ear and brain unaccustomed to such slow, entangled, lisping, laborious, in rare instances manly delivery. The lecture is at an end, and each prepares to enter another auditorium, or wends his way home, to study out the notes taken, consult the authorities quoted, complete or even copy his work anew. In the study of these hefts consists the main preparation for future examinations, as text-books are rarely used, save in Austria, and the examiners are the professors themselves, who will not ask the candidate much beyond what they have embraced in their own lesson.

With a remarkable degree of skill, the practised German student can take down, even when the delivery is by no means slow, the pith and essence of a whole lecture. Yet there is much abuse in this; and it has called forth, ever since the invention of printing has made the multiplication of books by transcription unnecessary, much just, though at times unjust criticism. A German writer has said, that the man of genius takes his notes on a slip of paper, he of good abilities on a half-page, while the dunce must fill a whole sheet. Now the reverse would be quite as true in many cases. For though thoughtless writing may be little more than wasted labor, yet there is nothing that can fix more steadily thoughts and facts in the mind than the precision and constant attention required in following a lecture with the pen, especially when the words of the professor are not taken down with slavish exactitude, but when, as is most generally the case, merely the thoughts are noted in the hearer's own language. The ideas thus gained have been assimilated and become the listener's own property. There is thus generated a steady transfusion, the surest remedy against flagging mental activity. Many a foreigner writes down the lecture in his own tongue, and values highly this training of constant translation, though, before many months, the mere transposition from one language into the other must become purely mechanical. It is amusing to see the puzzled expression of countenance of some Swiss student who takes his notes in French, when one of those long German compounds, involving some bold figure of speech, is uttered. What circumlocutions must he not use, if he wish to give the full force of the idea!

A real abuse, however, is the perpetual dictation-system still used by some. For these, the three worthies in profile on the title-page of old Elzevir editions are as if they had never existed; they teach as they have been taught, perpetuating the methods in use in the days of Abelard, when books were dearer than time. All that has been said and written against the custom will do less towards abolishing it than the recent introduction of lessons in phonography, or stenography rather, which is now taught in several universities. The question is agitated of introducing this study into the preparatory schools. The system is different from the English or American, being based on the etymological nature of the language. It is fast coming into use, though as yet not general. The old slow delivery seems little better than spelling to those that have mastered it. The students have usually special abbreviations of their own, and so find no difficulty in taking down all the important points, even when the utterance is rapid.

Not all, by any means, go through this labor of transcription. Many of the wealthier and high-titled attend but irregularly, and when they do, are impatient listeners. In Berlin may be seen many a youth who, from the exquisite fit and finish of his dress, if he be not an American just from Paris, must at least be a German count The young Graf plays with his lips on the ivory head of his bamboo, as he holds it with his kid-gloved hand, sitting carefully the while, lest the elbow of his French coat should be soiled by contact with a desk ignorant of duster for many a month. He is condemned, however, to hear, day by day, over and over, many a truth that will scarcely flatter his noble ears. The heft and the toil of writing down a lecture are unknown to him. He pays a reasonable sum to some poor scholar who sits behind and copies it all afterwards, while he takes his afternoon-ride towards Charlottenburg, or saunters along Unter-den-Linden, ogling the pretty English girls, and spying every chance of saluting, whenever a royal equipage, preceded by a monkey-looking lackey, rolls by. These are, of course, exceptions, rarer in the present than formerly. In Padua, in the sixteenth century, it became notorious that the richer students never attended in person, but always sent one of their servants who wrote a good hand. Laws were enacted to prevent the evil, yet long after this there were still many promotions of these paper-doctors.

Many, in taking their notes, abandon the German script as too illegible, and make use of the Latin letters. A word or two on this subject, as connected with general education. The German script, which any one may learn in a few hours, is a constant source of vexation to a foreigner. To write, and write fast, too, is easy enough; but then to read one's own handwriting, not to mention the crumpled notices of the professors tacked on the blackboard in the Aula, is almost impossible without much practice. Why the Germans should have kept their Gothic lettering and peculiar script, when all other European nations, save the Russian, have adopted the Roman, it is difficult to say, unless it be with them a matter of national pride. And they have been unnational in so many things! That the Russians should have their own alphabet is natural enough; they have sounds and letters and combinations—which neither the Germanic nor the Romanic group of languages possess. And yet both in Polish and Zechish, where the same sounds exist to a great extent, the deficiencies are made up by accented and dotted letters. So, though we have a universal standard of spelling for names and places on the Continent, we find in our most popular histories and geographies a divergence in the lesser known Russian names, not far removed from that we daily meet in the nomenclature of the gods of Hindoo mythology.

The like plea of necessity cannot be urged in regard to the Teutonic or Scandinavian languages. Within the last quarter of a century, the chief scientific works issued in Northern Germany, and many even in Southern, have been printed in the Roman character. Were there no other argument in favor of its universal adoption, it has been found less trying to the eyes. It can be read by all nations; and the other is at best but an additional difficulty for the learner, even in the case of native children, who are plagued with two alphabets and two diametrically opposite systems of penmanship in their earliest years. The result is evident: a good hand is a rare thing In Germany. It is a good sign, that of late years public acts and records, works of learning, all the higher literature, in fact, not purely national, as poetry and romance, are all printed in the Roman character. Nor will any look upon this as a servile imitation. Some of the most national of German writers and scholars, as the brothers Grimm, have pronounced themselves loudly in favor of the change. The tendency of the age is towards universality. It will occur to none to talk of French imitation because chemists make use of the excellent and universally applicable system of the decimal French weights and measures.

What has been said above is not altogether irrelevant as characterizing the tendency of the higher institutions of learning. Every movement in Germany, even the least, since the Reformation, whose chief propagators were professors in the universities,—Luther, Reuchlin, Melancthon,—every permanent and pervading conquest of the new and good over the old and worn-out, has issued from the lecture-room. Whatever sticklers for old forms and crab-like progress may be found, there is always an overbalancing power. The unity of Germany as one nation has never stood a better chance of being realized than now, when the very men who were students and flocked as volunteers when the iron hand of Napoleon I. weighed heavily on their Fatherland stand as lecturers in the days of Napoleon III., warning of the past, and preaching louder than Schiller or Körner or Arndt for the brotherhood of Prussian and Bavarian, of those that dwell on the Rhine and those that inhabit the regions of the Danube.

Thanks, not to her statesmen, not to her nobility, not to her princes even, that Germany has at last fairly shaken off the self-imposed yoke of servile French imitation, but thanks to her scholars who centre in her twenty-six universities! There was a time, and that not a century ago, when the German language was considered to be of too limited circulation for works of general scientific interest. Lectures were all delivered in Latin, until Thomasius broke open a new path, and now lessons otherwise than in the vernacular tongue are exceptions. French was long the universal medium. Even Humboldt wrote most of his works in that language; and it is not two years since one of the most distinguished Egyptian scholars of Prussia published his History of Egypt in French. The last representatives of this tendency are dying off. The days are over, when every petty German prince must create in his domains a servile imitation of the stiff parks of Versailles,—the days of powdered wigs and long cues,—when French ballet-dancers gave the tone, and French actors strutted on every stage,—when Boileau was the great canon of criticism, and Racine and Molière perpetuated in tragedy and comedy a pseudo-classicism. They are far, those times when Frederick the Great wrote French at which Voltaire laughed, and could find no better occupation for his leisure hours at Sans-Souci than the discussion of the materialistic philosophy of the Encyclopedists, while he affected to despise his own tongue, rejecting every effort towards the popularization of a national literature. Well is it for Germany that other ideas now prevail,—well, that Goethe in his old age overcame the Gallomania, which for a while possessed him, of translating all his works, and thenceforth writing only in French. The iron hand of Goetz of Berlichingen would burst the seams of a Paris kid-glove. The bold lyric and dramatic poesy of a language whose figures well up in each word with primitive freshness can ill be contained in an idiom blasé by conventionality and frozen into crystal rigidity by the academy of the illustrious forty,—in an idiom in which an unfortunate pun or allusion can destroy the effect of a whole piece. We need but call to mind that Shakspeare's "Othello" was laughed off the stage of the Odéon, owing to the ridiculous ideas the word "napkin" or "handkerchief" called up in the auditory.

Nor is the influence of the university in Germany exerted in matters of great national interest only. It pervades the social, literary, and political organization of the people. The least part of what characterizes an individual nation ever comes into its books. Here it finds its way from mouth to mouth to the remotest corners of the land. When Luther, the Professor of Wittenberg, spoke against indulgences, it was more than priest or monk that was heard. The voice of the monk would not have echoed beyond his cell, and the influence of the priest would have been arrested and checked before it could have been exerted beyond the limits of his parish or town. But the Professor Luther addressed himself to a more influential audience. His words were carried before many years into every part of the Empire.

Setting aside the Austrian universities, which are no longer what they were formerly, the teaching in these higher schools, whatever the State restrictions may be, is eminently free,—freer than in France,—freer than in England,—in many respects even, however it may sound, freer than in the United States. As a result, the land is a hot-bed of the boldest philosophical systems and the wildest theological aberrations. There is no branch of speculation that does not find its representative. In law, in medicine, in philology, in history, the old methods of study and research have been revolutionized. But the State stands before the innovators, firm and conservative in its practice. And in the end it has been found, that, whatever wild theories may spring up in theology and in philosophy, the corrective is nigh at hand, and truth will make its way when the field is open to all.

It must be remembered that the German university is no preparatory school; those who enter it have gone through studies and a mental training that have made them capable of judging for themselves. They hear whom they please. Their chief study, whatever they acquire in the lecture-room, is done when alone. They attend on an average for three or four hours a day, spending as much time in the libraries, from which they have the privilege of taking out books. As a completion to their lectures, the professors generally have Seminaren once or twice a week, or Exercitationes in history, philology, etc., in which the Socratic method of teaching in dialogue is made use of. Museums and scientific collections are richly provided in the larger institutions. In some of these lectures are held: thus, Lepsius explains Egyptian archaeology in the Egyptian halls in Berlin. The libraries provided by the State, and to which all have access, are often considerable: thus, Göttingen has 350,000 volumes; Berlin, 600,000; Munich, 800,000.

As for the expenses of study, they are inconsiderable; thirty or thirty-five dollars the term will cover them, as there are generally several courses public. The students often attend for months as guests, hospitanten. As they say,—"The Fox pays for more than he hears, and the Bursch hears more than he pays for." The lecturers take no notice of those present; and, provided the matriculation-papers have been taken out, the beadle has nothing to say. There is the fullest liberty of wandering from room to room, and hearing, if only once or twice, any one of the professors. As for the expenses of living, they vary. To one who would be satisfied with German student-fare and comforts, four hundred dollars a year will answer every purpose, even in the dearest cities: many do with much less. In Southern Germany, life is simpler and cheaper than in Northern, and the saying is true in Munich, that a Gulden there will go as far as a Thaler in Prussia. There are poorer students, who are exempted from college-fees, and support themselves by Stipendia, whose outlay never exceeds a hundred dollars a year.

When several hundred or thousand young men are thus thrown together, with their time all their own, and none to whom they are responsible for their actions, it may easily be supposed that many abuses and irregularities will occur. Yet the great mass are better than they have been represented; though regular attendance upon lectures is true only of those who ox it at home, as the phrase goes, and who by the rioting, beer-drinking Burschen are styled Philistines or Camels. These same quiet individuals, whom the Samsons affect to despise, will be found to be by far in preponderance, when the statistics of Corps, Landmannschaften, and all such clubs, are looked into; though the characteristic of the latter, always to be seen at public places of amusement with their colored caps, gaudy watch-guards, or cannon-boots, would lead one to suppose that German student-life was one round of beer-drinking, sword-slashing, and jolly existence, as represented, or rather, misrepresented, by William Howitt, in the halo of poetry he throws around it. No,—the fantastically dressed fellows whom the tourist may notice at Jena, and the groups of starers who stop every narrow passageway in front of the confectionery-shops of Heidelberg, or amuse themselves of summer-afternoons with their trained dogs, diverting the attention of the temporary guest of "Prince Carl" from the contemplation of the old ruined castle of the Counts-Palatine,—these are but a fraction of the German students. From, among them may be chosen those tight-laced officers who make the court-residences of Europe look like camps; or, as they are often the sons of noblemen or rich parents, they may reach some of the sinecures in the State. They make their student-years but a pretext for a life of rough debauchery, from which they issue with a bought diploma; and, in many cases, satiated and disgusted with their own lives, they dwindle down into the timeserving reactionaries, the worst enemies of free development, because they themselves have abused in youth the little liberty they enjoyed.

If the numbers be counted of those who lead the life so much extolled by William Howitt,—who, by the way, has left out some of its roughest traits,—they will be found, even where most numerous, as in the smaller towns, never to exceed one-fourth of those inscribed as students. The linguists and philosophers of Germany, her historians and men of letters, her professors and savans, have come from the ranks of that stiller and more numerous class whom the stranger will never notice: for their triennium is spent mostly in the lecture-room or at home; and their conviviality—for there are neither disciples nor apostles of temperance in this beer-drinking land—is of a nature not to divert them from their earnest pursuits.

Truth and earnestness are the distinguishing traits of the German character; and these qualities show no less strongly in the youth who frequent the universities than in the professors themselves. The latter, conscientious to a nicety in exposing the fullest fruits of their laborious researches, are ever faithful to the trust reposed in them. Placed by the State in a position beyond ordinary ambition and above pecuniary cares, they can devote themselves exclusively to their calling, concentrating their powers in one channel,—to raise, to ennoble, to educate. It contributes not a little to their success, that their hearers are permeated, whatever wild and unbridled freaks they may fall into at times, with the fullest sense of honor and manly worth, with an ardent love for knowledge and science for their own sake, not for future utility. Their sympathies are awake for the good everywhere, their minds receptive of the highest teachings. Their loves and likes are great and strong,—as it behooves, when the first bubblings of mental and physical activity are manifested in action. They abandon themselves, body and soul, to the occupation of the moment, be it study, be it pleasure. Their gatherings and feasts and excursions are ennobled by vocal music from the rich store of healthy, vigorous German song,— from which they learn, in the words of one of their most popular melodies, to honor "woman's love, man's strength, the free word, the bold deed, and the FATHERLAND!"

THE PROFESSOR'S STORY.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE SECRET IS WHISPERED.

The Reverend Chauncy Fairweather's congregation was not large, but select. The lines of social cleavage run through religious creeds as if they were of a piece with position and fortune. It is expected of persons of a certain breeding, in some parts of New England, that they shall be either Episcopalians or Unitarians. The mansion-house gentry of Rockland were pretty fairly divided between the little chapel with the stained window and the trained rector, and the meeting-house where the Reverend Mr. Fairweather officiated.

It was in the latter that Dudley Venner worshipped, when he attended service anywhere,—which depended very much on the caprice of Elsie. He saw plainly enough that a generous and liberally cultivated nature might find a refuge and congenial souls in either of these two persuasions, but he objected to some points of the formal creed of the older church, and especially to the mechanism which renders it hard to get free from its outworn and offensive formulae,—remembering how Archbishop Tillotson wished in vain that it could be "well rid of" the Athanasian Creed. This, and the fact that the meeting-house was nearer than the chapel, determined him, when the new, rector, who was not quite up to his mark in education, was appointed, to take a pew in the "liberal" worshippers' edifice.

Elsie was very uncertain in her feeling about going to church. In summer, she loved rather to stroll over The Mountain on Sundays. There was even a story, that she had one of the caves before mentioned fitted up as an oratory, and that she had her own wild way of worshipping the God whom she sought in the dark chasms of the dreaded cliffs. Mere fables, doubtless; but they showed the common belief, that Elsie, with all her strange and dangerous elements of character, had yet strong religions feeling mingled with them. The hymn-book which Dick had found, in his midnight invasion of her chamber, opened to favorite hymns, especially some of the Methodist and Quietist character. Many had noticed, that certain tunes, as sung by the choir, seemed to impress her deeply; and some said, that at such times her whole expression would change, and her stormy look would soften so as to remind them of her poor, sweet mother.

On the Sunday morning after the talk recorded in the last chapter, Elsie made herself ready to go to meeting. She was dressed much as usual, excepting that she wore a thick veil, turned aside, but ready to conceal her features. It was natural enough that she should not wish to be looked in the face by curious persons who would be staring to see what effect the occurrence of the past week had had on her spirits. Her father attended her willingly; and they took their seats in the pew, somewhat to the surprise of many, who had hardly expected to see them, after so humiliating a family development as the attempted crime of their kinsman had just been furnishing for the astonishment of the public.

The Reverend Mr. Fairweather was now in his coldest mood. He had passed through the period of feverish excitement which marks a change of religious opinion. At first, when he had begun to doubt his own theological positions, he had defended them against himself with more ingenuity and interest, perhaps, than he could have done against another; because men rarely take the trouble to understand anybody's difficulties in a question but their own. After this, as he began to draw off from different points of his old belief, the cautious disentangling of himself from one mesh after another gave sharpness to his intellect, and the tremulous eagerness with which he seized upon the doctrine which, piece by piece, under various pretexts and with various disguises, he was appropriating, gave interest and something like passion to his words. But when he had gradually accustomed his people to his new phraseology, and was really adjusting his sermons and his service to disguise his thoughts, he lost at once all his intellectual acuteness and all his spiritual fervor.

Elsie sat quietly through the first part of the service, which was conducted in the cold, mechanical way to be expected. Her face was bidden by her veil; but her father knew her state of feeling, as well by her movements and attitudes as by the expression of her features. The hymn had been sung, the short prayer offered, the Bible read, and the long prayer was about to begin. This was the time at which the "notes" of any who were in affliction from loss of friends, the sick who were doubtful of recovery, those who had cause to be grateful for preservation of life or other signal blessing, were wont to be read.

Just then it was that Dudley Venner noticed that his daughter was trembling,—a thing so rare, so unaccountable, indeed, under the circumstances, that he watched her closely, and began to fear that some nervous paroxysm, or other malady, might have just begun to show itself in this way upon her.

The minister had in his pocket two notes. One, in the handwriting of Deacon Soper, was from a member of this congregation, returning thanks for his preservation through a season of great peril,—supposed to be the exposure which he had shared with others, when standing in the circle around Dick Venner. The other was the anonymous one, in a female hand, which he had received the evening before. He forgot them both. His thoughts were altogether too much taken up with more important matters. He prayed through all the frozen petitions of his expurgated form of supplication, and not a single heart was soothed or lifted, or reminded that its sorrows were struggling their way up to heaven, borne on the breath from a human soul that was warm with love.

The people sat down as if relieved when the dreary prayer was finished. Elsie alone remained standing until her father touched her. Then she sat down, lifted her veil, and looked at him with a blank, sad look, as if she had suffered some pain or wrong, but could not give any name or expression to her vague trouble. She did not tremble any longer, but remained ominously still, as if she had been frozen where she sat.

—Can a man love his own soul too well? Who, on the whole, constitute the nobler class of human beings? those who have lived mainly to make sure of their own personal welfare in another and future condition of existence, or they who have worked with all their might for their race, for their country, for the advancement of the kingdom of God, and left all personal arrangements concerning themselves to the sole charge of Him who made them and is responsible to Himself for their safe-keeping? Is an anchorite, who has worn the stone floor of his cell into basins with his knees bent in prayer, more acceptable than the soldier who gives his life for the maintenance of any sacred right or truth, without thinking what will specially become of him in a world where there are two or three million colonists a month, from this one planet, to be cared for? These are grave questions, which must suggest themselves to those who know that there are many profoundly selfish persons who are sincerely devout and perpetually occupied with their own future, while there are others who are perfectly ready to sacrifice themselves for any worthy object in this world, but are really too little occupied with their exclusive personality to think so much as many do about what is to become of them in another.

The Reverend Chauncy Fairweather did not, most certainly, belong to this latter class. There are several kinds of believers, whose history we find among the early converts to Christianity.

There was the magistrate, whose social position was such that he preferred private interview in the evening with the Teacher to following him with the street-crowd. He had seen extraordinary facts which had satisfied him that the young Galilean had a divine commission. But still he cross-questioned the Teacher himself. He was not ready to accept statements without explanation. That was the right kind of man. See how he stood up for the legal rights of his Master, when the people were for laying hands on him!

And again, there was the government official, intrusted with public money, which, in those days, implied that he was supposed to be honest. A single look of that heavenly countenance, and two words of gentle command, were enough for him. Neither of these men, the early disciple nor the evangelist, seems to have been thinking primarily about his own personal safety.

But now look at the poor, miserable turnkey, whose occupation shows what he was like to be, and who had just been thrusting two respectable strangers, taken from the hands of a mob, covered with stripes and stripped of clothing, into the inner prison, and making their feet fast in the stocks. His thought, in the moment of terror, is for himself: first, suicide; then, what he shall do,—not to save his household,—not to fulfil his duty to his office,—not to repair the outrage he has been committing,—but to secure his own personal safety. Truly, character shows itself as much in a man's way of becoming a Christian as in any other!

——Elsie sat, statue-like, through the sermon. It would not be fair to the reader to give an abstract of that. When a man who has been bred to free thought and free speech suddenly finds himself stepping about, like a dancer amidst his eggs, among the old addled majority-votes which he must not tread upon, he is a spectacle for men and angels. Submission to intellectual precedent and authority does very well for those who have been bred to it; we know that the under-ground courses of their minds are laid in the Roman cement of tradition, and that stately and splendid structures may be reared on such a foundation. But to see one laying a platform over heretical quicksands, thirty or forty or fifty years deep, and then beginning to build upon it, is a sorry sight. A new convert from the reformed to the ancient faith may be very strong in the arms, but he will always have weak legs and shaky knees. He may use his hands well, and hit hard with his fists, but he will never stand on his legs in the way the man does who inherits his belief.

The services were over at last, and Dudley Venner and his daughter walked home together in silence. He always respected her moods, and saw clearly enough that some inward trouble was weighing upon her. There was nothing to be said in such cases, for Elsie could never talk of her griefs. An hour, or a day, or a week of brooding, with perhaps a sudden flash of violence: this was the way in which the impressions which make other women weep, and tell their griefs by word or letter, showed their effects in her mind and acts.

She wandered off up into the remoter parts of The Mountain, that day, after their return. No one saw just where she went,—indeed, no one knew its forest-recesses and rocky fastnesses as she did. She was gone until late at night; and when Old Sophy, who had watched for her, bound up her long hair for her sleep, it was damp with the cold dews.

The old black woman looked at her without speaking, but questioning her with every feature as to the sorrow that was weighing on her.

"You want to know what there is troubling me," she said. "Nobody loves me. I cannot love anybody. What is love, Sophy?"

"It's what poor ol' Sophy's got for her Elsie," the old woman answered. "Tell me, darlin',—don' you love somebody?—don' you love——? you know,—oh, tell me, darlin', don' you love to see the gen'l'man that keeps up at the school where you go? They say he's the pootiest gen'l'man that was ever in the town here. Don' be 'fraid of poor Ol' Sophy, darlin',—she loved a man once,—see here! Oh, I've showed you this often enough!"

She took from her pocket a half of one of the old Spanish silver coins, such as were current in the earlier part of this century. The other half of it had been lying in the deep sea-sand for more than fifty years.

Elsie looked her in the face, but did not answer in words. What strange intelligence was that which passed between them through the diamond eyes and the little beady black ones?—what subtile intercommunication, penetrating so much deeper than articulate speech? This was the nearest approach to sympathetic relations that Elsie ever had: a kind of dumb intercourse of feeling, such as one sees in the eyes of brute mothers looking on their young. But, subtile as it was, it was narrow and individual; whereas an emotion which can shape itself in language opens the gate for itself into the great community of human affections; for every word we speak is the medal of a dead thought or feeling, struck in the die of some human experience, worn smooth by innumerable contacts, and always transferred warm from one to another. By words we share the common consciousness of the race, which has shaped itself in these symbols. By music we reach those special states of consciousness which, being without form, cannot be shaped with the mosaics of the vocabulary. The language of the eyes runs deeper into the personal nature, but it is purely individual, and perishes in the expression. If we consider them all as growing out of the consciousness as their root, language is the leaf, music is the flower; but when the eyes meet and search each other, it is the uncovering of the blanched stem through which the whole life runs, but which has never taken color or form from the sunlight.

For three days Elsie did not return to the school. Much of the time she was among the woods and rocks. The season was now beginning to wane, and the forest to put on its autumnal glory. The dreamy haze was beginning to soften the landscape, and the most delicious days of the year were lending their attraction to the scenery of The Mountain. It was not very singular that Elsie should be lingering in her old haunts, from which the change of season must soon drive her. But Old Sophy saw clearly enough that some internal conflict was going on, and knew very well that it must have its own way and work itself out as it best could. As much as looks could tell Elsie had told her. She had said in words, to be sure, that she could not love. Something warped and thwarted the emotion which would have been love in another, no doubt; but that such an emotion was striving with her against all malign influences which interfered with it the old woman had a perfect certainty in her own mind.

Everybody who has observed the working of emotions in persons of various temperaments knows well enough that they have periods of incubation, which differ with the individual, and with the particular cause and degree of excitement, yet evidently go through a strictly self-limited series of evolutions, at the end of which, their result—an act of violence, a paroxysm of tears, a gradual subsidence into repose, or whatever it may be—declares itself, like the last stage of an attack of fever and ague. No one can observe children without noticing that there is a personal equation, to use the astronomer's language, in their tempers, so that one sulks an hour over an offence which makes another a fury for five minutes, and leaves him or her an angel when it is over.

At the end of three days, Elsie braided her long, glossy, black hair, and shot a golden arrow through it. She dressed herself with more than usual care, and came down in the morning superb in her stormy beauty. The brooding paroxysm was over, or at least her passion had changed its phase. Her father saw it with great relief; he had always many fears for her in her hours and days of gloom, but, for reasons before assigned, had felt that she must be trusted to herself, without appealing to actual restraint, or any other supervision than such as Old Sophy could exercise without offence.

She went off at the accustomed hour to the school. All the girls had their eyes on her. None so keen as these young misses to know an inward movement by an outward sign of adornment: if they have not as many signals as the ships that sail the great seas, there is not an end of ribbon or a turn of a ringlet which is not a hieroglyphic with a hidden meaning to these little cruisers over the ocean of sentiment.

The girls all looked at Elsie with a new thought; for she was more sumptuously arrayed than perhaps ever before at the school; and they said to themselves that she had come meaning to draw the young master's eyes upon her. That was it; what else could it be? The beautiful, cold girl with the diamond eyes meant to dazzle the handsome young gentleman. He would be afraid to love her; it couldn't be true, that which some people had said in the village; she wasn't the kind of young lady to make Mr. Langdon happy. Those dark people are never safe: so one of the young blondes said to herself. Elsie was not literary enough for such a scholar: so thought Miss Charlotte Ann Wood, the young poetess. She couldn't have a good temper, with those scowling eyebrows: this was the opinion of several broad-faced, smiling girls, who thought, each in her own snug little mental sanctum, that, if, etc., etc. she could make him so happy!

Elsie had none of the still, wicked light in her eyes, that morning. She looked gentle, but dreamy; played with her books; did not trouble herself with any of the exercises,—which in itself was not very remarkable, as she was always allowed, under some pretext or other, to have her own way.

The school-hours were over at length. The girls went out, but she lingered to the last. She then came up to Mr. Bernard, with a book in her hand, as if to ask a question.

"Will you walk towards my home with me to-day?" she said, in a very low voice, little more than a whisper.

Mr. Bernard was startled by the request, put in such a way. He had a presentiment of some painful scene or other. But there was nothing to be done but to assure her that it would give him great pleasure.

"I have no friend," Elsie said, all at once. "Nothing loves me but one old woman. I cannot love anybody. They tell me there is something in my eyes that draws people to me and makes them faint. Look into them, will you?"

She turned her face toward him. It was very pale, and the diamond eyes were glittering with a film, such as beneath other lids would have rounded into a tear.

"Beautiful eyes, Elsie," he said,—"sometimes very piercing,—but soft now, and looking as if there were something beneath them that friendship might draw out. I am your friend, Elsie. Tell me what I can do to render your life happier."

What shall a man do, when a woman makes such a demand, involving such an avowal? It was the tenderest, cruellest, humblest moment of Mr. Bernard's life. He turned pale, he trembled almost, as if he had been a woman listening to her lover's declaration.

"Elsie," he said, presently, "I so long to be of some use to you, to have your confidence and sympathy, that I must not let you say or do anything to put us in false relations. I do love you, Elsie, as a suffering sister with sorrows of her own,—as one whom I would save at the risk of my happiness and life,—as one who needs a true friend more than any of all the young girls I have known. More than this you would not ask me to say. You have been through excitement and trouble lately, and it has made you feel such a need more than ever. Give me your hand, dear Elsie, and trust me that I will be as true a friend to you as if we were children of the same mother."

Elsie gave him her hand mechanically. It seemed to him that a cold aura shot from it along his arm and chilled the blood running through his heart. He pressed it gently, looked at her with a face full of grave kindness and sad interest, then softly relinquished it.

It was all over with poor Elsie. They walked almost in silence the rest of the way. Mr. Bernard left her at the gate of the mansion-house, and returned with sad forebodings. Elsie went at once to her own room, and did not come from it at the usual hours. At last Old Sophy began to be alarmed about her, went to her apartment, and, finding the door unlocked, entered cautiously. She found Elsie lying on her bed, her brows strongly contracted, her eyes dull, her whole look that of great suffering. Her first thought was that she had been doing herself a harm by some deadly means or other. But Elsie saw her fear, and reassured her.

"No," she said, "there is nothing wrong, such as you are thinking of; I am not dying. You may send for the Doctor; perhaps he can take the pain from my head. That is all I want him to do. There is no use in the pain, that I know of; if he can stop it, let him."

So they sent for the old Doctor. It was not long before the solid trot of Caustic, the old bay horse, and the crashing of the gravel under the wheels, gave notice that the physician was driving up the avenue.

The old Doctor was a model for visiting practitioners. He always came into the sick-room with a quiet, cheerful look, as if he had a consciousness that he was bringing some sure relief with him. The way a patient snatches his first look at his doctor's face, to see whether he is doomed, whether he is reprieved, whether he is unconditionally pardoned, has really something terrible about it. It is only to be met by an imperturbable mask of serenity, proof against anything and everything in a patient's aspect. The physician whose face reflects his patient's condition like a mirror may do well enough to examine people for a life-insurance office, but does not belong to the sick-room. The old Doctor did not keep people waiting in dread suspense, while he stayed talking about the case,—the patient all the time thinking that he and the friends are discussing some alarming symptom or formidable operation which he himself is by-and-by to hear of.

He was in Elsie's room almost before she knew he was in the house. He came to her bedside in such a natural, quiet way, that it seemed as if he were only a friend who had dropped in for a moment to say a pleasant word. Yet he was very uneasy about Elsie until he had seen her; he never knew what might happen to her or those about her, and came prepared for the worst.

The Doctor took her hand,—whether with professional views, or only in a friendly way, it would have been hard to tell. So he sat a few minutes, looking at her all the time with a kind of fatherly interest, but with it all noting how she lay, how she breathed, her color, her expression, all that teaches the practised eye so much without a single question being asked. He saw she was in suffering, and said presently,—

As she was not disposed to talk, he watched her for a while, questioned Old Sophy shrewdly a few minutes, and so made up his mind as to the probable cause of disturbance and the proper means to be used.

Some very silly people thought the old Doctor did not believe in medicine, because he gave less than certain poor half-taught creatures in the smaller neighboring towns, who took advantage of people's sickness to disgust and disturb them with all manner of ill-smelling and ill-behaving drugs. To tell the truth, he hated to give any thing noxious or loathsome to those who were uncomfortable enough already, unless he was very sure it would do good,—in which case, he never played with drugs, but gave good, honest, efficient doses. Sometimes he lost a family of the more boorish sort, because they did not think they got their money's worth out of him, unless they had something more than a taste of everything he carried in his saddle-bags.

He ordered some remedies which he thought would relieve Elsie, and left her, saying he would call the next day, hoping to find her better. But the next day came, and the next, and still Elsie was on her bed,—feverish, restless, wakeful, silent. At night she tossed about and wandered, and it became at length apparent that there was a settled attack, something like what they called formerly a "nervous fever."

On the fourth day she was more restless than common. One of the women of the house came in to help to take care of her; but she showed an aversion to her presence.

The old Doctor told them, that, if possible, they must indulge this fancy of hers. The caprices of sick people were never to be despised, least of all of such persons as Elsie, when rendered irritable and exacting by pain and weakness.

So a message was sent to Mr. Silas Peckham, at the Apollinean Institute, to know if he could not spare Miss Helen Darley for a few days, if required to give her attention to a young lady who attended his school and who was now lying ill,—no other person than the daughter of Dudley Venner.

A mean man never agrees to anything without deliberately turning it over, so that he may see its dirty side, and, if he can, sweating the coin he pays for it. If an archangel should offer to save his soul for sixpence, he would try to find a sixpence with a hole in it. A gentleman says yes to a great many things without stopping to think: a shabby fellow is known by his caution in answering questions, for fear of compromising his pocket or himself.

Mr. Silas Peckham looked very grave at the request. The dooties of Miss Darley at the Institoot were important, very important. He paid her large sums of money for her time,—more than she could expect to get in any other institootion for the education of female youth. A deduction from her salary would be necessary, in case she should retire from the sphere of her dooties for a season. He should be put to extra expense, and have to perform additional labors himself. He would consider of the matter. If any arrangement could be made, he would send word to Squire Venner's folks.

"Miss Darley," said Silas Peckham, "the' 's a message from Squire Venner's that his daughter wants you down at the mansion-house to see her. She's got a fever, so they inform me. If it's any kind of ketchin' fever, of course you won't think of goin' near the mansion-house. If Doctor Kittredge says it's safe, perfec'ly safe, I can't objec' to your goin', on sech conditions as seem to be fair to all concerned. You will give up your pay for the whole time you are absent,—portions of days to be caounted as whole days. You will be charged with board the same as if you eat your victuals with the household. The victuals are of no use after they're cooked but to be eat, and your bein' away is no savin' to our folks. I shall charge you a reasonable compensation for the demage to the school by the absence of a teacher. If Miss Crabs undertakes any dooties belongin' to your department of instruction, she will look to you for sech pecooniary considerations as you may agree upon between you. On these conditions I am willin' to give my consent to your temporary absence from the post of dooty. I will step down to Doctor Kittredge's, myself, and make inquiries as to the nature of the complaint."

Mr. Peckham took up a rusty and very narrow-brimmed hat, which he cocked upon one side of his head, with an air peculiar to the rural gentry. It was the hour when the Doctor expected to be in his office, unless he had some special call which kept him from home.

He found the Reverend Chauncy Fairweather just taking leave of the Doctor. His hand was on the pit of his stomach, and his countenance expressive of inward uneasiness.

"Shake it before using," said the Doctor; "and the sooner you make up your mind to speak right out, the better it will be for your digestion."

"The haalth of the school is fust-rate," replied Mr. Peckham. "The sitooation is uncommonly favorable to saloobrity." (These last words were from the Annual Report of the past year.) "Providence has spared our female youth in a remarkable measure, I've come with reference to another consideration. Dr. Kittredge. is there any ketchin' complaint goin' about in the village?"

"Well, yes," said the Doctor, "I should say there was something of that sort. Measles. Mumps. And Sin,—that's always catching."

The old Doctor's eye twinkled; once in a while he had his little touch of humor. Silas Peckham slanted his eye up suspiciously at the Doctor, as if he was getting some kind of advantage over him. That is the way people of his constitution are apt to take a bit of pleasantry.

"I don't mean sech things, Doctor; I mean fevers. Is there any ketchin' fevers—bilious, or nervous, or typus, or whatever you call 'em—now goin' round this village? That's what I want to ascertain, if there's no impropriety."

"Hard and sour as a green cider-apple," he thought to himself. "No," he said,—"I don't know any such cases."

"What's the matter with Elsie Venner?" asked Silas, sharply, as if he expected to have him this time.

"A mild feverish attack, I should call it in anybody else; but she has a peculiar constitution, and I never feel so safe about her as I should about most people."

"No, indeed!" said the Doctor,—"catching?—no,—what put that into your head, Mr. Peckham?"

"Well, Doctor," the conscientious Principal answered, "I naterally feel a graat responsibility, a very graiiiit responsibility, for the noomerous and lovely young ladies committed to my charge. It has been a question, whether one of my assistants should go, accordin' to request, to stop with Miss Venner for a season. Nothin' restrains my givin' my full and free consent to her goin' but the fear lest contagious maladies should be introdooced among those lovely female youth. I shall abide by your opinion,—I understan' you to say distinc'ly, her complaint is not ketchin'?—and urge upon Miss Darley to fulfil her dooties to a sufferin' fellow-creature at any cost to myself and my establishment. We shall miss her very much; but it is a good cause, and she shall go,—and I shall trust that Providence will enable us to spare her without permanent demage to the interests of the Institootion."

Saying this, the excellent Principal departed, with his rusty narrow-brimmed hat leaning over, as if it had a six-knot breeze abeam, and its gunwale (so to speak) was dipping into his coat-collar. He announced the result of his inquiries to Helen, who had received a brief note in the mean time from a poor relation of Elsie's mother, then at the mansion-house, informing her of the critical situation of Elsie and of her urgent desire that Helen should be with her. She could not hesitate. She blushed as she thought of the comments that might be made; but what were such considerations in a matter of life and death? She could not stop to make terms with Silas Peckham. She must go. He might fleece her, if he would; she would not complain,—not even to Bernard, who, she knew, would bring the Principal to terms, if she gave him the least hint of his intended extortions.

So Helen made up her bundle of clothes to be sent after her, took a book or two with her to help her pass the time, and departed for the Dudley mansion. It was with a great inward effort that she undertook the sisterly task which was thus forced upon her. She had a kind of terror of Elsie; and the thought of having charge of her, of being alone with her, of coming under the full influence of those diamond eyes,—if, indeed, their light were not dimmed by suffering and weariness,—was one she shrank from. But what could she do? It might be a turning-point in the life of the poor girl; and she must overcome all her fears, all her repugnance, and go to her rescue.

"Is Helen come?" said Elsie, when she heard, with her fine sense quickened by the irritability of sickness, a light footfall on the stair, with a cadence unlike that of any inmate of the house.

"It's a strange woman's step," said Old Sophy, who, with her exclusive love for Elsie, was naturally disposed to jealousy of a new-comer. "Lot Ol' Sophy set at th' foot o' th' bed, if th' young missis sets by th' piller,—won' y', darlin'? The' 's nobody that's white can love y' as th' ol' black woman does;—don' sen' her away, now, there's a dear soul!"

Elsie motioned her to sit in the place she had pointed to, and Helen at that moment entered the room. Dudley Venner followed her.

"She is your patient," he said, "except while the Doctor is here. She has been longing to have you with her, and we shall expect you to make her well in a few days."

So Helen Darley found herself established in the most unexpected manner as an inmate of the Dudley mansion. She sat with Elsie most of the time, by day and by night, soothing her, and trying to enter into her confidence and affections, if it should prove that this strange creature was really capable of truly sympathetic emotions.

What was this unexplained something which came between her soul and that of every other human being with whom she was in relations? Helen perceived, or rather felt, that she had, folded up in the depths of her being, a true womanly nature. Through the cloud that darkened her aspect, now and then a ray would steal forth, which, like the smile of stern and solemn people, was all the more impressive from its contrast with the expression she wore habitually. It might well be that pain and fatigue had changed her aspect; but, at any rate, Helen looked into her eyes without that nervous agitation which their cold glitter had produced on her when they were full of their natural light. She felt sure that her mother must have been a lovely, gentle woman. There were gleams of a beautiful nature shining through some ill-defined medium which disturbed and made them flicker and waver, as distant images do when seen through the rippling upward currents of heated air. She loved, in her own way, the old black woman, and seemed to keep up a kind of silent communication with her, as if they did not require the use of speech. She appeared to be tranquillized by the presence of Helen, and loved to have her seated at the bedside. Yet something, whatever it was, prevented her from opening her heart to her kind companion; and even now there were times when she would lie looking at her, with such a still, watchful, almost dangerous expression, that Helen would sigh, and change her place, as persons do whose breath some cunning orator has been sucking out of them with his spongy eloquence, so that, when he stops, they must get some air and stir about, or they feel as if they should be half-smothered and palsied.

It was too much to keep guessing what was the meaning of all this. Helen determined to ask Old Sophy some questions which might probably throw light upon her doubts. She took the opportunity one evening when Elsie was lying asleep and they were both sitting at some distance from her bed.

"Tell me, Sophy," she said, "was Elsie always as shy as she seems to be now, in talking with those to whom she is friendly?"

"Alway jes' so, Miss Darlin', ever sence she was little chil'. When she was five, six year old, she lisp some,—call me Thophy; that make her kin' o' 'shamed, perhaps: after she grow up, she never lisp, but she kin' o' got the way o' not talkin' much. Fac' is, she don' like talkin' as common gals do, 'xcep' jes' once in a while with some partic'lar folks,—'n' then not much."

"How long ago did her mother die?" Helen asked, with a little trembling in her voice.

Helen was silent for a moment. Then she whispered, almost inaudibly,—for her voice appeared to fail her,—

The old woman's small eyes dilated until a ring of white showed round their beady centres. She caught Helen by the hand and clung to it, as if in fear. She looked round at Elsie, who lay sleeping, as if she might be listening. Then she drew Helen towards her and led her softly out of the room.

"'Sh!—'sh!" she said, as soon as they were outside the door. "Don' never speak in this house 'bout what Elsie's mother died of!" she said. "Nobody never says nothin' 'bout it. Oh, God has made Ugly Things wi' death in their mouths, Miss Darlin', an' He knows what they're for; but my poor Elsie!—to have her blood changed in her before—It was in July Mistress got her death, but she liv' till three week after my poor Elsie was born."

She could speak no more. She had said enough. Helen remembered the stories she had heard on coming to the village, and among them one referred to in an early chapter of this narrative. All the unaccountable looks and tastes and ways of Elsie came back to her in the light of an ante-natal impression which had mingled an alien element in her nature. She knew the secret of the fascination which looked out of her cold, glittering eyes. She knew the significance of the strange repulsion which—she felt in her own intimate consciousness underlying the inexplicable attraction which drew her towards the young girl in spite of this repugnance. She began to look with new feelings on the contradictions in her moral nature,—the longing for sympathy, as shown by her wishing for Helen's company, and the impossibility of passing beyond the cold circle of isolation within which she had her being. The fearful truth of that instinctive feeling of hers, that there was something not human looking out of Elsie's eyes, came upon her with a sudden flash of penetrating conviction. There were two warring principles in that superb organization and proud soul. One made her a woman, with all a woman's powers and longings. The other chilled all the currents of outlet for her emotions. It made her tearless and mute, when another woman would have wept and pleaded. And it infused into her soul something—it was cruel now to call it malice—which was still and watchful and dangerous,—which waited its opportunity, and then shot like an arrow from its bow out of the coil of brooding premeditation. Even those who had never seen the white scars on Dick Venner's wrist, or heard the half-told story of her supposed attempt to do a graver mischief, knew well enough by looking at her that she was one of the creatures not to be tampered with,—silent in anger and swift in vengeance.

Helen could not return to the bedside at once after this communication. It was with altered eyes that she must look on the poor girl, the victim of such an unheard-of fatality. All was explained to her now. But it opened such depths of solemn thought in her awakened consciousness, that it seemed as if the whole mystery of human life were coming up again before her for trial and judgment. "Oh," she thought, "if, while the will lies sealed in its fountain, it may be poisoned at its very source, so that it shall flow dark and deadly through its whole course, who are we that we should judge our fellow-creatures by ourselves?" Then came the terrible question, how far the elements themselves are capable of perverting the moral nature: if valor, and justice, and truth, the strength of man and the virtue of woman, may not be poisoned out of a race by the food of the Australian in his forest,—by the foul air and darkness of the Christians cooped up in the "tenement-houses close by those who live in the palaces of the great cities?"

She walked out into the garden, lost in thought upon these dark and deep matters. Presently she heard a step behind her, and Elsie's father came up and joined her. Since his introduction to Helen at the distinguished tea-party given by the Widow Rowens, and before her coming to sit with Elsie, Mr. Dudley Venner had in the most accidental way in the world met her on several occasions: once after church, when she happened to be caught in a slight shower and he insisted on holding his umbrella over her on her way home;—once at a small party at one of the mansion-houses, where the quick-eyed lady of the house had a wonderful knack of bringing people together who liked to see each other;—perhaps at other times and places; but of this there is no certain evidence.

They naturally spoke of Elsie, her illness, and the aspect it had taken. But Helen noticed in all that Dudley Venner said about his daughter a morbid sensitiveness, as it seemed to her, an aversion to saying much about her physical condition or her peculiarities,—a wish to feel and speak as a parent should, and yet a shrinking, as if there were something about Elsie which he could not bear to dwell upon. She thought she saw through all this, and she could interpret it all charitably. There were circumstances about his daughter which recalled the great sorrow of his life; it was not strange that this perpetual reminder should in some degree have modified his feelings as a father. But what a life he must have been leading for so many years, with this perpetual source of distress which he could not name! Helen knew well enough, now, the meaning of the sadness which had left such traces in his features and tones, and it made her feel very kindly and compassionate towards him.

So they walked over the crackling leaves in the garden, between the lines of box breathing its fragrance of eternity;—for this is one of the odors which carry us out of time into the abysses of the unbeginning past; if we ever lived on another ball of stone than this, it must be that there was box growing on it. So they walked, finding their way softly to each other's sorrows and sympathies, each meeting some counterpart to the other's experience of life, and startled to see how the different, yet parallel, lessons they had been taught by suffering had led them step by step to the same serene acquiescence in the orderings of that Supreme Wisdom which they both devoutly recognized.

Old Sophy was at the window and saw them walking up and down the garden-alleys. She watched them as her grandfather the savage watched the figures that moved among the trees when a hostile tribe was lurking about his mountain.

"There'll be a weddin' in the ol' house," she said, "before there's roses on them bushes ag'in. But it won' be my poor Elsie's weddin', 'n' Ol' Sophy won' be there."

When Helen prayed in the silence of her soul that evening, it was not that Elsie's life might be spared. She dared not ask that as a favor of Heaven. What could life be to her but a perpetual anguish, and to those about her an ever-present terror? Might she but be so influenced by divine grace, that what in her was most truly human, most purely woman-like, should overcome the dark, cold, unmentionable instinct which had pervaded her being like a subtile poison: that was all she could ask, and the rest she left to a higher wisdom and tenderer love than her own.

GYMNASTICS.

So your zeal for physical training begins to wane a little, my friend? I thought it would, in your particular case, because it began too ardently and was concentrated too exclusively on your one hobby of pedestrianism. Just now you are literally under the weather. It is the equinoctial storm. No matter, you say; did not Olmsted foot it over England under an umbrella? did not Wordsworth regularly walk every guest round Windermere, the day after arrival, rain or shine? So, the day before yesterday, you did your four miles out, on the Northern turnpike, and returned splashed to the waist; and yesterday you walked three miles out, on the Southern turnpike, and came back soaked to the knees. To-day the storm is slightly increasing, but you are dry thus far, and wish to remain so; exercise is a humbug; you will give it all up, and go to the Chess-Club. Don't go to the Chess-Club; come with me to the Gymnasium.

Chess may be all very well to tax with tough problems a brain otherwise inert, to vary a monotonous day with small events, to keep one awake during a sleepy evening, and to arouse a whole family next morning for the adjustment over the breakfast-table of that momentous state-question, whether the red king should have castled at the fiftieth move or not till the fifty-first. But for an average American man, who leaves his place of business at nightfall with his head a mere furnace of red-hot brains and his body a pile of burnt-out cinders, utterly exhausted in the daily effort to put ten dollars more of distance between his posterity and the poor-house,—for such a one to kindle up afresh after office-hours for a complicated chess-problem seems much as if a wood-sawyer, worn out with his week's work, should decide to order in his saw-horse on Saturday evening, and saw for fun. Surely we have little enough recreation at any rate, and, pray, let us make that little un-intellectual. True, something can be said in favor of chess—for instance, that no money can be made out of it, and that it is so far profitable to us overworked Americans: but even this is not enough. For this once, lock your brains into your safe, at nightfall, with your other valuables; don't go to the Chess-Club; come with me to the Gymnasium.

Ten leaps up a steep, worn-out stairway, through a blind entry to another stairway, and yet another, and we emerge suddenly upon the floor of a large lighted room, a mere human machine-shop of busy motion, where Indian clubs are whirling, dumb-bells pounding, swings vibrating, and arms and legs flying in all manner of unexpected directions. Henderson sits with his big proportions quietly rested against the weight-boxes, pulling with monotonous vigor at the fifty-pound weights,—"the Stationary Engine" the boys call him. For a contrast, Draper is floating up and down between the parallel bars with such an airy lightness, that you think he must have hung up his body in the dressing-room, and is exercising only in his arms and clothes. Parsons is swinging in the rings, rising to the ceiling before and behind; up and down he goes, whirling over and over, converting himself into a mere tumbler-pigeon, yet still bound by the long, steady vibration of the human pendulum. Another is running a race with him, if sitting in the swing be running; and still another is accompanying their motion, clinging to the trapèze. Hayes, meanwhile, is spinning on the horizontal bar, now backward, now forward, twenty times without stopping, pinioned through his bent arms, like a Fakir on his iron. See how many different ways of ascending a vertical pole these boys are devising!—one climbs with hands and legs, another with hands only, another is crawling up on all-fours in Feegee fashion, while another is pegging his way up by inserting pegs in holes a foot apart,—you will see him sway and tremble a bit, before he reaches the ceiling. Others are at work with a spring-board and leaping-cord; higher and higher the cord is moved, one by one the competitors step aside defeated, till the field is left to a single champion, who, like an India-rubber ball, goes on rebounding till he seems likely to disappear through the chimney, like a Ravel. Some sturdy young visitors, farmers by their looks, are trying their strength, with various success, at the sixty-pound dumb-bell, when some quiet fellow, a clerk or a tailor, walks modestly to the hundred-pound weight, and up it goes as steadily as if the laws of gravitation had suddenly shifted their course, and worked upward instead of down. Lest, however, they should suddenly resume their original bias, let us cross to the dressing-room, and, while you are assuming flannel shirt or complete gymnastic suit, as you may prefer, let us consider the merits of the Gymnasium.

Do not say that the public is growing tired of hearing about physical training. You might as well speak of being surfeited with the sight of apple-blossoms, or bored with roses,—for these athletic exercises are, to a healthy person, just as good and refreshing. Of course, any one becomes insupportable who talks all the time of this subject, or of any other; but it is the man who fatigues you, not the theme. Any person becomes morbid and tedious whose whole existence is absorbed in any one thing, be it playing or praying. Queen Elizabeth, after admiring a gentleman's dancing, refused to look at the dancing-master, who did it better. "Nay," quoth her bluff Majesty,—"'tis his business,—I'll none of him." Professionals grow tiresome. Books are good,—so is a boat; but a librarian and a ferryman, though useful to take you where you wish to go, are not necessarily enlivening as companions. The annals of "Boxiana" and "Pedestriana" and "The Cricket-Field" are as pathetic records of monomania as the bibliographical works of Mr. Thomas Dibdin. Margaret Fuller said truly, that we all delight in gossip, and differ only in the department of gossip we individually prefer; but a monotony of gossip soon grows tedious, be the theme horses or octavos.

Not one-tenth part of the requisite amount has yet been said of athletic exercises as a prescription for this community. There was a time when they were not even practised generally among American boys, if we may trust the foreign travellers of a half-century ago, and they are but just being raised into respectability among American men. Motley says of one of his Flemish heroes, that "he would as soon have foregone his daily tennis as his religious exercises,"—as if ball-playing were then the necessary pivot of a great man's day. Some such pivot of physical enjoyment we must have, for no other race in the world needs it so much. Through the immense inventive capacity of our people, mechanical avocations are becoming almost as sedentary and intellectual as the professions. Among Americans, all hand-work is constantly being transmuted into brain-work; the intellect gains, but the body suffers, and needs some other form of physical activity to restore the equilibrium. As machinery becomes perfected, all the coarser tasks are constantly being handed over to the German or Irish immigrant,—not because the American cannot do the particular thing required, but because he is promoted to something more intellectual. Thus transformed to a mental laborer, he must somehow supply the bodily deficiency. If this is true of this class, it is of course true of the student, the statesman, and the professional man. The general statement recently made by Lewes, in England, certainly holds not less in America:—"It is rare to meet with good digestion among the artisans of the brain, no matter how careful they may be in food and general habits." The great majority of our literary and professional men could echo the testimony of Washington Irving, if they would only indorse his wise conclusion:—"My own case is a proof how one really loses by over-writing one's self and keeping too intent upon a sedentary occupation. I attribute all my present indisposition, which is losing me time, spirits, everything, to two fits of close application and neglect of all exercise while I was at Paris. I am convinced that he who devotes two hours each day to vigorous exercise will eventually gain those two and a couple more into the bargain."

Indeed, there is something involved in the matter far beyond any merely physical necessity. All our natures need something more than mere bodily exertion; they need bodily enjoyment. There is, or ought to be, in all of us a touch of untamed gypsy nature, which should be trained, not crushed. We need, in the very midst of civilization, something which gives a little of the zest of savage life; and athletic exercises furnish the means. The young man who is caught down the bay in a sudden storm, alone in his boat, with wind and tide against him, has all the sensations of a Norway sea-king,—sensations thoroughly uncomfortable, if you please, but for the thrill and glow they bring. Swim out after a storm at Dove Harbor, topping the low crests, diving through the high ones, and you feel yourself as veritable a South-Sea Islander as if you were to dine that day on missionary instead of mutton. Tramp, for a whole day, across hill, marsh, and pasture, with gun, rod, or whatever the excuse may be, and camp where you find yourself at evening, and you are as essentially an Indian on the Blue Hills as among the Rocky Mountains. Less depends upon circumstances than we fancy, and more upon our personal temperament and will. All the enjoyments of Browning's "Saul," those "wild joys of living" which make us happy with their freshness as we read of them, are within the reach of all, and make us happier still when enacted. Every one, in proportion as he develops his own physical resources, puts himself in harmony with the universe, and contributes something to it; even as Mr. Pecksniff, exulting in his digestive machinery, felt a pious delight after dinner in the thought that this wonderful apparatus was wound up and going.

A young person can no more have too much love of adventure than a mill can have too much water-power; only it needs to be worked, not wasted. Physical exercises give to energy and daring a legitimate channel, supply the place of war, gambling, licentiousness, highway-robbery, and office-seeking. De Quincey, in like manner, says that Wordsworth made pedestrianism a substitute for wine and spirits; and Emerson thinks the force of rude periods "can rarely be compensated in tranquil times, except by some analogous vigor drawn from occupations as hardy as war." The animal energy cannot and ought not to be suppressed; if debarred from its natural channel, it will force for itself unnatural ones. A vigorous life of the senses not only does not tend to sensuality in the objectionable sense, but it helps to avert it. Health finds joy in mere existence; daily breath and daily bread suffice. This innocent enjoyment lost, the normal desires seek abnormal satisfactions. The most brutal prize-fighter is compelled to recognize the connection between purity and vigor, and becomes virtuous when he goes into training, as the heroes of old observed chastity, in hopes of conquering at the Olympic Games. The very word ascetic comes from a Greek word signifying the preparatory exercises of an athlete. There are spiritual diseases which coil poisonously among distorted instincts and disordered nerves, and one would be generally safer in standing sponsor for the soul of the gymnast than of the dyspeptic.

Of course, the demand of our nature is not always for continuous exertion. One does not always seek that "rough exercise" which Sir John Sinclair asserts to be "the darling idol of the English." There are delicious languors, Neapolitan reposes, Creole siestas, "long days and solid banks of flowers." But it is the birthright of the man of the temperate zones to alternate these voluptuous delights with more heroic ones, and sweeten the reverie by the toil. So far as they go, the enjoyments of the healthy body are as innocent and as ardent as those of the soul. As there is no ground of comparison, so there is no ground of antagonism. How compare a sonata and a sea-bath or measure the Sistine Madonna against a gallop across country? The best thanksgiving for each is to enjoy the other also, and educate the mind to ampler nobleness. After all, the best verdict on athletic exercises was that of the great Sully, when he said, "I was always of the same opinion with Henry IV. concerning them: he often asserted that they were the most solid foundation, not only of discipline and other military virtues, but also of those noble sentiments and that elevation of mind which give one nature superiority over another."

We are now ready, perhaps, to come to the question, How are these athletic enjoyments to be obtained? The first and easiest answer is, By taking a long walk every day. If people would actually do this, instead of forever talking about doing it, the object might be gained. To be sure, there are various defects in this form of exercise. It is not a play, to begin with, and therefore does not withdraw the mind from its daily cares; the anxious man recurs to his problems on the way; and each mile, in that case, brings fresh weariness to brain as well as body. Moreover, there are, according to Dr. Grau, "three distinct groups of muscles which are almost totally neglected where walking alone is resorted to, and which consequently exist only in a crippled state, although they are of the utmost importance, and each stands in close rapport with a number of other functions of the greatest necessity to health and life." These he afterwards classifies as the muscles of the shoulders and chest, having a bearing on the lungs,—the abdominal muscles, bearing on the corresponding organs,—and the spinal muscles, which are closely connected with the whole nervous system.

But the greatest practical difficulty is, that walking, being the least concentrated form of exercise, requires a larger appropriation of time than most persons are willing to give. Taken liberally, and in connection with exercises which are more concentrated and have more play about them, it is of great value, and, indeed, indispensable. But so far as I have seen, instead of these other pursuits taking the place of pedestrianism, they commonly create a taste for it; so that, when the sweet spring-days come round, you will see our afternoon gymnastic class begin to scatter literally to the four winds; or they look in for a moment, on their way home from the woods, their hands filled and scented with long wreaths of the trailing arbutus.

But the gymnasium is the normal type of all muscular exercise,—the only form of it which is impartial and comprehensive, which has something for everybody, which is available at all seasons, through all weathers, in all latitudes. All other provisions are limited: you cannot row in winter nor skate in summer, spite of parlor-skates and ice-boats; ball-playing requires comrades; riding takes money; everything needs daylight: but the gymnasium is always accessible. Then it is the only thing which trains the whole body. Military drill makes one prompt, patient, erect, accurate, still, strong. Rowing takes one set of muscles and stretches them through and through, till you feel yourself turning into one long spiral spring from finger-tips to toes. In cricket or base-ball, a player runs, strikes, watches, catches, throws, must learn endurance also. Yet, no matter which of these may be your special hobby, you must, if you wish to use all the days and all the muscles, seek the gymnasium at last,—the only thorough panacea.

The history of modern gymnastic exercises is easily written: it is proper to say modern,—for, so far as apparatus goes, the ancient gymnasiums seem to have had scarcely anything in common with our own. The first institution on the modern plan was founded at Schnepfenthal, near Gotha, in Germany, in 1785, by Salzmann, a clergyman and the principal of a boys' school. After eight years of experience, his assistant, Gutsmuths, wrote a book upon the subject, which was translated into English, and published at London in 1799 and at Philadelphia in 1800, under the name of "Salzmann's Gymnastics." No similar institution seems to have existed in either country, however, till those established by Voelckers, in London, in 1824, and by Dr. Follen, at Cambridge, Mass., in 1826. Both were largely patronized at first, and died out at last. The best account of Voelckers's establishment will be found in Hone's "Every-Day Book"; its plan seems to have been unexceptionable. But Dr. James Johnson, writing his "Economy of Health" ten years after, declared that these German exercises had proved "better adapted to the Spartan youth than to the pallid sons of pampered cits, the dandies of the desk, and the squalid tenants of attics and factories," and also adds the epitaph, "This ultra-gymnastic enthusiast did much injury to an important branch of hygiene by carrying it to excess, and consequently by causing its desuetude." And Dr. Jarvis, in his "Practical Physiology," declares the unquestionable result of the American experiment to have been "general failure."

Accordingly, the English, who are reputed kings in all physical exercises, have undoubtedly been far surpassed by the Germans, and even by the French, in gymnastics. The writer of the excellent little "Handbook for Gymnastics," George Forrest, M.A., testifies strongly to this deficiency. "It is curious that we English, who possess perhaps the finest and strongest figures of all European nations, should leave ourselves so undeveloped bodily. There is not one man in a hundred who can even raise his toes to a level with his hands, when suspended by the later members; and yet to do so is at the very beginning of gymnastic exercises. We, as a rule, are strong in the arms and legs, but weak across the loins and back, and are apparently devoid of that beautiful set of muscles that run round the entire waist, and show to such advantage in the ancient statues. Indeed, at a bathing-place, I can pick out every gymnast merely by the development of those muscles."

It is the Germans and the military portion of the French nation, chiefly, who have developed gymnastic exercises to their present elaboration, while the working out of their curative applications was chiefly due to Ling, a Swede. In the German manuals, such, for instance, as Eiselen's "Turnübungen," are to be found nearly all the stock exercises of our institutions. Until within a few years, American skill has added nothing to these, except through the medium of the circus; but the present revival of athletic exercises is rapidly placing American gymnasts in advance of the Turners, both in the feats performed and in the style of doing them. Never yet have I succeeded in seeing a thoroughly light and graceful German gymnast, while again and again I have seen Americans who carried into their severest exercise such an airy, floating elegance of motion, that all the beauty of Greek sculpture appeared to return again, and it seemed as if plastic art might once more make its studio in the gymnasium.

The apparatus is not costly. Any handful of young men in the smallest country-village, with a very few dollars and a little mechanical skill, can put up in any old shed or shoe-shop a few simple articles of machinery, which will, through many a winter evening, vary the monotony of the cigar and the grocery-bench by an endless variety of manly competitions. Fifteen cents will bring by mail from the publishers of the "Atlantic" Forrest's little sixpenny "Handbook," which gives a sufficient number of exercises to form an introduction to all others; and a gymnasium is thus easily established. This is just the method of the simple and sensible Germans, who never wait for elegant upholstery. A pair of plain parallel bars, a movable vaulting-bar, a wooden horse, a spring-board, an old mattress to break the fall, a few settees where sweethearts and wives may sit with their knitting as spectators, and there is a Turnhalle complete,—to be henceforward filled, two or three nights in every week, with cheery German faces, jokes, laughs, gutturals, and gambols.

But this suggests that you are being kept too long in the anteroom. Let me act as cicerone through this modest gymnastic hall of ours. You will better appreciate all this oddly shaped apparatus, if I tell you in advance, as a connoisseur does in his picture-gallery, precisely what you are expected to think of each particular article.

You will notice, however, that a part of the gymnastic class are exercising without apparatus, in a series of rather grotesque movements which supple and prepare the body for more muscular feats: these are calisthenic exercises. Such are being at last introduced, thanks to Dr. Lewis and others, into our common schools. At the word of command, as swiftly as a conjuror twists his puzzle-paper, these living forms are shifted from one odd resemblance to another, at which it is quite lawful to laugh, especially if those laugh who win. A series of windmills,—a group of inflated balloons,—a flock of geese all asleep on one leg,—a circle of ballet-dancers, just poised to begin,—a band of patriots just kneeling to take an oath upon their country's altar,—a senate of tailors,—a file of soldiers,—a whole parish of Shaker worshippers,—a Japanese embassy performing Ko-tow: these all in turn come like shadows,—so depart. This complicated attitudinizing forms the preliminary to the gymnastic hour. But now come and look at some of the apparatus.

Here is a row of Indian clubs, or sceptres, as they are sometimes called,—tapering down from giants of fifteen pounds to dwarfs of four. Help yourself to a pair of dwarfs, at first; grasp one in each hand, by the handle; swing one of them round your head quietly, dropping the point behind as far as possible,—then the other,—and so swing them alternately some twenty times. Now do the same back-handed, bending the wrist outward, and carrying the club behind the head first. Now swing them both together, crossing them in front, and then the same back-handed; then the same without crossing, and this again backward, which you will find much harder. Place them on the ground gently after each set of processes. Now can you hold them out horizontally at arm's length, forward and then sideways? Your arms quiver and quiver, and down come the clubs thumping at last. Take them presently in a different and more difficult manner, holding each club with the point erect instead of hanging down; it tries your wrists, you will find, to manipulate them so, yet all the most graceful exercises have this for a basis. Soon you will gain the mastery of heavier implements than you begin with, and will understand how yonder slight youth has learned to handle his two heavy clubs in complex curves that seem to you inexplicable, tracing in the air a device as swift and tangled as that woven by a swarm of gossamer flies above a brook, in the sultry stillness of the summer noon.

This row of masses of iron, laid regularly in order of size, so as to resemble something between a musical instrument and a gridiron, consists of dumb-bells weighing from four pounds to a hundred. These playthings, suited to a variety of capacities, have experienced a revival of favor within a few years, and the range of exercises with them has been greatly increased. The use of very heavy ones is, so far as I can find, a peculiarly American hobby, though not originating with Dr. Windship. Even he, at the beginning of his exhibitions, used those weighing only ninety-eight pounds; and it was considered an astonishing feat, when, a little earlier, Mr. Richard Montgomery used to "put up" a dumb-bell weighing one hundred and one pounds. A good many persons, in different parts of the country, now handle one hundred and twenty-five, and Dr. Windship has got much farther on. There is, of course, a knack in using these little articles, as in every other feat, yet it takes good extensor muscles to get beyond the fifties. The easiest way of elevating the weight is to swing it up from between the knees; or it may be thrown up from the shoulder, with a simultaneous jerk of the whole body; but the only way of doing it handsomely is to put it up from the shoulder with the arm alone, without bending the knee, though you may bend the body as much as you please. Dr. Windship now puts up one hundred and forty-one pounds in this manner, and by the aid of a jerk can elevate one hundred and eighty with one arm. This particular movement with dumb-bells is most practised, as affording a test of strength; but there are many other ways of using them, all exceedingly invigorating, and all safe enough, unless the weight employed be too great, which it is very apt to be. Indeed, there is so much danger of this, that at Cambridge it has been deemed best to exclude all beyond seventy pounds. Nevertheless, the dumb-bell remains the one available form of home or office exercise: it is a whole athletic apparatus packed up in the smallest space; it is gymnastic pemmican. With one fifty-pound dumb-bell, or a pair of half that size—or more or less, according to his strength and habits,—a man may exercise nearly every muscle in his body in half an hour, if he has sufficient ingenuity in positions. If it were one's fortune to be sent to prison,—and the access to such retirement is growing more and more facile in many regions of our common country,—one would certainly wish to carry a dumb-bell with him, precisely as Dr. Johnson carried an arithmetic in his pocket on his tour to the Hebrides, as containing the greatest amount of nutriment in the compactest form.

Apparatus for lifting is not yet introduced into most gymnasiums, in spite of the recommendations of the Roxbury Hercules: beside the fear of straining, there is the cumbrous weight and cost of iron apparatus, while, for some reason or other, no cheap and accurate dynamometer has yet come into the market. Running and jumping, also, have as yet been too much neglected in our institutions, or practised spasmodically rather than systematically. It is singular how little pains have been taken to ascertain definitely what a man can do with his body,—far less, as Quetelet has observed, than in regard to any animal which man has tamed, or any machine which he has invented. It is stated, for instance, in Walker's "Manly Exercises," that six feet is the maximum of a high leap, with a run,—and certainly one never finds in the newspapers a record of anything higher; yet it is the English tradition, that Ireland, of Yorkshire, could clear a string raised fourteen feet, and that he once kicked a bladder at sixteen. No spring-board would explain a difference so astounding. In the same way, Walker fixes the limit of a long leap without a run at fourteen feet, and with a run at twenty-two,—both being large estimates; and Thackeray makes his young Virginian jump twenty-one feet and three inches, crediting George Washington with a foot more. Yet the ancient epitaph of Phayllus the Crotonian claimed for him nothing less than fifty-five feet, on an inclined plane. Certainly the story must have taken a leap also.

These ladders, aspiring indefinitely into the air, like Piranesi's stairways, are called technically peak-ladders; and dear banished T.S.K., who always was puzzled to know why Mount Washington kept up such a pique against the sky, would have found his joke fit these ladders with great precision, so frequent the disappointment they create. But try them, and see what trivial appendages one's legs may become,—since the feet are not intended to touch these polished rounds. Walk up backward on the under side, hand over hand, then forward; then go up again, omitting every other round; then aspire to the third round, if you will. Next grasp a round with both hands, give a slight swing of the body, let go, and grasp the round above, and so on upward; then the same, omitting one round, or more, if you can, and come down in the same way. Can you walk up on one hand? It is not an easy thing, but a first-class gymnast will do it,—and Dr. Windship does it, taking only every third round. Fancy a one-armed and legless hodman ascending the under side of a ladder to the roof, and reflect on the conveniences of gymnastic habits.

Here is a wooden horse; on this noble animal the Germans say that not less than three hundred distinct feats can be performed. Bring yonder spring-board, and we will try a few. Grasp these low pommels and vault over the horse, first to the right, then again to the left; then with one hand each way. Now spring to the top and stand; now spring between the hands forward, now backward; now take a good impetus, spread your feet far apart, and leap over it, letting go the hands. Grasp the pommels again and throw a somerset over it,—coming down on your feet, if the Fates permit. Now vault up and sit upon the horse, at one end, knees the same side; now grasp the pommels and whirl yourself round till you sit at the other end, facing the other way. Now spring up and bestride it, whirl round till you bestride it the other way, at the other end; do it once again, and, letting go your hand, seat yourself in the saddle. Now push away the spring-board and repeat every feat without its aid. Next, take a run and spring upon the end of the horse astride; then walk over, supporting yourself on your hands alone, the legs not touching; then backward, the same. It will be hard to balance yourself at first, and you will careen uneasily one way or the other; no matter, you will get over it somehow. Lastly, mount once more, kneel in the saddle, and leap to the ground. It appears at first ridiculously impracticable, the knees seem glued to their position, and it looks as if one would fall inevitably on his face; but falling is hardly possible. Any novice can do it, if he will only have faith. You shall learn to do it from the horizontal bar presently, where it looks much more formidable.

But first you must learn some simpler exercises on this horizontal bar: you observe that it is made movable, and may be placed as low as your knee, or higher than your hand can reach. This bar is only five inches in circumference; but it is remarkably strong and springy, and therefore we hope secure, though for some exercises our boys prefer to substitute a larger one. Try and vault it, first to the right, then to the left, as you did with the horse; try first with one hand, then see how high you can vault with both. Now vault it between your hands, forward and backward: the latter will baffle you, unless you have brought an unusual stock of India-rubber in your frame, to begin with. Raise it higher and higher, till you can vault it no longer. Now spring up on the bar, resting on your palms, and vault over from that position with a swing of your body, without touching the ground; when you have once managed this, you can vault as high as you can reach: double-vaulting this is called. Now put the bar higher than your head; grasp it with your hands, and draw yourself up till you look over it; repeat this a good many times: capital practice this, as is usually said of things particularly tiresome. Take hold of the bar again, and with a good spring from the ground try to curl your body over it, feet foremost. At first, in all probability, your legs will go angling in the air convulsively, and come down with nothing caught; but ere long we shall see you dispense with the spring from the ground and go whirling over and over, as if the bar were the axle of a wheel and your legs the spokes. Now spring upon the bar, supporting yourself on your palms, as before; put your hands a little farther apart, with the thumbs forward, then suddenly bring up your knees on the bar and let your whole body go over forward: you will not fall, if your hands have a good grasp. Try it again with your feet outside your hands, instead of between them; then once again flinging your body off from the bar and describing a long curve with it, arms stiff: this is called the Giant's Swing. Now hang to the bar by the knees,—by both knees; do not try it yet with one; then seize the bar with your hands and thrust the legs still farther and farther forward, pulling with your arms at the same time, till you find yourself sitting unaccountably on the bar itself. This our boys cheerfully denominate "skinning the cat," because the sensations it suggests, on a first experiment, are supposed to resemble those of pussy with her skin drawn over her head; but, after a few experiments, it seems like stroking the fur in the right direction, and grows rather pleasant.

Try now the parallel bars, the most invigorating apparatus of the gymnasium, and in its beginnings "accessible to the meanest capacity," since there are scarcely any who cannot support themselves by the hands on the bars, and not very many who cannot walk a few steps upon the palms, at the first trial. Soon you will learn to swing along these bars in long surges of motion, forward and backward; to go through them, in a series of springs from the hand only, without a jerk of the knees; to turn round and round between them, going forward or backward all the while; to vault over them and under them in complicated ways; to turn somersets in them and across them; to roll over and over on them as a porpoise seems to roll in the sea. Then come the "low-standing" exercises, the grasshopper style of business; supporting yourself now with arms not straight, but bent at the elbow, you shall learn to raise and lower your body and to hold or swing yourself as lightly in that position as if you had not felt pinioned and paralyzed hopelessly at the first trial; and whole new systems of muscles shall seem to shoot out from your shoulder-blades to enable you to do what you could not have dreamed of doing before. These bars are magical,—they are conduits of power; you cannot touch them, you cannot rest your weight on them in the slightest degree, without causing strength to flow into your body as naturally and irresistibly as water into the aqueduct-pipe when you turn it on. Do you but give the opportunity, and every pulsation of blood from your heart is pledged for the rest.

These exercises, and such as these, are among the elementary lessons of gymnastic training. Practise these thoroughly and patiently, and you will in time attain evolutions more complicated, and, if you wish, more perilous. Neglect these, to grasp at random after everything which you see others doing, and you will fail like a bookkeeper who is weak in the multiplication-table. The older you begin, the more gradual the preparation must be. A respectable middle-aged citizen, bent on improving his physique, goes into a gymnasium, and sees slight, smooth-faced boys going gayly through a series of exercises which show their bodies to be a triumph, not a drag, and he is assured that the same might be the case with him. Off goes the coat of our enthusiast and in he plunges; he gripes a heavy dumb-bell and strains one shoulder, hauls at a weight-box and strains the other, vaults the bar and bruises his knee, swings in the rings once or twice till his hand slips and he falls to the floor. No matter, he thinks the cause demands sacrifices; but he subsides, for the next fifteen minutes, into more moderate exercises, which he still makes immoderate by his awkward way of doing them. Nevertheless, he goes home, cheerful under difficulties, and will try again to-morrow. To-morrow finds him stiff, lame, and wretched; he cannot lift his arm to his face to shave, nor lower it sufficiently to pull his boots on; his little daughter must help him with his shoes, and the indignant wife of his bosom must put on his hat, with that ineffectual one-sidedness to which alone the best-regulated female mind can attain, in this difficult part of costuming. His sorrows increase as the day passes; the gymnasium alone can relieve them, but his soul shudders at the remedy; and he can conceive of nothing so absurd as a first gymnastic lesson, except a second one. But had he been wise enough to place himself under an experienced adviser at the very beginning, he would have been put through a few simple movements which would have sent him home glowing and refreshed and fancying himself half-way back to boyhood again; the slight ache and weariness of next day would have been cured by next day's exercise; and after six months' patience, by a progress almost imperceptible, he would have found himself, in respect to strength and activity, a transformed man.

Most of these discomforts, of course, are spared to boys; their frames are more elastic and less liable to ache and strain. They learn gymnastics, as they learn everything else, more readily than their elders. Begin with a boy early enough, and if he be of a suitable temperament, he can learn in the gymnasium all the feats usually seen in the circus-ring, and could even acquire more difficult ones, if it were worth his while to try them. This is true even of the air-somersets and hand-springs which are not so commonly cultivated by gymnasts; but it is especially true of all exercises with apparatus. It is astonishing how readily our classes pick up any novelty brought into town by a strolling company,—holding the body out horizontally from an upright pole, or hanging by the back of the head, or touching the head to the heels, though this last is oftener tried than accomplished. They may be seen practising these antics, at all spare moments, for weeks, until some later hobby drives them away. From Blondin downwards, the public feats derive a large part of their wonder from the imposing height in the air at which they are done. Many a young man who can swing himself more than his own length on the horizontal ladder at the gymnasium has yet shuddered at l'échelle périlleuse of the Hanlons; and I noticed that even the simplest of their performances, such as holding by one hand, or hanging by the knees, seemed perfectly terrific when done at a height of twenty or thirty feet in the air, even to those who had done them a hundred times at a lower level. It was the nerve that was astounding, not the strength or skill; but the eye found it hard to draw the distinction. So when a gymnastic friend of mine, crossing the ocean lately, amused himself with hanging by one leg to the mizzen-topmast-stay, the boldest sailors shuddered, though the feat itself was nothing, save to the imagination.

Indeed, it is almost impossible for an inexperienced spectator to form the slightest opinion as to the comparative difficulty or danger of different exercises, since it is the test of merit to make the hardest things look easy. Moreover, there may be a distinction between two feats almost imperceptible to the eye,—a change, for instance, in the position of the hands on a bar,—which may at once transform the thing from a trifle to a wonder. An unpractised eye can no more appreciate the difficulty of a gymnastic exercise by seeing it executed, than an inexperienced ear, of the perplexities of a piece of music by hearing it played.

The first effect of gymnastic exercise is almost always to increase the size of the arms and the chest; and new-comers may commonly be known by their frequent recourse to the tape-measure. The average increase among the students of Harvard University during the first three months of the gymnasium was nearly two inches in the chest, more than one inch in the upper arm, and more than half an inch in the fore-arm. This was far beyond what the unassisted growth of their age would account for; and the increase is always very marked for a time, especially with thin persons. In those of fuller habit the loss of flesh may counterbalance the gain in muscle, so that size and weight remain the same; and in all cases the increase stops after a time, and the subsequent change is rather in texture than in volume. Mere size is no index of strength: Dr. Windship is scarcely larger or heavier now than when he had not half his present powers.

In the vigor gained by exercise there is nothing false or morbid; it is as reliable as hereditary strength, except that it is more easily relaxed by indolent habits. No doubt it is aggravating to see some robust, lazy giant come into the gymnasium for the first time, and by hereditary muscle shoulder a dumb-bell which all your training has not taught you to handle. No matter; it is by comparing yourself with yourself that the estimate is to be made. As the writing-master exhibits with triumph to each departing pupil the uncouth copy which he wrote on entering, so it will be enough to you, if you can appreciate your present powers with your original inabilities. When you first joined the gymnastic class, you could not climb yonder smooth mast, even with all your limbs brought into service; now you can do it with your hands alone. When you came, you could not possibly, when hanging by your hands to the horizontal bar, raise your feet as high as your head,—nor could you, with any amount of spring from the ground, curl your body over the bar itself; now you can hang at arm's length and fling yourself over it a dozen times in succession. At first, if you lowered yourself with bent elbows between the parallel bars, you could not by any manoeuvre get up again, but sank to the ground a hopeless wreck; now you can raise and lower yourself an indefinite number of times. As for the weights and clubs and dumb-bells, you feel as if there must be some jugglery about them,—they have grown so much lighter than they used to be. It is you who have gained a double set of muscles to every limb; that is all. Strike out from the shoulder with your clenched hand; once your arm was loose-jointed and shaky; now it is firm and tense, and begins to feel like a natural arm. Moreover, strength and suppleness have grown together; you have not stiffened by becoming stronger, but find yourself more flexible. When you first came here, you could not touch your fingers to the ground without bending the knees, and now you can place your knuckles on the floor; then you could scarcely bend yourself backward, and now you can lay the back of your head in a chair, or walk, without crouching forward, under a bar less than three feet from the ground. You have found, indeed, that almost every feat is done originally by sheer strength, and then by agility, requiring very little expenditure of force after the precise motion is hit upon; at first labor, puffing, and a red face,—afterwards ease and the graces.

To a person who begins after the age of thirty or thereabouts, the increase of strength and suppleness, of course, comes more slowly; yet it comes as surely, and perhaps it is a more permanent acquisition, less easily lost again, than in the softer frame of early youth. There is no doubt that men of sixty have experienced a decided gain in strength and health by beginning gymnastic exercises even at that age, as Socrates learned to dance at seventy; and if they have practised similar exercises all their lives, so much is added to their chance of preserving physical youthfulness to the last. Jerome and Gabriel Ravel are reported to have spent near three-score years on the planet which their winged feet have so lightly trod; and who will dare to say how many winters have passed over the head of the still young and graceful Papanti?

Dr. Windship's most important experience is, that strength is to a certain extent identical with health, so that every increase in muscular development is an actual protection against disease. Americans, who are ashamed to confess to doing the most innocent thing for the sake of mere enjoyment, must be cajoled into every form of exercise under the plea of health. Joining, the other day, in a children's dance, I was amused by a solemn parent who turned to me, in the midst of a Virginia reel, still conscientious, though breathless, and asked if I did not consider dancing to be, on the whole, a healthy exercise? Well, the gymnasium is healthy; but the less you dwell on that fact, the better, after you have once entered it. If it does you good, you will enjoy it; and if you enjoy it, it will do you good. With body, as with soul, the highest experience merges duty in pleasure. The better one's condition is, the less one has to think about growing better, and the more unconsciously one's natural instincts guide the right way.

When ill, we eat to support life; when well, we eat because the food tastes good. It is a merit of the gymnasium, that, when properly taken, it makes one forget to think about health or anything else that is troublesome; "a man remembereth neither sorrow nor debt"; cares must be left outside, be they physical or metaphysical, like canes at the door of a museum.

No doubt, to some it grows tedious. It shares this objection with all means of exercise. To be an American is to hunger for novelty; and all instruments and appliances, especially, require constant modification: we are dissatisfied with last winter's skates, with the old boat, and with the family pony. So the zealot finds the gymnasium insufficient long before he has learned half the moves. To some temperaments it becomes a treadmill, and that, strangely enough, to diametrically opposite temperaments. A lethargic youth, requiring great effort to keep himself awake between the exercises, thinks the gymnasium slow, because he is; while an eager, impetuous young fellow, exasperated because he cannot in a fortnight draw himself up by one hand, finds the same trouble there as elsewhere, that the laws of Nature are not fast enough for his inclinations. No one without energy, no one without patience, can find permanent interest in a gymnasium; but with these qualities, and a modest willingness to live and learn, I do not see why one should ever grow tired of the moderate use of its apparatus. For one, I really never enter it without exhilaration, or leave it without a momentary regret: there are always certain special new things on the docket for trial; and when those are settled, there will be something more. It is amazing what a variety of interest can be extracted from those few bits of wood and rope and iron. There is always somebody in advance, some "man on horseback" on a wooden horse, some India-rubber hero, some slight and powerful fellow who does with ease what you fail to do with toil, some terrible Dr. Windship with an ever-waxing dumb-bell. The interest becomes semi-professional. A good gymnast enjoys going into a new and well-appointed establishment, precisely as a sailor enjoys a well-rigged ship; every rope and spar is scanned with intelligent interest; "we know the forest round us as seamen know the sea." The pupils talk gymnasium as some men talk horse. A particularly smooth and flexible horizontal pole, a desirable pair of parallel bars, a remarkably elastic spring-board,—these are matters of personal pride, and described from city to city with loving enthusiasm. The gymnastic apostle rises to eloquence in proportion to the height of the handswings, and points his climax to match the peak-ladders.

An objection frequently made to the gymnasium, and especially by anxious parents, is the supposed danger of accident. But this peril is obviously inseparable from all physical activity. If a man never leaves his house, the chances undoubtedly are, that he will never break his leg, unless upon the stairway; but if he is always to stay in the house, he might as well have no legs at all. Certainly we incur danger every time we go outside the front-door; but to remain always on the inside would prove the greatest danger of the whole. When a man slips in the street and dislocates his arm, we do not warn him against walking, but against carelessness. When a man is thrown from his horse and gratifies the surgeons by a beautiful case of compound fracture, we do not advise him to avoid a riding-school, but to go to one. Trivial accidents are not uncommon in the gymnasium, severe ones are rare, fatal ones almost unheard-of,—which is far more than can be said of riding, driving, hunting, boating, skating, or even "coasting" on a sled. Learning gymnastics is like learning to swim,—you incur a small temporary risk for the sake of acquiring powers that will lessen your risks in the end. Your increased strength and agility will carry you past many unseen perils hereafter, and the invigorated tone of your system will make accidents less important, if they happen. Some trifling sprain causes lameness for life, some slight blow brings on wasting disease, to a person whose health is merely negative, not positive,—while a well-trained frame throws it off in twenty-four hours. It is almost proverbial of the gymnasium, that it cures its own wounds.

A minor objection is, that these exercises are not performed in the open air. In summer, however, they may be, and in winter and in stormy weather it is better that they should not be. Extreme cold is not favorable to them; it braces, but stiffens; and the bars and ropes become slippery and even dangerous. In Germany it is common to have a double set of apparatus, out-doors and in-doors; and this would always be desirable, but for the increased expense. Moreover, the gymnasium should be taken in addition to out-door exercise, giving, for instance, an hour a day to each, one for training, the other for oxygen. I know promising gymnasts whose pallid complexions show that their blood is not worthy of their muscle, and they will break down. But these cases are rare, for the reason already hinted,—that nothing gives so good an appetite for out-door life as this indoor activity. It alternates admirably with skating, and seduces irresistibly into walking or rowing when spring arrives.

My young friend Silverspoon, indeed, thinks that a good trot on a fast horse is worth all the gymnastics in the world. But I learn, on inquiry, that my young friend's mother is constantly imploring him to ride in order to air her horses. It is a beautiful parental trait; but for those born horseless, what an economical substitute is the wooden quadruped of the gymnasium! Our Autocrat has well said, that the livery-stable horse is "a profligate animal"; and I do not wonder that the Centaurs of old should be suspected of having originated spurious coin. Undoubtedly it was to pay for the hire of their own hoofs.

For young men in cities, too, the facilities for exercise are limited not only by money, but by time. They must commonly take it after dark. It is every way a blessing, when the gymnasium divides their evenings with the concert, the book, or the public meeting. Then there is no time left, and small temptation, for pleasures less pure. It gives an innocent answer to that first demand for evening excitement which perils the soul of the homeless boy in the seductive city. The companions whom he meets at the gymnasium are not the ones whose pursuits of later nocturnal hours entice him to sin. The honest fatigue of his exercises calls for honest rest. It is the nervous exhaustion of a sedentary, frivolous, or joyless life which madly tries to restore itself by the other nervous exhaustion of debauchery. It is an old prescription,—

There is another class of critics whose cant is simply can't, and who, being unable or unwilling to surrender themselves to these simple sources of enjoyment, are grandiloquent upon the dignity of manhood, and the absurdity of full-grown men in playing monkey-tricks with their bodies. Full-grown men? There is not a person in the world who can afford to be a "full-grown man" through all the twenty-four hours. There is not one who does not need, more than he needs his dinner, to have habitually one hour in the day when he throws himself with boyish eagerness into interests as simple as those of boys. No church or state, no science or art, can feed us all the time; some morsels there must be of simpler diet, some moments of unadulterated play. But dignity? Alas for that poor soul whose dignity must be "preserved,"—preserved in the right culinary sense, as fruits which are growing dubious in their natural state are sealed up in jars to make their acidity presentable! "There's beggary in the love that can be reckoned," and degradation in the dignity that has to be preserved. Simplicity is the only dignity. If one has not the genuine article, no affluence of starch, no snow-drift of white-linen decency, will furnish any substitute. If one has it, he will retain it, whether he stand on his head or his heels. Nothing is really undignified but affectation or conceit; and for the total extinction and annihilation of every vestige of these, there are few things so effectual as athletic exercises.

Still another objection is that of the medical men, that the gymnasium, as commonly used, is not a specific prescription for the special disease of the patient. But setting aside the claims of the system of applied gymnastics, which Ling and his followers have so elaborated, it is enough to answer, that the one great fundamental disorder of all Americans is simply nervous exhaustion, and that for this the gymnasium can never be misdirected, though it may be used to excess. Of course one can no more cure over-work of brain by over-work of body than one can restore a wasted candle by lighting it at the other end. But by subtracting an hour a day from the present amount of purely intellectual fatigue, and inserting that quantum of bodily fatigue in its place, you begin an immediate change in your conditions of life. Moreover, the great object is not merely to get well, but to keep well. The exhaustion of over-work can almost always be cured by a water-cure, or by a voyage, which is a salt-water cure; but the problem is, how to make the whole voyage of life perpetually self-curative. Without this, there is perpetual dissatisfaction and chronic failure. Emerson well says, "Each class fixes its eye on the advantages it has not,—the refined on rude strength, the democrat on birth and breeding." This is the aim of the gymnasium, to give to the refined this rude strength, or its better substitute, refined strength. It is something to secure to the student or the clerk the strong muscles, hearty appetite, and sound sleep of the sailor and the ploughman,—to enable him, if need be, to out-row the fisherman, and out-run the mountaineer, and lift more than his porter, and to remember head-ache and dyspepsia only as he recalls the primeval whooping-cough of his childhood. I am one of those who think that the Autocrat rides his hobby of the pavements a little too far; but it is useless to deny, that, within the last few years of gymnasiums and boat-clubs, the city has been gaining on the country, in physical development. Here in our town we had all the city- and college-boys assembled in July to see the regattas, and all the country-boys in September to see the thousand-dollar base-ball match; and it was impossible to deny, whatever one's theories, that the physical superiority lay for the time being with the former.

The secret is, that, though the country offers to farmers more oxygen than to anybody in the city, yet not all dwellers in the country are farmers, and even those who are such are suffering from other causes, being usually the very last to receive those lessons of food and clothing and bathing and ventilation which have their origin in cities. Physical training is not a mechanical, but a vital process: no bricks without straw; no good physique without good materials and conditions. The farmer knows, that, to rear a premium colt or calf, he must oversee every morsel that it eats, every motion it makes, every breath it draws,—must guard against over-work and under-work, cold and heat, wet and dry. He remembers it for the quadrupeds, but he forgets it for his children, his wife, and himself: so his cattle deserve a premium, and his family does not.

Neglect is the danger of the country; the peril of the city is in living too fast. All mental excitement acts as a stimulant, and, like all stimulants, debilitates when taken in excess. This explains the unnatural strength and agility of the insane, always followed by prostration; and even moderate cerebral excitement produces similar results, so far as it goes. Quetelet discovered that sometimes after lecturing, or other special intellectual action, he could perform gymnastic feats impossible to him at other times. The fact is unquestionable; and it is also certain that an extreme in this direction has precisely the contrary effect, and is fatal to the physical condition. One may spring up from a task of moderate mental labor with a sense of freedom like a bow let loose; but after an immoderate task one feels like the same bow too long bent, flaccid, nerveless, all the elasticity gone. Such fatigue is far more overwhelming than any mere physical exhaustion. I have lounged into the gymnasium, after an afternoon's skating, supposing myself quite tired, and have found myself in excellent condition; and I have gone in after an hour or two of some specially concentrated anxiety or thought, without being aware that the body was at all fatigued, and found it good for nothing. Such experiences are invaluable; all the libraries cannot so illustrate the supremacy of immaterial forces. Thought, passion, purpose, expectation, absorbed attention even, all feed upon the body's powers; let them act one atom too intensely or one moment too long, and this wondrous physical organization finds itself drained of its forces to support them. It does not seem strange that strong men should have died by a single ecstasy of emotion too convulsive, when we bear within us this tremendous engine whose slightest pulsation so throbs in every fibre of our frame.

The relation between mental culture and physical powers is a subject of the greatest interest, as yet but little touched, because so few of our physiologists have been practical gymnasts. Nothing is more striking than the tendency of all athletic exercises, when brought to perfection, to eliminate mere brute bulk from the competition, and give the palm to more subtile qualities, agility, quickness, a good eye, a ready hand,—in short, superior fineness of organization. Any clown can learn the military manual exercise; but it needs brain-power to drill with the Zouaves. Even a prize-fight tests strength less than activity and "science." The game of base-ball, as played in our boyhood, was a simple, robust, straightforward contest, where the hardest hitter was the best man; but it is every year becoming perfected into a sleight-of-hand, like cricket; mere strength is now almost valueless in playing it, and it calls rather for the qualities of the billiard-player. In the last champion-match at Worcester, nearly the whole time was consumed in skilful feints and parryings, and it took five days to make fifty runs. And these same characteristics mark gymnastic exercises above all; men of great natural strength are very apt to be too slow and clumsy for them, and the most difficult feats are usually done by persons of comparatively delicate physique and a certain artistic organization. It is this predominance of the nervous temperament which is yet destined to make American gymnasts the foremost in the world.

Indeed, the gymnasium is as good a place for the study of human nature as any. The perpetual analogy of mind and body can be appreciated only where both are trained with equal system. In both departments the great prizes are not won by the most astounding special powers, but by a certain harmonious adaptation. There is a physical tact, as there is a mental tact. Every process is accomplished by using just the right stress at just the right moment; but no two persons are alike in the length of time required for these little discoveries. Gymnastic genius lies in gaining at the first trial what will cost weeks of perseverance to those less happily gifted. And as the close elastic costume which is worn by the gymnast, or should be worn, allows no merit or defect of figure to be concealed, so the close contact of emulation exhibits all the varieties of temperament. One is made indolent by success, and another is made ardent; one is discouraged by failure, and another aroused by it; one does everything best the first time and slackens ever after, while another always begins at the bottom and always climbs to the top.

One of the most enjoyable things in these mimic emulations is this absolute genuineness in their gradations of success. In the great world outside, there is no immediate and absolute test for merit. There are cliques and puffings and jealousies, quarrels of authors, tricks of trade, caucusing in politics, hypocrisy among the deacons. We distrust the value of others' successes, they distrust ours, and we all sometimes distrust our own. There are those who believe in Shakspeare, and those who believe in Tupper. All merit is measured by sliding scales, and each has his own theory of the sliding. In a dozen centuries it will all come right, no doubt. In the mean time there is vanity in one half the world and vexation of spirit in the other half, and each man joins each half in turn. But once enter the charmed gate of the gymnasium, and you leave shams behind. Though you be saint or sage, no matter, the inexorable laws of gravitation are around you. If you flinch, you fail; if you slip, you fall. That bar, that rope, that weight shall test you absolutely. Can you handle it, it is well; but if not, stand aside for him who can. You may have every other gift and grace, it counts for nothing; he, not you, is the man for the hour. The code of Spanish aristocracy is slight and flexible compared with this rigid precedence. It is Emerson's Astraea. Each registers himself, and there is no appeal. No use to kick and struggle, no use to apologize. Do not say that to-night you are tired, last night you felt ill. These excuses may serve for a day, but no longer. A slight margin is allowed for moods and variations, but it is not great after all. One revels in this Palace of Truth. Defeat itself is a satisfaction, before a tribunal of such absolute justice.

This contributes to that healthful ardor with which, in these exercises, a man forgets the things which are behind and presses forward to fresh achievements. This perpetually saves from vanity; for everything seems a trifle, when you have once attained to it. The aim which yesterday filled your whole gymnastic horizon you overtake and pass as a boat passes a buoy: until passed, it was a goal; when passed, a mere speck in the horizon. Yesterday you could swing yourself three rounds upon the horizontal ladder; to-day, after weeks of effort, you have suddenly attained to the fourth, and instantly all that long laborious effort vanishes, to be formed again between you and the fifth round: five, five is the only goal for heroic labor to-day; and when five is attained, there will be six, and so on while the Arabic numerals hold out. A childish aim, no doubt; but is not this what we all recognize as the privilege of childhood, to obtain exaggerated enjoyment from little things? When you have come to the really difficult feats of the gymnasium,—when you have conquered the "barber's curl" and the "peg-pole,"—when you can draw yourself up by one arm, and perform the "giant's swing" over and over, without changing hands, and vault the horizontal bar as high as you can reach it,—when you can vault across the high parallel bars between your hands backward, or walk through them on your palms with your feet in the vicinity of the ceiling,—then you will reap the reward of your past labors, and may begin to call yourself a gymnast.

It is pleasant to think, that, so great is the variety of exercises in the gymnasium, even physical deficiencies and deformities do not wholly exclude from its benefits. I have seen an invalid girl, so lame from childhood that she could not stand without support, whose general health had been restored, and her bust and arms made a study for a sculptor, by means of gymnastics. Nay, there are odd compensations of Nature by which even exceptional formations may turn to account in athletic exercises. A squinting eye is a treasure to a boxer, a left-handed batter is a prize in a cricketing eleven, and one of the best gymnasts in Chicago is an individual with a wooden leg, which he takes off at the commencement of affairs, thus economizing weight and stowage, and performing achievements impossible except to unipeds.

In the enthusiasm created by this emulation, there is necessarily some danger of excess. Dr. Windship approves of exercising only every other day in the gymnasium; but as most persons take their work in a more diluted form than his, they can afford to repeat it daily, unless warned by headache or languor that they are exceeding their allowance. There is no good in excess; our constitutions cannot be hurried. The law is universal, that exercise strengthens as long as nutrition balances it, but afterwards wastes the very forces it should increase. We cannot make bricks faster than Nature supplies us with straw.

It is one good evidence of the increasing interest in these exercises, that the American gymnasiums built during the past year or two have far surpassed all their predecessors in size and completeness, and have probably no superiors in the world. The Seventh Regiment Gymnasium in New York, just opened by Mr. Abner S. Brady, is one hundred and eighty feet by fifty-two, in its main hall, and thirty-five feet in height, with nearly a thousand pupils. The beautiful hall of the Metropolitan Gymnasium, in Chicago, measures one hundred and eight feet by eighty, and is twenty feet high at the sides, with a dome in the centre, forty feet high, and the same in diameter. Next to these probably rank the new gymnasium at Cincinnati, the Tremont Gymnasium at Boston, and the Bunker-Hill Gymnasium at Charlestown, all recently opened. Of college institutions the most complete are probably those at Cambridge and New Haven,—the former being eighty-five feet by fifty, and the latter one hundred feet by fifty, in external dimensions. The arrangements for instruction are rather more systematic at Harvard, but Yale has several valuable articles of apparatus—as the rack-bars and the series of rings—which have hardly made their appearance, as yet, in Massachusetts, though considered indispensable in New York.

Gymnastic exercises are as yet but very sparingly introduced into our seminaries, primary or professional, though a great change is already beginning. Frederick the Great complained of the whole Prussian school-system of his day, because it assumed that men were originally created for students and clerks, whereas his Majesty argued that the very shape of the human body rather proved them to be meant by Nature for postilions. Until lately all our educational plans have assumed man to be a merely sedentary being; we have employed teachers of music and drawing to go from school to school to teach those elegant arts, but have had none to teach the art of health. Accordingly, the pupils have exhibited more complex curves in their spines than they could possibly portray on the blackboard, and acquired such discords in their nervous systems as would have utterly disgraced their singing. It is something to have got beyond the period when active sports were actually prohibited. I remember when there was but one boat owned by a Cambridge student,—the owner was the first of his class, by the way, to get his name into capitals in the "Triennial Catalogue" afterwards,—and that boat was soon reported to have been suppressed by the Faculty, on the plea that there was a college law against a student's keeping domestic animals, and a boat was a domestic animal within the meaning of the statute. Manual labor was thought less reprehensible; but schools on this basis have never yet proved satisfactory, because either the hands or the brains have always come off second-best from the effort to combine: it is a law of Nature, that after a hard day's work one does not need more work, but play. But in many of the German common-schools one or two hours are given daily to gymnastic exercises with apparatus, with sometimes the addition of Wednesday or Saturday afternoon; and this was the result, as appears from Gutsmuth's book, of precisely the same popular reaction against a purely intellectual system which is visible in our community now. In the French military school at Joinville, the degree of Bachelor of Agility is formally conferred; but Horace Mann's remark still holds good, that it is seldom thought necessary to train men's bodies for any purpose except to destroy those of other men. However, in view of the present wise policy of our leading colleges, we shall have to stop croaking before long, especially as enthusiastic alumni already begin to fancy a visible improvement in the physique of graduating classes on Commencement Day.

It would be unpardonable, in this connection, not to speak a good word for the hobby of the day,—Dr. Lewis, and his system of gymnastics, or, more properly, of calisthenics. Aside from a few amusing games, there is nothing very novel in the "system," except the man himself. Dr. Windship had done all that was needed in apostleship of severe exercises, and there was wanting some man with a milder hobby, perfectly safe for a lady to drive. The Fates provided that man, also, in Dr. Lewis,—so hale and hearty, so profoundly confident in the omnipotence of his own methods and the uselessness of all others, with such a ready invention, and such an inundation of animal spirits that he could flood any company, no matter how starched or listless, with an unbounded appetite for ball-games and bean-games. How long it will last in the hands of others than the projector remains to be seen, especially as some of his feats are more exhausting than average gymnastics; but, in the mean time, it is just what is wanted for multitudes of persons who find or fancy the real gymnasium to be unsuited to them. It will especially render service to female pupils, so far as they practise it; for the accustomed gymnastic exercises seem never yet to have been rendered attractive to them, on any large scale, and with any permanency. Girls, no doubt, learn as readily as boys to row, to skate, and to swim,—any muscular inferiority being perhaps counterbalanced in swimming by their greater physical buoyancy, in skating by their dancing-school experience, and in rowing by their music-lessons enabling them more promptly to fall into regular time,—though these suggestions may all be fancies rather than facts. The same points help them, perhaps, in the lighter calisthenic exercises; but when they come to the apparatus, one seldom sees a girl who takes hold like a boy: it, perhaps, requires a certain ready capital of muscle, at the outset, which they have not at command, and which it is tedious to acquire afterwards. Yet there seem to be some cases, as with the classes of Mrs. Molineaux at Cambridge, where a good deal of gymnastic enthusiasm is created among female pupils, and it may be, after all, that the deficiency lies thus far in the teachers.

Experience is already showing that the advantages of school-gymnasiums go deeper than was at first supposed. It is not to be the whole object of American education to create scholars or idealists, but to produce persons of a solid strength,—persons who, to use the most expressive Western phrase that ever was coined into five monosyllables, "will do to tie to"; whereas to most of us it would be absurd to tie anything but the Scriptural millstone. In the military school of Brienne, the only report appended to the name of the little Napoleon Bonaparte was "Very healthy"; and it is precisely this class of boys for whom there is least place in a purely intellectual institution. A child of immense animal activity and unlimited observing faculties, personally acquainted with every man, child, horse, dog, in the township,—intimate in the families of oriole and grasshopper, pickerel and turtle,—quick of hand and eye,—in short, born for practical leadership and victory,—such a boy finds no provision for him in most of our seminaries, and must, by his constitution, be either truant or torment. The theory of the institution ignores such aptitudes as his, and recognizes no merits save those of some small sedentary linguist or mathematician,—a blessing to his teacher, but an object of watchful anxiety to the family physician, and whose career was endangering not only his health, but his humility. Introduce now some athletic exercises as a regular part of the school-drill, instantly the rogue finds his legitimate sphere, and leads the class; he is no longer an outcast, no longer has to look beyond the school for companions and appreciation; while, on the other hand, the youthful pedant, no longer monopolizing superiority, is brought down to a proper level. Presently comes along some finer fellow than either, who cultivates all his faculties, and is equally good at spring-board and black-board; and straightway, since every child wishes to be a Crichton, the whole school tries for the combination of merits, and the grade of the juvenile community is perceptibly raised.

What is true of childhood is true of manhood also. What a shame it is that even Kingsley should fall into the cant of deploring maturity as a misfortune, and declaring that our freshest pleasures come "before the age of fourteen"! Health is perpetual youth,—that is, a state of positive health. Merely negative health, the mere keeping out of the hospital for a series of years, is not health. Health is to feel the body a luxury, as every vigorous child does,—as the bird does when it shoots and quivers through the air, not flying for the sake of the goal, but for the sake of the flight,—as the dog does when he scours madly across the meadow, or plunges into the muddy blissfulness of the stream. But neither dog nor bird nor child enjoys his cup of physical happiness—let the dull or the worldly say what they will—with a felicity so cordial as the educated palate of conscious manhood. To "feel one's life in every limb," this is the secret bliss of which all forms of athletic exercise are merely varying disguises; and it is absurd to say that we cannot possess this when character is mature, but only when it is half-developed. As the flower is better than the bud, so should the fruit be better than the flower.

We need more examples of a mode of living which shall not alone be a success in view of some ulterior object, but which shall be, in its nobleness and healthfulness, successful every moment as it passes on. Navigating a wholly new temperament through history, this American race must of course form its own methods and take nothing at second-hand; but the same triumphant combination of bodily and mental training which made human life beautiful in Greece, strong in Rome, simple and joyous in Germany, truthful and brave in England, must yet be moulded to a higher quality amid this varying climate and on these low shores. The regions of the world most garlanded with glory and romance, Attica, Provence, Scotland, were originally more barren than Massachusetts; and there is yet possible for us such an harmonious mingling of refinement and vigor, that we may more than fulfil the world's expectation, and may become classic to ourselves.

LAND-LOCKED.

  Black lie the hills, swiftly doth daylight flee,
  And, catching gleams of sunset's dying smile,
  Through the dusk land for many a changing mile
  The river runneth softly to the sea.

  O happy river, could I follow thee!
  O yearning heart, that never can be still!
  O wistful eyes, that watch the steadfast hill,
  Longing for level line of solemn sea!

  Have patience; here are flowers and songs of birds,
  Beauty and fragrance, wealth of sound and sight,
  All summer's glory thine from morn till night,
  And life too full of joy for uttered words.

  Neither am I ungrateful. But I dream
  Deliciously, how twilight falls to-night
  Over the glimmering water, how the light
  Dies blissfully away, until I seem

  To feel the wind sea-scented on my cheek,
  To catch the sound of dusky flapping sail,
  And dip of oars, and voices on the gale,
  Afar off, calling softly, low and sweet.

  O Earth, thy summer-song of joy may soar
  Ringing to heaven in triumph! I but crave
  The sad, caressing murmur of the wave
  That breaks in tender music on the shore.

TWO OR THREE TROUBLES.

If there are only two or three, I am pretty sure of a sympathetic hearing. If there were two-and-twenty, I should be much more doubtful: for only last night, on being introduced to a tall lady in deep mourning, and assured that she had been "a terrible sufferer," that her life, indeed, had been "one long tragedy," I may as well confess, that, so far from being interested in this tall long tragedy, merely as such, I stepped a little aside on the instant, on some frivolous pretence, and took an early opportunity to get out of the way. Why this was I leave to persons who understand the wrong side of human nature. I am ashamed of it; but there it is,—neither worse nor better. And I can't expect others to be more compassionate than I am myself.

One of my troubles grew out of a pleasure, but was not less a trouble for the time. The other was not an excrescence, but ingrained with the material: not necessarily, indeed,—far from it; but, from the nature of the case, hopelessly so.

The penny-postman had brought me a letter from my Aunt Allen, from Albany. This letter contained, in three lines, a desire that her dear niece would buy something with the inclosed, and accept it as a wedding-gift, with the tenderest wishes for her life-long happiness, from the undersigned.

"Why, Mr. Lang was telling last night about his clerk. He said he bought a pair of butter-knives for his clerk Hillman, hearing that he was to be married, and got them marked. A good substantial present he thought it was,—cost only seven dollars for a good article, and couldn't fail to be useful to Hillman. He took them himself, so as to be doubly gracious, and met his clerk at the store-door.

"'Good morning!—good morning! Wish you joy, Hillman! I've got a pair of butter-knives for your wife.—Hey? got any?'

"Eleven butter-knives! and all marked Marcia Ann Hillman, from A.B., from C.D., and so on!"

Laura laughed, and said she hoped my friends would all be as considerate as Aunt Allen, or else consult her. Suppose eleven tea-pots, for instance, or eleven silver salvers, all in a row! Ridiculous!

Laura was the sensible one, like Laura in Miss Edgeworth's "Moral Tales," and never made any mistake. I was like the naughty horse that is always rearing and jumping, but kept on the track by the good steady one. Of course, I was far more interesting, and was to be married in three weeks.

"Now, Del, I'll tell you what it is. Are you going to have all your presents paraded on the study-table, for everybody to pull over and compare values,—and have one mortified, and another elated, and all uncomfortable?"

"Never, Del! I told Mrs. Harris so, when we were coming home from Ellis
Hall's wedding. It looked absolutely vulgar."

We all swore by Mrs. Harris in that part of Boynton, and it was something to know that Mrs. Harris had received the shock of such a heterodox opinion.

"Yes,—and she said she would as soon, and sooner, go to a silversmith's and pull over all the things on the counter. There were knives and forks, tea-spoons and table-spoons, fish-knives and pie-knives, strawberry-shovels and ice-shovels, large silver salvers and small silver salvers and medium silver salvers. Everything useful, and nothing you want to look at. There wasn't a thing that was in good taste to show, but just a good photograph of the minister that married them,—and a beautiful little wreath of sea-weed, that one of her Sunday-school scholars made for her. As to everything else, I would, as far as good taste goes, have just as soon had a collection of all Waterman's kitchen-furniture."

"There was a tremendous display of silver, I allow," said I; "the piano and sideboard were covered with it."

"Yes, and thoroughly vulgar, for that reason. A wedding-gift should be something appropriate,—not merely useful. As soon as it is only that, it sinks at once. It should speak of the bride, or to the bride, or of and from the friend,—intimately associating the gift with past impressions, with personal tastes, and future hopes felt by both. The gift should always be a dear reminder of the giver; a picture,—Evangeline or Beatrice; something you have both of you loved to look at, or would love to. But think of the delight of cutting your meat with Edward's present! forking ditto with Mary's! a crumb-scraper reminding you of this one, table-bell of that one; large salver, Uncle,—rich; small salver, Uncle,—mean; gold thimble, Cousin,—meanest of all. Table cleared, ditto mind and memory, of the whole of them—till next meal, perhaps!"

Laura ceased talking, but rocked herself swiftly to and fro in her chair. It is not necessary to say we were in our chambers,—as, since our British cousins have ridiculed our rocking-chairs, they are all banished from the parlor. Consequently we remain in our chambers to rock and be useful, and come into the parlor to be useless and uncomfortable in fauteuils, made, as the chair-makers tell us, "after the line of beauty." Laura and I both detest them, and Polly says, "Nothing can be worse for the spine of a person's back." To be

let anybody try a modern drawing-room. So Laura and I have cane sewing-chairs, which, it is needless to add, rock,—rock eloquently, too. They wave, as the boat waves with the impetus of the sea, gently, calmly, slowly,—or, as conversation grows animated, as disputes arise, as good stories are told, one after another, so do the sympathizing and eloquent rocking-chairs keep pace with our conversation, stimulating or soothing, as it chances.

And now I come to my first trouble,—first, and, as it happened, of long standing now; insomuch that, when Laura asked me once, gravely, why I had not made it a vital objection, in the first place, I had not a word to reply, but just—rocked.

She, Laura, was stitching on some shirts for "him." They were intended as a wedding-gift from herself, and were beautifully made. Laura despised a Wheeler-and-Wilson, and all its kindred,—and the shirts looked like shirts, consequently.

I linger a little, shivering on the brink. Somehow I always say "him,"—nowadays, of course, Mr. Sampson,—but then I always said "he" and "him." I know why country-folk say so, now. Though sentimentalists say, it is because there is only one "he" for "her," I don't believe it. It is because their names are Jotham, or Adoniram, or Jehiel, or Asher, or some of those names, and so they say "he," for short. But there was no short for me. So I may as well come to it. "His" name was America,—America Sampson. It is four years and a half since I knew this for a fact, yet my surprise is not lessened. Epithets are weak trash for such an occasion, or I should vituperate even now the odious practice of saddling children with one's own folly or prejudice in the shape of names.

There was no help for it. There was no hope. My lover had not received his name from any rich uncle, with the condition of a handsome fortune; so he had no chance of indignantly asserting his choice to be Herbert barefoot rather than Hog's-flesh with gold shoes. His father and mother had given his name,—not at the baptismal font, for they were Baptists, and didn't baptize so,—but they had given it to him. They were both alive and well, and so were seventeen uncles and aunts who would all know,—in good health, and bad taste, all of them.

"He" had four brothers to keep him in countenance, all with worse names than his: Washington, Philip Massasoit, Scipio, and Hiram Yaw Byron! There was the excuse, in this last name, of its being a family one, as far as Yaw went; but——However, as I said, language is wholly inadequate and weak for some purposes. There was a lower deep than America,—that was some comfort.

Hiram Yaw wasn't sent to college, but to Ashtabula, wherever that is, and I never wish to see him. But to college was America sent,—to be "hazed," and taunted, and called "E Plury," and his beak and claws inquired after, through the freshman year. I never knew how he went through,—I mean, with what feelings. Of course, he was the first scholar. But that, even, must have been but a small consolation.

The worst of all was, he was sensitive about his name,—whether because it had been used to torment him, and so, like poor worn-out Nessus, he wrapped more closely his poisoned scarf, (I like scarf better than shirt,)—or whether he had, in the course of his law-studies and men-studies, come to think it really mattered very little what a man's name was in the beginning; at all events, he had no notion of dismissing his own.

My own secret hope had been, that, by an Act of the Legislature, which
that very season had changed Pontifex Parker to Charles Alfred Parker,
Mr. Sampson might be accommodated with a name less unspeakably national.
Dear me! Alfred, Arthur, Albert,—if he must begin with A.

I should even prefer Archer. It needn't be Insatiate Archer. So I kept turning over and over the painful subject, one evening,—I mean, of course, in my mind, for I had not really broached this matter of legislative action. Luckily, "he" had brought in the new edition of George Herbert's Works. We were reading aloud, and "he" read the chapter of "The Parson in Sacraments." At the foot was an extract from "The Parish Register" of Crabbe, which he read, unconscious of the way in which I mentally applied it. Indeed, I think he scarcely thought of his own name at that time. But I did, twenty-four times in every day. This was the note:—

  "Pride lives with all; strange names our rustics give
  To helpless infants, that their own may live;
  Pleased to be known, they'll some attention claim,
  And find some by-way to the house of fame.
  'Why Lonicera wilt thou name thy child?'
  I asked the gardener's wife, in accents mild.
  'We have a right,' replied the sturdy dame;
  And Lonicera was the infant's name."

He stopped reading just here, to look at the evening paper, which had been brought in. I read something in it, and then we all went to sit on the piazza, with the street-lamp shining through the bitter-sweet vine, as good as the moon, and the conversation naturally and easily turned on odd names. I told what I had read in the paper: that our country rivalled Dickens's in queer names, and that it wasn't for a land that had Boggs and Bigger and Bragg for governors, and Stubbs, Snoggles, Scroggs, and Pugh among its respectable citizens, to accuse Dickens of caricature. I turned, a little tremulously, I confess, to "him," saying,—

"If you had been so unfortunate as to have for a name Darius Snoggles, now, for instance, wouldn't you have it changed by the Legislature?"

"Certainly not," he replied, with perfect unconsciousness. "Whatever my name might be, I would endeavor to make it a respectable one while I bore it."

Laura sat the other side of me, and softly touched me. So I only asked, if that great star up there was Lyra; but all the time Anodyne, Ambergris, Abner, Albion, Alpheus, and all the names that begin with A, rolled through my memory monotonously and continually.

After we went up-stairs that night, and while I was trying in vain to do up my hair so as to make a natural wave in front, (sometimes everything goes wrong,) Laura said,—

My mother mixed romance with good practical sense, and very properly said that girls with good names and tolerable faces might get on in the world, but it took fortune to make your Sallies and Mollies go down. She had good taste, too, and didn't name either of us Louisa Prudence, like an unfortunate I once saw; and we were left, with our nice cottage covered with its vine of bitter-sweet and climbing rose, fifteen hundred dollars each, and our names, Delphine and Laura. Not a bad heritage, with economy, good looks, and hearts to take life cheerily. Still it is plain enough that a fifty-dollar note for the bride was not to be despised nor overlooked. In fact, with the exception of Polly's present of a brown earthen bowl and a pudding-stick, it was the first approach to a wedding-gift that I had yet received. And this note was trouble the second. But of that, by-and-by.

"How could it be worse,—unless it were Hog-and-Hominy? I never knew anything so utterly ridiculous! America! Columbia! Yankee-Doodle! I'd rather it had been Abraham!"

All this I almost shouted in a passion of vexation, and Laura hastily closed the window.

"Let me loosen your braids for you, Del," said she, quietly, taking up my hair in her gentle way, which always had a good effect on my prancing nerves; "let me bathe your forehead with this, dear;—now, let me tell you something you will like."

"Oh, my heart! Laura, I wish you could! for I declare to you, that, if it wasn't for—if it didn't——Oh, dear, dear! how I do hate that name!"

"It is not so very good a name,—that must be owned, Del. All is, you will have to call him 'Mr. Sampson,' or 'My dear,' or 'You'; or, stay, you might abbreviate it into Ame, Ami. Ami and Delphine!—it sounds like a French story for youth. If I were you, I wouldn't meddle with it or think any more about it."

"You have considered it so much and so closely, Del, that it is most disproportionately prominent in your mind. You can put out Bunker-Hill Monument with your little finger, if you hold it close enough to your eye. Don't you remember what Mr. Sampson said to-night about somebody whose mind had no perspective in it? that his shoe-ribbon was as prominent and important as his soul? Don't go and be a goosey, Del, and have no perspective, will you?" And Laura leaned over and kissed my forehead, all corrugated with my pet grief.

"Well, Laura, what can be worse? I declare—almost I think, Laura, I would rather he should have some great defect."

"Moral or physical? Gambling? one leg? one eye? lying? six fingers? How do you mean, Del?"

"Which virtue could you spare in Mr. Sampson?" said Laura, coolly, fastening my hair neatly in its net, and sitting down in her rocking-chair.

When it came to that, of course there were none to be spared. We undressed, silently,—Laura rolling all her ribbons carefully, and I throwing mine about; Laura, consistent, conservative, allopathic, High-Church,—I, homoeopathic, hydropathic, careless, and given to Parkerism. It did not matter, as to harmony. Two bracelets, but no need to be alike. We clasped arms and hearts all the same. By-and-by I remembered,—

"Ariana Cooper and Geraldine Parker are both married,—both on the same day, at Grace Church, New York."

"I read it in the 'Evening Post,' just before I came up-stairs. Now guess,—guess a month, Del, and you won't guess whom they have married."

"No use to guess. They've found somebody in New York at their aunt's, I suppose. Both so pretty and rich, they were likely to find good partis."

"How can I? Herbert Clark, maybe,—or Captain Ellington? No, of course not. A merchant? Julius Winthrop. I know Ariana was a great admirer of a military man. She used to say she would have loved Sidney for his chivalry, and Raleigh for his graceful foppery; and Pembroke Dunkin she admired for both. It isn't Pembroke?"

"'Married, at Grace Church, by the Rev. So-and-So, assisted, etc., etc., Ossian Smutt, Esq., of the firm of S. Hamilton & Company, to Ariana, eldest daughter of the late George S. Cooper. At the same place, and day, Hon. Unity Smith, M.C., to Geraldine Miranda, daughter of the late Russell Parker of Pine Lodge. The happy quartette have left in the Persia for a tour in Europe. We wish them joy.'"

"Ugh! Laura! goodness! well, that outdoes me," I screamed, with a sudden sense of relief, that set me laughing as passionately as I had been crying. For, though I have not before owned it, I had been crying heartily.

The Balm of a Thousand Flowers descended on my lacerated heart. To say the truth, I had dreaded more Ariana's little shrug, and Geraldine Parker's upraised eyebrows, on reading my marriage, than a whole life of that name, on my own account merely. But now, thank Heaven, so much trouble was out of my way. Mrs. Unity Smith, and Mrs. Orlando—no, Ossian Smutt, could by no possibility laugh at me. Mrs. A. Sampson wasn't bad on a card. It would not smut one, anyhow. I laughed grimly, and composed myself to sleep.

The next morning had come the pleasant letter from my Albany aunt, with the fifty-dollar note. Laura continued rocking, fifty strokes a minute, and stitching at the rate of sixty. I held the note idly, rubbing up my imagination for things new and old. Laura, being industrious, was virtuously employing her thoughts. As idleness brings mischief, and riches anxiety, I did not rock long without evil consequences. Eve herself was not contented in Eden. She had to do all the cooking, for one thing,—and angels always happening in to dinner! For my part, the name of Adam would have been enough to spoil my pleasure. Here Laura interrupted my thoughts, which were running headlong into everything wicked.

"What do you?" I answered; for, like other bad people, I had the greatest respect for good people's opinions.

"Yes, Del. That will be good; silver, you know, is always good to have; and it will be handsome and useful always."

"Yes,—pretty to hand a cup of tea on, or a glass of wine,—pretty to set in the middle of a long table with a vase of flowers on it, when you have the Court and High-Sheriff to dine,—as you will, of course, every year,—or with your spoon-goblet. Oh, there are plenty of ways to make a small silver salver useful. Mrs. Harris says she doesn't see how any one can keep house without a silver salver."

The last sentence she said with a laugh, for she knew I thought so much of what Mrs. Harris said.

"Yes,—but I often wish we had one, for all that. As Mrs. Harris says,
'It gives such an air!'"

What a dreadful utilitarian Laura was, I thought. Now, the whole world and Boston were full of beautiful things,—full of things that had no special usefulness, but were absolutely and of themselves beautiful. And such a thing I wanted,—such a presence before me,—"a thing of beauty and of joy forever,"—something that would not speak directly or indirectly of labor, of something to be wrought out with toil, or associated with common, every-day objects. When that life should come to which I secretly looked forward,—when my soul should bound into a more radiant atmosphere, where the clouds, if any were, should be all gold- and silver-tinted, and where my sorrows, love-colored, were to be sweeter than other people's joys,—in that life, there would be moments of sweet abandonment to the simple sense of happiness. Then I should want something on which my mind might linger, my eye rest,—as the bird rests for an instant, to turn her plumage in the sun, and take another and loftier flight. Not a word of all this, which common minds called farrago, but which had its truth to me, did I utter to Laura. Of course, none of these things bear transplanting or expressing.

"Very much. But I am sure I should be tired of seeing it every day, standing on one toe. I should be tired, if he wasn't."

"Mrs. Gore says she never tires of it. I asked her. She says it is a delight to her to lie on the sofa and trace the beautiful undulations of his figure. How airy! It looks as if it would fly again without the least effort,—as if it had just 'new-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill'! Don't you think it perfect, Laura?"

"One thing,—I don't like statuary in any attitude which, if continued, would seem to be painful. I know artists admire what gives an impression of motion; and I like to look at Mercury once; as you say, it gives an idea of flight, of motion,—and it is beautiful for two minutes. But then comes a sense of its being painful. So that statue of Hebe, or Aurora,—which is it?—looks as if swiftly coming towards you; but only for a minute. It does not satisfy you longer, because the unfitness comes then, and the fatigue, and your imagination is harassed and fretted. I think statuary should be in repose,—that is, if we want it in the house as a constant object of sight. Eve at the fountain, or Echo listening, or Sabrina fair sitting

  "'Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave,
  With twisted braids of lilies knitting
  The loose train of her amber-dropping hair.'

"Oh, don't think I am not glad to admire it. I thought you were thinking of it for Aunt Allen's gift," continued Laura.

"And so I was. It costs just fifty dollars. But I think you are right about it. And, besides, do you like bronze, Laura?"

"I like marble a great, great deal best. There is a bronze statue of Fortune, and a Venus, at Harris & Stanwood's, that are called 'so beautiful!'—and I wouldn't have them in my house."

Here was an extinguisher. Laura didn't like bronze. And Laura was to be in my house, whether bronzes—were or not.

The sun shone brightly through the bitter-sweet that ran half over the window, and lighted on the corner of an old mahogany chest.

"That reminds me!" said I, suddenly. "Yesterday, I was looking at crockery, and there was the most delightful cabinet!—real Japan work, such as we read of; full of little drawers, and with carved silver handles, and a secret drawer that shoots out when you touch a spring at the back. Wouldn't that be a beautiful thing to stand in the parlor, Laura?"

"Why, no,—it wouldn't be large enough to hold silver. And, besides, I don't know that I want it for any such purpose. It would hold jewelry."

"There's the secret drawer,—that would be capital for anything I wanted to keep perfectly secret."

"I can't think of anything you would want to shut up in that drawer," said Laura, laughing at my mysterious face, which she said looked about as secret as a hen-coop with the chickens all flying out between the slats. "In the first place, you haven't any secrets, and are not likely to have; and next, you will show us (Mr. Sampson and me) the drawer and spring the first thing you do. And I shall look there every week, to see if there's anything hid there!"

"Oh, bah!" said I to myself; "Sumner told me that cabinet was just fifty dollars."

Something—I know not what, and probably never shall know—made me rise from my rocking-chair, and walk to the chamber-window. At that moment, a man with a green bag in his hand walked swiftly by, touched his hat as he passed, and smiled as he turned the corner out of sight. A little spasm, half painful in its pleasure, contracted my chest, and then set out at a thrilling pace to the end of my fingers. Then a sense of triumphant fulness, in my heart, on my lip, in my eyes. Not the name, but the nature passed,—strong to wrestle, determined to win. Not the body, but the soul of a man, passed across my field of vision, armed for earth-strife, gallantly breasting life. What mattered the shape or the name,—whether handsome or with a fine fortune? How these accidents fell off from the soul, as it beamed in the loving eye and firm lip!

And gently as the fawn follows the forest-keeper does my heart follow his, to the green pastures and still waters where he loves to lead. I did not think whether he had a name.

Again Laura and I sat and rocked,—this time silently, for my head was full, and I was holding a stopper on it to keep it from running over; while Laura was really puzzled about the way to make a dog's eyes with Berlin wool. As I rocked, from association probably, I thought again of Eve,—who never seems at all like a grandmother to me, nor even like "the mother of all living," but like a sweet, capricious, tender, naughty girl. Like Eve, I had only to stretch forth my hand (with the fifty-dollar note in it) and grasp "as much beauty as could live" within that space. Yet, as fifty dollars would buy not only this, but that, and also the other, it presently became the representative of tens of fifties, hundreds of fifties, thousands of fifties, and so on,—different fifties all, but all assuming shapes of beauty and value; finally, alternately clustering and separating, gathering as if in all sorts of beautiful heads,—angel heads, winged children,—then shooting off in a thousand different directions, leaving behind landscapes of exquisite sunsets, of Norwegian scenery, of processions of pines, of moonlight seen through arched bridges, of Palmyrene deserts, of pilgrims in the morning praying. Then came hurdy-gurdy boys and little flower-girls again, mingling with the landscapes, and thrusting their curly heads forward, as if to bid me not forget them. Then they all ran away and left me standing in a long, endless hall with endless columns, and white figures all about,—in the niches, on the floor, on the walls,—each Olympian in beauty, in grandeur, in power to lift the entranced soul to the high region where itself was created, and to which it always pointed. The white figures melted and warmed into masses and alcoves, and innumerable volumes looked affectionately at me. They knew me of old, and had told me their delightful secrets. "They had slept in my bosom, and whispered kind things to me in the dark night." Some pressed forward, declaring that here was the new wine of thought, sparkling and foaming as it had never done before, from the depths of human sympathy; and others murmured, "The old is better," and smiled at the surface-thoughts in blue and gold. Volumes and authors grew angry and vituperative. There was so much to be said on all sides, that I was deafened, and, with a shake of my head, shook everything into chaos, as I had done a hundred times before.

"What are you thinking of, Del?" said Laura, pointing the dog's eye with scarlet wool, to make him look fierce. "You have been looking straight at me for half a minute."

"At Cotton's, yesterday, I saw, Laura, a beautiful engraving of Arria and Paetus. She is drawing the dagger from her side, and saying, so calmly, so heroically,—'My Paetus! it is not hard to die!'"

I had inquired the price of this engraving, and the man said it was fifty dollars without the frame.

"Those pictures are so painful to look at! don't you think so, Del? And the better they are, the worse they are! Don't you remember that day we passed with Sarah, how we wondered she could have her walls covered with such pictures?"

"Merrill brought them home from Italy, or she wouldn't, perhaps. But I do remember,—they ware very disagreeable. That flaying of Marsyas! and Christ crowned with thorns! and that sad Ecce Homo!"

"Yes,—and the Laocoön on that centre bracket! enough to make you scream to look at it! I desire never to have such bloody reminders about me; and for a parlor or sitting-room I would infinitely prefer a dead wall to such a picture, if it were by the oldest of the old masters. Who wants Ugolino in the house, if it is ever so well painted? Supping on horrors indeed!"

We rocked again,—and Laura talked about plants and shirts and such healthy subjects. But, of course, my mind was in such a condition, nothing but fifty-dollar subjects would stay in it; and, most of all, I must not let Laura guess what I was thinking of.

"Do you like enamelled watches, Laura,—those pretty little ones made in
Geneva, I mean, worth from forty to sixty dollars?"

"How do you mean? Do I like the small timepieces? or is it the picture on the back?" said Laura.

"Oh, either. I was thinking of a beauty I saw at Crosby's yesterday, with the Madonna della Seggiola on the back. Now it is a good thing to have such a picture about one, any way. I looked at this through the microscope. It was surprisingly well done; and I suppose the watches are as good as most."

I was on the point of asking what she thought of Knight's Shakspeare, when the bell rang and Polly brought up Miss Russell's card.

Miss Russell was good and pretty, with a peach-bloom complexion, soft blue eyes, and curling auburn hair. Still those were articles that could not well be appraised, as I thought the first minute after we were seated in the parlor. But she had over her shoulders a cashmere scarf, which Mr. Russell had brought from India himself, which was therefore a genuine article, and which, to crown all, cost him only fifty dollars. It would readily bring thrice that sum in Boston, Miss Russell said. But such chances were always occurring. Then she described how the shawls were all thrown in a mess together in a room, and how the captains of vessels bought them at hap-hazard, without knowing anything about their value or their relative fineness, and how you could often, if you knew about the goods, get great bargains. It was a good way to send out fifty or a hundred dollars by some captain you could trust for taste, or the captain's wife. But it was generally a mere chance. Sometimes there would be bought a great old shawl that had been wound round the naked waist and shoulders of some Indian till it was all soiled and worn. That would have to be cut up into little neck-scarfs. But sometimes, too, you got them quite new. Papa knew about dry goods, luckily, and selected a nice one.

Part of this was repulsive,—but, again, part of it attractive. We don't expect to be the cheated ones ourselves.

The bell rang again, and this time Lieutenant Clarence Herbert entered on tiptoe: not of expectation particularly, but he had a way of tiptoeing which had been the fashion before he went to sea the last time, and which he resumed on his return, without noticing that in the mean time the fashion had gone by, and everybody stood straight and square on his feet. The effect, like all just-gone-by fashions, was to make him look ridiculous; and it required some self-control on our part to do him the justice of remembering that he could be quite brilliant when he pleased, was musical and sentimental. He had a good name, as I sighed in recalling.

We talked on, and on, instinctively keeping near the ground, and hopping from bough to bough of daily facts.

When they were both gone, we rejoiced, and went up-stairs again to our work and our rocking. Laura hummed,—

  "'The visit paid, with ecstasy we come,
  As from a seven-years' transportation, home,
  And there resume the unembarrassed brow,
  Recovering what we lost, we know not how,'—

"What an idea Louisa Russell always gives one of clothes!" said Laura. "I never remember the least thing she says. I would almost as soon have in the house one of those wire-women they keep in the shops to hang shawls on, for anything she has to say."

"I know it," I answered. "But, to tell the truth, Laura, there was something very interesting about her clothes to me to-day. That scarf! Don't you think, Laura, that an India scarf is always handsome?"

"Why, yes, Del. A handsome scarf is always handsome,—that is, until it is defaced or worn out. What a literal mood you are in just now!"

"Well, Laura,"—I hesitated, and then added slowly, "don't you think that an India scarf has become almost a matter of necessity? I mean, that everybody has one?"

"In Boston, you mean. I understand the New York traders say they sell ten cashmere shawls to Boston people where they do one to a New-Yorker."

"Mrs. Harris told me, Laura, that she could not do without one. She says she considers them a real necessary of life. She has lost four of those little neck-scarfs, and, she says, she just goes and buys another. Her neck is always cold just there."

"Is it, really?" said Laura, dryly. "I suppose nothing short of cashmere could possibly warm it!"

"Well, it is a pretty thing for a present, any way," said I, rather impatiently; for I had settled on a scarf as unexceptionable in most respects. There was the bargain, to begin with. Then it was always a good thing to hand down to one's heirs. The Gores had a long one that belonged to their grandmamma, and they could draw it through a gold ring. It was good to wear, and good to leave. Indicated blood, too,—and—and——In short, a great deal of nonsense was on the end of my tongue, waiting my leave to slip off, when Laura said,—

"Yes,—he is to bring it to-morrow. What a pretty name Clarence Herbert is! Lieutenant Clarence Herbert,—there's a good name for you! How many pretty names there are!"

"You wouldn't be at a loss to name boys," said Laura, laughing,—"like Mr. Stickney, who named his boys One, Two, and Three. Think of going by the name of One Stickney!"

"That isn't so bad as to be named 'The Fifteenth of March.' And that was a real name, given to a girl who was born at sea—I wonder what she was called 'for short.'"

"That would do. Yes,—Herbert, Robert," said I, musingly, "and Philip, and Arthur, and Algernon, Alfred, Sidney, Howard, Rupert"——

"Enough better than your fine Lieutenant, Del, with his taste, and his sentiments, and his fine bows, and 'his infinite deal of nothing.'"

I sighed and said nothing. The name-fancies had gone by in long procession. America had buried them all, and stamped sternly on their graves.

"Don't you think," said I, suddenly reviving with a new idea, "that a portfolio of engravings is a handsome thing to have in one's parlor or library? Add to it, you know, from time to time; but begin with 'Margaret,' perhaps, and Retzsch's 'Hamlet' or 'Faust,'—or a collection of fine wood engravings, such as Mrs. Harris has,—and perhaps one of Albert Dürer's ugly things to show off with. What do you think of it, Laura?"

"Why, no,—I can't say I do, now. But I have looked at them when people were there. How she would shrug and shiver when they would put their fingers on her nice engravings, and soil, or bend and break them at the corners! Somebody asked her once, all the time breaking up a fine Bridgewater Madonna she had just given forty dollars for, 'What is this engraving worth, now?' She answered, coldly,—'Five minutes ago I thought it worth forty dollars: now I would take forty cents for it.'"

"Not very polite, I should say," said Laura. "And rather cruel too, on the whole; since the offence was doubtless the result of ignorance only."

"I know. But Mrs. Harris said she was so vexed she could not restrain herself; and besides, she would infinitely prefer that he should be mortally offended, at least to the point of losing his acquaintance, to having her best pictures spoiled. She said he cost too much altogether."

"She should have the corners covered somehow. To be sure, it would be better for people to learn how to treat nice engravings,—but they won't; and every day somebody comes to see you, and talks excellent sense, all the while either rolling up your last 'Art Journal,' or breaking the face of Bryant's portrait in, or some equal mischief. I don't think engravings pay, to keep,—on the whole; do you, Del?" And Laura smiled while she rocked.

"Well, perhaps not. I am sure I shouldn't be amiable enough to have mine thumbed and ruined; and certainly, if they are only to be kept in a portfolio, it seems hardly worth while."

This vexatious consideration—for so it had become—of how I should spend my aunt's money, came at length almost to outweigh the pleasure of having it to spend. It was perhaps a little annoyance, at first, but by repetition became of course great. The prick of a pin is nothing; but if it prick three weeks, sleeping and waking, "there is differences, look you!"

"What shall I do with it?" became a serious matter. Suppose I left the regions of art and beauty particularly, and came back and down to what would be suitable on the whole, and agreeable to my aunt, whose taste was evidently beyond what Albany could afford, or she would not have sent me to the Modern Athens to buy the right thing. Nothing that would break; else, Sèvres china would be nice: I might get a small plate, or a dish, for the money. Clothes wear out. Furniture,—you don't want to say, "This chair, or this bureau or looking-glass, is my Aunt Allen's gift." No, indeed! It must be something uncommon, recherché, tasteful, durable, and, if possible, something that will show well and sound well always. If it were only to spend the money, of course I could buy a carpet or fire-set with it. And off went my bewildered head again on a tour of observation.

HARBORS OF THE GREAT LAKES.

In a recent article upon "The Great Lakes,"[A] we remarked, that, from the conformation of their shores, natural harbors are of rare occurrence. Consequently, for the protection and convenience of commerce, a system of artificial harbors has been adopted by the Federal Government, and appropriations have been made from time to time by Congress for this purpose; and officers of the United States Engineer Corps have been appointed to carry on the work. It is to some extent a new and peculiar kind of engineering, caused by the peculiar conditions of the case.

Most of the lake-towns are built upon rivers which empty into the lakes, and these rivers are usually obstructed at their mouths by bars of sand and clay. The formation of these bars is due to several causes. The principal one is this:—The shores of the lakes being usually composed of sand, this is carried along by the shore-currents of the lake and deposited at the river-mouths. Another cause of these obstructions may be found in the fact, that the currents of the rivers are constantly bringing down with them an amount of soil, which is deposited at the point where the current meets the still waters of the lake. A third cause, as we are told by Col. Graham, in his Report for 1855, is the following:—

"Although the great depth of Lake Michigan prevents the surface from freezing, yet the ice accumulates in large bodies in the shallow water near the shores, and is driven by the wind into the mouths of the rivers. A barrier being thus formed to the force of the lake-waves, the sudden check of velocity causes them to deposit a portion of the silt they hold in suspension upon the upper surface of this stratum of ice. By repeated accumulations in this way, the weight becomes sufficient to sink the whole mass to the bottom. There it rests, together with other strata, which are sunk in the same way, until the channel is obstructed by the combined masses of ice and silt. In the spring, when the ice melts, the silt is dropped to the bottom, which, combined with that constantly deposited by the lakeshore currents, causes a greater accumulation in winter than at any other season."

These bars at the natural river-mouths have frequently not more than two or three feet of water; and some of them have entirely closed up the entrance, although at a short distance inside there may be a depth of from twelve to fifteen or even twenty feet of water.

The channels of these rivers have also a tendency to be deflected from their courses, on entering the lake, by the shore-currents, which, driven before the prevailing winds, bend the channel off at right angles, and, carrying it parallel with the lake-shore, form a long spit of sand between the river and the lake.

Thus, in constructing an artificial harbor at one of these river-mouths, the first object to be aimed at is to prevent the further formation of a bar; and the second, to deepen and improve the river-channel. The former is attained by running out piers into the lake from the mouth of the river; and the latter, by the use of a dredge-boat, to cut through the obstructions.

These piers are formed of a line of cribs, built of timber, and loaded with stone to keep them in place, and enable them to resist the action of the waves. They are usually built about twenty or twenty-five feet wide, and from thirty to forty feet long. They are strengthened by cross-ties of timber, uniting together the outward walls of the crib. Piles are usually driven down into the clay, inside of these cribs, and they are covered with a deck or flooring of plank. As the action of the currents is constantly tending to remove the bed on which the cribs rest, and thus cause them to tilt over, their bottoms are constructed in a sort of open lattice-work, with openings large enough to allow the stones with which they are loaded to drop through and supply the place of the earth which is washed away.

The effect of these piers is to concentrate and deepen the river-channel, and to retard the formation of bars, though they do not wholly prevent it. In the spring it is often necessary to employ the services of a steam-dredge-boat to cut through the bar, before vessels can pass out.

The portion of these cribs above water is found not to last more than ten or fifteen years; so that it is now recommended to replace them with piers of stone masonry, wherever the material is easy of access.

As to the cause of the shore-currents which produce this mischief, Col.
Graham says, in one of his Reports,—

"The great power which operates to produce the littoral or shore currents of the lake is the prevailing winds; just as the great ocean current called the Gulf Stream is produced by the trade-winds. The first-mentioned phenomenon is but a miniature demonstration of the same principle which is more boldly shown in the other. The wind, acting in its most prevalent lakeward direction, combined with this littoral current, produces the great power which is constantly forming sand-bars and shoals at all the harbor-entrances on our extensive lake-coasts. To counteract the effect of this great power, upon a given point, is what we have chiefly to contend for in planning the harbor-piers for all the lake-ports intended to be improved. The point which an engineer first aims at, in undertaking to plan any of these harbor-works, is to ascertain as nearly as possible the direction and force of the prevailing winds."

The length of the Chicago piers is as follows:—North pier, 3900 feet long, 24 feet wide; south pier, 1800 feet long, 24 feet wide; and they are placed 200 feet apart.

Harbors of this kind have been constructed at Chicago, Waukegan,
Kenosha, Racine, Milwaukee, Sheboygan, Manitoowoc, Michigan City, and
St. Joseph, on Lake Michigan; at Clinton River, on Lake St. Clair; at
Monroe, Sandusky, Huron, Vermilion, Black River, Cleveland, Grand River,
Ashtabula, Conneaut, Erie, Dunkirk, and Buffalo, on Lake Erie; at Oak
Orchard, Genesee River, Sodus Bay, Oswego, and Ogdensburg, on Lake
Ontario.

For Lakes Huron and Superior it is believed that no appropriations have been made, the scanty population of their shores not seeming as yet to demand it, and those two lakes having in their numerous groups of islands more natural shelter for vessels than Michigan or Erie.

Besides these river-harbors, Col. Graham recommends to Government the construction at certain points on the lakes of sheltered roadsteads, or harbors of refuge, to which vessels may run for shelter in bad weather, when it may be difficult or dangerous to enter the river-mouths. These are proposed to be made by building breakwaters of crib-work, loaded with stone, and extending along the shore in a sufficient depth of water to admit vessels riding easily at anchor under their lee. Many lives and much property would undoubtedly be saved every year by such constructions; for it is a difficult matter for a vessel to enter these narrow rivers in a heavy gale of wind, and if she misses the entrance, she is very likely to go ashore.

Another very important work to the navigation of the lakes is the deepening of the channel in Lake St. Clair.

Between Lakes Huron and Erie lies Lake St. Clair, a shallow sheet of water, some twenty miles in length, through which all the trade of the Upper Lakes is obliged to pass. At the mouth of the river which connects this lake with Huron, there is a delta of mud flats, with numerous channels, which in their deepest parts have not more than ten feet of water, and would be utterly impassable, were not the bottom of a soft and yielding mud, which permits the passage of vessels through it, under the impulse of steam or a strong wind.

Mr. James L. Barton, a gentleman long connected with the lake-commerce, thus wrote some years ago upon this subject to the Hon. Robert McClelland, then chairman of the House Committee on Commerce:—

"These difficulties are vastly increased from the almost impassable condition of the flats in Lake St. Clair. Here steamboats and vessels are daily compelled in all weather to lie fast aground, and shift their cargoes, passengers, and luggage into lighters, exposing life, health, and property to great hazard, and then by extraordinary heaving and hauling are enabled to get over. Indeed, so bad has this passage become, that one of the largest steamboats, after lying two or three days on these flats, everything taken from her into lighters, was unable, with the powerful aid of steam and everything else she could bring into service, to pass over; she was obliged to give her freight and passengers to a smaller boat, abandon the trip, and return to Buffalo. Other vessels have been compelled not only to take out all their cargoes, but even their chains and anchors have been stripped from them, before they could get over. To meet this difficulty as far as possible, the commercial men around these lakes have imposed a tax upon their shipping, to dredge out and deepen the channel through these flats."

Col. Graham, in one of his Reports to the Department, writes as follows upon the importance of this improvement in a military point of view:—

"Since the opening of the Sault Ste. Marie Canal, the only obstacle to the co-operation of armed fleets, which in time of war would be placed upon Lakes Superior, Michigan, and Huron, with that which would be on Lake Erie, is at St. Clair flats. That obstacle removed, and a depth of channel of twelve feet obtained there, which might be increased to sixteen or eighteen feet by dredging, war-steamers of the largest class which would probably be placed on these lakes would have a free navigation from Buffalo at the foot of Lake Erie to Fond du Lac of Lake Superior.

"It would be very important that these fleets should have the power of concentration, either wholly or in part, at certain important points now rendered impracticable by these intervening flats. It would no doubt often be important as a measure of naval tactics alone. It would as often, again, be equally necessary in coöperating with our land-forces. It might even become necessary to depend on the navy to transport our land-forces rapidly from one point to another on different sides of the flats.

"When a work like this subserves the double purpose of military defence in times of war, and of promoting the interests of commerce between several of the States of the Union in time of peace, it would seem to have an increased claim to the attention of the General Government. If any work of improvement can be considered national in its character, the improvement of St. Clair flats, in the manner proposed, may, it is submitted, justly claim to be placed in that category."

The plan proposed by the United States Engineers for this improvement is to construct two parallel piers of about four thousand feet long, as a permanent protection to the channel-way, and to dredge out a channel between these piers, six hundred feet wide and twelve feet deep. The cost of this work is estimated at about $533,000. This may seem a large sum of money; but when it is considered that the value of the commerce which passed over these flats in the year 1855 was ascertained by Col. Graham to be over two hundred and fifty millions of dollars, or considerably more than the whole exports of the Southern States for the year 1860, more than a million of dollars per day during the period of navigation, and that the increased charge on freights by reason of this obstruction is more than two millions of dollars per annum, which of course has to be paid by the producer, the investment of one quarter of that annual charge in a work which would do away with the tax might seem to be a measure of economy.

To show the importance of these lake-harbors, and the vast amount of commerce which depends upon them, and which has grown up within the last twenty years, we will give an extract from another of Col. Graham's very interesting Reports, upon the Chicago harbor.

"The present vast extent and rapidly increasing growth of the commerce of Chicago render it a matter of absolute necessity, in which not only Illinois, but also a number of her neighboring States are deeply interested, that her harbor should be kept in the best and most secure state of improvement, so as always to afford, during the season of navigation, a safe and easy entrance and departure for vessels drawing at least twelve feet water.

"The States which are thus directly interested in the port of Chicago are New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. The shores of all these are washed either by Lake Michigan or the other Great Lakes, with which Chicago has a direct and very extensive commerce through the St. Clair flats. The other States and Territories, which do not reach to the Great Lakes, but which are nevertheless greatly interested in the preservation of Chicago harbor, are Iowa and Missouri, and Nebraska and Kansas. A very large portion of the wheat and other grain produced in those last-mentioned States and Territories will be brought by railroads to the port of Chicago, to be shipped thence to the Eastern Atlantic markets.

"The average amount of duties received annually at the Chicago custom-house for three years, 1853, '54, and '55, was $377,797.86. The imports at Chicago for 1855 were,—

  By lake shipment, $100,752,304.41
  " Illinois and Michigan Canal, 7,426,262.35
  " Railroads, 68,481,497.90

  By lake shipment, $34,817,716.32
  " Canal, 79,614,042.70
  " Railroads, 98,521,262.86
  ————————
  Total value of exports in 1855, $212,953,021.88

"Aggregate value of imports and exports at Chicago in the year 1855, $409,613,086.54.[B]

[Footnote B: This is more than half of the value of all the exports and imports of the Union in the year 1860, King Cotton included.]

"These statistics have been obtained by much labor and perseverance, with a view to the strictest accuracy. The result has amply justified the labor; for the published statistics of this commerce, which have gone forth to the country through the newspaper-press of the city, fall far short of its actual extent. On discovering this fact, I felt it to be a matter of duty to obtain the information directly from the only authentic sources, namely, the custom-house, mercantile, and warehouse records.

"Such are the claims which, in a civil point of view, are presented in behalf of the preservation of this harbor.

"There is still another, of not less magnitude, which is exclusively national. It is the influence it would have on the military defence of this part of our frontier, and the success of our arms in time of war. A single glance at the general map of the United States will be sufficient to show the importance of Chicago as a military position in conducting our operations in defence of our northwestern frontier in time of war.

"The great depth to which Lake Michigan here penetrates into a populous and fertile country totally devoid of fortifications would constitute an irresistible inducement to an enemy to aim with all his strength at this point, should he find it divested of any of the chief means of defence which are by all nations accorded to maritime ports of chief importance, He would find Chicago very much in such a state of weakness, if the harborworks here are allowed to fall into a dilapidated condition; for then our naval force would not itself be secure in hovering about this port, or in cruising in its immediate vicinity for purposes of military defence. There is scarcely a week in the year that a fleet might not have occasion to take refuge from the lake-gales in a safe harbor. Deprived of this advantage, the only resort would be to take the open sea, and there buffet out the storms. On their subsiding, this defensive fleet, on attempting to resume its proper position, might find it occupied by an enemy, with all the advantages, in a combat, which ought to be secured to our side.

"An enemy, once possessing this harbor, could by a powerful fleet cover the landing of an army in pursuit of the conquest of territory, or designing to lay heavy pecuniary contributions upon the inhabitants. Peace is the proper time to prepare against such a catastrophe, and the protection of the harbor is the first element in the military defence that should be attended to. With the harbor secured permanently in good condition, the port of Chicago, through the enterprise of the people of Illinois and the surrounding States, will possess the elements of military strength in perhaps a greater degree than any other seaport in the Union.

"The immense reticulation of railroads, amounting to an aggregate length of 2720 miles, which are tributary to this port, now daily brings into Chicago the vast amount of agricultural produce exhibited in our tables. These are their peace-offerings to other nations. In the emergency of war, however, these railroads could in a single day concentrate at Chicago troops enough for any military campaign, even if designed to cover our whole northwestern lake-frontier. Besides this, they would be the means of bringing here, daily, the munitions of war, and, above all, the necessary articles of subsistence and forage, to sustain an army of any magnitude, and to keep it in activity throughout any period that the war might last. In other words, Chicago would be in time of war the chief point d'appui of military operations in the Northwest."

In regard to the military importance of the command of the Great Lakes, history ought to teach us a lesson. At the breaking out of the War of 1812, this matter had been entirely neglected by our Government, in spite of the earnest appeals of the officer in command in this quarter. The consequence was the utter failure of the campaign against Canada, and the capture of the principal posts in the Northwest by the British, who had provided a naval force here, small, indeed, but sufficient where there was no opponent. It was not until the naval force organized by Commodore Perry swept the British from Lake Erie that General Harrison was able to recover the lost territory. From these considerations, the importance of strong fortifications in the Straits of Mackinac, to command the entrance of our Mediterranean, would seem to be evident.

The early advocates in Congress of these lake-improvements had to encounter a very violent opposition from various quarters.

First, the abstractionists of the Virginia school—men who "would cavil for the ninth part of a hair"—affirmed in general terms, that this Government was established with the view of regulating our external affairs, leaving all internal matters to be regulated by the States; and then, descending to particulars, declared, that, while Congress had the power to make improvements on salt water, it could do nothing on fresh. Furthermore, they argued, that, to give the power of spending money, the water must ebb and flow, and that the improvement must be below a port of entry, and not above. Another refinement of the Richmond sophists was this:—If a river be already navigable, Congress has the power to improve it, because it can "regulate" commerce; but if a sand-bar at its mouth prevents vessels from passing in or out, Congress cannot interfere, because that would be "creating," and not "regulating." Other Southern orators and their Northern followers denounced these appropriations as a system of plunder and an attack upon Southern rights, forgetting the fact, that, in these harbor and coast appropriations, the South, with a much smaller commerce than the North, had always claimed the larger share of expenditure. Thus, from 1825 to 1831,

  New England received $ 327,563.21
  The Middle States, including
  the Lakes, 982,145.20
  The South and Southwest 2,233,813.18

Others joined in this opposition, from ignorance of the great commerce growing up on the lakes; and frequently, where bills have been passed by Congress, Southern influence has caused the Executive to veto them. In spite of all these obstacles, however, this great interest forced itself upon the attention of the country; and in July, 1847, a Convention, composed of delegates from eighteen States, met in Chicago, to concert measures for obtaining from Government the necessary improvements for Western rivers and harbors. This body sent an able memorial to Congress, and the result has been that larger appropriations have since been made. Still, however, much remains to be done, and it appears by the last Report of Colonel Graham, that his estimates for necessary work on lake harbors and roadsteads amount to nearly three millions of dollars, to which half a million should be added for the improvement of St. Clair flats, making an aggregate of three and a half millions of dollars, which is much needed at this time, for the safe navigation of the lakes.

It may be remarked, in tins connection, that the lakes, with their tributary streams, are furnished with nearly a hundred light-houses, four or five of which are revolving, and the remainder fixed lights,—Lake Ontario having eight, Lake Erie twenty-three, Lake St. Clair two, Lake Huron nine, Lake Michigan thirty-two, and Lake Superior fourteen.

When we say that Chicago exports thirty millions of bushels of grain, and is the largest market in the world, many persons doubtless believe that these are merely Western figures of speech, and not figures of arithmetic. Let us, then, compare the exports of those European cities winch have confessedly the largest corn-trade with those of Chicago.

  1854. Bushels of Grain.
  Odessa, on the Black Sea, 7,040,000
  Galatz and Bruilow, do., 8,320,000
  Dantzic, on the Baltic, 4,408,000
  Riga, do., 4,000,000
  St. Petersburg, Gulf of Finland, 7,200,000
  Archangel, on the White Sea, 9,528,000
  —————
  40,496,000

or three-quarters of the amount of grain shipped by the seven largest corn-markets in Europe; and if we add to the shipments from Chicago the amount from other lake-ports last year, the aggregate will be found to exceed the shipments of those European cities by ten to twenty millions of bushels. Will any one doubt that the granary of the world is in the Mississippi Valley?

The internal commerce of the country, as it exists on the lakes, rivers, canals, and railroads, is not generally appreciated. It goes on noiselessly, and makes little show in comparison with the foreign trade; but its superiority may be seen by a few comparisons taken from a speech of the Hon. J.A. Rockwell, in Congress, in 1846.

In the year 1844, the value of goods transported on the New York Canals was….. $92,750,874

The imports and exports of Cleveland the same year amounted to the sum of…… $11,195,703

  The whole Mediterranean and
  South American trade, in 1844,
  amounted to……. 11,202,548

And if, as we have shown, the trade of one of these lake-ports, in 1855, amounted to over four hundred millions, we may safely claim that the whole lake-commerce in 1860 exceeds the entire foreign trade of the United States.

A few statistics of the lake-steamboats may not he uninteresting. They are taken from Mr. Barton's letter, above referred to.

"The 'New York Mercantile Advertiser,' of May—, 1819, contained the following notice:—

"'The swift steamboat Walk-in-the-Water is intended to make a voyage early in the summer from Buffalo, on Lake Erie, to Michilimackinac, on Lake Huron, for the conveyance of company. The trip has so near a resemblance to the famous Argonautic expedition in the heroic ages of Greece, that expectation is quite alive on the subject. Many of our most distinguished citizens are said to have already engaged their passage for this splendid adventure.'

"Her speed may be judged from the fact that it took her ten days to make the trip from Buffalo to Detroit and back, and the charge was eighteen dollars.

"In 1826 or '27, the majestic waters of Lake Michigan were first ploughed by steam,—a boat having that year made an excursion with a pleasure-party to Green Bay. These pleasure-excursions were annually made by two or three boats, till the year 1832. This year, the necessities of the Government requiring the transportation of troops and supplies for the Indian war then existing, steamboats were chartered by the Government, and made their first appearance at Chicago, then an open roadstead, in which they were exposed to the full sweep of northerly storms the whole length of Lake Michigan.

"In 1833, eleven steamboats were employed on the lakes, which carried in that year 61,485 passengers, and only two trips were made to Chicago. Time of the round trip, twenty-five days.

"In 1834, eighteen boats were upon the lakes, and three trips were made to Chicago. The lake-business now increased so much, that in 1839 a regular line of eight boats was formed to run from Buffalo to Chicago.

"In 1840, the number of steamboats on the lakes was forty-eight.
Cabin-passage from Buffalo to Chicago, twenty dollars."

About 1850 was the height of steamboat-prosperity on the lakes. There was at that time a line of sixteen first-class steamers from Buffalo to Chicago, leaving each port twice a day. The boats were elegantly fitted up, usually carried a band of music, and the table was equal to that of most American hotels. They usually made the voyage from Buffalo to Chicago in three or four days, and the charge was about ten dollars. They went crowded with passengers, four or five hundred not being an uncommon number, and their profits must have been large. The building of railroads from East to West, such as the Michigan Central and Southern lines, and the Lake Shore and Great Western, soon took away the passenger-business, and the propellers could carry freight at lower rates than those expensive side-wheel boats could pretend to do. So they have gradually disappeared from these waters, until at present their number is very small, compared with what it was ten years ago, while the number of screw-propellers is increasing yearly, as well as that of sail-vessels.

Great as is this lake-commerce now, it is still but in its infancy. The productive capacities of most of the States which border upon these waters are only beginning to be developed. If in twenty-five years the trade has grown to its present proportions, what may be expected from it in twenty-five years more?

The secession of the Gulf States from the Union, and the closing of the Mississippi to the products of the Northwest, could we suppose such a state of things to be possible, would still more clearly show the value of the lake-route to the ocean.

Run the line of 36° 30' across the continent from sea to sea, and build a wall upon it, if you will, higher than the old wall of China, and the Northern Confederacy will contain within itself every element of wealth and prosperity. Commerce and agriculture, manufactures and mines, forests and fisheries,—all are there.

THE MAN WHO NEVER WAS YOUNG.

At Munich, last summer, I made the acquaintance of M—-y, the famous painter. I had heard much of him during my stay there, and of his eccentricities. Just then it was quite the mode to circulate stories about him, and I listened to so many which were incredible that I was seized with an irresistible desire to meet him. I took, certainly, a roundabout way to accomplish this. M—-y had a horror of forming new acquaintances,—so it was said. He fled from letters of introduction coming in the ordinary way, as from the plague. Neither prince nor noble could win his intimacy or tempt him out of the pale of his daily routine. We are most eager in the pursuit of what is forbidden. I became the more determined to make M—-y's acquaintance, the more difficult it seemed. After revolving the matter carefully, I wrote to America to my intimate friend R., who I knew had subdued "the savage," as M—-y was sometimes called, and begged him to put me in the way of getting hold of the strange fellow. In four or five weeks I received an answer. R. simply inclosed me his own card with the painter's name in pencil written on it,—advising me to go to the artist's house, deliver the card in person, and trust the result to fortune. Now I had heard, as before intimated, all sorts of stories about M—-y. He was a bachelor, at least fifty years old. He lived by himself, as was reported,—in a superb house in an attractive part of the town. Gossip circulated various tales about its interior. Sometimes he reigned a Sardanapalus; at other times, a solitary queen graced but a temporary throne. He was addicted to various vices. He played high, lost generally large sums, and was in perpetual fear of the bailiffs. It was even reported that a royal decree had been issued to exempt so extraordinary a genius from ordinary arrest. In short, scarcely anything extravagant in the category of human occurrences was omitted in the daily changing detail of the scandal-loving society of Magnificent Munich. Only, no one ever imputed a mean or dishonorable thing to M—-y; but for the rest, there was nothing he did not do or permit to be done. He painted when he liked and what he liked. His compositions, whether of landscape or history, were eagerly snatched up at extravagant prices,—for M—-y was always exorbitant in his demands. Besides, when he chose, M—-y painted portraits,—never on application, nor for the aristocracy or the rich,—but as the mood seized him, of some subject that attracted him while on his various excursions, or of some of his friends. Yet who were his friends? Could any one tell? I could not find a person who claimed to know him intimately. Everybody had something to praise him for: "But it was such a pity that"—and here would follow one of the thousand bits of gossip which were floating about and had been floating for years, I had seen M—-y often,—for he was no recluse, and could be met daily in the streets. His general appearance so fascinated me that the desire to know the man led me to adopt the course I have just mentioned. So much by way of explanation.

And now, furnished with the card and the advice contained in my friend R.'s letter, I proceeded one afternoon to the —— Strasse, and sought admittance. A decent-looking servant-woman opened the door, and to my inquiry replied that Herr M—-y was certainly at home, but whether engaged or not she could not answer. She ushered me into a small apartment on my right, which seemed intended for a reception-room. I was about sending some kind of message to the master of the house, for I did not like to trust the magic card out of my possession, when I heard a door open and shut at the end of the hall, and the quick, nervous step of a along the passage. Seeing the servant standing by the door, M—-y, for it was he, walked toward it and presented himself bodily before me. He wore a cap and dressing-gown, and looked vexed, but not ill-natured, on seeing me. I was much embarrassed, and, forgetting what I had proposed to say to him, I put R.'s card into his hand without a word. His eye lighted up instantly.

"You are from America?—You are welcome!—How is my friend?" were words rapidly enunciated. "Come with me,—leave your hat there,—so!"—and we mounted a flight of stairs, passed what I perceived to be a fine salon, then through a charming, domestic-looking apartment into one still smaller, around the walls of which hung three portraits. Portraits did I say? I can employ no other name,—but so life-like and so human, my first impression was that I was entering a room where were three living people.

"Never you mind these," exclaimed M—-y, pleasantly, "but sit down there," pointing to a large fauteuil, "and tell me when you reached Munich, and if you will stay some time: then I can judge better how to do for you."

My face flushed, for I felt guilty at the little fraud I seemed to have practised on him. I hesitated only an instant, and then frankly told him the truth: how it was eighteen months since I left America; how I had been three months in Munich already; how, hearing so much about him and observing him frequently in the streets, I became anxious for his acquaintance, and had written to R. accordingly.

The man has the face of a child: cloud and sunshine pass rapidly over it. Pleasure and chagrin, sometimes anger, oftener joy, flit across it, swiftly as the flashing of a meteor. While I was making this explanation, he looked at me with a searching scrutiny,—at first angrily, then sadly, as if he were going to cry; but when I finished, he took my hand in both of his, and said, very seriously,—

Soon he commenced laughing: the oddity of the affair was just beginning to strike him. After conversing awhile, he said,—

"Ah, we shall like each other,—shall we not? Where do you stay? You shall come and live with me. But will that content you? Have you seen enough of the outside of Munich?"

I really knew not what to make of so unexpected a demonstration. Should I accept his invitation, so entirely a stranger as I was? Why not? M—-y was in earnest; he meant what he said; yet I hesitated.

"You need feel no embarrassment," he said, kindly. "I really want you to come,—unless, indeed, it is not agreeable to you."

"Not a single one," said M—-y. "Go and arrange affairs at your hotel, and make haste back for dinner: it will be served in an hour."

I have not the present design to give any account of him. Should the reader find anything in what is written to interest or attract, it is possible that in a future number a chapter may be devoted to the great artist of Munich. Now, however, I remark simply, that the gossip and strange stories and incidents and other et ceteras told of him proved to be ridiculous creations, with scarcely a shadow to rest on, having their inception in M—-y's peculiarities,—peculiarities which originated from an entire and absolute independence of thought and manner and conduct. A grown-up man in intellect, experience, and sagacity,—a child in simplicity and feeling, and in the effect produced by the forms and ceremonies and conventionalities of life: these seemed always to astonish him, and he never, as he said, could understand why people should live with masks over their faces, when they would breathe so much freer and be so much more at their ease by taking them off. This was the man who invited me to come to his house,—and who would not have given the invitation, had he not wanted me to accept it.

I have spoken of three paintings which excited my attention the day I paid my first visit. These were masterpieces,—three portraits, not life-like, but life itself. They did not attract by the perpetual stare of the eyes following one, whichever way one turned, as in many pictures; in these the eyes were not thrown on the spectator. One portrait was that of a man of at least fifty: an intellectual head; eyes, I know not what they were,—fierce, defiant, hardly human, but earthly, devilish; a mouth repulsive to behold, in its eager, absorbing, selfish expression. Another,—the same person evidently: the same clear breadth and development of brain, but a subdued and almost heavenly expression of the eyes, while the mouth was quite a secondary feature, scarcely disagreeable. The third was the likeness of a young girl, beautiful, even to perfection. What character, what firmness, what power to love could be read in those features! What hate, what revulsion, what undying energy for the true and the right were there! A fair, young creation,—so fair and so young, it seemed impossible that her destiny should be an unhappy one: yet her destiny was unhappy. The shadow on the brow, the melancholy which softened the clear hazel eye, the slightest possible compression of the mouth, said,—"Destined to misfortune!" Were these actual portraits of living persons, or at least of persons who had lived? Was there any connection between the man with two faces and two lives and the maiden with an unhappy destiny? After I became better acquainted with M—-y, I asked him the question, and in reply he told me the following story, which I now give as nearly as possible in his own words.

Many years ago, in one of my excursions, I came to Baden-Baden. It was a favorite resort for me, because I found there so many varieties of the human countenance, and I liked to study them. One evening I was in the Conversation-Haus, looking at the players at rouge-et-noir. At one end of the table I saw seated a man apparently past fifty; around him were three or four young fellows of twenty or twenty-five. It is nothing unusual to see old men at the gaming-table,—quite the contrary. But this person's head and forehead gave the lie to his countenance, and I stopped to regard him. While I was doing so, his eyes met mine. I suppose my gaze was earnest; for his eyes instantly fell, but, recovering, he returned my look with a stare so impudently defiant that I directed my attention at once elsewhere. Ever and anon, however, I would steal a glance at this person,—for there was something in his looks which fascinated me. He entered with gusto into the game, won and lost with a good-natured air, yet so premeditated, so, in fact, youthfully-old, I felt a chill pass over me while I was looking at him. Later in the evening I encountered him again. It was in the public room of my own hotel, at supper. He was drinking Rhine-wine with the same young men who were with him at rouge-et-noir. The tone of the whole company was boisterous, and became more so as each fresh bottle was emptied. The young fellows were very noisy, but impulsively so. The man also was turbulent and inclined to be merry in the extreme; but as I watched his eye, I shuddered, for there enthroned was a permanent expression indicating a consciousness in every act which he committed. Once again our eyes met, and I turned away and left the apartment. During my walk half an hour afterwards, I encountered the same party, still more excited and hilarious, in company with some women, whose character it was not easy to mistake. As I passed, the Unknown brushed close by me, and again his glance met my own. He seemed half-maddened by my curious look, which he could not but perceive, and, as I thought, made use of some insulting expression. I took no notice of it, but passed on my way, and saw him no more during my stay in the place.

From Baden I made an excursion into Switzerland. I was stopping at a pleasant village in the romantic neighborhood of the Bernese Alps. One afternoon I took a walk of several miles in a new direction. I left the road and pursued a path used only by pedestrians, which shortened the distance to another village not far off. A little way from this path was erected a small chapel, and in a niche stood an image of Christ, well executed in fine white marble. The work was so superior to the rude designs we find throughout the country that I stopped to examine it. I was amply repaid. In place of the painful-looking Christ on the Cross,—too often a mere caricature,—the image was that of the Youthful Saviour,—mild, benignant, forgiving. In his left palm, which was not extended, but held near his person, rested a globe, which he seemed to regard with a heavenly love and compassion, and the effect on me was so impressive that the words came impulsively to my lips,—"I am the light of the world."

For several minutes I stood regarding with intense admiration this beautiful exhibition of the Saviour of Sinners. Presently, I saw the door of the chapel was open. Should I look in? I did so. What did I behold? The individual I had seen at Baden,—the gamester, the bacchanal, the debauchee! Now, how changed! He was kneeling at a tomb,—the only one in the chapel. The setting sun fell directly on his features. His fine brow seemed fairer and more intellectual than before. His eyes were soft and subdued, and destitute of anything which could partake of an earthly element. Even the mouth, which had so disgusted me, was no longer disagreeable. Contrition, humility, an earnest, sincere repentance, were tokens clearly to be read in every line of his face. I took very quietly some steps backward, so as to quit the spot unobserved, if possible. In doing so, I stumbled and fell over some loose stones. The noise startled the stranger, who was, I think, about to leave the chapel. He came forward just as I was recovering myself. We stood close together, facing each other. A flush passed over the man's face. He seized my arm and exclaimed fiercely,—

Without appearing to recognize him, I hastened to explain that my presence there was quite accidental, and it was in attempting to retreat quietly, after discovering I was likely to prove an intruder, that my falling over some stones had attracted his notice. Thus saying, and bowing, I was about to proceed homeward, when the stranger suddenly exclaimed,—

He came up close to me. Every trace of angry excitement had vanished.
Calm and self-possessed, but very mournfully, he said,—

"Are you willing I should put my arm in yours, and walk back with you to the inn? I am alone,—and God above knows," he added, after a pause, "how utterly so."

I could only bow an assent, for this sudden exhibition of weakness was annoying to me. My new acquaintance took my arm, much in the manner a child would do, and we walked along together.

"I am staying at the same house with you," he said, as we proceeded.
"Did you know it?"

"Yes," he continued,—"I saw you when you dismounted, and I knew you at once. Don't you recognize me?" he inquired, sadly.

"So much the better!" he went on. "I like your countenance,—nay, I love to look at your face. You are a good man; do you know it? I suppose not: the good are never conscious, and I should not tell you. Excuse my rude approach just now: the Devil had for a moment dominion over me. Will you remain here awhile? Shall we sit and be together? And will you—say, will you talk with me?"

I promised I would. My feelings, despite his miserable weakness, were becoming interested, and in this manner we reached the inn. Then I persuaded this strange person to sit down in my room, where I ordered something comfortable provided for supper. In fact, I thought it the best thing I could do for him. Very soon I gained his entire confidence. After two or three days he exhibited to me a small portrait, exquisitely painted, of a most lovely young girl, and permitted me to copy it. It is one of the three which you see on the wall there. The others, I need not add, are portraits of the man himself in the two moods I have described. For his history, it teaches its lesson, and I shall tell it to you. He narrated it to me the evening before he left the inn, where we spent two weeks or more, and I have neither seen nor heard from him since. Seated near me, in my room, he gave the following account of himself.

I was born in Frankfort. My parents had several children, all of whom died in infancy except me. I was the youngest, and I lived through the periods which had proved so fatal to the rest. The extraordinary care of my mother, who watched me with a melancholy tenderness, no doubt contributed to save a life which in boyhood, and indeed to a mature age, was at the best a precarious one. My parents were respectable people, in easy circumstances. I grew up selfish and effeminate, in consequence of being so much indulged. I exhibited early a studious disposition, and it was decided to give me an accomplished education, with reference to my occupying, could I attain it at a future day, a chair in some university. My mother was a very religious woman. From the first, she had a morbid sense of the responsibility of bringing up a boy. She believed my way to manhood was beset by innumerable temptations, almost impossible to escape, difficult to be resisted, and absolutely ruinous to my soul, if yielded to. She preached to me incessantly. She kept me from the society of boys of my own age, for fear I should be contaminated,—and from the approach of any of the other sex, lest my mind should be diverted from serious matters and led into wantonness and folly. She would have made a priest of me, had it not been for my father;—he objected. His brother, for whom I was named, was a distinguished professor, to whom I bore, as he thought, a close resemblance, and he desired I should imitate him in my pursuits. I had good abilities, and was neither inefficient nor wanting in resolution or industry. At first I longed for natural life and society; but by degrees habit helped me to endure, and finally to conquer. In fact, I was taught that I was doing God service in cultivating an ascetic life. My studies were pursued with success. I rapidly mastered what was placed before me, and my relations were proud of my progress. At the usual period the ordinary craving for female society became strong in me. My mother took great pains to impress on me that here commenced my first struggle with Satan, and, if I yielded, I should certainly and beyond all peradventure become a child of the Devil. I was in a degree conscientious. I was ambitious to attain to a holy life. I believed what my mother had from my infancy labored so hard to inculcate, and I trod out with an iron step every fresh rising emotion of my heart, every genuine passion of my nature. But I suffered much. The imagination could not always be subdued, and there were periods when. I felt that the "strong man armed" had possession of me. Nevertheless his time was not come, and at length the struggle was over. It was not that I had gained a laudable control of myself; but, having crucified every rebellious thought, there was nothing left for control. I had marked my victory by extermination. To live was no joy; neither was it specially the reverse: a long, monotonous, changeless platitude; yet no desire to quit the terrible uniformity.

I was forty years old. I had obtained my purpose. I was a learned professor. As I gained in acquirements and reputation, I became more and more laborious. My health, which had become quite firm, began to yield under incessant application. I was advised, indeed commanded, by my physician to take repose and recreation. I came here among the Alps. I stopped at this very house. The season was fine, the inns were filled with tourists, and great glee and hilarity prevailed. It was not without its effect on me. By slow degrees, with returning health, the pulses of life beat with what seemed an unnatural excitement. The world, as I opened my eyes on it from the window of the inn, was for the first time not without its attractions. I quieted myself with the idea, that, once back with my books, my thoughts would flow in the regular channel; and I called to mind something the physician had said about the necessity of my being amused, and so forth, to quiet my conscience, which began to reproach me for enjoying the small ray of sunlight which shone in on my spirit.

One day, in a little excursion with two or three gentlemen, I was attracted by the beauty of a spot away from the travelled road. Leaving my acquaintances resting under some trees to await my return, I strolled by a narrow path, across the small valley, till I reached the wished-for place. You know it already. It is where you beheld erected the Christ and the Tomb. I was looking around with much admiration, when from the opposite direction came some strolling Savoyards, with a species of puppet, or marionnette, called by these people Mademoiselle Catherina. Without waiting for my assent, the man stopped, and with the aid of his wife arranged the machine and set Catherina in motion, accompanying the dance with a song of his own:—

  "Ma commère, quand ja danse,
  Mon cotillon, va-t-il bien?
  Il va d'ici, il va de là,
  Ha, ha, ha!
  Ma commère, quand je danse," etc.

I stopped and looked, and was amused. The music was rude, but wild, and carried with it an abandon of feeling. I avow to you, it stole upon me, penetrating soul and body. How I wished I could, on the spot, throw off the coil which surrounded me and wander away with these children of the road!

While I stood preoccupied and abstracted, I was roused by a low voice pronouncing something,—I did not hear what,—and, coming to myself, I saw standing before me, with her tambourine outstretched, a young girl, fourteen or fifteen years old. She spoke again,—"S'il vous plait, Monsieur." Large, lustrous, beaming eyes were turned on me,—not boldly, not with assurance, neither altogether bashfully,—but honestly regarding me full in the face, questioning if, after being so attentive a spectator, I were willing to bestow something. It was strange I had not noticed this girl before. I had hardly perceived there were three in the company. Now that I did observe her, I kept looking so earnestly that I forgot to respond to her request. She was faultless in form and physical development,—absolutely and unequivocally faultless. Her face, though browned by constant exposure, was classically beautiful; the foot and hand very small and delicate. Heavens! how every fibre in my frame thrilled with an ecstatic emotion, as, for the first time in my life, I was brought under the influence of female charms! My head swam, my eyes grew dim,—I staggered. I think I should have fallen, had not the young girl herself seized my arm and supported me. This brought me to myself. I bestowed nothing on the strollers, but asked if they were coming to the village. They answered in the affirmative; and telling them to come and play at the inn where I was lodging, I hastily quitted the scene.

Do not think I am in the least exaggerating in this narrative. God knows, what I have to recount is sufficiently extraordinary. I hastened homeward, my soul in a tumult. On a sudden, the labor of a lifetime was destroyed, the opinions and convictions of a lifetime stultified and set at nought. And how?—by what? By a strolling, vagrant Savoyard. Rather by an exquisite specimen of God's handiwork in flesh and blood! And if God's handiwork, why might I not be roused and touched and thrilled and entranced? Something within boldly, in fact audaciously, put that question to me.

I slept none that night. I was haunted by that form and face. I essayed to be calm, and to compose myself to slumber. Impossible! For the moment was swept away my past, with its dreary, lifeless forms, its ghostly ceremonies, its masked shapes, its soulless, rayless, emotionless existence. To awake and find life has been one grand error,—to awake and know that youth and early manhood are gone, and that you have been cheated of your honest and legitimate enjoyments,—to feel that Pleasure might have wooed you gracefully when young, and when it would become you to sacrifice at her shrine,—gods and fiends! I gnashed my teeth in impotent rage,—I blasphemed,—I was mad!

The morning brought to me composure. While I was dressing, I heard the music of my Savoyards under the window. I did not trust myself to look out; but, after breakfasting, I went into the street to search for them.

I was not long unsuccessful, and was immediately recognized with a profusion of nods and grimaces by the man and a coarse smile by the woman, who prepared to set Mademoiselle Catherina instantly at work. The young girl took scarcely any notice of me. I bestowed some money on the couple, and bade them go to the nearest wine-shop and procure whatever they desired. They started off, quite willing, I thought, to leave me alone with the girl. I lost no time. Going close to her, I said,—

"Almost always, I suppose. But I remember something many years ago—very strange. I was all the time in one place,—such a beautiful spot, it makes it hurt here," (putting her hand on her heart) "when I think of that. Afterwards it was dark a long time. I do not remember any more."

"Would you be pleased to go to a nice home, and stay, as you say, all the time in one place, and learn to read and write, and have friends to love you and take care of you?"

The young girl regarded me with a look of penetration which was surprising, and replied calmly, but with some timidity,—

I bade the child sit down and wait for my return, I took the direction which the man and his wife had pursued, and found them already busily engaged in the wine-shop, where they had purchased what for them was a sumptuous entertainment.

"You have stolen that girl," I exclaimed, with severity; "and I shall have the matter investigated before the Syndic."

They were not so frightened as I expected to see them, although a good deal decomposed.

"Monsieur mistakes," said the man. "It was we who saved the poor thing's life, when the father and mother were put to death far away from here in Hungary, and not a soul to take compassion on her. She was only four years old; the prison-door was opened and her parents led to execution, and she left to wander about until she should starve."

I asked if they knew who her parents were. They did not, but were sure they were people of distinction, condemned for political offences. This was all I could learn. The child, they said, was in possession of no relic which betrayed her name or origin. She only wore a small gold medallion on which was engraved a youthful Christ,—the same in design as you see erected near the tomb in yonder valley. It has been faithfully copied.

It was difficult to induce the couple to part with Eudora,—that was her name. She was now useful to them, and her marvellous beauty began to attract and brought additional coin to their collections, after the performances of the marionnette. But I was resolved. I offered to the strollers so large a sum in gold that they could not resist. It was arranged on the spot. With very little ceremony they said "Good-bye" to Eudora, and, taking the path over the mountain, in a few minutes were out of sight.

What a new, what a strange attitude for me! Could I believe in my own existence? There I stood, a grave professor of the University of ——, educated and trained in the discipline I have already explained to you. There stood Eudora, just as perfect in form and feature as imagination of poet ever pictured.

My plan was formed on the spot, instantly. It was praiseworthy; but I deserved no praise for it. A deep, engrossing selfishness, pervading alike sense and spirit, actuated me. I had already brought under control the fever of the previous day. I could reason calmly; but my conclusions had reference only to my own gratification and my own happiness. I regarded Eudora as mine,—my property,—literally belonging to me. I was forty,—she not fifteen. Yet what was I to do with her? Recommend her to the care of my mother, who was still alive? Certainly not; she would then be lost to me. I had a cousin, a lady of high respectability, well married, who resided in the same town in which I lived. She had no child of her own; she had often spoken of adopting one. I frequently visited her house; and when there, she never ceased to criticize me for leading such an ascetic life. Here was an excellent opportunity for my new charge. My cousin would be delighted to have the guardianship of such a lovely creature. She would be as devoted to her as to an own child. She would sympathize in my plans, and would be careful to train Eudora for me.

Such was the programme. It flashed on me and was definitely settled before I had time to bid her follow me to the inn. She came unhesitatingly, and as if she had confidence in my kind intentions. I did not converse much with her, but, making hasty preparations, we left the place and proceeded rapidly homeward.

I was not disappointed. My cousin entered readily into my plans. She was a really good person, seeing all things which she undertook through the complacent medium of duty. This was, she thought, such a fortunate incident! It gave her what she had long desired, and it would serve to distract me from the wretched life I had always led. Thereupon Eudora was installed in her new home, where she found father and mother in my cousin and her husband, where her education was commenced and got on fast. She had a quick intellect, instinctively seizing what was most important and rapidly forming conclusions. How, day by day, I witnessed the development of her mind! How I watched every new play of the emotions! How I saw with a beating heart, as she advanced toward womanhood, fresh charms displayed and additional beauty manifested! I shall not tire you with a prolonged narrative of how I enjoyed, month after month, for more than two years, the society of Eudora, during which time she made satisfactory advances in education and accomplishment and attained in grace and loveliness the absolute perfection of womanhood.

And what, during this period, were my relations with Eudora?—what were her feelings toward me? I approach the subject with pain. I look back now on those feelings and on my conduct with an abhorrence and disgust which I cannot describe. From the first she trusted to me with implicit confidence. Discriminating in an extraordinary degree, her gratitude prevented her perceiving my real character. She gave me credit for absolute, unqualified, disinterested benevolence in rescuing her from the wretched and precarious condition of a vagrant. Thus she set about in her own mind to adorn me with every virtue. I was magnanimous, noble, unselfish, truthful, brave, the soul of honor, incapable of anything mean or petty. How often has she told me this, holding my hand in hers, looking full in my face, her own beaming with honest enthusiasm! How my soul literally shrank within me! How like a guilty wretch I felt to hear these words! How I wished I could be all Eudora pictured me! How I essayed to act the part! How careful I was lest ever my real nature should disclose itself! Even when, despite my efforts, something did transpire to excite an instant's question, she put it aside at once by giving an interpretation to it worthy of me. Now, what was I to do? Eudora had reached a marriageable age. She had seen but little of society, though by no means living a recluse. My cousin had watched carefully over her, and was to her, indeed, all a mother could be. I had remained perfectly tranquil, secure, as I supposed, in her affections. I thought I had but to wait till the proper period should arrive and then take her to myself.

My cousin, as I have intimated, understood my views. It was therefore with no sort of perturbation, that, one day, I heard her ask me to step into her little sitting-room in order to converse about Eudora. I supposed she was going to tell me that it was time we were married,—indeed, I thought so myself. I was therefore very much astonished when she commenced by saying that I ought now to begin to treat Eudora as a young lady, especially if I expected ever to win her hand. I turned deadly pale, and asked her what she meant.

"I mean," she replied, "that you ought to act toward Eudora as men generally act who wish to win a fair lady. Do not deceive yourself with the idea that she loves you. She would tell you she did in a moment, if you asked her,—and wonder, besides, why you thought it necessary to put the question. But she knows nothing about it. The thought of becoming your wife never enters her head, and you would frighten her, if you spoke to her on such a subject. No, my cousin; it is time you behaved as other men behave. Eudora is grateful to you beyond expression. She believes you to be perfect; and you seem content to sit and let her tell you so, when you ought to be a manly wooer."

I will not detail the remarks of my cousin. She talked with me at least two hours. I was perfectly confounded by what she said. I began to hate her for the ridiculous advice she gave me. I put it down to a curious, meddlesome nature. I grew vexed, too, with Eudora, because my cousin said she did not love me. I did not reflect that I had done nothing to excite love. I had drawn perpetually on a heart overflowing and grateful,—selfish caitiff that I was! This, however, I did not then understand,—so completely were my eyes blinded!

I left my cousin in a petulant spirit, and sought Eudora. She saw I was troubled, and asked me the cause. I told her. A shadow, a dark, portentous shadow, suddenly clouded her face;—as suddenly it passed away, giving place to a look of sharp, painful agony, which was succeeded by a return of something like her natural expression. Then she scrutinized my face calmly, critically. All this did not occupy half a minute. Ere one could say it had been, Eudora was apparently the same as ever. God alone knows all which in that half-minute rose in that young girl's heart. She took my hand; she reproached me for my apparent distrust of her; she said she was mine to love and to honor me forever. She would go at once to her mother—so she called my cousin—and tell her so. Thus saying, she left me. And I—I did not then understand the struggle and the victory of the poor girl over herself. I did not reflect that no maidenly blush, no charming confusion, announced my happy destiny,—no kiss, no caress, no sign that the heart's citadel had surrendered; but, instead, a calmness, a composure, and a hastening from my presence. No, I thought nothing of this; I only considered that now the time was at hand when Eudora would be mine!

I married her. It was but three weeks after this conversation. I was in haste, and Eudora herself seemed desirous that the day should be an early one. My cousin was amazed. I enjoyed her discomfiture; for she did not relish the thought that I should thus set at nought her advice and overturn her theory. She shook her head,—she attempted a protest,—and then began zealously the preparations for the wedding.

I wish I could give you some clear idea of the wife I had gained, some slight notion of the happiness and delight and bliss in which I revelled,—that is, if a man purely and unutterably selfish has a right to call that happiness—which he enjoys. Eudora lived only for me. She rose, she sat, she came, she went only to pleasure me. She had one thought, one idea: it was for me. And what was my return? Nothing,—absolutely and literally nothing. I accepted every service, every sweet, loving token, every delicate act of devotion, as something to which I was entitled,—as my right. Forty-four years old, a life with one idea, a narrow, selfish, overbearing nature, ministered to by such a creature, noble, lovely, true, with eighteen years of life!

Three years thus passed,—three years which ate slowly into Eudora's heart,—teaching her she had a heart, and bringing forth such fruit as such experiences would produce. Yet she had not lost faith in me. She might have felt that perfection did not belong to man, and therefore I was not perfect; but she cheated herself as to all the rest. If she were not perfectly happy with a husband who took no pains to sympathize with her, who repressed instead of encouraging the natural vivacity of her nature, who never went abroad with her to places where every one was accustomed to go, still she did not lay the cause at my door.

I had another cousin: this cousin was a man, twenty-four years old when he first came, by a mere chance, to the town where we lived. He was, like you, a painter,—not one of those poor romantic vagabonds who multiply pictures of themselves in every new composition, and who starve on their own sighs. This man was in the enjoyment of a handsome competence, and made painting his profession because he loved the art. My cousin who resided in the place knew this man-cousin of mine. He paid her a visit; and while he was in her house, my wife happened to go in. Thus the acquaintance began. The next day he came to see me. I received him cordially, and invited him to visit us often. At length he became perfectly at home in our house. I was pleased with this,—for I began to feel that Eudora drew heavily on my time, insisting too much on my society; and I was only glad to escape by leaving her to the society of my relative,—blind fool that I was! But I must do him justice. He was a noble specimen of a fresh-hearted young man,—loyal and honorable. Yet how could he escape the fascination of Eudora's presence?—how tear himself away from it, when he had no thought that it was dangerous? At my request, my wife sat to him for a small portrait: this is it which I have permitted you to copy. By-and-by, and really to keep Eudora from engrossing too much of my time, I allowed her to go out with our artist-cousin; and in company they examined paintings, and viewed scenery, and talked, and walked, and sometimes read together.

One evening, while seated in my library, deeply abstracted, the door opened and Eudora entered. I looked up, saw who it was, and relapsed into study.

"My husband," exclaimed she, in a soft, sweet tone, "put down your book; sit upon this sofa; I want to speak with you."

I rose, a little petulantly, and did as she desired. She threw her arms around my neck, and kissed me tenderly.

"It is that you would not invite Alphonse to come here any more,—that you would never speak of my going out with him again, but encourage his leaving here,—and that you would give me more of your society."

"Pray, what does all this mean, Eudora?" I demanded. "Alphonse and you have been quarrelling, I suppose."

"I scarcely have courage to tell you," she cried,—"for I fear it will make us both forever miserable."

Thoroughly aroused by this astounding avowal, I repeated, in a stern tone and without one touch of sympathy, my demand for an explanation. She knelt lovingly at my feet,—not in a posture submissive or humiliating, but as if thus she could get nearer my heart,—and began, calmly:—

"Sometimes, my husband, I have thought my feelings for you were such as I ought to entertain for my father or an elder brother. I venerate and admire your character; I would die for you,—oh, how willingly!—but sometimes I fear it is not love I feel for you."

"I do not know. I cannot tell. But I have not thought of it seriously till Alphonse came here,—and I want you to send him away."

"Oh, God! I do not know. I cannot tell what is the matter with me.
Perhaps it is mere infatuation. Alas! I cannot tell."

"Because you are my husband,—because you are wise and strong and good, and the only one who can advise me,—because I am in danger, and you can save me," she cried, looking imploringly on my frigid features.

"I do, I do!" she exclaimed. At the same time she threw her arms around me passionately, buried her face in my bosom, and wept.

There was a struggle within me,—not violent nor desperate, but calm and cold,—while the face of that fair young creature was pressed close to my heart by her own arms thrown clingingly around me. I did not move the while; I did not respond to her sad embrace even by the slightest pressure of my hand. Yet I was all the time conscious that a pure and noble being was supplicating me for help,—a being who had devoted her life to me,—whose soul was stainless, while mine was spotted with the leprosy of a selfish nature. Like one under the influence of nightmare, who knows he does but dream and makes an effort fruitless as imaginary to lift himself out of it, I did try to follow what my heart said I should do,—fold my dear wife in my arms, and reassure her in all things. But I did no such thing. The other spirit—I should say seven others more hateful and detestable than any which had before possession of me—conquered. I raised Eudora from her kneeling posture. I placed her on the sofa beside me. I began to hate her,—to hate her for her goodness, her gentleness, her truthfulness, her fidelity,—to hate her because she dared make such an avowal, and because it was true. What right had she to permit her feelings to be influenced by another,—she, my lawfully wedded wife? I would not admit the truth to myself that I was the sole, miserable, detestable cause. Oh, no!

"Eudora," I said at length, "I have never seen you manifest so much nervous excitement. Do you not see how ridiculous is your request? You want me to bring ridicule, not to say disgrace, on myself, by suddenly forbidding Alphonse my house. What will he suppose, what will the world think, except that there has been some extraordinary cause for such a procedure? And all out of a silly, romantic, imaginary notion which has got into your head. Now, listen: if you would do your duty and honor me, let Alphonse come and go as usual; let him perceive no difference in your manner or in your treatment of him: in this way only I shall escape mortification and chagrin."

She rose as I finished,—slowly rose,—with a countenance disheartened and despairing. She uttered no word, and turned slowly to leave the room. She had reached the door, when, not content with the merciless outrage on her heart already inflicted, under the instigation of the demon working within me, I prepared another stab.

She came immediately back, doubtless with a slight hope that I would show some sympathy for her.

"Eudora," I continued, rising and laying my hand on her shoulder, "have you permitted any improper familiarities from Alphonse?"

Quick as lightning was my hand struck from its resting-place; swift as thought her face changed to an expression so terrible that instinctively I stepped back to avoid her. It was but an instant. Then came a last awful look of recognition, whereby I knew I was found out, my soul was stripped of all hypocritical coverings, and she saw and understood me. What a scene! To discover in the one she had revered and worshipped so long her moral assassin! To stand face to face and have the dreadful truth suddenly revealed! The darkness of despair gathered around her brow; an agony, like that which finds no comforter, was stamped on her face; and with these a hate, a horror, a contempt, mingled triumphantly. The door opened,—it was closed,—and my wife was lost to me forever. I essayed to call her back. "Eudora" came faintly to my lips. It was too late. Then a contemptible, jealous hatred took possession of me. Ere I left my apartment, I said, "She shall pay dear for this! she shall soon come submissive to my feet! she cannot live away from me; and before I forgive, she must be humiliated!" How little did I know her!

From that period Eudora simply treated me with the courtesy of a lady. She never looked in my face,—her eyes never met mine. On my part, to carry out a plan I had adopted, I encouraged more and more the visits of Alphonse. He had expected to leave that week; but I persuaded him to remain another month, and pressed him to stay at my house. I told him that this would be agreeable to my wife, who could have his society when I was not able to be with her, and I should insist on his accepting my invitation. This was after I saw how rebellious, as I termed it, Eudora was becoming; and I was determined to torture her all I could. Alphonse was now an inmate of our house, which greatly increased the opportunities for his being with Eudora. She appeared to enjoy intercourse with him just as usual; I think, in fact, she did enjoy it more than usual; and it made me hate her to see that she was not repentant and miserable. Three weeks passed in this way;—I becoming more hateful and severe by every petty, petulant, despicable device of which my nature was capable; she continuing with little change of manner or conduct; and Alphonse unconsciously growing more devoted.

It was a cold, stormy afternoon: the rain had increased since morning. Eudora had gone out immediately after breakfast. She did not come back to dinner, and Alphonse, who had remained in all day, said she spoke of going to my cousin's. I took it for granted the storm detained her; but when it was evening and she did not appear, I began to be disturbed and asked Alphonse to go for her. In a short time he returned with the information that Eudora had not been at my cousin's that day. I was alarmed; I could see the shadow of my Nemesis close by me. It had fallen suddenly, and with no warning. For a moment I suspected Alphonse; but the distress he manifested was too genuine to be counterfeited, and I dismissed the thought. In the midst of this confusion and dismay,—now late in the evening,—a letter was put into my hands, just left by a messenger at my door. The address was in my wife's hand. I tore open the envelope, and read,—

This was the end of the chapter beginning with my introduction to the strolling Savoyards, the dance of the marionnette, the transfer of Eudora! I attempted no search for her; too well I knew it would be useless; indeed, I felt a strange sense of freedom. My professor's life disgusted me: I threw it off. I resigned my chair, and sold my house, my furniture, my books,—everything. My nature clamored for indulgence, my senses for enjoyment. I quitted the place. I threw off all restraint. Literally I let myself loose on the world. I sought the company of the young. I drank, I gamed, I was as debauched as the worst. But although with them, I was not of them. They—only from the effervescence of strong animal spirits did they do into excesses. What they did was without reflection, impulsive, unpremeditated. Me a calm consciousness pervaded always. Go where I would, do what I would, amidst every criminal indulgence, every noisy debauch or riotous dissipation, it always rode the storm and was present in the fury of the tempest;—that fearful, awful conscious Egomet! How I wished I could commit one impulsive sin!

After three years, I was passing with a gay company through the Swiss town of ——. In that place is the convent of the Sisterhood of Our Mother of Pity. The night I stayed there, one of the number died. I heard of it in the morning, as we were preparing to leave. From what was said in connection with the circumstance, I knew it was Eudora. I left my companions to go on by themselves. I made my way to the convent and begged permission to look on the dead face of my wife. It was granted. She was already arrayed for the grave. I came and threw myself on the lifeless form, and cried as children dry. The fountains of my heart gave way, the sympathies of my nature were upheaved, and for two hours I wept on unrestrained. Even consciousness fled for once and left me to the luxury of grief. At length the worthy people came to me and took me from the room. I asked many questions, to which they could give me but unsatisfactory replies. They knew little of Eudora's history. She had come directly from my house to this place, and had been remarkable for her acts of untiring benevolence in ministering to the sick and the destitute. She lost her life from too great exposure in watching at the bedside of a miserable woman whom all the world seemed to have abandoned, and who died of some malignant fever. I will not attempt to describe what I passed through. I became sincerely repentant. I saw my character in its true light. I prayed that my sins might be forgiven.

The place where Eudora died was not far from the spot where we first met. I begged the good priest who acted as her confessor to consecrate a little chapel which I should build there, and permit me to place my wife's remains in it. He consented. I caused the image of the Christ which she always wore to be carefully copied in marble and placed before the chapel, and I spent several weeks there, deploring my sins and seeking for light from above.

It was not to be that I should thus easily settle the error of a lifetime. After a while I felt the desperate gnawing of the senses inexpressible and irresistible. Satan had come again, and I was called for. And I went! There was no escape,—there is no escape! Once more I plunged into riotous folly and excess, giving full license to my unbridled appetites,—but conscious always. When the fever subsided, I was once more repentant and sorrowful, and I came here,—only to be carried off again to renew the same wretched scenes. I know not how long this will last. I know not if Heaven or Hell will triumph. Yet, strange as you may think it, I believe I am not so bad a man as when I was a professor in ——, slowly destroying my lovely wife. From each paroxysm I fancy I escape somewhat stronger, somewhat more manly than before. I think, too, my periods of excess are shorter, and of repentance longer; and I sometimes entertain a hope that folly and madness will in me, as in the young, become exhausted, and that beyond still lies the goal of peace and wisdom.

Such as it is, strange as it may seem, you have from me a truthful history. Would that the world might hear it and be wiser! Mark me! Let not those who undertake to train the young attempt to destroy what Nature has implanted. Let them direct and modify, but not extinguish. The impulsive freedom of youth is generally the result of an exuberant and overflowing spirit, and should be treated accordingly,—else, later in life, it may burst forth fierce and unconquerable, or, what is worse, be indulged in secret and make of us hypocrites and dissemblers.

WOE TO THE MAN WHO HAS HAD NO YOUTH!

THE MEN OF SCHWYZ.

As you go from Lucerne in a decorous little steamboat down the pleasant Vierwaldstättersee, or Lake of the Four Forest Cantons, with the sloping hills on either side, and the green meadow-patches and occasional house among the trees, you come to a sudden turn where the scenery changes swiftly, and pass between steep and shaggy rocks rising perpendicularly out of the blue water, which seems to get bluer there, into the frowning Bay of Uri, guarded, as if it were the last home of freedom, by great granite hills, lying like sleepy giants with outstretched arms, while the heavy clouds rest black and broken on their summits, and the white vapors float below. Just where the lake makes this turn is the hamlet of Brunnen, which you will not hurry by, if you are wise, but tarry with the kind little hostess of the Golden Eagle by the pleasant shore, and learn, if you will, as nowhere else, what the spirit of the Swiss was in the ancient time, as in this.

As you walk across the little valley which stretches down from the hills to the lake where Brunnen is, you remember that it is the town of Schwyz you come to, where dwelt once the hardy, valorous little colony which gave its name to Switzerland,—famous in the annals of this stout-hearted mountain-land for the "peculiar fire" with which they have always fought for their ancient freedom,—worthy to leave their name, in lasting token of the service they did to their fellows and to mankind.

Schwyz lies at the foot of the Hacken Mountain, which rises with double peaks known as the Mythen, (Murray and the tourists, with dubious etymological right, translate Mitres,)—with the dark forests above it on the slopes, and the green openings sparkling in the sunlight, where men and their herds of cattle breathe a purer air. Behind these everlasting walls the spirit of freedom has found a resting-place through the turbulent centuries, during which, on rough Northern soil, the new civilization was taking root, hereafter to overshadow the earth.

Touching the origin of these men of Schwyz, there is a tradition, handed down from father to son, which runs in this wise.

"Toward the North; in the land of the Swedes and Frisians, there was an ancient kingdom, and hunger came upon the people, and they gathered together, and it was resolved that every tenth man should depart. And so they went forth from among their friends, in three bands under three leaders, six thousand fighting men, great like unto giants, with their wives and children and all their worldly goods. And they swore never to desert one another, and smote with victorious arm Graf Peter of the Franks, who would obstruct their progress. They besought of God a land like that of their ancestors, where they might pasture their cattle in peace; and God led them into the country of Brochenburg, and they built there Schwyz; and the people increased, and there was no more room for them in the valley. Some went forth, therefore, into the country round about, even as far as the Weissland; and it is still in the memory of old men how the people went from mountain to mountain, from valley to valley, to Frutigen, Obersibenthal, Sanen, Afflentsch, and Jaun;—and beyond Jaun dwell other races."

The time and circumstance of this wandering are unknown, and we may make what we will of it; but to the men of Schwyz the tradition is an affirmation of their original primal independence. And of old time, also, the Emperors have admitted that these people of their own free will sought and obtained the protection of the Empire,—a privilege by no means extended to all the dwellers of the Waldstätte, (or Forest Cantons,) but confined to the men of Schwyz.

As the Emperors were often absent, engaged in great wars, and the times were very troublous, and there was need of some commanding character among them, for the administration of the criminal law touching the shedding of blood, they often made the Count of Lenzburg Bailiff. But no matter of any moment could be acted upon without the sense of the people being taken, of the serf as well as the freeman: for these two classes existed not less among these primitive people than elsewhere, in the feudal times; and this community of counsel of freeman and serf is related to have worked harmoniously, "for equality existed of itself, by nature, there." They chose a Landammann, or chief magistrate,—a man free by birth, of an honorable name and some substance; and for judges also they were careful to select men of substance, "for he careth most for freedom and order who hath most to lose"; and for the greater peace of the land there was a Street-Council, consisting of seven reputable men, who went through the streets administering justice in small causes here and there, as in the East the judges sat at the city-gate or at the door of the palace.

As the people increased, the valleys of Schwyz, Uri, and Unterwalden were separated and grew to be independent in their own domestic matters, while united with respect to external affairs, as in the league made in 1251 between Zurich, Schwyz, and Uri;—they were like the Five Nations of Canada, says the historian, but more human through Christianity. Their religious belief was simple and fervent; the Goths, as Arians, had rejected the supremacy of the Pope; and now there came secretly teachers from the East, through Bulgaria, Bosnia, and Hungary, even into Rhaetia, and thence to these fastnesses of the Alps. The mind of men, thus left free, developed itself according to the different character of the races. The people of Schwyz were strengthened in their adherence to the authentic Word of God, as it was with the Apostles, without the use of pictures or the bones of saints; this Word they learned by heart, and made little of the additions of men; hence they got to be heretics, and were called Manicheans; but Catholicism conquered them at last.

Thus simple and unknown lived this ancient people,—destined to restore in the end the Confederacy of Helvetia, lost since the days of Caesar's victory, thirteen hundred years before,—till Gerhard, Abbot of Einsiedeln, complained of them to the Emperor Henry V. for pasturing their cattle upon the slopes which belonged to the convent: for, forgetful of the people who dwelt in these parts, whose existence, indeed, was concealed from him by the monks, the Emperor Henry II., in 1018, had bestowed upon the convent the neighboring desert; and the Abbot, of course, did not fail to make the most of the gift. Thus there occurred a collision. The Abbot pursued these poor peasants with the spiritual power, which was not light in those days, and summoned them before the Diet of Nobles of Swabia; but they rejected that tribunal, for they acknowledged only the authority of the Emperor. Whereupon the Abbot laid his complaint before Henry V. at Basel, where Graf Rudolph of Lenzburg, Bailiff of Schwyz, spoke for them. A simple people, innocent of human learning, they could urge against the patent of the Emperor only the tradition of their fathers, and judgment went against them touching the matter, and no question was made in it as to the validity of the Emperor's patent. It was an unexpected blow to the Schwyzers. Tradition among people living solitary grows into a religious right, which they fight for readily. For eleven years their turbulence went unpunished; for Henry V. had other matters on his hands, and his two successors conferred other privileges upon the convent. Thirty years afterwards, however, in 1142 or thereabouts, at the solicitation of the monks, obedience was commanded by the Emperor Conrad III., then on the point of departing with his Crusaders to Palestine. But the people answered,—"If the Emperor, to our injury, contemning the traditions of our fathers, will give our land to unrighteous priests, the protection of the Empire is worthless to us." Thereupon the Emperor waxed wroth; the ban was laid upon them by Hermann, Bishop of Constance; but they withdrew, nevertheless, from the protection of the Empire, and Uri and Unterwalden with them,—fearing neither the Emperor nor the ban, for they could not conceive how it was a sin to maintain the right, and so they pastured their cattle without fear.

When Friedrich I. came to the throne and wanted soldiers, he sent Graf Ulrich of Lenzburg, Bailiff of the Waldstätte, into the valleys to speak to the men of Schwyz. "The heart of the people is in the hands of noble heroes," says the historian;—gladly did the youths, six hundred strong, seize their arms and go forth under Graf Ulrich, whom they loved, to fight for the Emperor his friend, beyond the mountains, in Italy. And now it came the Emperor's turn for the ban; the whole Imperial House of Hohenstaufen fell into spiritual disgrace; Friedrich II. was cursed at Lyons as a blasphemer; but these things did not turn away the hearts of the men of Schwyz from his House.

Long after the time of this Ulrich, the last reigning Graf of Lenzburg, shortly after the Swiss Union had been renewed, at the instance of Walther of Attinghausen, in 1206, Unterwalden chose Rudolph, Count of Hapsburg, for Bailiff. He endeavored to extend his authority over the other two Cantons, in which he was aided by the Emperor Otho IV., of the House of Brunswick, who had been raised to the throne in opposition to the House of Swabia, and who, for the purpose of conciliating him, made him Imperial Bailiff of the Waldstätte. An active, vigorous man this Rudolph, grandfather of the Rudolph who was afterwards called to be King of the Germans, whom the Swiss, scattered in their hamlets, were little prepared to make head against, and therefore recognized him with what grace they might, after an assurance that their freedom and rights should be maintained; and he smoothed for them their old controversy with the monks of Einsiedeln, and got a comfortable division of the property made in 1217. But he was hateful to them, nevertheless; and although we know nothing of the way in which he administered his office, we conjecture that it was partly because the Emperor who appointed him was not of the House of Hohenstaufen, to which they were attached, and partly because he claimed that the office of Bailiff was hereditary in his family, whereas the men of Schwyz preferred to offer it of their own free will to whom they would. They made it a condition of assistance to the Emperor Friedrich in 1231, when he went down into Italy to fight the Guelphs, that he should deprive this Rudolph of the office of Imperial Bailiff; and then they went forth, six hundred strong, and did famous work against the Guelphs, with such fire in them that the Emperor not only knighted Struthan von Winkelried of Unterwalden, but gave that valley a patent of freedom, according to which the Schwyzers voluntarily chose the protection of the Empire.

And now Rudolph, Count of Hapsburg, founder of the Austrian monarchy, strides into the history of the men of Schwyz. A tall, slender man this Rudolph, bald and pale; with much seriousness in his features, but winning confidence the moment one spoke with him by his friendliness, loving simplicity; a restless, stirring man, with more wisdom in him than his companions had, equal or superior to him in birth or power, working his way by device when he could, by the strong arm when that was needed. He took the part of the peasants against the nobles, and used the one to put down the other. In the midst of the turmoils in which he got involved with Sanct Gallen and Basel, and while encamped before the walls of the latter city, he was wakened in his tent at midnight by Friedrich of Hohenzollern, Burgrave of Nürnberg; for there had come from Frankfort on the Main Heinrich von Pappenheim, Hereditary Marshal of the Empire, with the news, that, "in the name of the Electors, with unanimous consent, in consideration of his great virtue and wisdom, Lewis Count Palatine of the Rhine and Duke of Bavaria had named Count Rudolph of Hapsburg King of the Roman Empire of the Germans": at which Rudolph was more astonished than those who knew him, it is recorded. Not because of his genealogy, nor his marriage with Gertrude Anne, daughter of Burcard, Count of Hohenburg and Hagenlock, did he win this great fortune, but, as the Elector Engelbrecht of Cologne said, "because he was just and wise and loved of God and men." And now the world learned what was in him; and how for eighteen years he kept the throne, which no king for three-and-twenty years before him had been able to hold, history will relate to the curious.

Switzerland was divided at this period into small sovereignties and baronial fiefs; and there were, besides, also the Imperial cities of Bern and Basel and Zürich. The nobles were warlike and restless. Rudolph checked their depredations and composed their dissensions. Upon that seething age of violence and rapine he laid, as it were, the forming hand, as if in the darkness the coming time was dimly visible to him;—a man to be remembered, in the vexed and disheartening history of Austria, as one of her few heroes. The people of Schwyz, Uri, and Unterwalden, notwithstanding the dislike they had shown to his ancestor, voluntarily appointed him their protector; and he gave them, in 1274, the firm assurance that he would treat them as worthy sons of the Empire in inalienable independence; and to that assurance he remained true till his death, which happened in 1291, in the seventy-fourth year of his age.

It is related in the Rhymed Chronicle of Ottocar, how he had been kept alive for a whole year by the skill of his physicians, but that they told him at last, as he sat playing at draughts, that death was upon him, and that he could live but five days. "Well, then," he said, "on to Spires!" that he might lay him in the Imperial vault in the great Cathedral there,—where many Emperors slept their long sleep, till, in the Orléans Succession War in the time of Louis XIV., as afterwards in 1794, under the revolutionary commander Custine, French soldiers rudely disturbed it, with every circumstance of outrage which Frenchmen only could devise. Rudolph went forth thither, but fell by the way, and died at Germersheim, a dirty little village which he had founded. And in the Cathedral at Spires, where he rested from his activities, you may see this day a monumental statue of him, executed by that great artist, the late Ludwig Schwanthaler of Munich, for his art-loving patron, Ludwig I., King of Bavaria.

Rudolph was succeeded by his son Albrecht, then forty-three years old, likewise a vigorous man, whose restless spirit of aggrandizement gave the Swiss much uneasiness. His purpose seems to have been to acquire the sovereignty of the ecclesiastical and baronial fiefs, and, having thus encompassed the free cities and the Three Cantons, to compel submission to his authority. In the seventh week after Rudolph's death, they met together to renew the ancient bond with the people of Uri and Unterwalden; and they swore, in or out of their valleys, to stand by one another, if harm should be done to any of them. "In this we are as one man," ran their oath, among other things, "in that we will receive no judge who is not a countryman and an inhabitant, or who has bought his office."

After several years of troubles and frights among them, the Emperor sent to the Forest Cantons to say, that it would be well for them and their posterity, if they submitted to the protection of the Royal House, as all neighboring cities and counties had done; he wished them to be his dear children; he was the descendant of their Bailiff of Lenzburg, son of their Emperor Rudolph; if he offered them the protection of his glorious line, it was not that he lusted after their flocks or would make merchandise of their poverty, but because he knew from his father and from history what brave men they were, whom he would lead to victory and knighthood and plunder.

Then spake the nobles and the freemen of the Forest Cantons: "They know very well, and will ever remember, how his father of blessed memory was a good leader and Bailiff to them; but they love the condition of their ancestors, and will abide by it. If the King would but confirm it!"

And thereupon they sent Werner, Baron of Attinghausen, Landammann of Uri, like his fathers before him and his posterity after him, to the Imperial Court. But the King was quarrelling with his Electors, and was in bad humor, and sent to Uri to forbid them from assessing land-rates on a convent there. Whereupon the men of Schwyz, being without protection, made a league for ten years with Werner, Count of Honburg; and that their submission to the Austrian power might not be construed into a duty, they sent to the King for an Imperial Bailiff. Albrecht appointed Hermann Gessler of Brunek, and Beringer of Landenberg, whose cousin Hermann was in much favor with him. Beringer's manners were rough even at the Court; and to get rid of him, they sent him to tame the Waldstätte. He appointed Bailiffs whose poverty and avarice were the cause of much oppression, emboldened as they were by the ill-feeling of the King towards the men of Schwyz, whose freedom the King had refused to confirm, and waited only for opportunity to annihilate their ancient rights, after the example he had already set in Vienna and Styria.

The Imperial Bailiffs resolved to take up their abode in the Forest Cantons,—Landenberg in Unterwalden, near Sarnen, in a castle of the King's, while Gessler built a prison-castle by Altorf in Uri; for within the memory of men no lord had dwelt in Schwyz. They used their power wantonly;—unjust and weary imprisonments for slightest faults; haughty manners, and all the stings of insolent authority;—and no redress to be had at the King's hands. The peace and happy security of the men of Schwyz were gone, and they looked in one another's faces for the thing that was to be done. The honored families of their race were despised and called peasant-nobles;—there was Werner Stauffacher, a well-to-do and well-meaning man; and the Lord of Attinghausen above all, of an ancient house, in years, with much experience, and true to his country; there was Rudolph Redings of Biberek, whose descendants live to this day in Schwyz, supporting still the honor of their name; and the Winkelrieds, mindful of the spirit of their ancestor who slew the dragon. In such persons the people believed; they knew them and their fathers before them; and when they were made light of, there was hatred between the people and the Bailiffs. As Gessler passed Stauffacher's house in Steinen, one day, where the little chapel now stands, and saw how the house was well built, with many windows, and painted over with mottoes, after the manner of rich farmers' houses, he cried to his face, "Can one endure that these peasants should live in such houses?"

It came at last to insulting their wives and daughters; and the first man that attempted this, one Wolfenschiess, was struck dead by an angry husband; and when the brave wife of Stauffacher reflected how her turn might come next, she persuaded her husband to anticipate the danger. Werner Stauffacher at once crossed the lake to Uri, to consult with his friend Walther, Prince of Attinghausen, with whom he found concealed a young man of courage and understanding. "He is an Unterwaldner from the Melchthal," said Walther; "his name is Erni an der Halden, and he is a relation of mine; for a trifling matter Landenberg has fined him a couple of oxen; his father Henry complained bitterly of the loss, whereupon a servant of the Bailiff said, 'If the peasants want to eat bread, they can draw their own plough'; at which Erni took fire, and broke one of the fellow's fingers with his stick, and then took refuge here; meanwhile the Bailiff has caused his father's eyes to be put out." And then the two friends took counsel together; and Walther bore witness how the venerable Lord of Attinghausen had said that these Bailiffs were no longer to be endured. What desolating wrath resistance would bring upon the Waldstätte they knew and measured, and swore that death was better than an unrighteous yoke. And they parted, each to sound his friends,—appointing as a place of conference the Rütli. It is a little patch of meadow, which the precipices seem to recede expressly to form, on the Bay of Uri, sloping down to the water's edge,—so called from the trees being rooted out (ausgereutet) there,—not far from the boundary between Unterwalden and Uri, where the Mytenstein rises solitary like an obelisk out of the water. There, in the stillness of night, they often met together for council touching the work which was to be done; thither by lonely paths came Fürst and Melchthal, Stauffacher in his boat, and from Unterwalden his sister's son, Edelknecht of Rudenz. The more dangerous the deed, the more solemn the bond which bound them.

On the night of Wednesday before Martinmas, on the 10th of November, 1307, Fürst, Melchthal, and Stauffacher brought each from his own Canton ten upright men to the Rütli, to deliberate honestly together. And when they came there and remembered their inherited freedom, and the eternal brotherly bond between them, consecrated by the danger of the times, they feared neither Albrecht nor the power of Austria; and they took each other by the hand, and said, that "in these matters no one was to act after his own fancy; no one was to desert another; that in friendship they would live and die; each was so to strive to preserve the ancient rights of the people that the Swiss through all time might taste of this friendship; neither should the property or the rights of the Count of Hapsburg be molested, nor the Bailiffs or their servants lose one drop of blood; but the freedom which their fathers gave them they would bequeath to their children": and then, when remembering that upon what they did now the fate of their posterity depended, each looked upon his friend, consoled. And Walther Fürst, Werner Stauffacher, and Arnold an der Halden of Melchthal lifted their hands to heaven, and, in the name of God, who created emperor and peasant with the inalienable rights of man, swore to maintain their freedom; and when the thirty heard this, each one raised his hand and swore the same by God and the Saints;—and then each went his way to his hut, and was silent, and wintered his cattle.

In the mean while it happened that the Bailiff Hermann Gessler was shot dead by Wilhelm Tell, who was of Bürglen, at the entrance of the Schächenthal, a half-hour from Altorf, in Uri,—son-in-law of Walther Fürst, and a man of some substance, for he had the steward-ship in fee in Bürglen of the Frauenmüster Abbey in Zürich,—one of the conspirators. Out of wanton tyranny, or suspicious of the breaking out of disturbances, Gessler determined to discover who bore the joke most impatiently; and, after the symbolical way of the times and the people, set up a hat, (it was on the 18th of November,) to represent the dignity of the Duke Albrecht of Austria, and commanded all to do it homage. The story of Tell's refusal, and of the apple placed on the head of his son to be shot at, the world knows far and wide. Convinced by his success that God was with him, Tell confessed, that, if the matter had gone wrong, he would have had his revenge upon the Bailiff. Gessler did not dare to detain him in Uri, on account of Tell's many friends and relations, but took him up the lake, contrary to the traditions of the people, which forbade foreign imprisonment. They had not got far beyond the Rütli, when the föhn-wind, breaking loose from the gulfs of the Gothard, threw the waves into a rage, and the rocks echoed with its angry cries. In this moment of deadly danger, Gessler commanded them to unbind Tell, who, he knew, was an excellent boatman; and as they passed by the foot of the Axen Mountain, to the right as you come out of the Bay of Uri, Tell grasped his bow and leaped upon a flat rock there, climbed up the mountain while the boat tossed to and fro against the rocks, and fled through the land of the men of Schwyz. But the Bailiff escaped the storm also, and landed by Küssnacht, where he fell with Tell's arrow through him.

It should be remembered that this was Tell's deed alone: the hour which the people had agreed upon for their deliverance had not come; they had no part in the death of Gessler. Carlyle has remarked this as appearing also in Schiller's drama, in the construction of which, he says, "there is no connection, or a very slight one, between the enterprise of Tell and that of the men of Rütli." It was not a deed conformable to law or the highest ethics, yet it was one which mankind is ever ready to forgive and applaud; and the echo of it through the ages will die away only when hatred of tyranny and wrathful impatience under hopeless oppression die away also from the hearts of men. Tell was an outlaw, and he took an outlaw's vengeance: it was life against life. And yet it is a curious fact, that the historian of Switzerland (that wonderful genius, Johannes Müller, who is reported to have read more books than any man in Europe, in proof of which they point you to his fifty folio volumes of excerpts in the Town Library at Schaffhausen) suggests as a reason why there were only one hundred and fourteen persons, who had known Tell, to gather together in 1388, not much more than thirty years after his death, at the erection of a chapel dedicated to his memory on the rock where he leaped ashore, that Tell did not often leave Bürglen, where he dwelt, and that, according to the ethics of that period, the deed was not one likely to attract inquisitive wonderers to him.

There is hardly an event or character in history which is not to somebody a myth or a phantom; and so Tell has not escaped the skepticism of men. But those who doubt his existence have little experience of history, says Müller. Grasser was the first to remark the resemblance between the adventures of Tell and those of a certain Tocco, or Toke, or Palnatoke, of Denmark, which are related by Saxo Grammaticus, a learned historian who flourished in Denmark in the twelfth century, of which kingdom and its dependencies he compiled an elaborate history, first printed at Paris in 1486; but the Danish Tocco, who is supposed to have existed in the latter half of the tenth century, was wholly unknown to the Swiss, who, if ever, came to the Alps before that time. The Icelanders, also, have a similar story about another hero, which appears in the "Vilkinasaga" of the fourteenth century. It is more likely that the Danes and other Northern people got their tradition from the Swiss, by way of the Hanse Towns perhaps, if we are to be permitted to believe in but one original tradition, which is not less arbitrary than unphilosophic.

Moreover, for what did these one hundred and fourteen people dedicate a chapel to him thirty years and a little more after his death? And there is the Chronicle of Klingenberg, which covers the end of the fourteenth century, which tells his story; and Melchior Russ, of Lucerne, who, in compiling his book, about the year 1480, had before him a Tell-song, and the Chronicle of Eglof Etterlins, Town-Clerk of Lucerne in the first half of the fifteenth century; and since 1387, too, there has been solemn service by the people of Uri to commemorate him. So that the "Fable Danoise" of Uriel Freudenberger of Bern (1760) becomes a mere absurdity, and the indignant Canton of Uri had no less right to burn it (although to burn was not to answer it, suggests the critic,) than to honor the "Defence" by Balthasar with two medals of gold. And what has been written to establish him may be read in Zurlauben, (whose approbation is almost proof, says Müller, reverentially,) and elsewhere as undernoted.[A]

[Footnote A: In Balthasar, Déf. de Guill. Tell (Lucerne, 1760); Gottl. Eman. von Haller, Vorlesung über Wilh. Tell, etc. (Bern, 1772); Hisely, Guill. Tell et la Révolution de 1307 (Delft, 1826); Ideler, Die Sage vom Schüsse des Tell (Berlin, 1836); Häusser, Die Sage vom Tell (Heidelberg, 1840); Schoenhuth, Wilh. Tell, Geschichte aus der Vorzeit (Reutlingen, 1836); Henning, Wilh. Tell (Nürnberg, 1836); and Histoire de Guill. Tell, Libérateur de la Suisse (Paris, 1843).]

Tell's posterity in the male line is reported to have died out with Johann Martin, in 1684; the female, with Verena, in 1720. Yet it is certainly a little surprising that the elder Swiss chroniclers, John of Winterthur, and Justinger of Bern, for instance, who were almost Tell's contemporaries, make no mention of him in relating the Revolution in the Waldstätte, and that it should be left to Tschudi and others, almost two hundred years afterwards, in the sixteenth century, to give his story that dramatic importance upon which Schiller has set the seal forever. It can be explained, perhaps, on the ground that it did not at the time possess that importance which we have been taught to give it; though roughly, thus, we do away with the poetry of it, to be sure. Let Voltaire, whose function it was to deny, enjoy his feeble sneer, that "the difficulty of pronouncing those respectable names"—to wit, Melchtad, and Stauffager, and Valtherfurst, to say nothing of Grisler—"injures their celebrity." Neither are we to conceal the fact, that it is doubted, if not denied, that there ever was any Gessler in Uri to perform all the wicked things ascribed to him, and to get that arrow through him in such dramatic and effective manner in the Hollow Way; for has not Kopp published, with edifying explanation, "Documents for the History of the Confederation," (Lucerne, 1835,) in which, in the list of Bailiffs (Landvoigte) at Küssnacht, we do not find the name of Gessler? Perhaps there was a mistake in the name, the critic suggests.

The Revolution thus begun at the Rütli, and by Tell, went forward swiftly in January, 1308; and, true to their oath, it was consummated by the men of Schwyz without harm to the property of the Bailiffs, also without the spilling of a single drop of blood. The prison at Uri was captured, and Landenberg also, as he descended to hear mass, by twenty men from Unterwalden; but, escaping, he fled across the meadows from Sarnen to Alpnach, where he was overtaken and made to swear that he would never set foot again in the Waldstätte, and then suffered to depart safely to the King. And the peasants breathed again; and Stauffacher's wife opened her house to all who had been at the Rütli; and there was joy in the land.

And how in that same year Duke Albrecht met with a bloody end, such as befell no King or Emperor of the Germans before or after him, at the hands of Duke John, his nephew, whose inheritance he had kept back, and other conspirators; and what vengeance overtook the murderers; and how Duke John, escaping in the habit of a monk into Italy, was no more heard of, but became a shadow forever, like the rest of them;—and how, eight years afterwards, came the expedition of Duke Leopold of Austria against the Waldstätte, and the fight at Morgarten, where the Swiss, thirteen hundred mountaineers in all, Wilhelm Tell among them, routed twenty thousand of the well-armed chivalry of Austria,—dating from that heroic Thermopylae of theirs the foundation of the Swiss Confederacy, as, larger and perhaps not less resolute, we see it to-day, ready to defy, if need be, single-handed, the greatest military nation of the earth;—and how, thirty years afterwards, the men of Schwyz and Uri go forth, nine hundred strong,—among them Tell, and Werner Stauffacher, now bent with years,—to the aid of Bern, threatened by the nobles roundabout;—and how, in 1332, was formed the league with Lucerne, whereby the beautiful lake gets its name as the Lake of the Four Forest Cantons;—and how, one sultry July day in 1386, the men of Schwyz and Uri and Unterwalden, together with other Swiss,—some of them armed with the very halberds with which their fathers defended the pass at Morgarten,—fought again their hereditary enemy, Austria, by the clear waters of the little Lake of Sempach; how, when they saw the enemy, they fell upon their knees, according to their ancient custom, and prayed to God, and then with loud war-cry dashed at full run upon the Austrian host, whose shields were like a dazzling wall, and their spears like a forest, and the Mayor of Lucerne with sixty of his followers went down in the shock, but not a single one of the Austrians recoiled; and how at that critical, dreadful moment,—for the flanks of the enemy's phalanx were advancing to encompass them,—there suddenly strode forth the Knight Arnold Strutthan von Winkelried, crying, "I will make a path for you! care for my wife and children!" and, rushing forward, grasped several spears and buried them in his breast,—a large, strong man, he bore the soldiers down with him as he fell, and his companions pushed forward over his dead body into the midst of the host, and the victory was won, and another book was added to the epic story of the men of Schwyz and Uri and Unterwalden;—and how Duke Leopold fell fighting bravely, as became his house, and six hundred and fifty nobles with him, so that there was mourning at the Court of Austria for many a year, and men said it was a judgment upon the reckless spirit of the nobles; and how Martin Malterer, standard-bearer, of Freyburg in the Breisgau, happening to come upon Leopold as he was dying, was as one petrified, and the banner fell from his hands, and he threw himself across the body of Leopold to save it from further outrage, waiting for and finding his own death there;—and how this ruinous contest between Switzerland and Austria was not finally closed till the time of Maximilian, in 1499, when first the right of private war was abolished in Germany;—and how, through the various fortunes of the succeeding centuries, the character of the Swiss has remained for the most part the same as in the earlier time:—these things one may read at large elsewhere; but we hasten to the conclusion.

The story of Tell has been the subject of several dramas. Lemierre, a popular French dramatist of his day, (though J. J. Rousseau affects to call him a scribe whom the French Academy once crowned,) produced a play founded upon it, in Paris, in 1766; but the language of Swiss freemen on a French stage was little to the taste of those days, and it was a failure. Voltaire, when asked what he thought of it, replied,—"Il n'y a rien à dire; il est écrit en langue du pays." But twenty years afterwards it was revived with prodigious success; for the truth which was in it flashed out then, forerunner of the storm which was soon to break over France. Again, when Florian, whom we are to remember always for his "Fables," banished in 1793 by the decree which forbade nobles to remain in Paris, taking refuge at Sceaux, was arrested and thrown into prison, he consoled his captivity by composing his drama of "Guillaume Tell,"—the worst of his productions, it is recorded. Lastly, it has been consecrated for all time by the genius of Friedrich Schiller. The legend was first brought to Schiller's notice, doubtless, by Goethe, who writes to him concerning it from Switzerland in 1797. Goethe himself thought of founding an epic on it. It was not, however, till 1801, before his journey to Dresden, that Schiller's attention was permanently directed to it. Completed on the 18th of February, it was brought out at Weimar on the 17th of March, 1804, with the most extraordinary success: the fifth act, however, was suppressed, in deference to the intended court alliance with the daughter of a murdered Russian emperor; it not being considered good taste to represent the assassination of an autocrat upon such an occasion.

Schiller's drama has been translated into French by Merle d'Aubigné and others, and many times into English,—among us by the Rev. C. T. Brooks. It follows the tradition substantially. Carlyle declares, indeed, that "the incidents of the Swiss Revolution, as detailed in Tschudi or Müller, are here faithfully preserved, even to their minutest branches." We tarried once for several days at Brunnen, and read the play upon the spot in sight of the Rütli, in the little balcony of the pension of the Golden Eagle, with the deep, calm, blue lake at our feet, and the Hacken and Axen mountains and the Selisberg shutting out the world for a time; and as we look at the play now, it recalls with the utmost minuteness the scenery and the coloring of it all: yet Schiller never was there. It was the last startling effulgence of his comet-like genius; for when the spring-flowers came again, he was gone from our earth.

In the last act of the great drama, as Tell sits at his cottage-door in Bürglen in Uri, surrounded by his wife and children, after the consummation of the deed, there approaches a monk begging alms;—it is the parricide Duke John, flying the sight and presence of men. In the contrast of the feelings of these two persons, then and there, one reads Schiller's justification of his hero. As if to complete by contrast the moral of the drama of "Tell," it is related also in the tradition, that in 1354, when the stream of the Schächen was swollen, Tell, then bowing under the snowy years, seeing a child fall into it, as he passed that way, plunged in, and lost his life. Uhland has indicated this in his "Death of Tell," as only Uhland could:—

  "Die Kraft derselben Liebe,
  Die du dem Knaben trugst,
  Ward einst in dir zum Triebe,
  Dass du den Zwingherrn schlugst."

Some liken life to a book to be read in. To us it is rather an unwritten poem which each age repeats to the next,—melodious sometimes, as when the blind old mythic bard of Chios sang it under the olive-trees, by the blue Aegean, to the listening Greeks, thirsty for beauty, drinking it ever with their eyes, and with their lips lisping it,—or rough and more full of meaning, as when, with the men of Schwyz and Uri and Unterwalden, the great idea of freedom, majestic as their mountains, utters itself, composed and stern, in deeds which for all time make Switzerland honored and free.

On the 10th of November, 1859, the heart of Germany beat with gladness, if touched also with a certain sorrow, as in every hamlet, on every hill-side, from the German Ocean to the Tyrolese Alps, from the Vosges to the Carpathians and the Slavic border, the people met to celebrate with simple rites the hundredth birthday of its great poet Schiller, in whom they recognize not more what he did than what he sought after, whose striving is their striving, from highest to lowest,—the ideal man, burning to gather them together, and fold them as one flock under one shepherd, that, no longer divided, they may face the world and the future with one heart, with one great trembling hope, to lead the new civilization to its lasting triumphs.

Schiller had sung of Wilhelm Tell; and the men of Schwyz remembered him on that occasion, too, on the Rütli, with their confederates from Oberwalden and Niederwalden. On the afternoon of the 11th of November, they met at Brunnen,—on the lake, as we have said,—the men of Schwyz embarking in one great boat, amidst peals of music, while numberless little canoes received the others. The wind, blowing strong from the north, filled the sail, and, as they floated down the Bay of Uri, they remembered Stauffacher and his friends, who had glided over the same dark waters at dead of night, past the Mytenstein to the Rütli, and the old time lived again; and the little chapel on the spot where Tell sprang ashore, erected by the Canton Uri, where once a year, since 1388, mass is said, and a sermon preached to the people, who go up in solemn procession of little boats, looked friendly over to them; and the countrymen of Schiller, present for the first time from Stuttgart and Munich, wondered at the solemn beauty of the snowpeaks reflected in the waters below. A chorus of many voices broke upon the mountain-stillness, as the little fleet approached the Rütli; the men of Uri, already there, "the first on the spot," and with them the men of Gersau, a valiant band, answered in a song of welcome; and they shook each other by the hand, and made a little circle, three hundred in all, upon the Rütli; and Lusser of Uri thanked the men of Schwyz for the invitation to remember their fathers here on the five hundred and fifty-second anniversary of the deeds which Schiller has so gloriously sung. We best remember the poet by repeating and upholding his words:—

  "Wir wollen seyn ein einzig Volk von Brüdern,
  In keiner Noth uns trennen und Gefahr.
  Wir wollen frey seyn, wie die Väter waren,
  Eher den Tod als in der Knechtschaft leben.
  Wir wollen trauen auf den höchsten Gott,
  Und uns nicht fürchten vor der Macht der
  Menschen."

  "One people will we be,—a band of brothers;
  No danger, no distress shall sunder us.
  We will be freemen as our fathers were,
  And sooner welcome death than live as slaves.
  We will rely on God's almighty arm,
  And never quail before the power of man." [B]

Then they read the scene of the Rütli Oath from Schiller's play, and sing the Swiss national song, "Callest thou, my Fatherland?" And the pastor Tschümperlin admonishes them that they best cultivate the spirit of Schiller and Tell by worthy training of their children. As they are about to break up at last, the Landammann Styger of Schwyz suggests a beautiful thing to them:—"As we came from Brunnen, and looked up at the Mytenstein as we passed it,—the great pyramid rising up there out of the water as if meant by Nature for a monument,—it seemed to us that a memorial tablet should be placed there, simple like the column itself, with words like these: 'To Him who wrote "Tell," on his One Hundredth Birthday, the Original Cantons.'" And the proposition was received with unanimous shout of assent. "This was the worthy ending of the Schiller-Festival on the Rütli," says the contemporary chronicle.

On the 10th day of November, 1859, also, there was put into the hands of the Central Committee of the Society of the Swiss Union the deed of purchase of the Rütli. It is in the handwriting of Franz Lusser of Uri, Clerk of the Court, and dated the 10th of November, the birthday of Schiller. Thus Switzerland owns its sacred places, and the title-deeds long laid up in its heart are written out at last.

On the 21st of October of last year, on a brilliant afternoon, the men of Schwyz and Uri went forth again from Brunnen, with the chief magistracy of the land. From Treib came the Unterwaldners, all in richly decorated boats, and the inhabitants of Lucerne in two steamboats with much music, meeting in front of the Mytenstein, which lifts its colossal front eighty feet above the water there. The top of it was covered with a large boat-sail, with the arms of the original Cantons and Swiss mottoes on it; in a wreath of evergreen, the arms of the other Cantons; in the middle of it, in token of the twenty-two Cantons, a white cross upon red ground; above all, the flag of the Confederacy spread to the Föhn. At the foot was a little stand made of twigs for the speaker, about which the little fleet was grouped, under the charge of the Landammann Aufdermauer of Brunnen, a gallant gentleman, host of the Golden Eagle, with his kind little sister, of whom we spoke at the beginning.

When all was still, Uri opens the musical trilogy,—the words by P. Gall. Morell, monk of Einsiedeln, the music by Baumgartner of Zürich; Unterwalden takes up the burden; then Schwyz; then all three in chorus;—and the echo of the fresh voices among the rocks there was as in a cathedral. Then Landammann Styger climbs to the stand, and makes a little speech, and reads a letter from Schiller's daughter, (of which presently,) while the curious shepherd-boys stretch out their necks over the craggy tops of the Selisberg to look down upon the lively scene below.

At the end of his speech, Styger lets fall the sail amid the beating of the drums and the shouts of the multitude; and on the flat sides of the rock appear the gilded metal letters, a foot high,—"To the Singer of Tell, Fr. Schiller, the Original Cantons, 1859." And there were other little speeches,—one by Lusser, who exclaims with much truth, "The rocks of our mountains can be broken, but not bent"; and then followed the Swiss psalm by Zwysig. And afterwards, in the evening, a feast in the Golden Eagle in Brunnen, at which, with the ancient sobriety, they remember the dangers of the present, and affirm their neutrality, which should not hang upon the caprice of a neighbor, but be grounded in their own will, for there is no Lord in Christendom for them except Him who is above all.

"Your friendly words have truly delighted and deeply moved my heart;— not less the engraving of the Mytenstein, which shall stand as the very worthy and noble memorial of the Singer of Wilhelm Tell in the land of the Swiss for all time forever,—a token of recognition of the genius which, struggling for the highest good of mankind, has found its home in the hearts of all noble men and women. With infinite joy I greeted the beautiful idea, so wholly worthy of the land as of the poet,—there, where magnificent Nature, grown friendly, offers its hand on the very ground where one of the noblest, most finished creations of Schiller takes root, to consecrate to him a memorial which, defying time and storms, shall illumine afar off every heart which turns to it.

"In memory also of my beloved mother, Charlotte, Schiller's earthly angel, I rejoice in this memorial. She it was who, with deepest love for Switzerland, which she calls the land of her affections, where she passed happy youthful days from 1783 to 1784, led Schiller to it, and by her fresh, lively descriptions made him partake of it; and so prepared the way for the genius which could embrace and penetrate all things for the masterly representation of the country, which, unfortunately, his feet never trod. If, unhappily, I am not able to be present at the festival on the 21st of October, I am not the less thankful for your kind invitation; and in that sacred hour I will be with you in spirit, deeply sympathizing with all that the noble idea brought into life.

"A little memorial of the 10th of November, 1859, representing Schiller and Charlotte, I pray you, Gentlemen, to accept of me, and, when you recall the parents, to remember also the daughter.

In the churchyard of Cleversulzbach lies buried, since the 2d of May, 1802, the mother of Schiller. Prof. Dr. E. Mörika, when he was preacher there, erected a simple stone cross over the grave, and with his own hands engraved upon it the words, "Schiller's Mother." On the famous 10th of November, 1859, woman's hand decorated the grave with flowers, and put a laurel wreath upon the cross; and in the hour when great cities with festal processions and banquets and oratory and jubilant song offered their homage to the son, a few persons gathered around the grave of the mother, and in the silence there planted a linden-tree; for in stillness thus, while she lived, had his mother done her part, lovingly and with faith, to unfold and consecrate the genius of Friedrich Schiller.

A NOOK OF THE NORTH.

Adventurous travellers, who penetrated into Canada during the late visit of the Sovereign-Apparent of that colony, have furnished the public, through the daily press, with minute and more or less faithful descriptions of places upon the grand routes, Quebec and Montreal have been done by them to a hair; Kingston and another wicked place made notorious for bad manners; Toronto, Hamilton, and London of the West photographed with a camera of maximum dimensions. Upon the two great railroad-lines by which Canada is now traversed,—the Grand Trunk and the Great Western,—there is hardly a station which has not been mentioned by the reporters, either for the loyal manner in which it was decorated to do honor to the youthful Prince, or for the rather inhospitable display of certain objectionable symbols by the people around.

But neither in Canada nor elsewhere is it upon the grand routes that glimpses can be had of interior life and character. Primitive simplicity is altogether incompatible with railroads. The boy who resides near a station is quite an old man, compared with any average boy taken from the sequestered clearings ten miles back: he may be a worse kind of boy, or he may be a better, but he isn't the same kind, at any rate. Of girls it is more difficult to speak with confidence in the present era,—hooped skirts having pretty nearly assimilated them everywhere; but I have noticed that they are less ingenuous along railroads than in secluded districts, and their parents more suspicious,—a fact which makes railroad-vicinities inferior places to dwell in, compared to those that are rural and remote from the demoralizing influences of up and down trains.

I do not aver that the railroad is devoid of a kind of poetry of its own,—the same kind of sentiment, nearly, that resides about anvils and smelting-furnaces in the Hartz Mountains and in the great coal-districts: an infernal kind of sentiment, for the most part, being inseparable from burning fiery furnaces and grime; as in "Fridolin," and in the "Song of the Bell," and in the "Forging of the Anchor." Once, particularly, in travelling by rail, did I experience the mysterious glamour that seems to hang round iron more than about any other metal. It was past midnight; and on waking up after a sleep of some hours, I found myself alone in the long car, which had come to a stand-still while I slept. The stillness of the night was broken at intervals by a short, loud boom, as of an iron bell ringing up some terrible domestic from the incomprehensible unseen. On looking out of the window, I saw by some dim lamp-light that we were alone in an immense iron hall; we, I say, for there was a ponderous, grimy being darkly visible to me, whose gigantic shadow made terrible gestures upon the walls and among the great iron girders of the roof, as he moved slowly along the train, striking the wheels with a heavy sledge-hammer as he went. Of course there was nothing unusual in such a proceeding, the object of which was, probably, to ascertain something connected with the condition of the rolling stock; but there was a kind of awful poetry in the toll of the iron bell, which ran, and reverberated, and tingled among the iron ribs in the building, making them all sing as if they were things of flesh and blood, with plenty of iron in the latter, which is reckoned to be conducive to robust health.

But the romance of rolling stock has yet to be disengaged, and the inspired conductor or bardic baggage-master destined to do that is yet in the shell. May he long remain there!

Off the track some ten or twenty miles, though, almost anywhere, some of the materials, at least, for good, regular poetry of the old-fashioned kind are to be found. A mill, for instance, with a wooden wheel,—no demoralizing iron about it, in fact, except what cannot well be dispensed with, in view of wear and tear. A white cottage, where the miller dwells serene; mossy roof, red brick chimney, and no lightning-rod or any other iron, being the principal features of the serene miller's abode. Cherries, in that tranquil person's garden, that are nearly ripe, and roses of a delicate red,—but none so ripe or so red as the lips and cheeks of the serene miller's daughter, who trips across the little wooden foot-bridge over the mill-stream, singing a birdy kind of song as she goes. She is clad in a black velvet bodice and russet skirt, and has no iron about her of any description, unless, indeed, it is in her blood,—where it ought to be. The breath of kine waiting to be relieved of their honest milk, which is a good, solid kind of fluid in such places, and meanders about the land with great freedom in company with honey. All these things will be very scarce in the world by-and-by, on which account it seems to be a judicious thing to go off the track a little, now and then, if only to "say that we have seen them."

In following the graphic narratives of the Prince of Wales's tour, the mind naturally wandered away to places not visited by him, although within easy distance of his fore-ordered course. It is well that there are places left to talk about! Let us conjure up a few old reminiscences of one,—a silent, primitive little nook of the North, within an hour's ride of Quebec, but too insignificant a spot for the coveted distinction of a royal visit. Crowned heads, then, will have the goodness to transfer their attention, and skip to the next article.

The nook to which I refer is Lorette, in Lower or French Canada, where it is commonly called Jeune Lorette, to distinguish it from Ancienne Lorette,—a less interesting place, distant from it about four miles.

Jeune Lorette is situated about eight miles north-west of Quebec, upon the beautiful, romantic stream called the St. Charles, which rushes down many a picturesque gorge, and winds through many pleasant meadows, in its course of some twenty miles from Lake St. Charles away up in the hills to the St. Roch suburb of Quebec. Here it assumes the character of a deep, tortuous dock, incumbered with the débris of many ship-yards, and reflecting the skeleton shapes of big-ribbed merchantmen on the stocks. Here, too, it is generally called the Little River; probably to distinguish it from the great River St. Lawrence, into which it oozes at this point.

But higher up, as I have said, the St. Charles is romantic and rushes on its fate. At Lorette, it divides the village in twain: a western section, for the most part peopled by French-Canadian habitans; an eastern one, inhabited by half-breed Indians, a remnant of the once powerful Hurons of old.

These Canadian Hurons are not, in their present condition, corroborative of the Cooper specifications of Indian life: rather the contrary, in fact. There is a wing of them—a wing without feathers, indeed—settled down at Amherstburgh, on the far western marge of Lake Erie, in Canada, quite six hundred miles away from their brethren of Lorette. When shooting woodcock once in that district, I entered the comfortable log farm-house of the chief of the settlement, whose name was Martin. He was a fat, rather Dutch-looking Indian, but still active and industrious,—for a man who is an Indian and fat. I asked Mr. Martin if he hunted much; to which he replied, No, he did not,—adding, that he never was far into the woods but once in his life, and that was on his own lot of a hundred acres of bush, in which he was lost, on that occasion, for two days.

Among the Hurons of Lorette there are a few young men who hunt moose and caribou in the proper season; but the men, generally speaking, as well as the women, are engaged in the manufacture of snow-shoes and moccasons,—articles for which there is a great demand in Lower Canada. Philippe Vincent, a chieftain and shoemaker of the tribe, told me that he had disposed of twelve hundred dollars' worth of these articles, on a trip to Montreal, from which he had just returned. Many articles of Indian fancy-work are also manufactured by them: beaded pouches for tobacco, bark-work knick-knacks, and curious racks made of the hoofs of the moose, and hung upon the wall to stick small articles into.

On the profits of this work many of them live in comfort,—nay, in luxury. Paul Vincent, a cousin of Philippe mentioned above, and, like him, a chief of the tribe and a renowned builder of snow-shoes, paid two hundred and seventy-five dollars for a piano for his daughter, when I was at Quebec, five or six years ago. Whenever I visited Philippe, that stately man of the Hurons would usher me into a little parlor with a sofa in it and a carpet on the floor; he would produce brandy in a cut decanter, and cake upon a good porcelain plate, and would be merry in French and expansive on the subject of trade.

Most of these hybrid Hurons are quite as white as their Canadian neighbors; but they generally have the horse-tail hair, and black, beady eye of the aborigines. The ordinary dress of the men, in winter, is a blue blanket-coat, made with a capuchon, or hood, which latter is generally trimmed with bright-colored ribbon and ornamented with beads. Epaulettes, fashioned out of pieces of red and blue cloth, somewhat after the pattern of a pen-wiper, impart a distinguished appearance to the shoulders of these garments, which are rendered still more picturesque by being tucked round the body with heavy woollen sashes, variegated in red, blue, and yellow. Some of these sashes are heavily beaded, and worth from five to ten dollars each; and they, as well as the Indian blanket-coats, are to be had at the furriers' shops in Quebec, where there is a considerable demand for them by members of snow-shoe clubs, and others whose occupations or amusements render that style of costume appropriate for their wear. The older women dress in the ordinary squaw costume, with short, narrow petticoats, and embroidered metasses, or leggings. When going out, they fold a blue blanket over all, and put on a regular, unpicturesque, stove-pipe hat, with a band of tin-foil around it,—which makes them look like one of those mulatto coachmen one sees now and then on the box of a bonton barouche, with his silver-mounted hat and double-caped blue box-coat. The young girls are disposed to innovations upon the petticoats, and modifications of the metasses. Once I saw one standing on a great gray crag at the foot of the fall. She looked extremely picturesque at a little distance, giving a nice bit of local color to the scene with her scarlet legs; but on a nearer approach, much of the value of the color disappeared before the unromantic facts of a pale-face petticoat and patent-leather gaiter-boots. I have noticed several of the younger people here with brown hair and blue or gray eyes, significant that the aboriginal blood is being gradually diluted. In another generation or two, there will be little of it left among them. But the correspondents of the press, who described some of these Indians seen by them at Quebec, are mistaken in attributing to them an admixture of Irish blood. Until within eight years past, there were few, if any, Irish to be found in the neighborhood of Lorette. Since that time, the construction of the Quebec water-works, which are supplied from Lake St. Charles, has given employment to hundreds of the Hibernian stock in that neighborhood; and I know not whether their influence as regards race may not be now discernible in the features of many pugnacious Huronites of tender years: but the white element traceable in the lineaments of the present and passing generations of the settlement is distinctly attributable to the proximity of the French-Canadian, whose language has been transfused into them with the blood.

Few, if any, of the older people of Lorette speak English,—Huron and French being the only languages at their command. Since the building of the great reservoir, however, many of the rising generation are picking up the English tongue in its roundest Irish form. Previously, matters were the reverse. I once noticed a handsome, brown-faced boy there, who used to come about with a bow and arrows, soliciting coppers, which were placed one by one in a split stick, shot at, and pocketed by the archer, if hit,—as they almost always were. He spoke Indian and French, and I took him for an olive-branch of the tribe; but, on questioning him, he told me that his name was Bill Coogan, and that he first saw the light, I think, in Cork, Ireland.

There is one charming feature at Lorette,—a winding, dashing cascade, which boils and creams down with splendid fury through a deep gorge fenced with pied and tumbled rocks, and overhung by gnarly-boughed cedars, pines, and birches. There is, or at least there was, a crumbling old saw-mill on a ledge of rock nearly half-way up the torrent. It was in keeping with the scene, and I hope it is there still; but it was very shaky when I last saw it, and has probably made an éboulement down to the foot of the fall before now. Some short distance above the head of the fall, near the bridge by which the two villages are connected, the scene is pictorially damaged by a stark, staring paper-mill, the dominant colors of which are Solferino-red and pea-green. This, a comparatively new feature in the landscape, is not visible from below, however, and it is from there that the fall is seen to best advantage.

To the eye of the experienced fisherman, it is obvious that the St. Charles, with its sparkling rapids, and the deep, swirling pools formed by its numerous "elbows," must erstwhile have been a chosen, retreat of the noble salmon. Even now, notwithstanding the obstructions caused by the immense deposits of ship-yard refuse at its mouth, a few of these fine fish are caught every season by one or two persevering anglers from Quebec,—men who thrive on disappointment,—whose fish-hooks are miniature anchors of Hope. Lake St. Charles, from which the river derives its existence and its name, is a wild, beautiful tarn, about five miles above Lorette, embosomed in hills and woods. There are good bass in that lake, by whose shores there dwells—or dwelt—an ancient fisherman called Gabriel, who supplied anglers with canoes, and paddled them about the waters.

Lorette, although undistinguished by a glance from the mild blue eyes of the Premier Prince of England, was flashed upon, years ago, by the awful light that gleamed from the dark, fierce ones of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. This is how I came to know it.

Fifteen years ago,—it was on the seventeenth of August, 1845,—I made my first pilgrimage to Lorette, in company with a friend. We wandered at large through the village, talking patois to the swarthy damsels, and picking up Indian knick-knacks, as we went. At last, fired with the ambition of doing a distinguished thing, we proposed calling upon the head chief of the village, whose name, I think, was Simon, but might possibly have been Peter,—for I regret to say that my memory is rather misty upon that important point. That personage was absent from home; but we were hospitably received by his father, who also appeared to be his butler, as he was engaged in bottling off some root-beer into stone blacking-jars, when we entered. I suppose the chief's father must once have been a chief himself, and that his menial position arose from the fact of his appearance being rather disreputable. He was a decrepit and very dirty old man, in a tight blue frock-coat, and swathed as to his spindle shanks with scarlet leggings. Sitting by a small window at the farther end of the large, bare room, was the prettiest little Huronite damsel I ever saw, rather fair than dark, and very neatly attired in a costume partly Indian. This little girl—a granddaughter of the dirty old man, as that person informed us—was occupied in tying up some small bundles of what the Canadians call racine—a sweet-smelling kind of rush-grass, sold by them in the Quebec market, and used like sachets, for imparting a pleasant odor to linen garments. After some conversation of a general character, the old man requested us to write our names in his visitors' book, which was a long, dirty volume, similar in form to those usually seen upon bar-counters. In this book we were delighted to find the autographs of many dear friends, of whom we little expected to meet with traces in this nook of the North. Mark Tapley and Oliver Twist, for instance, had visited the place in company some two years before. There could be no mistake about it; for there were the two names, in characteristic, but different manuscript, bound together by the mystic circumflex that indicated them to be friends and travelling-companions. The record covered a period of ten years; but was that sufficient to account for the appearance of Shakspeare on its pages? And yet there he was; and in merry mood he must have been, when he came to Lorette,—for he wrote himself down "Bill," and dashed off a little picture of himself after the signature, in a bold, if not artistic manner. Our friend Titmouse was there, too, represented by his famous declaration commencing, "Tittlebat Titmouse is my name." He seemed to have taken particularly fast hold of the memory of the old Huron, who described him as a tremendous-looking, big person, with large black whiskers, and remembered having enjoyed a long pull at a brandy-flask carried by him. Of course there can be no doubt about that man being the real Tittlebat of our affections. Of the other signatures in the Huronite album, I chiefly remember that of M.F. Tupper, which I looked upon at the time as a base forgery, and do aver my belief now that it was nothing else: for the aged sagamore described the writer of that signature as a young, cheerful, and communicative man, who smoked a short, black pipe, and had spaniels with him. Could my friend, could I, venture to inscribe our humble names among this galaxy of the good and great? Not so: and yet, to pacify the Huronite patriarch's thirst for autographs, we wrote signatures in his brown old book; and if that curious volume is still in existence, the names of Don Caesar de Bazan and Sir Lucius O'Trigger, Bart., will be found closely linked together on a particular page with the circumflex of friendship.

And now the old man, delighted with the addition to his autographs, proposed to treat us to an exhibition of several medals gained by him for deeds of valor when he was a warrior, and previously to his having entered upon the career of a bottler of root-beverages. He had silver disks presented to him by at least two of Thackeray's Georges, a couple from William IV., and I think one from her present Majesty, Queen Victoria. All of these he touched with reverence, and not until he had purified his hands upon a dirty towel. After we had duly admired these decorations, and listened with patience to the old man's garrulous talk about them, he told us that he had yet another to show,—one presented to him many years ago by a great man of that day,—a man embalmed for all posterity on account of his unrivalled performances upon the tight-rope,—a man of whom he reduced all description to mendicancy in designating him as un danseur très-renommé sur la corde tendue. The medal was a small silver one, and it bore the following inscription:—

FROM EDMUND KEAN, THE BRITISH ACTOR,

TO TOUSSAHISSA, CHIEF OF THE HURON INDIANS. 1826.

And such is fame! It appears that Kean, always fond of excitement, had organized a tremendous pow-wow among these poor specimens of the red man, on his visit to Quebec. They adopted him,—constituted him a chief of their tribe. It would be interesting to have a full account of the great passionist's demeanor upon that solemn occasion. Did he harrow up his hearers with a burst from "Othello" or a deep-sea groan from "Hamlet," and then create a revulsion of feeling by somersaulting over the centre-fire of the circle and standing on his head before it, grinning diabolically at the incensed pot? Or did he, foreshadowing the coming Blondin, then unplanned, stretch his tight-rope across the small Niagara that flashes down into the chasm of the St. Charles, and, kicking his boots off, carry some "mute, inglorious" Colcord over in an Indian bark basket? If he did such things, the old Huronite was foggy upon the subject and reserved, limiting his assertions to the statement, that "the British actor" was a farceur, and likewise un danseur très-renommé sur la corde tendue.

Long afterwards, when I resided at Quebec, my visits to Lorette were very frequent. Once, as I passed along the street, or road, between the straggling log-houses, I was accosted, in good English, by a fat and very jovial old squaw, who was attired in a green silk dress, sported a turban, and appeared to be altogether a superior kind of person. On inquiry, I learned from her that she was the widow of a former chief of the tribe, and came originally from Upper Canada, where she learned to speak English. Her husband had been presented with many medals, she said;—would I like to see them? I followed the old lady into her dwelling, where she showed me several silver medals, which I thought I recognized as the same exhibited by the aged Huronite with the red legs. But the Kean medal was not among them; nor could I, by any system of description in my power, recall the features of the relic to the memory of the old squaw.

Subsequently, I tried many times to trace it, but without success. Many strangers visit Lorette during the summer season, and it is possible that some virtuoso, struck by the associative value of the relic, may have prevailed on its owner to part with it for a consideration. There are people who would have possessed themselves of it without the exchange of a consideration. Should this meet the eye of its present possessor, and if so be that the medal came into his hands on the consideration principle, so that he need not be ashamed of it, he will confer a favor by giving the correct reading of the Indian name. For "Toussahissa," as I have rendered it, is not exact, but only as near as I can make it out from my pencil-memoranda, which, written in a note-book that did occasional duty as a fly-book, have been partially obliterated in that spot by the contact of a large and remarkably gaudy salmon-fly, whose repose between the leaves is disturbed, perhaps, by aquatic nightmares of salmon gaping at him from whirling eddies.

Between Lorette and the unexplored wilderness that stretches away to polar desolation there is but a narrow selvage of civilization. Looking toward it from my windows at Quebec, I could see the blue, serrated ridge of highlands beyond which the surveyor has never yet run his lines,—beyond which the surveyor's lines would be superfluous, indeed, and futile; for the soil is of the barren, rocky kind, and the timber of the scrubby. Not quite so savage is this frontier, indeed, as the wild precincts described by the Nebraska editor, whose meditations for a leader used to be cut short, occasionally, by the bellowing of the shaggy bison at his window, or the incursion of the redoubtable "grizzly" into his wood-shed where the elk-meat hung. But, in the clear, cold nights that precede the punctual and distinct winter of these regions, the black bears often come down from their fastnesses amid the wild ridges, and astonish the drowsy habitant and his household by their pranks among his pigs and calves: also in the spring.

In a small settlement of this wild tract, a few miles to the north-east of Lorette, there dwelt, some six or seven years ago, a poor farmer named Cantin, who added to the meagre fare afforded by his sterile acres such stray birds and hares as he could get within range of his old musket, without risking himself very far away from the isolated clearing. One night in the early part of May, when the snow had disappeared from the open grounds, but lingered yet in the ravines and rocky thickets, a dreadful tumult among the cattle of the settlement indicated the presence of bear. Cantin had the old firelock ready, but the night was dark and unfavorable for active measures. At gray morning, traces of the nocturnal intruder were visible, and that close by the cabane in which Cantin lived, in the little inclosure near which a struggle had evidently taken place, resulting in the discomfiture of a yearling calf, portions of which were discovered in the thickets a short distance from the clearing. Here the patches of snow gave ample evidence of the passage of a very large bear. When the sun was well up, Cantin sallied forth alone, with his gun and a small supply of ammunition,—unluckily for him, a very small supply. He did not return to dinner. Shots were heard in the course of the day, at a considerable distance in the hills; and when the afternoon was far advanced, and Cantin had not made his appearance, several of his neighbors—all the men of the settlement, indeed, and they made but a small party—set out in search of him. The snow-patches facilitated their search; and, having tracked him a good way, they suddenly saw him kneeling by a tree at the end of an open glade, with his hands clasped in an attitude of prayer. He was a frightful spectacle when they raised his bonnet-bleu, which had fallen down over his face. The entire facial mask had been torn clean from the skull by a fearful sweep of the bear's paw, and hung from his collar-bone by a strip of skin. He must have been dead for some hours. Fifty yards from where he knelt, the bear was found lying under some bushes, quite dead, and with two bullet-holes through its carcass. Cantin, it appeared, had expended all his ammunition, and the wounded beast had executed a terrible vengeance on him while the life-blood was welling through the last bullet-hole. I saw this bear brought into Quebec, in a cart, on the following day; and it is to be seen yet, I believe, or at least the taxidermal presentment of it is, in the shop of a furrier in John Street of that city. An enterprising druggist bought up the little fat left in the animal after its long winter's fast; and such was the demand among sensational people for gallipots of "grease of the bear that killed Cantin," that it seemed as if fashion had ordained the wearing of hair "on end."

Of the other wild beasts of this hill-district, the commonest is that known to the inhabitants as the loup-cervier,—a name oddly enough misconstructed by a writer on Canadian sports into "Lucifer." This is the true lynx,—a huge cat with long and remarkably thick legs, paws in which dangerous claws are sheathed, and short tail. Its principal prey is the common or Northern hare, which abounds in these regions: but at times the loup-cervier will invade the poultry-yards; and he is even held to account, now and then, for the murder of innocent lambs, and the disappearance of tender piglings whose mothers were so negligent as to let them stray alone into the brushwood. These fierce cats have been killed, occasionally, quite close to Quebec. When thus driven to approach populous districts, it must be from scarcity of their accustomed food; for they are usually very savage and ravenous, when found in such places. I know an instance, myself, in which a gentleman of Quebec, riding a little way from the town, was suddenly pounced upon and attacked by a loup-cervier, near the Plains of Abraham. He struck the animal with his whip several times, but it persisted in following him, and he got rid of it only by putting spurs to his horse and beating it in speed. The animal was killed soon afterwards, near the same place.

I had heard of another variety of wildcat, seen at rare intervals in the same districts. The habitant is rather foggy on the subject of zoology in general, and my attempts to obtain a satisfactory description of this animal were futile. Some of the definitions of this rare chat-sauvage, indeed, might have answered for specifications of a griffin, or of a vampire-bat. At last, one day, when walking about in the market-place at Quebec, I saw a crowd assembled round a gray-clad countryman, who presided over a small box on which the words Chat-Sauvage were painted. Now was my time to set the question at rest. I invested sixpence in the show. When a good number of sixpences had been paid in, the proprietor opened his box, out from which crawled a fat, familiar raccoon, apparently as much at home in the market-place as he could have been in the middle of his native swamp. And this was the mysterious "wild-cat" about which I had asked so many questions and heard so many stories!

It is noticeable that thunder-storms, travelling from the westward toward Quebec, usually diverge across the valley of the St. Charles in the direction of Lorette, and coast along the ridge of ground on which that place is situated to Charlesbourg, a small village lying about four miles to the east of it, upon the ridge. There the storms appear to culminate, pouring out the full vials of their wrath upon the devoted habitans of white-cotted Charlesbourg. The wayfarer who wends through this rustical district will hardly fail to observe the prevailing taste for lightning-rods. The smallest cottage has at least two of these fire-irons, one upon each gable; houses of more pretensions are provided with an indefinite number; and the big white church has its purple roof so bristled with them, that the pause which a flash of lightning must necessarily make before deciding by which of them to come down must enable any tolerably active person to get out of the way in good time. And yet, with all these defenders of the faithful, I remember how the steeple was taken clean off the big white church, in splinters, one wild night after I had watched a long array of cloud-chariots rolling heavily away eastward along the ridge: also, how a farmer's handsome daughter, the belle of the village, sat upright and dead upon a sofa when people came again to their eyesight after a blinding flash. So much for lightning-rods!—so much for the mystic iron!

When the day of the Fête Dieu comes round, Quebec and its neighboring villages are all alive for the celebration of the fête, which takes place on the following Sunday. Then the great suburb of St. Roch is a sight to see. Every street of it is converted into a green alley, embowered with young pine-trees, and flaunting with banners temporarily constructed out of all available pieces of dry-goods, lent by the devoted shop-keepers of the olden Church. Most extraordinary lithographs of holy personages are hung out upon the door-posts and walls of every house. Bowers shading curious little shrines meet the eye everywhere. The white tables of the little shrines are loaded with gilt and tinselled offerings in immense variety. Curious bosses, like lace-pillows got up for church, swing pendent from the verdant pine-branches. The vast parish-church, of sombre gray masonry, flashing carnival-fires from the tin-plated pepper-boxes and slopes of its acre of roof, is receiving or disgorging a variegated multitude of good Catholics. Within, it is a mass of foliage, a wilderness of shrines, a cloud-land of incense. Long processions of maidens all in white, and others of maidens all in pale watchet-blue, are threading the principal streets. They are not all very religious maidens, I am afraid; because, as sure as fate, one very young one of those robed in pure white "made eyes" at me as she passed. Now all this display in Quebec and its suburbs is set forth on a great scale and with bewildering turmoil; but if you want to see it in miniature presentment, you must pass down through St. Roch, and take the road to Lorette. Arrived among the sauvages,—for so the Canadian habitant invariably calls his Indian brother, who is often as like him as one pea is like another,—you will there see the little old Huron church decked out in humble imitation of its younger, but bigger brothers in the city. The lanes between the log-houses are embowered in a modest way, and the drapery is eked out by many a yellow flannel petticoat and pair of scarlet leggings that dally riotously with each other in the breeze. The shrines are certainly less magnificent than those fairy bowers of the elf-land St. Roch, but there is a good deal of beaded peltry and bark-work about them, giving them, in a small way, the character of aboriginal bazaars. The Hurons are bons Catholiques, and everything connected with the fête is conducted with a solemnity becoming the character of the Christian red man. So decorous, indeed, are the little sauvagesses forming the miniature processions, that I do not remember ever detecting the eyes of any of them wandering and wantoning around, like those of the naughty little processional in white about whose conduct I just now complained.

The instinct of the French-Canadian for Indian trading has led one of that race to establish a general store close by the Huron village, though on the habitant side of the stream. The gay printed cottons indispensable to the belle sauvagesse are here to be found, as well as the blue blankets and the white, of so much account in the wardrobe of the women as well as of the men. Here, too, are to be had the assorted beads and silks and worsteds used in the embroidery of moccasons, epaulettes, and such articles; nor is the quality of the Cognac kept on hand by Joe for his customers to be characterized as despicable. Indeed, it would be hazardous to aver that anything is not to be had, for the proper compensation, in Joe's establishment,—that is, anything that could possibly be required by the most exacting sauvage or sauvagesse, from a strap of sleigh-bells to a red-framed looking-glass. Out of that store, too, comes a deal of the vivid drapery displayed upon the Fête Dieu, and much of the art-union resource combined in the attractive cheap lithograph element so edifying to the connoisseur.

I think it was one of those fêtes—if not, another bright summer holiday—that I once saw darkly disturbed in this quiet little hamlet. Standing upon the table-rock that juts out at the foot of the fall so as to half-bridge over the lower-most eddy, I saw a small object topple over the summit of the cascade. It was nothing but a common pail or stable-bucket, as I perceived, when it glided past, almost within arm's length of me, and disappeared down the winding gorge. When I went up again to the road, I saw a crowd of holiday people standing near the little inn. They were solemn and speechless, and, on approaching, I saw that they were gazing upon the body of a man, dead and sadly crushed and mutilated. He was a calèche-driver from Quebec, well known to the small community; and although it does not seem any great height from the roadway near the inn to the tumbled rocks by the river's edge just above the fall, yet it was a drop to mash and kill the poor fellow dead enough, when his foot slipped, as he descended the unsafe path to get water for his horse. A dweller in great cities—say, for instance, one who lives within decent distance of such a charming locality as that called the Five Points in New York—could hardly realize the amount of awe that an event so trifling as a sudden and violent death will spread over a primitive village community. This happened in the French division of the place, which, of course, was decorated to the utmost ability of the people in honor of the fête: and so palpable was the gloom cast over all by the circumstance, that the bright flannels flaunting from the cordons stretched across the way seemed to darken into palls, and the gay red streamers must have appeared to the subdued carnival spirits as warning crape-knots on the door-handle of death.

I believe it is a maxim with the Italian connoisseur of art, that no landscape is perfect without one red spot to give value to its varieties of green. On this principle, let me break the monotony of this little rural sketch with the one touch of genuine American character that belonged to it at the time of which I speak. Let William Button be the one red spot that predominated vastly over the green influences by which he was surrounded. The little inn at Lorette was then kept by a worthy host bearing the above-mentioned name, which was dingily lettered out upon a swinging sign, dingily representing a trotting horse,—emblem as dear to the slow Canadian as to the fast American mind. William Button—known as Billy Button to hosts of familiar friends—was, I think, a Kentuckian by birth; a fact which might honestly account for his having come by the loss of an eye through some operation by which marks of violence had been left upon the surrounding tracts of his rugged countenance. He was a short, thick-set man, with bow-legs like those of a bull-terrier, and walked with a heavy lurch in his gait. William's head was of immense size in proportion to his stature. Indeed, that important joint of his person must have been a division by about two of what artists term heroic proportions, or eight heads to a height,—a standard by which Button was barred from being a hero, for his head could hardly have been much less than a fourth of his entire length. The expression of his face was remarkably typical of American humor and shrewdness, an effect much aided by the chronic wink afforded by his closed eye. How Button found his way to this remote spot would have been a puzzle to any person unfamiliar with American character. How he managed to live among and deal with and very considerably master a community speaking no language with which he was acquainted was more unaccountable still. The inn could not have been a very profitable speculation, in itself; but there was one room in it fitted out with a display of Indian manufactures,—some of the articles reposing in glass cases to protect them from hands and dust, others arranged with negligent regularity upon the walls. Out of these the landlord made a good penny, as he charged an extensive percentage upon the original cost,—that is, to strangers; but if you were in Button's confidence, then was there no better fellow to intrust with a negotiation for a pair of snow-shoes, or moose-horns, or anything else in that line of business. In the winter season he was a great instigator of moose- and caribou-expeditions to the districts where these animals abound, assembling for this purpose the best Indian hunters to be found in the neighborhood, and accompanying the party himself. Out of the spoils of these expeditions he sometimes made a handsome profit: a good pair of moose-horns, for instance, used to fetch from six to ten dollars; and there is always a demand for the venison in the Quebec market. The skins were manufactured into moccason-leather by Indian adepts whom Button had in his pay, and who worked for a very low rate of remuneration,—quite disproportioned, indeed, to the fancy prices always paid by strangers for the articles turned out by their hands.

The name "Billy Button" carries with it an association oddly corroborated by a story narrated of himself by the man of whom I am speaking. Of all the reminiscences connected with the illegitimate drama that have dwelt with me from my early childhood until now, not one is more vividly impressed upon my memory than that standard old comedy on horseback performed by circus-riders long since gone to rest, and entitled "Billy Button's Journey to Brentford." The hero of this pleasant horse-play was a tailor,—men following that useful trade being considered capable of affording more amusement in connection with horses than any others, excepting, perhaps, jolly mariners on a spree. The plot of the drama used to strike my young mind as being a "crib" from "John Gilpin"; but I forgave that, in consideration of the skilful manner in which the story was wrought out. With what withering contempt used I, brought up among horses and their riders, to jeer at the wretched attempts of the tailor to remain permanently upon any central point of the horse's spinal ridge! How cheerful my feelings, when that man of shreds and patches fell prostrate in the sawdust, where he lay grovelling until the next revolution of his noble steed, when the animal caught him up by the baggiest portion of the trousers and carried him round the arena as a terrier might a rat! But, oh, what mingled joy and admiration, when out from the worried mass of coats leaped the nimble rider, now no longer a miserable tailor, but a roseate young man in tights and spangles, featly posturing over all the available area of his steed, and "witching the world with noble horsemanship"!

All these memories crowded upon me with a tremendous shock the very first time I saw the name of William Button upon the dingy swinging sign. Afterwards, when I became intimate with that curious person, I discovered that he was a capital "whip,"—first-rate, indeed, as a driver of the fast trotting horse, as well as a good judge of that superior article. With respect to his experiences as a rider he was more reserved; and it was not until after I had known him a long time that he confided to me the particulars of a ride once taken by him, which bore, in its principal features, a singular resemblance to the one performed by his great name-sake of the sawdust-ring.

There is a pack of fox-hounds kept at Montreal, maintained chiefly by officers of the garrison, as a shadowy reminiscence, perhaps, of the real thing, which is essentially of insular Britain and of nowhere else. Button happened to go to Montreal, on one occasion, for the purpose of picking up a race-horse, I think, for the Quebec market. Somebody who used to ride with the hounds had a horse which he wanted to get rid of, on account of headstrong tendencies in general and inability to appreciate the advantages of a bit. I remember the animal well. He was a fiery chestnut, with white about the legs, and very good across a country so long as he was wanted to go; but no common power could stop him when once he began to do that. On this animal—"The Buffer," he was called—Button was persuaded to mount, "just to try him a little," his owner said; and by way of doing that with perfect freedom from restraint, they rode out to where the hounds were to throw off, a couple of miles from the city. Button used to say that the term "throw off," which was new to him in that application, haunted him all the way out, like a bad dream. It was a bag-fox day, I believe: that is, the hunt was provided with a trapped animal, brought upon the ground in a sack and let out when the proper time came,—a process known in sporting parlance as "shaking a fox." The usual amount of "law" having been conceded, the hounds were laid on, and went away, as Button said, like a fire-flake over a prairie. No sooner did "The Buffer" hear the cry of the pack, than he started forward with a suddenness and force by which his wretched rider was jerked back at least a foot behind the saddle, into which place of rest he never once again fell during his many vicissitudes of position in that ride. I have said that Button was bow-legged; and to that providential fact did he attribute the power by which he clung on to various parts of the steed during his wild career of perhaps a mile, but which seemed to the troubled senses of the rider not much less than fifty. It was providential for him, too, that the country was but sparsely intersected by fences, and those not of a very formidable character: nevertheless, at each of these the too confiding Button experienced a change of position, being, as he used to express it, "interjuiced forrard o' the saddle or back'ard o' the saddle, accordin' to the kind o' thing the hoss flew over, and one time booleyvusted right under the hoss, whar he hung on by the girth ontil another buck-jump sent him right side on ag'in; but never, on no account, did he touch leather ag'in in all that ride." And thus Billy Button might have ridden farther and fared worse, had he not seen a terrible fate staring him imminently in the face. The hounds had just entered a little grove of young pine-trees, which stood very close together, and bristled with sharp, jagged branches nearly to the root, after the manner of these children of the wood. At this place of torture "The Buffer" was rushing with all his might, Button being then situated upon his neck, in a position most convenient for being "skinned alive" by the trees, as he said, when a plunge made by the animal over a plashy pool transferred the rider to his tail, from which he "collapsed right down in a kind o' swoon, and when he come to, found himself settin' up to his elbows in muddy water, very solitary-like, and with a terrible stillness all around."—What became of "The Buffer" I forget, and also how Button got home; but he certainly did not ride. And he always wound up the narrative of his first and last fox-hunt by invoking terrible ends to himself, if ever he "threw leg over dog-hoss ag'in, to see a throw-off."

Button left Lorette about two years after I first became acquainted with him, and I next heard of him down at the rock-walled Saguenay, where he had gone into a speculation for supplying the Boston market with salmon. But horse-flesh seemed to be more palatable to him than fish; for, later still, I met him at Toronto, in Upper Canada, mounted upon a powerful dark brown stallion, and leading another, its exact counterpart.

"Hollo, Button!" said I, in response to his cheery, "How de dew?"—"On horseback again, I see; have you forgotten the Buffer-business, then?"

"Forgot the yaller cuss!" replied he. "No, Sir-ree! He hangs round me yet, like fever 'n' agur upon a ma'sh. But the critter I'm onto a'n't no dog-hoss, you may believe; he don't 'throw off' nor nothin', he don't. Him and his mate here a'n't easy matched. I fetched 'em up from below on spec, and you can hev the span for a cool thousand on ice."

And this was the last I saw of Button, who was one of the strangest combinations of hotel-keeper, horse-jockey, Indian-trader, fish-monger, and alligator, I ever met.

Tradition still retains a hold upon the Hurons of Lorette, little as remains to them of the character and lineaments of the red man. A pitiable procession of their diluted "braves" may sometimes be seen in the streets of Quebec, on such distinguished occasions as the Prince's visit. But it is with a manifest consciousness of the ludicrous that these industrials now do their little drama of the war-dance and the oration and the council-smoke. That drama has degenerated into a very feeble farce now, and the actors in it would be quite outdone in their travesty by any average corps of "supes" at one of our theatres. By-and-by all this will have died out, and the "Indian side" of the stream at Lorette will be assimilated in all its features to the other. The moccason is already typifying the decadence of aboriginal things there. That article is now fitted with India-rubber soles for the Quebec demand,—a continuation of the sole running in a low strip round the edge of the foot. With the gradual widening of that strip, until the moccason of the red man has been clean obliterated from things that are by the India-rubber of the white, will the remnant of the Hurons have passed away with things that were. Verdict on the "poor Indian":—"Wiped out with an India-rubber shoe."

And then, in future generations, the tradition of Indian blood among Canadian families of dark complexion, along these ridges, will be about as vague as that of Spanish descent in the case of certain tribes of fishermen on the western coast of Ireland. From the assimilation already going on, however, it may be argued that the physical character of the Indian will be gradually merged and lost in that of the French colonist. The Hurons are described as having formerly been a people of large stature, while those of the present day in Lower Canada are usually rather undersized than otherwise, like their habitant neighbors. As a race, the latter are below the middle stature, although generally of great bodily strength and endurance.

Physical size and grand proportions are looked upon by the French-Canadian with great respect. In all the cases of popular émeutes that have from time to time broken out in Lower Canada, the fighting leaders of the people were exceptional men, standing head and shoulders over their confiding followers. Where gangs of raftsmen congregate, their "captains" may be known by superior stature. The doings of their "big men" are treasured by the French-Canadians in traditionary lore. One famous fellow of this governing class is known by his deeds and words to every lumberer and stevedore and timber-tower about Montreal and Quebec. This man, whose name was Joe Monfaron, was the bully of the Ottawa raftsmen. He was about six feet six inches high and proportionably broad and deep; and I remember how people would turn round to look after him, as he came pounding along Notre-Dame Street, in Montreal, in his red shirt and tan-colored shupac boots, all dripping wet after mooring an acre or two of raft, and now bent for his ashore-haunts in the Ste.-Marie suburb, to indemnify himself with bacchanalian and other consolations for long-endured hardship. Among other feats of strength attributed to him, I remember the following, which has an old, familiar taste, but was related to me as a fact.

There was a fighting stevedore or timber-tower, I forget which, at Quebec, who never had seen Joe Monfaron, as the latter seldom came farther down the river than Montreal. This fighting character, however, made a custom of laughing to scorn all the rumors that came down on rafts, every now and then, about terrible chastisements inflicted by Joe upon several hostile persons at once. He, the fighting timber-tower, hadn't found his match yet about the lumber-coves at Quebec, and he only wanted to see Joe Monfaron once, when he would settle the question as to the championship of the rafts on sight. One day, a giant in a red shirt stood suddenly before him, saying,—

"Joe Monfaron. I heard you wanted me,—here I am," was the Caesarean response of the great captain of rafts.

"Ah! you're Joe Monfaron!" said the bully, a little staggered at the sort of customer he saw before him. "I said I'd like to see you, for sure; but how am I to know you're the right man?"

They shook hands,—rather warmly, perhaps, for the timber-tower, whose features wore an uncertain expression during the operation, and who at last broke out into a yell of pain, as Joe cast him off with a defiant laugh. Nor did the bully wait for any further explanations; for, whether the man who had just brought the blood spouting out at the tips of his fingers was Joe Monfaron or not, he was clearly an ugly customer and had better be left alone.

There are several roads from Quebec to Lorette, all of them good for carriages except one, which, from its extreme destitution of every condition essential to easy locomotion on wheels, is called, in the expressive language of the French colonists, La Misère. And yet this is the only road which, from touching various points of the River St. Charles, affords the traveller compensating glimpses of the picturesque windings of that stream. The pedestrian, however, is the only kind of explorer who really sees a country and its people; and for him who is not too proud to walk, La Misère is not so hard to bear as its name might imply.

If iron takes the romance out of things, in a general way, as I mentioned at the beginning of this article my impression that it rather does, I know not whether primitive Lorette has not become sadly vulcanized into prosaic progress by the grand system of water-works established there for the benefit of Quebec. Connected as it is, now, with the latter place, by seven miles of iron pipes, I would not undertake to say that it retains aught of the rustic simplicity of its greener days. Had the pipes been of wood, indeed, the place might yet have had a chance. To understand this, one should hear the French-Canadian expatiate upon the superiority of the wooden to the metal bridge. Five years ago, the road-trustees of Quebec undertook to span the Montmorency River, just above the great fall, with an iron suspension-bridge. This would shorten the road, they said, by some two or three hundred yards of divergence from the old wooden bridge higher up. They built their bridge, which looked like a spider's web spanning the verge of the stupendous cataract, when seen from the St. Lawrence below. It was opened to the public in April, 1856, but was little used for some days, as the conservative habitans, who had gone the crooked road over the wooden bridge all their lives, declined to see what advantage could be gained by taking to a straight one pontificed with iron. It had not been open a week, however, when, as two or three hurrying peasants were venturing it with their carts, it fell with a crash, and all were washed headlong in an instant over the precipice and into the boiling abyss below, from which not one vestige of their remains was ever returned for a sign to their awe-stricken friends. Supposing this bridge to be rebuilt,—which is not likely,—I do not believe that a habitant of all that region could be got to cross it, even under the malediction, with bell, book, and candle, of his priest. And so the old wooden bridge flourishes, and the crooked road is travelled by gray-coated cultivateurs, whose forefathers went crooked in the same direction for several generations, mounted upon persevering ponies which wouldn't upon any account be persuaded into going straight.

A gleam of hope for Lorette flashes upon me since the above was written. On looking over a provincial paper, I find astounding rumors of ghosts appearing upon the track of a western railroad. Things clothed in the traditional white appear before the impartial cow-catcher, which divides them for the passage of the train, in the wake of which they immediately reappear in a full state of repair and posture of contempt. If this sort of thing goes on, what a splendid new field will be opened for the writer of romance!

Certainly, I do not yet see what antidote there is for the primitive and pastoral against seven miles of iron pipe; but it is cheerful to know that ghosts are beginning to come about railroads, and all may yet be well with Lorette.

BEHIND THE MASK.

  It was an old, distorted face,—
  An uncouth visage, rough and wild;
  Yet from behind, with laughing grace,
  Peeped the fresh beauty of a child.

  And so contrasting, fair and bright,
  It made me of my fancy ask
  If half earth's wrinkled grimness might
  Be but the baby in the mask.

  Behind gray hairs and furrowed brow
  And withered look that life puts on,
  Each, as he wears it, comes to know
  How the child hides, and is not gone.

  For, while the inexorable years
  To saddened features fit their mould,
  Beneath the work of time and tears
  Waits something that will not grow old!

  And pain and petulance and care
  And wasted hope and sinful stain
  Shape the strange guise the soul doth wear,
  Till her young life look forth again.

  The beauty of his boyhood's smile,—
  What human faith could find it now
  In yonder man of grief and guile,—
  A very Cain, with branded brow?

  Yet, overlaid and hidden, still
  It lingers,—of his life a part;
  As the scathed pine upon the hill
  Holds the young fibres at its heart.

  And, haply, round the Eternal Throne,
  Heaven's pitying angels shall not ask
  For that last look the world hath known,
  But for the face behind the mask!

DIAMONDS AND PEARLS.

We were lately lounging away a Roman morning among the gems in Castellani's sparkling rooms in the Via Poli. One of the treasures handed out for rapturous examination was a diamond necklace, just finished for a Russian princess, at the cost of sixty thousand dollars, and a set of pearls for an English lady, who must pay, before she bears her prize homeward, the sum of ten thousand dollars. Castellani junior, a fine, patriotic young fellow, who has since been banished for his liberal ideas of government, smiled as he read astonishment in our eyes, and proceeded forthwith to dazzle us still further with more gems of rarest beauty, till then hidden away in his strong iron boxes.

Castellani, father and son, are princes among jewellers, and deserve to be ranked as artists of a superior order. Do not fail to visit their charming apartments, as among the most attractive lesser glories, when you go to Rome. They have a grand way of doing things, right good to look upon; and we once saw a countrywoman of ours, who has written immortal words in the cause of freedom, made the recipient of a gem at their hands, which she cannot but prize as among the chief tributes so numerously bestowed in all parts of the Christian world where her feet have wandered.

Castellani's jeweller's shop has existed in Rome since the year 1814. At that time all the efforts of this artist (Castellani the elder) were directed to the imitation of the newest English and French fashions, and particularly to the setting of diamonds. This he continued till 1823. From 1823 to 1827 he sought aid for his art in the study of Technology. And not in vain; for in 1826 he read before the Accademia dei Lincei of Rome, (founded by Federico Cesi,) a paper on the chemical process of coloring a giallone (yellow) in the manufacture of gold, in which he announced some facts in the action of electricity, long before Delarive and other chemists, as noticed in the "Quarterly Journal of Science," Dec., 1828, No. 6, and the "Bibliothèque Universelle de Genève," 1829, Tom. xi. p. 84.

At this period Etruria began to lay open the treasures of her art. All were struck by the beauty of the jewels found in the tombs; but Castellani was the first who thought of reproducing some of them; and he did it to the great admiration of the amateurs, foremost among whom may be mentioned the Duke Don Michelangelo Caetani, a man of great artistic feeling, who aided by his counsels and his designs the renaissance of Roman jewelry.

The discovery of the celebrated tomb Regulini-Galassi at Cervetri was an event in jewelry. The articles of gold found in it (all now in the Vatican) were diligently studied by Castellani, when called upon to appraise them. Comprehending the methods and the character of the work, he boldly followed tradition.

The discoveries of Campanari of Toscanella, and of the Marquis Campana of Rome, gave valuable aid to this new branch of art.

Thus it went on improving; and Castellani produced very expert pupils, all of them Italians. Fashion, if not public feeling, came to aid the renaissance, and others, in Rome and elsewhere, undertook similar work after the models of Castellani. It may be asserted that the triumph of the classic jewelry is now complete. Castellani renounced the modern methods of chasing and engraving, and adhered only to the antique fashion of overlaying with cords, grains, and finest threads of gold. From the Etruscan style he passed to the Greek, the Roman, the Christian. In this last he introduced the rough mosaics, such as were used by the Byzantines with much effect and variety of tint and of design.

The work of Castellani is dear; but that results from his method of execution, and from the perfect finish of all the details. He does not seek for cheapness, but for the perfection of art: this is the only thing he has in view. As he is a man of genius, we have devoted considerable space to his admirable productions.

The Talmud informs us that Noah had no other light in the ark than that which came from precious stones. Why do not our modern jewellers take a hint from the ancient safety-boat, and light up accordingly? We dare say old Tavernier, that knowing French gem-trader of the seventeenth century, had the art of illuminating his château at Aubonne in a way wondrous to the beholder. Among all the jewellers, ancient or modern, Jean Baptiste Tavernier seems to us the most interesting character. His great knowledge of precious stones, his acute observation and unfailing judgment, stamp him as one of the remarkable men of his day. Forty years of his life he passed in travelling through Turkey, Persia, and the East Indies, trading in gems of the richest and rarest lustre. A great fortune was amassed, and a barony in the Canton of Berne, on the Lake of Geneva, was purchased as no bad harbor for the rest of his days. There he hoped to enjoy the vast wealth he had so industriously acquired. But, alas! stupid nephews abound everywhere; and one of his, to whom he had intrusted a freight worth two hundred and twenty thousand livres, caused him so great a loss, that, at the age of eighty-four, he felt obliged to sail again for the East in order to retrieve his fortune, or at least repair the ill-luck arising from his unfortunate speculation. He forgot, poor old man! that youth and strength are necessary to fight against reverses; and he died at Moscow, on his way, in 1689. When you visit the great Library in Paris, you will find his "Travels," in three volumes, published in 1677-79, on a shelf among the quartos. Take them down, and spend a pleasant hour in looking through the pages of the enthusiastic old merchant-jeweller. His adventures in search of diamonds and other precious commodities are well told; and although he makes the mistakes incident to many other early travellers, he never wilfully romances. He supposed he was the first European that had explored the mines of Golconda; but an Englishman of the name of Methold visited them as early as 1622, and found thirty thousand laborers working away for the rich Marcandar, who paid three hundred thousand pagodas annually to the king for the privilege of digging in a single mine. The first mine visited by Tavernier was that of Raolconda, a five-days' journey from Golconda. The manner of trading there he thus describes:—

"A very pretty sight is that presented every morning by the children of the master-miners and of other inhabitants of the district. The boys, the eldest of which is not over sixteen or the youngest under ten, assemble and sit under a large tree in the public square of the village. Each has his diamond weight in a bag hung on one side of his girdle, and on the other a purse containing sometimes as much as five or six hundred pagodas. Here they wait for such persons as have diamonds to sell, either from the vicinity or from any other mine. When a diamond is brought to them, it is immediately handed to the eldest boy, who is tacitly acknowledged as the head of this little band. By him it is carefully examined, and then passed to his neighbor, who, having also inspected it, transmits it to the next boy. The stone is thus passed from hand to hand, amid unbroken silence, until it returns to that of the eldest, who then asks the price and makes the bargain. If the little man is thought by his comrades to have given too high a price, he must keep the stone on his own account. In the evening the children take account of stock, examine their purchases, and class them according to their water, size, and purity, putting on each stone the price they expect to get for it; they then carry the stones to the masters, who have always assortments to complete, and the profits are divided among the young traders, with this difference in favor of the head of the firm, that he receives one-fourth per cent. more than the others. These children are so perfectly acquainted with the value of all sorts of gems, that, if one of them, after buying a stone, is willing to lose one-half per cent. on it, a companion is always ready to take it."

Master Tavernier discourses at some length on the ingenious methods adopted by the laborers to conceal diamonds which they have found, sometimes swallowing them,—and he tells of one miner who hid in the corner of his eye a stone of two carats! Altogether, his work is one worthy to be turned over, even in that vast collection, the Imperial Library, for its graphic pictures of gem-hunting two hundred years ago.

Professor Tennant says, "One of the common marks of opulence and taste in all countries is the selection, preservation, and ornamental use of gems and precious stones." Diamonds, from the time Alexander ordered pieces of flesh to be thrown into the inaccessible valley of Zulmeah, that the vultures might bring up with them the precious stones which attached themselves, have everywhere ranked among the luxuries of a refined cultivation. It is the most brilliant of stones, and the hardest known body. Pliny says it is so hard a substance, that, if one should be laid on an anvil and struck with a hammer, look out for the hammer! [Mem. If the reader have a particularly fine diamond, never mind Pliny's story: the risk is something, and Pliny cannot be reached for an explanation, should his experiment fail.] By its own dust only can the diamond be cut and polished; and its great lustre challenges the admiration of the world. Ordinary individuals, with nothing to distinguish them from the common herd, have "got diamonds," and straightway became ever afterwards famous. An uncommon-sized brilliant, stuck into the front linen of a foolish fellow, will set him up as a marked man, and point him out as something worth looking at. The announcement in the papers of the day, that "Mademoiselle Mars would wear all her diamonds," never failed to stimulate the sale of tickets on all such occasions. As it may interest our readers to know what treasures an actress of 1828 possessed, we copy from the catalogue of her effects a few items.

"Two rows of brilliants set en chatons, one row composed of forty-six brilliants, the other of forty-four; eight sprigs of wheat in brilliants, composed of about five hundred brilliants, weighing fifty-seven carats; a garland of brilliants that may be taken to pieces and worn as three distinct ornaments, three large brilliants forming the centre of the principal flowers, the whole comprising seven hundred and nine brilliants, weighing eighty-five carats three-quarters; a Sévigné mounted in colored gold, in the centre of which is a burnt topaz surrounded by diamonds weighing about three grains each, the drops consisting of three opals similarly surrounded by diamonds; one of the three opals is of very large size, in shape oblong, with rounded corners; the whole set in gold studded with rubies and pearls.

"A parure of opals, consisting of a necklace and Sévigné, two bracelets, ear-rings the studs of which are emeralds, comb, belt-plate set with an opal in the shape of a triangle; the whole mounted in wrought gold, studded with small emeralds.

"A Gothic bracelet of enamelled gold, in the centre a burnt topaz surrounded by three large brilliants; in each link composing the bracelet is a square emerald; at each extremity of the topaz forming the centre ornament are two balls of burnished gold, and two of wrought gold.

"A pair of girandole ear-rings of brilliants, each consisting of a large stud brilliant and of three pear-shaped brilliants united by four small ones; another pair of ear-rings composed of fourteen small brilliants forming a clustre of grapes, each stud of a single brilliant.

"A diamond cross composed of eleven brilliants, the ring being also of brilliants.

"A bracelet with a gold chain, the centre-piece of which is a fine opal surrounded with brilliants; the opal is oblong and mounted in the Gothic style; the clasp is an opal.

"A gold bracelet, with a grecque surrounded by six angel heads graven on turkoises, and a head of Augustus.

"A serpent bracelet à la Cléopatre, enamelled black, with a turkois on its head.

"A bracelet with wrought links burnished on a dead ground; the clasp a heart of burnished gold with a turkois in the centre, graven with Hebrew characters.

"A bracelet with a row of Mexican chain, and a gold ring set with a turkois and fastened to the bracelet by a Venetian chain.

"Two belt-buckles, Gothic style, one of burnished gold, the other set with emeralds, opals, and pearls.

"A comb of rose diamonds, form D 5, surmounted by a large rose surrounded by smaller ones, and a cinque-foil in roses, the chatons alternated, below a band of roses."

The weight of the diamond, as every one knows, is estimated in carats all over the world. And what is a carat, pray? and whence its name? It is of Indian origin, a kirat being a small seed that was used in India to weigh diamonds with. Four grains are equal to one carat, and six carats make one pennyweight. But there is no standard weight fixed for the finest diamonds. Competition alone among purchasers must arrange their price. The commercial value of gems is rarely affected, and among all articles of commerce the diamond is the least liable to depreciation. Panics that shake empires and topple trade into the dust seldom lower the cost of this king of precious stones; and there is no personal property that is so apt to remain unchanged in money-value.

Diamond anecdotes abound, the world over; but we have lately met with two brief ones that ought to be preserved.

"Carlier, a bookseller in the reign of Louis XIV., left, at his death, to each of his children,—one a girl of fifteen, the other a captain in the guards,—a sum of five hundred thousand francs, then an enormous fortune. Mademoiselle Carlier, young, handsome, and wealthy, had numerous suitors. One of these, a M. Tiquet, a Councillor of the Parliament, sent her on her fête-day a bouquet, in which the calices of the roses were of large diamonds. The magnificence of this gift gave so good an opinion of the wealth, taste, and liberality of the donor, that the lady gave him the preference over all his competitors. But sad was the disappointment that followed the bridal! The husband was rather poor than rich; and the bouquet, that had cost forty-five thousand francs, (nine thousand dollars,) had been bought on credit, and was paid out of the bride's fortune."

"The gallants of the Court of Louis XV. carried extravagance as far as the famous Egyptian queen. She melted a pearl,—they pulverized diamonds, to prove their insane magnificence. A lady having expressed a desire to have the portrait of her canary in a ring, the last Prince de Conti requested she would allow him to give it to her; she accepted, on condition that no precious gems should be set in it. When the ring was brought to her, however, a diamond covered the painting. The lady had the brilliant taken out of the setting, and sent it back to the giver. The Prince, determined not to be gainsaid, caused the stone to be ground to dust, which he used to dry the ink of the letter he wrote to her on the subject."

Let us mention some of the most noted diamonds in the world. The largest one known, that of the Rajah of Matan, in Borneo, weighs three hundred and sixty-seven carats. It is egg-shaped and is of the finest water. Two large war-vessels, with all their guns, powder, and shot, and one hundred and fifty thousand dollars in money, were once refused for it. And yet its weight is only about three ounces!

The second in size is the Orloff, or Grand Russian, sometimes called the Moon of the Mountain, of one hundred and ninety-three carats. The Great Mogul once owned it. Then it passed by conquest into the possession of Nadir the Shah of Persia. In 1747 he was assassinated, and all the crown-jewels slipped out of the dead man's fingers,—a common incident to mortality. What became of the great diamond no one at that time knew, till one day a chief of the Anganians walked, mole-footed, into the presence of a rich Armenian gentleman in Balsora, and proposed to sell him (no lisping,—not a word to betray him) a large emerald, a splendid ruby, and the great Orloff diamond. Mr. Shafrass counted out fifty thousand piastres for the lot; and the chief folded up his robes and silently departed. Ten years afterwards the people of Amsterdam were apprised that a great treasure had arrived in their city, and could be bought, too. Nobody there felt rich enough to buy the great Orloff sparkler. So the English and Russian governments sent bidders to compete for the gem. The Empress Catharine offered the highest sum; and her agent, the Count Orloff, paid for it in her name four hundred and fifty thousand roubles, cash down, and a grant of Russian nobility! The size of this diamond is that of a pigeon's egg, and its lustre and water are of the finest: its shape is not perfect.

The Grand Tuscan is next in order,—for many years held by the Medici family. It is now owned by the Austrian Emperor, and is the pride of the Imperial Court. It is cut as a rose, nine-sided, and is of a yellow tint, lessening somewhat its value. Its weight is one hundred and thirty-nine and a half carats; and its value is estimated at one hundred and fifty-five thousand, six hundred and eighty-eight pounds.

The most perfect, though not the largest, diamond in Europe is the Regent, which belongs to the Imperial diadem of France. Napoleon the First used to wear it in the hilt of his state-sword. Its original weight was four hundred and ten carats; but after it was cut as a brilliant, (a labor of two years, at a cost of three thousand pounds sterling,) it was reduced to one hundred and thirty-seven carats. It came from the mines of Golconda; and the thief who stole it therefrom sold it to the grandfather of the Earl of Chatham, when he was governor of a fort in the East Indies. Lucky Mr. Pitt pocketed one hundred and thirty-five thousand pounds for his treasure, the purchaser being Louis XV. This amount, it is said, is only half its real value. However, as it cost the Governor, according to his own statement, some years after the sale, only twenty thousand pounds, his speculation was "something handsome." Pope had a fling at Pitt, in his poetical way, intimating a wrong with regard to the possession of the diamond; but we believe the transaction was an honest one. In the inventory of the crown-jewels, the Regent diamond is set down at twelve million francs!

The Star of the South comes next in point of celebrity. It is the largest diamond yet obtained from Brazil; and it is owned by the King of Portugal. It weighed originally two hundred and fifty-four carats, but was trimmed down to one hundred and twenty-five. The grandfather of the present king had a hole bored in it, and liked to strut about on gala-days with the gem suspended around his neck. This magnificent jewel was found by three banished miners, who were seeking for gold during their exile. A great drought had laid dry the bed of a river, and there they discovered this lustrous wonder. Of course, on promulgating their great luck, their sentence was revoked immediately.

A Venetian diamond-cutter (wretched, bungling Hortensio Borgis!) reduced the great Koh-i-noor from its primitive weight—nine hundred carats—to two hundred and eighty. Tavernier saw this celebrated jewel two hundred years ago, not long after its discovery. It came into the possession of Queen Victoria in 1849, three thousand years, say the Eastern sages, after it belonged to Karna, the King of Anga! On the 16th of July, 1852, the Duke of Wellington superintended the commencement of the re-cutting of the famous gem, and for thirty-eight days the operation went on. Eight thousand pounds were expended in the cutting and polishing. When it was finished and ready to be restored to the royal keeping, the person (a celebrated jeweller) to whom the whole care of the work had been intrusted, allowed a friend to take it in his fingers for examination. While he was feasting his eyes over it, and turning it to the light in order to get the full force of its marvellous beauty, down it slipped from his grasp and fell upon the ground. The jeweller nearly fainted with alarm, and poor "Butterfingers" was completely jellified with fear. Had the stone struck the ground at a particular angle, it would have split in two, and been ruined forever.

Innumerable anecdotes cluster about this fine diamond. Having passed through the hands of various Indian princes, violence and fraud are copiously mingled up with its history. We quote one of Madame de Barrera's stories concerning it:——

"The King of Lahore having heard that the King of Cabul possessed a diamond that had belonged to the Great Mogul, the largest and purest known, he invited the fortunate owner to his court, and there, having him in his power, demanded his diamond. The guest, however, had provided himself against such a contingency with a perfect imitation of the coveted jewel. After some show of resistance, he reluctantly acceded to the wishes of his powerful host. The delight of Runjeet was extreme, but of short duration,—the lapidary to whom he gave orders to mount his new acquisition pronouncing it to be merely a bit of crystal. The mortification and rage of the despot were unbounded. He immediately caused the palace of the King of Cabul to be invested, and ransacked from top to bottom. But for a long while all search was vain; at last a slave betrayed the secret;—the diamond was found concealed beneath a heap of ashes. Runjeet Singh had it set in an armlet, between two diamonds, each the size of a sparrow's egg."

The Shah of Persia, presented to the Emperor Nicholas by the Persian monarch, is a very beautiful stone, irregularly shaped. Its weight is eighty-six carats, and its water and lustre are superb.

The various stories attached to the Sancy diamond, the next in point of value, would occupy many pages. During four centuries it has been accumulating romantic circumstances, until it is now very difficult to give its true narrative. If Charles the Bold, the last Duke of Burgundy, ever wore it suspended round his neck, he sported a magnificent jewel. If the Curate of Montagny bought it for a crown of a soldier who picked it up after the defeat of Granson, not knowing its value, the soldier was unconsciously cheated by the Curate. If a citizen of Berne got it out of the Curate's fingers for three crowns, he was a shrewd knave. De Barante says, that in 1492 (Columbus was then about making land in this hemisphere) this diamond was sold in Lucerne for five thousand ducats. After that, all sorts of incidents are related to have befallen it. Here is one of them.—Henry IV. was once in a strait for money. The Sieur de Sancy (who gave his name to the gem) wished to send the monarch his diamond, that he might raise funds upon it from the Jews of Metz. A trusty servant sets off with it, to brave the perils of travel, by no means slight in those rough days, and is told, in case of danger from brigands, to swallow the precious trust. The messenger is found dead on the road, and is buried by peasants. De Sancy, impatient that his man does not arrive, seeks for his body, takes it from the ground where it is buried, opens it, and recovers his gem! In some way not now known, Louis XV. got the diamond into his possession, and wore it at his coronation. In 1789, it disappeared from the crown-treasures, and no trace of it was discovered till 1830, when it was offered for sale by a merchant in Paris. Count Demidoff had a lawsuit over it in 1832; and as it is valued at a million of francs, it was worth quarrelling about.

The Nassuck Diamond, valued at thirty thousand pounds, is a magnificent jewel, nearly as large as a common walnut. Pure as a drop of dew, it ranked among the richest treasures in the British conquest of India.

What has become of the great triangular Blue Diamond, weighing sixty-seven carats, stolen from the French Court at the time of the great robbery of the crown-jewels? Alas! it has never been heard from. Three millions of francs represented its value; and no one, to this day, knows its hiding-place. What a pleasant morning's work it would be to unearth this gem from its dark corner, where it has lain perdu so many years! The bells of Notre Dame should proclaim such good-fortune to all Paris.

But enough of these individual magnificos. Their beauty and rarity have attracted sufficient attention in their day. Yet we should like to handle a few of those Spanish splendors which Queen Isabel II. wore at the reception of the ambassadors from Morocco. That day she shone in diamonds alone to the amount of two million dollars! We once saw a monarch's sword, of which

was valued at one hundred thousand dollars! But one of the pleasantest of our personal remembrances, connected with diamonds, is the picking up of a fine, lustrous gem which fell from O.B.'s violin-bow, (the gift of the Duke of Devonshire,) one night, after he had been playing his magic instrument for the special delight of a few friends. The tall Norwegian wrapped it in a bit of newspaper, when it was restored to him, and thrust it into his cigar-box! [O.B. sometimes carried his treasures in strange places. One day he was lamenting the loss of a large sum of money which he had received as the proceeds of a concert in New York. A week afterwards he found his missing nine hundred dollars stuffed away in a dark corner of one of his violin-cases.]

There is a very pretty diamond-story current in connection with the good
Empress Eugénie. Madame de Barrera relates it in this wise.

"When the sovereign of France marries, by virtue of an ancient custom kept up to the present day, the bride is presented by the city of Paris with a valuable gift. Another is also offered at the birth of the first-born.

"In 1853, when the choice of His Majesty Napoleon III. raised the
Empress Eugénie to the throne, the city of Paris, represented by the
Municipal Commission, voted the sum of six hundred thousand francs for
the purchase of a diamond necklace to be presented to Her Majesty.

"The news caused quite a sensation among the jewellers. Each was eager to contribute his finest gems to form the Empress's necklace,—a necklace which was to make its appearance under auspices as favorable as those of the famous Queen's Necklace had been unpropitious. But on the 28th of January, two days after the vote of the Municipal Commission, all this zeal was disappointed; the young Empress having expressed a wish that the six hundred thousand francs should be used for the foundation of an educational institution for poor young girls of the Faubourg St. Antoine.

"The wish has been realized, and, thanks to the beneficent fairy in whose compassionate heart it had its origin, the diamond necklace has been metamorphosed into an elegant edifice, with charming gardens. Here a hundred and fifty young girls, at first, but now as many as four hundred, have been placed, and receive, under the management of those angels of charity called the Sisters of St. Vincent de Paul, an excellent education proportioned to their station, and fitting them to be useful members of society.

"The solemn opening of the Maison-Eugénie-Napoleon took place on the 1st of January, 1857.

"M. Veron, the journaliste, now deputy of the Seine, has given, in the 'Moniteur,' a very circumstantial account of this establishment. From it we borrow the following:—

"'The girls admitted are usually wretchedly clad; on their entrance, they receive a full suit of clothes. Almost all are pale, thin, weak children, to whom melancholy and suffering have imparted an old and careworn expression. But, thanks to cleanliness, to wholesome and sufficient food, to a calm and well-regulated life, to the pure, healthy air they breathe, the natural hues and the joyousness of youth soon reanimate the little faces; and with lithe, invigorated limbs, and happy hearts, these young creatures join merrily in the games of their new companions. They have entered the institution old; they will leave it young.'

"The Empress Eugénie delights in visiting the institution of the Faubourg St. Antoine. This is natural. Her Majesty cannot but feel pleasure in the contemplation of all she has accomplished by sacrificing a magnificent, but idle ornament to the welfare of so many beings rescued from misery and ignorance. These four hundred young girls will be so many animated, happy, and grateful jewels, constituting for Her Majesty in the present, and for her memory in the future, an ever new set of jewels, an immortal ornament, a truly celestial talisman.

"A fresco painting represents, in a hemicycle, the Empress in her bridal dress, offering to the Virgin a diamond necklace; young girls are kneeling around her in prayer; admiration and fervent faith are depicted on their brows."

A very large amount of the world's capital is represented in precious stones, and ninety per cent of that capital so invested is in diamonds. This was not always the case. Ancient millionnaires held their enormous jewelry-riches more in colored stones than is the custom now. Crystallized carbon has risen in the estimation of capitalists, and crystallized clay has gone down in the scale of value. If the diamond be the hardest known substance in the world's jewel-box, the pearl is by no means its near relation in that particular. The daughters of Stilicho slept undisturbed eleven hundred and eighteen years, with all their riches in sound condition, except the pearls that were found with their splendid ornaments. The other decorations sparkled in the light as brilliantly as ever; but the pearls crumbled into dust, as their owners had done centuries before. Eight hundred years before these ladies lived and wore pearls, a queen with "swarthy cheeks and bold black eyes" tried a beverage which cost, exclusive of the vinegar which partly composed it, the handsome little sum of something over eighty thousand pounds. Diamond and vinegar would not have mixed so prettily.

Pearls are perishable beauties, exquisite in their perfect state, but liable to accident from the nature of their delicate composition. Remote antiquity chronicles their existence, and immemorial potentates eagerly sought for them to adorn their persons. Pearl-fisheries in the Persian Gulf are older than the reign of Alexander; and the Indian Ocean, the Red Sea, and the Coast of Coromandel yielded their white wonders ages ago. Under the Ptolemies, in the time of the Caliphs, the pearl-merchant flourished, grew rich, and went to Paradise. To-day the pearl-diver is grubbing under the waves that are lapping the Sooloo Islands, the coast of Coromandel, and the shores of Algiers. In Ceylon he is busiest, and you may find him from the first of February to the middle of April risking his life in the perilous seas. His boat is from eight to ten tons burden, and without a deck. At ten o'clock at night, when the cannon fires, it is his signal to put off for the bank opposite Condatchy, which he will reach by daylight, if the weather be fair. Unless it is calm, he cannot follow his trade. As soon as light dawns, he prepares to descend. His diving-stone, to keep him at the bottom, is got ready, and, after offering up his devotions, he leaps into the water. Two minutes are considered a long time to be submerged, but some divers can hold out four or five minutes. When his strength is exhausted, he gives a signal by pulling the rope, and is drawn up with his bag of oysters. Appalling dangers compass him about. Sharks watch for him as he dives, and not infrequently he comes up maimed for life. It is recorded of a pearl-diver, that he died from over-exertion immediately after he reached land, having brought up with him a shell that contained a pearl of great size and beauty. Barry Cornwall has remembered the poor follow in song so full of humanity, that we quote his pearl-strung lyric entire.

  "Within the midnight of her hair,
  Half hidden in its deepest deeps,
  A single, peerless, priceless pearl
  (All filmy-eyed) forever sleeps.
  Without the diamond's sparkling eyes,
  The ruby's blushes, there it lies,
  Modest as the tender dawn,
  When her purple veil's withdrawn,—
  The flower of gems, a lily cold and pale!
  Yet what doth all avail,—
  All its beauty, all its grace,
  All the honors of its place?
  He who plucked it from its bed,
  In the far blue Indian ocean,
  Lieth, without life or motion,
  In his earthy dwelling,—dead!
  And his children, one by one,
  When they look upon the sun,
  Curse the toil by which he drew
  The treasure from its bed of blue.

  "Gentle Bride, no longer wear,
  In thy night-black, odorous hair,
  Such a spoil! It is not fit
  That a tender soul should sit
  Under such accursed gem!
  What need'st thou a diadem,—
  Thou, within whose Eastern eyes
  Thought (a starry Genius) lies,—
  Thou, whom Beauty has arrayed,—
  Thou, whom Love and Truth have made
  Beautiful,—in whom we trace
  Woman's softness, angel's grace,
  All we hope for, all that streams
  Upon us in our haunted dreams?

  "O sweet Lady! cast aside,
  With a gentle, noble pride,
  All to sin or pain allied!
  Let the wild-eyed conqueror wear
  The bloody laurel in his hair!
  Let the black and snaky vine
  Round the drinker's temples twine!
  Let the slave-begotten gold
  Weigh on bosoms hard and cold!
  But be THOU forever known
  By thy natural light alone!"

One of the best judges of pearls that ever lived, out of the regular trade, was no less a person than Caesar. He was a great connoisseur, and could tell at once, when he took a pearl in his hand, its weight and value. He gave one away worth a quarter of a million dollars. Servilia, the mother of Brutus, was the lady to whom he made the regal present.

Caligula, not satisfied with building ships of cedar with sterns inlaid with gems, had a pearl-collar made for a favorite horse! Pliny grows indignant as he chronicles the luxury of this Emperor.

"I have seen," says he, "Lollia Paulina, who was the wife of the Emperor Caligula,—and this not on the occasion of a solemn festival or ceremony, but merely at a supper of ordinary betrothals,—I have seen Lollia Paulina covered with emeralds and pearls, arranged alternately, so as to give each other additional brilliancy, on her head, neck, arms, hands, and girdle, to the amount of forty thousand sesterces, [£336,000 sterling,] the which value she was prepared to prove on the instant by producing the receipts. And these pearls came, not from the prodigal generosity of an imperial husband, but from treasures which had been the spoils of provinces. Marcus Lollius, her grandfather, was dishonored in all the East on account of the gifts he had extorted from kings, disgraced by Tiberius, and obliged to poison himself, that his grand-daughter might exhibit herself by the light of the lucernae blazing with jewels."

Nero offered to Jupiter Capitolinus the first trimmings of his beard in a magnificent vase enriched with the costliest pearls.

Catherine de Medicis and Diane de Poitiers almost floated in pearls, their dresses being literally covered with them. The wedding-robe of Anne of Cleves was a rich cloth-of-gold, thickly embroidered with great flowers of large Orient pearls. Poor Mary, Queen of Scots, had a wonderful lot of pearls among her jewels; and the sneaking manner in which Elizabeth got possession of them we will leave Miss Strickland, the biographer of Queens, to relate.

"If anything farther than the letters of Drury and Throgmorton be required to prove the confederacy between the English Government and the Earl of Moray, it will only be necessary to expose the disgraceful fact of the traffic of Queen Mary's costly parure of pearls, her own personal property, which she had brought with her from France. A few days before she effected her escape from Lochleven Castle, the righteous Regent sent these, with a choice collection of her jewels, very secretly to London, by his trusty agent, Sir Nicholas Elphinstone, who undertook to negotiate their sale, with the assistance of Throgmorton, to whom he was directed for that purpose. As these pearls were considered the most magnificent in Europe, Queen Elizabeth was complimented with the first offer of them. 'She saw them yesterday, May 2nd,' writes Bodutel La Forrest, the French ambassador at the Court of England, 'in the presence of the Earls of Pembroke and Leicester, and pronounced them to be of unparalleled beauty.' He thus describes them: 'There are six cordons of large pearls, strung as paternosters; but there are five-and-twenty separate from the rest, much finer and larger than those which are strung; these are for the most part like black muscades. They had not been here more than three days, when they were appraised by various merchants; this Queen wishing to have them at the sum named by the jeweller, who could have made his profit by selling them again. They were at first shown to three or four working jewellers and lapidaries, by whom they were estimated at three thousand pounds sterling, (about ten thousand crowns,) and who offered to give that sum for them. Several Italian merchants came after them, who valued them at twelve thousand crowns, which is the price, as I am told, this Queen Elizabeth will take them at. There is a Genoese who saw them after the others, and said they were worth sixteen thousand crowns; but I think they will allow her to have them for twelve thousand.' 'In the mean time,' continues he, in his letter to Catherine of Medicis, 'I have not delayed giving your Majesty timely notice of what was going on, though I doubt she will not allow them to escape her. The rest of the jewels are not near so valuable as the pearls. The only thing I have heard particularly described is a piece of unicorn richly carved and decorated.' Mary's royal mother-in-law of France, no whit more scrupulous than her good cousin of England, was eager to compete with the latter for the purchase of the pearls, knowing that they were worth nearly double the sum at which they had been valued in London. Some of them she had herself presented to Mary, and especially wished to recover; but the ambassador wrote to her in reply, that 'he had found it impossible to accomplish her desire of obtaining the Queen of Scots' pearls, for, as he had told her from the first, they were intended for the gratification of the Queen of England, who had been allowed to purchase them at her own price, and they were now in her hands.'

"Inadequate though the sum for which her pearls were sold was to their real value, it assisted to turn the scale against their real owner.

"In one of her letters to Elizabeth, supplicating her to procure some amelioration of the rigorous confinement of her captive friends, Mary alludes to her stolen jewels:—'I beg also,' says she, 'that you will prohibit the sale of the rest of my jewels, which the rebels have ordered in their Parliament, for you have promised that nothing should be done in it to my prejudice. I should be very glad, if they were in safer custody, for they are not meat proper for traitors. Between you and me it would make little difference, and I should be rejoiced, if any of them happened to be to your taste, that you would accept them from me as offerings of my good-will.'

"From this frank offer it is apparent that Mary was not aware of the base part Elizabeth had acted, in purchasing her magnificent parure of pearls of Moray, for a third part of their value."

One of the most famous pearls yet discovered (there may be shells down below that hide a finer specimen) is the beautiful Peregrina. It was fished up by a little negro boy in 1560, who obtained his liberty by opening an oyster. The modest bivalve was so small that the boy in disgust was about to pitch it back into the sea. But he thought better of his rash determination, pulled the shells asunder, and, lo, the rarest of priceless pearls! [Moral. Don't despise little oysters.] La Peregrina is shaped like a pear, and is of the size of a pigeon's egg. It was presented to Philip II. by the finder's master, and is still in Spain. No sum has ever determined its value. The King's jeweller named five hundred thousand dollars, but that paltry amount was scouted as ridiculously small.

There is a Rabbinical story which aptly shows the high estimate of pearls in early ages, only one object in Nature being held worthy to be placed above them:—

"On approaching Egypt, Abraham locked Sarah in a chest, that none might behold her dangerous beauty. But when he was come to the place of paying custom, the collectors said, 'Pay us the custom': and he said, 'I will pay the custom.' They said to him, 'Thou carriest clothes': and he said, 'I will pay for clothes.' Then they said to him, 'Thou carriest gold': and he answered them, 'I will pay for my gold.' On this they further said to him, 'Surely thou bearest the finest silk': he replied, 'I will pay custom for the finest silk.' Then said they, 'Surely it must be pearls that thou takest with thee': and he only answered, 'I will pay for pearls.' Seeing that they could name nothing of value for which the patriarch was not willing to pay custom, they said, 'It cannot be but thou open the box, and let us see what is within.' So they opened the box, and the whole land of Egypt was illumined by the lustre of Sarah's beauty,—far exceeding even that of pearls."

Shakspeare, who loved all things beautiful, and embalmed them so that their lustre could lose nothing at his hands, was never tired of introducing the diamond and the pearl. They were his favorite ornaments; and we intended to point out some of the splendid passages in which he has used them. But we have room now for only one of those priceless sentences in which he has set the diamond and the pearl as they were never set before. No kingly diadem can boast such jewels as glow along these lines from "Lear":—

  "You have seen
  Sunshine and rain at one: her smiles and tears
  Were like a better day: Those happy smiles
  That played on her ripe lip seemed not to know
  What guests were in her eyes; which parted thence,
  As pearls from diamonds dropp'd."

REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.

2. T. AUBANEL. La Miougrano Entreduberto. Avec Traduction littérale en regard. Avignon: J. Roumanille. 1860. 12mo.

3. Mirèio. Pouèmo Prouvençau de FREDERI MISTRAL. Avec la Traduction littérale en regard. Avignon: J. Roumanille. 1859. 8vo.

4. Las Papillôtos de JACQUES JASMIN, de l'Académie d'Agen, Maître ès Jeux-Floraux, Grand Prix de l'Académie Française. Édition populaire, avec le Français en regard, et ornée d'un Portrait. De 1822 à 1858. Paris: Firmin Didot, Frères & Cie. 1860. 12mo.

5. Lés Piaoulats d'un Reïpetit. Recueil de Poésies Patoises. Par J.B. Veyre, Instituteur à Saint-Simon (Cantal). Aurillac: Imprimerie de L. Bonnet-Picut. 1860. 8vo.

Few persons, when they consider the present greatness and prosperity of the French Empire, bear in mind the heterogeneous elements of which it is composed. For us, Paris is France, and the literature of the realm is comprised in the words, "Paris publications." We think not of the millions of Frenchmen to whom the language of the capital is a sealed letter,—of the Germans of Alsatia, the Flemings of the extreme North-East, the Bretons of the peninsula of Finisterre, the Basques, the Catalans of the mountains of Roussillon, and, more numerous than all these, the fourteen millions of the thirty-seven departments south of the Loire. These speak, to this day, with fewer modifications than have taken place in any other of the European languages during the same lapse of time, the very tongue in which wrote Bertran de Born and Pierre Vidal, the idiom in which Dante and Petrarca found some of their happiest inspirations, and which, we are told, Tasso envied for its poetic capabilities.

True, the Provinces of Gascony, Provence, Auvergne may be traversed by the stranger almost without his suspecting that other than the French, more or less badly spoken, is in common use. In hotels and shops he will hear nothing else.

The larger towns in direct communication with the capital, and all that is purely exterior in the people, are becoming more and more French every day. But in the family interior, far from the noise of affairs, the bustle of towns, in hamlets, among the vine-growers and tenders of the silk-worm, in the mountains and retired valleys, the home-tongue is again at ease. Simple, ingenuous, amber-like in its sunny tints, it is a reflection of that ardent poetical imagination which made the courts of the Counts of Toulouse the nurseries of modern poesy, when the rest of Europe was little else than one wrangling battle-field. Neither the exterminating crusade against the Albigenses, after which the idiom of Provence was wellnigh stigmatized as heretical, nor the civil and religious wars of the seventeenth century, nor even the dragonnades of Louis XIV., have been able to outroot it. The levelling edicts of the first French Revolution were powerless against it. The Provençal, or Langue d'Oc, if you will, the Gascon, the Auvergnat, are spoken to this day in their respective provinces, universally spoken by the people, who in many instances do not understand French at all. They must be preached to in their own dialect. They have their songs, their theatre even.

Nor must this be understood as referring only to the lower strata of society. The better classes, even, retain a fondness for their mother-tongue which years of residence in Paris will not obliterate. In their very French, they still retain the inflections, the tones of the South,—a measured cadence in the phrase, which the Parisian uniformly styles gasconner. They feel ill at ease in what they call the cold-mannered speech of the Franchiman. In the words of one of their poets, Mistral, who has proved that he was no less a master of the academic forms and rules than of the riches and power of his own Avignonais:—"Those who have not lived at the South, and especially in the midst of our rural population, can have no idea of the incompatibility, the insufficiency, the poverty of the language of the North in regard to our manners, our needs, our organization. The French language, transplanted to Provence, seems like the cast-off clothes of a Parisian dandy adapted to the robust shoulders of a harvester bronzed by the Southern sun."

The Provençal, in its two principal divisions, the Gascon and Langue d'Oc, is the current idiom south of the Loire. The South-West Provinces had, in the seventeenth century, no mean poet in Godelin; and in our own day, Jasmin has found a host of followers. The inhabitants of the South-East, however, the more immediate retainers of the language of the Troubadours, save in a few drinking-songs and Christmas carols, had forgotten the strains that once resounded beyond the limits of Provence and had first awaked the poetic emulation of Spain and Italy. The princess of song, stung by the envious spirit of persecution in the Albigensian wars, had slept for centuries, and the thick hedge of forgetfulness had grown rank about the language and its treasures. What Raynouard, Diez, Mahn, Fauriel, and others have done to bring to light again the unedited texts was little better than an autopsy. A living, breathing poet was wanting to reanimate by his touch the poesy that had slept so long. That poet was Roumanille.

The Minnesingers have found heirs and continuators in the modern writers of Germany. Side by side with the increasing tendency to unity in all national literature is working the force of races confounded under one political banner, to assert their existence as such. Congresses have shaped new kingdoms; but they have not reached or removed the limits of nationalities that have each their expression in song, whether in Moldavia or among the Czechs of Bohemia. The regeneration of local idioms, which is fast working its way from the Bosphorus to the Atlantic, was first undertaken in Provence, at the instigation of Roumanille. The son of a gardener of St. Remy, he was first struck with the insufficiency of French literature for his immediate countrymen, when, on his return from college, seeking to recite some of his earlier poems in the language of Racine to his aged mother, she failed to understand them. For her he translated, and found that his own Provençal was richer, more copious and melodious than the French itself, and, if less finical and restrained by grammatical forms, more pliant for the poet, and better answering the exigencies of primitive, spontaneous expression of feeling. From that moment his efforts were unceasingly directed towards the reintegration of his mother-tongue, which had so long played but the part of a Cinderella among the Romanic nations.

His poems, collected in 1847, under the title of "Margarideto," (Daisies,) were hailed by his countrymen with their habitual national enthusiasm. Nor did he remain inactive during the Revolution of 1848, addressing the people in home-phrase in several small volumes of prose. In 1852, he sent forth a call to his brother-writers, the felibre, who had joined with him in his efforts. The result was the publication of "Li Prouvençalo," a charming selection from those modern Troubadours who in all ranks of society sing, because sing they must, in bright and sunny Provence, and who in very deed find poetry

The call of Roumanille was the signal for a revival. Since that time, he himself, now a publisher in Avignon, has steadily watched and fostered the movement. The new literature has rapidly gone beyond its home-limits. Within the present year, Paris has republished several of the most noted works.

The volume which has called forth these remarks, "Lis Oubreto," comprises the poems of M. Roumanille,—"Li Margarideto," "Li Nouvè," "Li Sounjarello," "La Part de Dieu," "Li Flour de Sauvi." They are characterized by an elevation in the thoughts and a religious purity of sentiment, qualities which, it has been urged, and justly too, were lacking in many of the former productions in various dialects of France. We call the poetry of Roumanille elevated, yet it always addresses itself to the people of Provence, and borrows its images from the many-colored life of those to whom it speaks; religious, but simple and ingenuous, with a tinge of mysticism,—not the mysticism that seeks the good in dreamy inaction, as in some of the Spanish authors, nor has it the obscure tinge of the transcendental English school. The religion of Roumanille is active, not dogmatic; he incites to do, rather than discuss or dream the good. There is a health, a vigor, an earnestness, in this spontaneous poesy of an idiom which six centuries ago was the language of courts, and now sings the song of toil. Side by side with the over-cultured language of the Parisian, it seems so free and frank! Where the one is hampered for fear of sinning, the other, buoyant and elastic, treads freely and fears not to be too ingenuous.

Roumanille's poems have not been translated; it is hardly likely they ever will be,—at least, the greater number. They were not made for Paris. They are not at ease in a French garb,—nor, for that matter, in any other than their own diaphanous, sun-tinted, vowelly Provençal, unless they could find their expression in some folk-speech, as the Germans say, that could utter things of daily life without euphuistic windings, without fear of ridicule for things of home expressed in home-words.

As characterizing the nature and tendency of the new poetry, we subjoin a translation of "Li Crecho," (The Infant Asylums,) of which M. Sainte-Beuve, of the French Academy, one whose judgment as literary critic could be little biased in favor of the naïve graces of the original, said,—"The piece is worthy of the ancient Troubadours. The angel of the asylums and of little children in his celestial sadness could not be disavowed by the angels of Klopstock, nor by that of Alfred de Vigny."

"Li Crecho" was recited by the author at the inauguration of the Infant Asylum of Avignon, the 20th of November, 1851, and forms part of the sheaf of poems entitled "Li Flour de Sauvi."

"Among the choirs of Seraphim, whom God has created to sing eternally, transported with love, 'Glory, glory to the Father!'—among the joys of Paradise, one oftentimes, far from the happy singers, went thoughtful away.

"And his snow-white forehead inclined towards our world, as droops a flower that has no moisture in summer. Day by day he grew more dreamy. If sadness, when in God's glory, could torment the heart, I should say that this fair angel was pining with sorrow.

"Of what did he dream thus, and in secret? Why was he not of the feast?
Why, alone among angels, as one that had sinned, did he bow the head?"

II.

"Lo! he has just knelt at the feet of God. What will he say? What will he do? To see and hear him, his brethren interrupt their song of praise."

III.

"'When Jesus, thy child, wept,—when he shivered with cold in the manger of Bethlehem,—it was my smile that consoled him, my wings that sheltered him, with my warm breath did I comfort him.

"'And since then, O God, when a child weeps, in my pitying heart his voice resounds. Therefore forever now am I sick at heart,—therefore, O Lord, am I ever thoughtful.

"'On earth, O God, I have something to do. Let me descend there. There are so many babes, poor milk-lambs, who, shivering with cold, weep and wail far from the breasts, far from the kisses of their mothers! In warm rooms will I shelter them,—will cover and tend them,—will nurse and caress them,—will lull them to rest. Instead of one mother, they shall each have twenty that shall give them suck and soothe them to sleep.'"

IV.

"And with heart and hand did the angels applaud,—a tremor of joy shot through the stars of heaven,—and, unfolding his pinions, with the rapidity of lightning the angel descended. The road-side smiled with flowers, as he passed,—and mothers trembled for joy; for infant-asylums arose wherever the child-angel trod."

One of the first to respond to the call of Roumanille for the composition of the selection "Li Prouvençalo" was Th. Aubanel, also of Avignon. The "Segaire" (Mowers) and "Lou 9 Thermidor" made it plain, that, of the thirty names, that of the young printer would soon take a prominent place among the revivers of Southern letters. And now, eight years later, the promise of M. René Taillandier, in his introduction to the selection, has become reality.

"La Miougrano Entreduberto" (The Opened Pomegranate) is printed with an accompanying French translation. Mistral, the brother-poet and friend of the author, thus announces the poems:—

"The pomegranate is of its nature wilder than other trees. It loves to grow in pebbly elevations (clapeirolo) in the full sun-rays, far from man and nearer to God. There alone, in the scorching summer-beams, it expands in secret its blood-red flowers. Love and the sun fecundate its bloom. In the crimson chalices thousands of coral-grains germ spontaneously, like a thousand fair sisters all under the same roof.

"The swollen pomegranate holds imprisoned as long as it can the roseate seeds, the thousand blushing sisters. But the birds of the moor speak to the solitary tree, saying,—'What wilt thou do with the seeds? Even now comes the autumn, even now comes the winter, that chases us beyond the hills, beyond the seas…..And shall it be said, O wild pomegranate, that we have left Provence without seeing thy beautiful coral-grains, without having a glimpse of thy thousand virgin daughters?'

"Then, to satisfy the envious birdlings of the moor, the pomegranate slowly half-opens its fruit; the thousand vermeil seeds glitter in the sun; the thousand timorous sisters with rosy cheeks peep through the arched window: and the roguish birds come in flocks and feast at ease on the beautiful coral-grains; the roguish lovers devour with kisses the fair blushing sisters.

"Aubanel—and you will say as I do, when you have read his book—is a wild pomegranate-tree. The Provençal public, whom his first poems had pleased so much, was beginning to say,—'But what is our Aubanel doing, that we no longer hear him sing?'"

Then follows an exposition of the hopeless passion of the poet,—how he took for motto,

Hence the three books of poems now before us,—"The Book of Love," "Twilight," and "The Book of Death." "The Book of Love," "a thing excessively rare," as we are told in the Preface, "but this one written in good faith," opens with a couplet that is a key to the whole volume:—

  De-la-man-d'eilà de la mar,
  Dins mis ouro de pantaiage,
  Souvènti-fes iéu fau un viage,
  Iéu fau souvènt un viage amar,
  De-la-man-d'eilà, de la mar."
  etc., etc.

  "Far away, beyond the seas,
  In my hours of reverie,
  Oftentimes I make a voyage,
  I often make a bitter voyage,
  Far away, beyond the seas.

  "Yonder far, towards the Dardanelles,
  With the ships I glide away,
  Whose long masts pierce the sky;
  Towards my loved one do I go,
  Yonder far, towards the Dardanelles.

  "With the great white clouds sailing on,
  Driven by the wind, their master-shepherd,
  The great clouds which before the stars
  Pass onwards like white flocks,
  With the clouds I go sailing on.

  "With the swallows I take my flight,
  The swallows returning to the sun;
  Towards fair days do they go, quick, quick;
  And I, quick, quick, towards my love,
  With the swallows take my flight.

  "Oh, I am very sick for home,
  Sick for the home that my love haunts!
  Far from that foreign country,
  As the bird far from its nest,
  I am very sick for home.

  "From wave to wave, o'er the bitter waters,
  Like a corse thrown to the seas,
  In dreams am I borne onward
  To the feet of her that's dear,
  From wave to wave, o'er the bitter waters.

  "On the shores I am there, dead!
  My love in her arms supports me;
  Speechless she gazes and weeps,
  Lays her hand upon my heart,
  And suddenly I live again!

  "Then I clasp her, then I fold her
  In my arms: 'I have suffered enough!
  Stay, stay! I will not die!'
  And as a drowning one I seize her,
  And fold her in my arms.

  "Far away, beyond the seas,
  In my hours of reverie,
  Oftentimes I make a voyage,
  I often make a bitter voyage,
  Far away, beyond the seas."

As may easily be seen, Aubanel writes not, like Roumanille, for his own people alone. His Muse is more ambitious, and seeks to interest by appealing to the sentiments in a language polished with all the art of its sister, the French. There are innumerable exquisite passages scattered through the work, which make us ready to believe in the figurative comparison of the prefacer, when he tells us that "the coral-grains of the 'Opened Pomegranate' will become in Provence the chaplet of lovers."

If Roumanille and Aubanel contented themselves with the publication of poems of no very ambitious length, the author of "Mirèio" aimed directly at enriching his language at the outset with an epic. He has given us in twelve cantos the song of Provence. He makes us see and feel the life of Languedoc,—traverse the Crau, that Arabia Petrasa of France,—see the Rhone, and the fair daughters of Arles, in their picturesque costumes,—see the wild bulls of the Camargo, the Pampas of the Mediterranean. We are among the growers of the silk-worm; we hear the home-songs and talks of the Mas, listen to the people's legends and tales of witchery, and can study the Middle-Age spirit that still in these regions endows every shrine with miracles, as we follow the pilgrimage to the chapel of the Three Marys.

"Mirèio" is all Provence living and breathing before us in a poem. No wonder, then, that, in the present dearth of poetry in France, this epic or idyl, call it as you will, was received with acclamations. M. René Taillandier has consecrated to it one of his most masterly articles in the "Revue des Deux Mondes." Lamartine has devoted to it a whole entretien in his "Cours de Littérature." It was discussed, quoted, translated in all the journals of the capital. We may revert to it at greater length in a future number of the "Atlantic."

The name of Jasmin, the harbor-poet of Agen, is already familiar to the English public. Professor Longfellow has translated his "Blind Girl of Castel-Cuillé." His name is known in Paris as well, perhaps, as that of any other living French poet, if we except Lamartine and Victor Hugo. Accompanied with a French translation, his principal poems, "Mous Soubenis," "L'Abuglo de Castel-Cuillé," "Francouneto," "Maltro l'Innoucento," "Lous Dus Frays Bessous," "La Semmâno d'un Fil," have been read as much north of the Loire as south.

"The Curl-Papers"—for thus he styles his works—having been translated into German and English, the reputation of the author may be called European. The forty maintainers of the Floral Games of Clémence Isaure at Toulouse awarded him the title of Maître ès Jeux-Floraux. His progress through the South was marked by ovations, and every town, from Marseilles to Bordeaux, hastened to recognize the modern Troubadour. Happier than most of his predecessors, Jasmin receives his laurels in season, and can wear the crowns that are presented him. The "Papillôtos" were formerly scattered in three costly volumes; they have now been collected in one handsome duodecimo, with an accompanying French translation of the principal pieces,—a translation which called from Ampère the remark,—"A défaut des vers de Jasmin, on ferait cent lieues pour entendre cette prose-là!"

"Lés Piaoulats d'un Reïpetit" is one of the rare productions of the written literature of Auvergne, so rich in antique legends and original popular songs. The author, at the Archaeological Concourse of Béziers, in 1838, obtained deserved encomium for his "Ode to Riquet," the creator of the great Southern French Canal, linking the Atlantic and Mediterranean. He has written in the Romanic dialect in use in Auvergne, which, if it lacks the finish and polish of the Provençal, is not wanting in grace and ingenuousness. It is characterized by a rude energy, a sombre harmony, that tallies well with the wild and rural character of the country.

At first sight, the dialect seems to have a marked affinity with that made use of by Jasmin in his "Papillôtos." It is, however, easily distinguishable by the frequent use of peculiar gutturals, the almost constant change of a into o, and a greater number of radicals of Celtic origin. In a recent work on Auvergne, it is argued that these Celtic words form the basis of the language. The history of the region itself would tend to corroborate this theory.

Sheltered by rocky mountain-ranges, the Dômes, the Dores, and Cantal, (Mons Celtorum) the Arverni obstinately repulsed every attempt towards the naturalization of the Roman tongue, and battled for six centuries with the same energy displayed by them, when, under Vercingetorix, they fought for their nationality and the independence of Gaul against Caesar. The Latin could exercise, therefore, but slight influence on the idiom of these regions, which has preserved since then in its vocabulary, and even in syntactical forms, a marked relationship with the Celtic, which, according to Sidonius Apollinaris, was still spoken there in the sixth century.

The actual dialect of Auvergne is peculiarly adapted to recitals of a legendary nature, owing to its vivacity of articulation, coupled with a kind of gloom in the quality of the sounds. Naïf and touching in popular song and Christmas carol, it is not divested of a certain grandeur for subjects deserving of a higher style.

The works of M. Veyre comprise the various styles of shorter poems. His "Ode to Riquet," and that in honor of Gerbert, (Pope Silvester II., a native of Auvergne,) show what the language can do in the hands of a master. In the latter he describes the career of that predestined child whom legend accompanied from his cradle to the grave.

"La Fiëro de St. Urbo," curious picture of the manners of the country, is written in that ironical and gay vein of which the older French writers possessed the secret; but that is now fast dying away. "Répopiado" and "Lou Boun Sens del Payson" show that the language of Auvergne is no less adapted to moral teachings than to the touching inspirations and free jovial songs of the country Muse.

The work of M. Veyre is the first tending to give his native province a share in the literary revival of the Romanic idioms, which is so universally felt in Southern France, and has of late produced so much.

History of the United Netherlands, from the Death of William the Silent to the Synod of Dort. With a Full View of the English—Dutch Struggle against Spain; and of the Origin and Destruction of the Spanish Armada. By JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY, LL.D., D.C.L. New York: Harper & Brothers. Vols. I. and II. 8vo.

These volumes bear the unmistakable mark, not merely of historical accuracy and research, but of historical genius; and the genius is not that of Thierry or Guizot, of Gibbon or Macaulay, but has a palpable individuality of its own. They evince throughout a patient, persistent industry in investigating original documents, from the mere labor of which an Irish hod-carrier would shrink aghast, and thank the Virgin that, though born a drudge, he was not born to drudge in the bogs and morasses of unexplored domains of History; yet the genius and enthusiasm of the historian are so strong that he converts the drudgery into delight, and lives joyful, though "laborious days." There is not a page in these volumes which does not sparkle with evidences of an enjoyment far beyond any that the rich and pleasure-seeking idler can ever know; and while the materials are those of the barest and bleakest fact, the style of the narrative is that of the gayest, most genial, and most elastic spirit of romance. We have read all the best fictions which have been published during the interval which has elapsed between the publication of the "History of the Dutch Republic" and that of the "History of the United Netherlands," but we have read none which fairly exceeds, in what is called, in the slang of fifth-rate critics, "breathless interest," this novel, but authentic memorial of a past heroic age.

The first requirement of an historian in the present century is original research,—not merely research into rare printed books and pamphlets, but into unpublished and almost unknown manuscripts. No sobriety of judgment, no sagacity of insight, no brilliancy of imagination can compensate for defective information. The finest genius is degraded to the rank of a compiler, unless he sheds new light upon his subject by contributing new facts. The severest requirements of the Baconian method of induction—requirements which have been notoriously disregarded by men of science in the investigation of Nature—remain in force as regards the students of history. The powers of analysis, generalization, statement, and narrative in Macaulay's historical essays were fully equal to any powers he displayed in the "History of England from the Reign of James II." No candid critic can deny that there is little in his "History" which, as far as regards essential facts and principles, had not been previously stated in a more sententious form in his Essays. But we recollect the time when the same dignified scholars who are now insensible to his defects were blind to his merits, and with majestic dulness classed him among the inglorious company of superficial, untrustworthy, brilliant declaimers. The moment, however, he published in octavo volumes a solid history, and appended to the bottom of each page the obscure authorities on which his narrative was founded, and which plainly exhibited the capacity of the brilliant declaimer to perform all the austerest duties of the drudge, his reputation marvellously increased among the most frigid and most exacting dispensers of praise. To come nearer home, we remember the time when Bancroft's rhetoric entirely shut out from the eyes of antiquaries and men of taste Bancroft's industry and scholarship. It was not until he plainly showed his power to "toil terribly," not until he palpably added to our knowledge of American history, that men who had sneered at his occasional rhapsodies of patriotism admitted his claims to be considered the historian of the United States. They resisted Bancroft as long as Bancroft gave them the slightest reason to believe that he was interposing his own mind between them and facts which they know its well as he; but when, by independent and indefatigable research, at home and abroad, he indisputably widened the sphere of their information, they pardoned the faults of the rhetorician in their gratitude to the toiling investigator who had added to their knowledge.

It is the felicity of Mr. Motley, that, like Prescott, he is not placed under the necessity of overcoming prejudices. There is nobody on either side of the Atlantic (whether we use the word as indicating its limited sense as an ocean, or its larger and more liberal moaning as a magazine) who would not rejoice in his success, and be grieved by his failure. And this good feeling on the part of the public he owes, in a great degree, to the individuality he has impressed upon his work. That individuality is not the individuality of a partisan or of a theorist, but the individuality of a broad-minded, high-minded, chivalrous gentleman. With a soul open to the finest sentiments and ideas of the age in which he lives, tolerant of frailty, but intolerant of meanness, falsehood, and malignity, and writing with the frankness with which a cultivated man of decided opinions might speak to a company of chosen associates, the most obstinate bigot can hardly fail to feel the charm of his free and cordial manner of expression. Hume, Gibbon, Hallam, and Macaulay, Sismondi, Guizot, and Michelet, all have in their characters something which invites and provokes opposition. But the spirit which underlies Mr. Motley's large scholarship is so thoroughly genial and generous, and is so purified from the pedantry of knowledge and the pedantry of opinion, that it is impossible for him to rouse in other minds any of the antipathy which is often felt for powerful individualities whose powers of mind and extent of erudition still enforce respect and extort admiration. The instinctive sympathy he thus creates is due to no lack of intrepidity in expressing his love for what is right and his hatred for what is wrong. No historian is more decisive in his judgments, or more scornful of the arts and hypocrisies by which the champions of opposite opinions are flattered and propitiated. But his spirit is that of the knight "without reproach," as well as the knight "without fear"; and even his adversaries cannot but delight in the singleness and simplicity of purpose with which he strives after the truth. Nothing in his position or in his character gives them the slightest pretence for supposing that his bold advocacy of liberal views is connected with any ulterior designs or any "fatted calf" of theory or office. While he is thus healthily free from the taint of the partisan, he is also independent of the austere insensibility of the judicial Pharisee, whose boast is that he decides questions relating to human nature without any admixture of human instinct and human feeling. Mr. Motley, throughout his History, writes from his heart as well as from his head; and we have been unable to discover that he has swerved from the truth of things by allowing his narrative to be vitiated by an undue prominence of either.

If we pass from the historian's individuality to his materials, we find, that, in a great degree, his facts are discoveries, and that, if his book possessed no literary value whatever, it would still be an' important addition to the history of Europe during the latter part of the sixteenth century. He has, of course, studied all the prominent contemporary chronicles and pamphlets of Holland, Flanders, Spain, France, Germany, and England; and if his materials had been confined to published sources of information, he would still be in possession of facts not generally known or carefully analyzed and combined; but the peculiar value of his History is due to its exhaustive examination, of unpublished private letters and political documents. The archives of Holland, England, and Spain have been opened to his investigations, and he has been particularly fortunate in being able to road the whole correspondence between Philip II., his ministers, and governors, relating to the affairs of the Netherlands, from 1584 to the death of that monarch. Placed thus at the centre from which events radiated, and understanding perfectly the real designs which Spain concealed under a cover of the most diabolical dissimulation, and which are now for the first time completely elucidated, he was able to judge of the mistakes of the other cabinets of Europe, also laid bare to his unwearied research. The study of the manuscripts in the English State-Paper Office, and in the collections of the British Museum, has given him a perfect insight into the characters and policy of the statesmen of the England of Elizabeth; and the exact relations which England bore to Holland and Spain he has for the first time clearly indicated. As a contribution to the history of England, these two volumes are of inestimable value. They will disturb, and in some cases revolutionize, the fixed opinions which the most intelligent Englishmen of the present day have formed of almost every public man of the Elizabethan era; and we cannot but wonder that this work should have been left for an American scholar to accomplish.

The present volumes of Mr. Motley's History begin with the murder of William of Orange, in 1584, and extend only to the assassination of Henry HI. of France, in 1589. These five years, however, are crowded with individuals and events of special importance, and the historian has shed new light on every topic he has touched. The determination of Philip II. to put down the revolt of the Netherlands was part of an extensive scheme, which involved the conquest of England and France, the extermination of Protestantism, and the subjection of Europe to the despotic sway of Spain and Rome. The interest of the history is therefore European. To grasp it requires a knowledge of the minutest threads of a tangled web of intrigue which spread from the Escorial to the North Sea. This knowledge Mr. Motley has obtained. The cabinets of Spain, England, and France have yielded up their inmost secrets to his indefatigable research. He peeps over the shoulder of Philip, and reads the despatch by which he intends to outwit Walsingham,—and in a second of time is peeping over the shoulder of Walsingham, to see what the latter is doing to outwit Philip. There is something inexpressibly stimulating to curiosity in watching the movements of the nimble historian as he speeds from one cabinet to another, and, the invisible spy in the councils of all, detects the misconceptions and blunders of each. In this complicated game of craft, policy, and passion, our historian is the first writer who has arrived at the knowledge of the cards which each player held in his hand at the time the game was played.

In 1584, the subjugation of the Netherlands seemed to be but a question of time; and the disparity between the power of Spain and that of her revolted provinces is thus strikingly stated:—

"The contest between those seven meagre provinces upon the sand-banks of the North Sea and the great Spanish Empire seemed at the moment with which we are now occupied a sufficiently desperate one. Throw a glance upon the map of Europe. Look at the broad, magnificent Spanish Peninsula, stretching across eight degrees of latitude and ten of longitude, commanding the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, with a genial climate, warmed in winter by the vast furnace of Africa, and protected from the scorching heats of summer by shady mountain and forest and temperate breezes from either ocean. A generous southern territory, flowing with wine and oil and all the richest gifts of a bountiful Nature,—splendid cities,—the new and daily expanding Madrid, rich in the trophies of the most artistic period of the modern world,—Cadiz, as populous at that day as London, seated by the straits where the ancient and modern systems of traffic were blending like the mingling of the two oceans,—Granada, the ancient wealthy seat of the fallen Moors,—Toledo, Valladolid, and Lisbon, chief city of the recently conquered kingdom of Portugal, counting, with its suburbs, a larger population than any city, excepting Paris, in Europe, the mother of distant colonies, and the capital of the rapidly developing traffic with both the Indies: these were some of the treasures of Spain herself. But she possessed Sicily also, the better portion of Italy, and important dependencies in Africa, while the famous maritime discoveries of the age had all inured to her aggrandizement.

"The world seemed suddenly to have expanded its wings from East to West only to bear the fortunate Spanish Empire to the most dizzy heights of wealth and power. The most accomplished generals, the most disciplined and daring infantry the world has ever known, the best-equipped and most extensive navy, royal and mercantile, of the age, were at the absolute command of the sovereign. Such was Spain.

"Turn now to the north-western corner of Europe. A morsel of territory, attached by a slight sand-hook to the continent, and half-submerged by the stormy waters of the German Ocean: this was Holland. A rude climate, with long, dark, rigorous winters and brief summers,—a territory, the mere wash of three great rivers, which had fertilized happier portions of Europe only to desolate and overwhelm this less-favored land,—a soil so ungrateful, that, if the whole of its four hundred thousand acres of arable land had been sowed with grain, it could not feed the laborers alone,—and a population largely estimated at one million of souls: these were the characteristics of the province which already had begun to give its name to the new commonwealth. The isles of Zealand—entangled in the coils of deep, slow-moving rivers, or combating the ocean without—and the ancient episcopate of Utrecht, formed the only other provinces that had quite shaken off the foreign yoke. In Friesland, the important city of Groningen was still held for the King; while Bois-le-Duc, Zutphen, besides other places in Gelderland and North Brabant, also in possession of the royalists, made the position of those provinces precarious."

The safety of the Netherlands appeared to depend so entirely on their success in gaining the assistance of foreign powers, that it is not surprising that the Estates eagerly offered the sovereignty of the country, first to France and then to England. The details of the negotiations with these powers Mr. Motley recounts at great length. When England, at last, adopted the side of the Netherlands, and caught glimpses of the fact that the struggle of the latter against Spain was her cause no less than the cause of the Dutch, the parsimony and indecision of Elizabeth, and the hesitating counsels of her favorite minister, Burleigh, prevented the English-Dutch alliance from being efficient against the common enemy. An incompetent general, the Earl of Leicester, was sent over to Holland with the English troops; yet even his incompetency might not have stood in the way of success, had he not been hampered with instructions which paralyzed what vigor and intelligence he possessed, and had not his soldiers been left to starve by the government they served. Elizabeth was trying to secure a peace with Spain, while Philip and Farnese were busy in contriving the means of an invasion of England; and up to the time the Spanish Armada appeared in the British seas, she and her government were thoroughly cajoled by Spanish craft. Mr. Motley remorselessly exposes, not only the duplicity of Philip, but the credulity of Elizabeth; he demonstrates the superiority of Spain in all the arts which were then supposed to constitute statesmanship; and shows that it was to no sagacity and vigor on the part of the English government, but to the instinctive intelligence and intrepidity of the English people, that the nation was saved from overthrow. Walsingham is almost the only English statesman who comes out from the historian's pitiless analysis with any credit; and, in respect to sagacity, Burleigh is degraded below Leicester: for Leicester at least understood that the enmity of Philip of Spain to England was unappeasable, and therefore justly considered his perfidious negotiations for peace as a mere blind to cover designs of conquest.

But we have no space, in this hurried notice of Mr. Motley's work, to linger on the fertile topics which his luminous narrative suggests. In a future article we hope to do some justice to the facts, principles, and judgments he has established. At present, after indicating his diligence in exploring original authorities, and the importance of the conclusions at which he arrives, we can only venture a few remarks on his historical genius and method.

As regards his historical genius, it is sufficient to say that he exhibits both sympathy and imagination. He has so completely assimilated his materials that his narrative of events is that of an eye-witness rather than that of a chronicler. Reproducing the passions, without participating in the errors of the age about which he writes, he intensely realizes everything he recounts. The siege of Antwerp and the defeat of the Spanish Armada are the two prominent and obvious illustrations of his power of pictorial description: in these he has presented facts with a vividness and coherence worthy of the great masters of poetry and romance; and his capacity of thus giving unmistakable reality to events is not merely exercised in harmony with the literal truth of things, but makes that truth more clearly appreciated. Desirous as he is to impress the imagination, he never sacrifices accuracy to effect.

The same picturesque truthfulness characterizes his descriptions of individuals. In the present volumes he has analyzed and represented a wide variety of human character, separated not only by personal, but national traits. Philip II., Farnese, and Mendoza,—Olden-Barneveld, Paul Buys, St. Aldegonde, Hohenlo, Martin Schenk, and Maurice of Nassau,—Henry III., Henry of Navarre, and the Duke of Guise,—Queen Elizabeth, Burleigh, Walsingham, Buckhurst, Leicester, Davison, Raleigh, Sidney, Howard, Drake, Hawkins, Frobisher, and Norris,—all, as delineated by him, have vital reality, all palpably live and move before the eye of his mind.

The method which Mr. Motley has adopted is admirably calculated to insure accuracy as well as reality to his representation of events and persons. His plan is always to allow the statesmen and soldiers who appear in his work to express themselves in their own way, and convey their opinions and purposes in their own words. This mode is opposed to compression, but favorable to truth. Macaulay's method is to re-state everything in his own language, and according to his own logical forms. He never allows the Whigs and Tories, whose opinions and policy he exhibits, to say anything for themselves. He detests quotation-marks. His summaries are so clear and compact that, we are tempted to forget that they leave out the modifications which opinions receive from individual character. The reason that his statements are so often questioned is due to the fact that he insists on his readers viewing everything through the medium of his own mind. Mr. Motley is more objective in his representations; and his readers can dispute his summaries of character and expositions of policy by the abundant materials for differing judgment which the historian himself supplies.

Life of Andrew Jackson. By JAMES PARTON, Author of the "Life of Aaron Burr," etc., etc. 3 vols. 8vo. New York: Mason Brothers. 1860.

We criticized Mr. Parton's "Life of Aaron Burr" with considerable severity at the time of its appearance; and we are the more glad to meet with a book of his which we can as sincerely and heartily commend. The same quality of sympathy with his subject, which led him in his former work to palliate the moral obliquity and overlook the baseness of his hero, in consideration of brilliant gifts of intellect and person, gives vigor and spirit to his delineation of a character in most respects so different as that of Jackson. This man, who filled so large a place in our history, and left perhaps a stronger impress of himself on our politics than any other of our public men except Jefferson, was well worthy to be made a subject of careful study and elucidation. Mr. Parton has given us the means of understanding a character hitherto a puzzle, and deserves our hearty thanks for the manner in which he has done it.

We think the book remarkably fair in its tone, though perhaps Mr. Parton is now and then led to exaggerate the positive greatness of Jackson, who, as it appears to us, was rather eminent by comparison and contrast with the men around him. But there were many strong, if not great qualities in his composition, and so much that was picturesque and strange in the incidents of his career and the state of society which formed his character, that we have found this biography one of the most instructive and entertaining we ever read. If Mr. Parton sometimes exaggerates his hero's merits, he is also outspoken in regard to his faults. If here and there a little Carlylish, his style has the merit of great liveliness, and his pictures of frontier-life are full of interest and vivacity.

Mr. Parton begins his book with a new kind of genealogy, and one suited to our Western hemisphere, where men are valued more for what they themselves are than for what their grandfathers were,—for making than for wearing an illustrious name. He shows that Jackson came of a good stock,—pious, tenacious of opinion and purpose, and brave,—the Scotch-Irish. He then tells us how young Jackson imbibed his fierce patriotism, riding as a boy-trooper, and wellnigh dying a prisoner, during the last years of the Revolutionary War. He lets us see his hero cock-fighting, horse-racing, bad-whiskey-drinking, studying law, and fighting by turns, leaving behind him somewhat dubious but on the whole favorable memories, yet somehow getting on, till he is appointed District-Attorney among the wolves, wildcats, and redskins of Tennessee. The story of his emigration thither and his early life there is wonderfully picturesque, and told by Mr. Parton with the spirit which only sympathy can give.

A great part of the material is wholly new, and we are at last enabled to get at the real Jackson, and to gain something like an adequate and consistent conception, of him. We are particularly glad to learn the truth about Mrs. Jackson, after so many years of slander and misunderstanding, and to find something really touching and noble, instead of ludicrous, in the grim General's devotion to his first and only love. We get also for the first time an understandable account of the Battle of New Orleans, made up with praiseworthy impartiality from the accounts of both sides. Nor is it only here that the author gives us new light. He enables us to judge fairly of the sad story of Arbuthnot and Ambrister, and throws a great deal of light on many points of our political history which much needed honest illumination. The book is of especial interest at the present time, as it contains the best narrative we have ever seen of the Nullification troubles of 1832. Mr. Parton not only shows a decided talent for biography, but his work is characterized by a thoroughness of research and honesty of purpose that make it, on the whole, the best life yet written of any of our public men.

We forget who it was that once charitably christened one of his volumes "Prose by a Poet," in order that the public might be put on their guard as to the difference between it and the others,—inexperienced critics are so apt to make mistakes! The example seems to us worth following, and, were this dangerous frankness made a point of honor in title-pages, we should be able at a glance to distinguish the books that must be bought from those that may be read. We should then see advertised "The Ten-Inch Bore, or Sermons by Rev. Canon So-and-so,"—"Essays to do Good, by a Victim of Original Sin,"—"Poems by a Proser,"—"Political Economy, by a Bankrupt," and the like. We should know, at least, what we had to expect.

We do not mean to apply this to Miss Terry; but her volume reminded us, by the association of opposites, of the title to which we have referred. We had long known her as a writer of picturesque and vigorous prose, as one of the most successful sketchers of New England character, abounding in humor and pathos; but we had never conceived her as a writer of verse. The readers of the "Atlantic" remember too well her "Maya, the Princess," "Metempsychosis," and "The Sphinx's Children," to need reminding that she has qualities of fancy as remarkable as her faculty for observing real life. Miss Terry seems in this volume to have sought refuge from the real in the ideal, from the jar and bustle of the outward world in the silent and shadowy interior of thought and being. Her poems have the fault of nearly all modern poetry, inasmuch as they are over-informed with thought and sadness. By far the greater number of her themes are abstract and melancholy. It appears to us that her mind moves more naturally and finds readier expression in the picturesque than in the metaphysical; and in saying this we mean to say that she is really a poet, and not a rhymer of thoughts. "Midnight" is a poem full of originality and vigor, with that suggestion of deepest meaning which is so much more effective than definite statement. "December XXXI." gives us a new and delightful treatment of a subject which the poets have made us rather shy of by their iteration. We would signalize also, as an especial favorite of ours, "The Two Villages," and still more the very striking poem "At Last." But, after all, we are not sure that the Ballads are not the best pieces in the volume. The "Frontier Ballads," in particular, quiver with strength and spirit, and have the true game-flavor of the border.

One of the most impossible books that man ever wrote. A book which one could almost prove never could be written, and which, as an illogical conclusion, but a stubborn fact, has been written, nevertheless. "Harrington" is an Abolition novel, the scene of which is laid in Boston, with a few introductory chapters of plantation-slavery in Louisiana. Its principal merit is its burning earnestness of feeling and purpose; and earnestness is sacred from criticism. Whenever the warm, pulse of an author's heart can be felt through the texture of his story, criticism is mere flippancy. But, at the risk of making our author's lip curl with disdain of the sordid insensibility that refuses to join in his enthusiasm throughout, we shall venture to remind him that enthusiasm is no proof of truth, whether in argument or conclusion.

The introductory chapters, containing the flight of the slave Antony through the Louisiana swamp, are almost unequalled for unfaltering power, for gorgeous wealth of color. Many of the glowing sentences belong rather to passionate poetry than to tamer prose. The agonized resolution that turns the panting fugitive's blood and body to fire,—the fear, so vividly portrayed that the reader's nerves thrill with the shock that brings the hunted negro's heart almost to his mouth with one wild throb,—the matchless picture of the forest and marsh, lengthening and widening with dizzy swell to the weary eye and failing brain,—all are the work of a master of language.

When the scene shifts to Boston, the language, which was in perfect keeping with the tropical madness of Antony's flight and the tropical splendor of the Southern forest, is extravagant to actual absurdity, when used with reference to ordinary scenes and ordinary events. All the force of contrast is lost; and contrast is the great secret of effect. The lavish richness of our author's words is as little suited to the things they describe as a mantle of gold brocade would be to the shoulders of a beggar. Even the loveliest of young women is more likely to enter a room by the ordinary mysterious mode of locomotion than to "flash" into it like a salamander. That it was possible for Muriel Eastman, in gratifying her "vaulting ambition" by a very creditable spring over the parallel bars, to "toss the air into perfume," we are not prepared to deny, having no very clear notion of the meaning of those remarkable words; but when, we are told that Mrs. Eastman was "ineffably surprised, yet more ineffably amused," we must be allowed to enter an energetic protest. Harrington himself is perhaps a trifle too "regnant" to be altogether satisfactory; and there are many similar extravagances and inaccuracies.

The social intercourse of the ladies and gentlemen in this book is particularly bad. It seems as if the author were ignorant of the usages of good society, and, impatient of the vulgar ceremony of inferior people, had seen no way to assert the superiority of his two fair ladies and their unimaginable lovers, except making them dispense with all such observances whatever. His uncertainty how people in their position really do act has hampered his powers; and he is not that rarity, an original writer, but that very common person, one who tries to be original. Real ladies and gentlemen are not reduced to the alternative of either being embarrassed by the ordinary social rules or disregarding them altogether; they take advantage of them. It is a false originality that is singular about ordinary forms; it is only the tyro in chess who is "original" in his first move; Paul Morphy, the most inventive of players, always begins with the customary advance of the king's pawn.

There is the usual partiality—one-sidedness—common to the writings and orations of our author's political school. It may well be doubted whether in reality all the virtues have been monopolized by the Antislavery men, all the vices by their opponents. Our author only hurts his own cause, when he invests with a halo of light every brawler who echoes the words of the really eminent leaders. Because one Abolitionist, who has sacrificed power and position to his creed, is entitled to praise, is another, who perhaps, by advocating the same doctrines, gains a higher position, a wider influence, perhaps an easier support, than he could in any other way, to share the credit of having made a sacrifice? One would not disparage martyrs; but Saint Lawrence on a cold gridiron, and the pilgrim who boiled his peas, are entitled to more credit for their shrewdness than their suffering. Our author, however, makes no distinction; and a natural result will be that many of his readers, knowing that in one case his praises are undeserved, will be slow to believe them just in any case. And not only are all of this particular school disinterested, but they are all among the master-intellects of the age, apparently by definition. Mr. Harrington himself is the commanding intellect of the story, perhaps because of his belief in the greatest number of heresies,—being somewhat peculiar in his religious views, believing in woman's rights, considering the marriage ceremony a silly concession to popular prejudice, giving credence to omens, active as an Abolitionist, and—to crown all—holding that Lord Bacon wrote Shakspeare's Plays! We sympathize entirely with the author's indignant protest against thinking a theory necessarily inaccurate because it contravenes the opinion of the majority. Certainly, a new thing is not necessarily wrong; but neither is a new thing necessarily right; and we are heartless enough to pronounce the "Baconian theory" rather weak than otherwise for a hero.

We cannot close our notice of this book without commending the old French fencing-master as particularly good. He talks very simply and well on matters that he understands, and is silent on those that he does not understand,—affording in both respects an excellent example to the more important characters.

RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS

RECEIVED BY THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY.

The North American Review. No. CXC. January, 1861. Boston. Crosby,
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Marion Graham; or, Higher than Happiness. By Meta Lander. Boston.
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Harry Coverdale's Courtship and Marriage. By Frank E. Smedley. Illustrated. Philadelphia. T.B. Peterson & Brothers. 12mo. pp. 357. $1.25.

Life in the Old World; or, Two Years in Switzerland and Italy. By Frederika Bremer. Translated by Mary Howitt. Philadelphia. T.B. Peterson & Brothers. 2 vols. 12mo. pp. 488, 474. $2.50.

One of Them. By Charles Lever. New York. Harper & Brothers. 8vo. paper, pp. 187. 50 cts.

Human Destiny: a Critique on Universalism. By C.F. Hudson. Boston. James
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Negroes and Negro-Slavery: the First, an Inferior Race; the Latter, their Normal Condition. By J.H. Van Evrie, M.D. New York. Van Evrie, Horton, & Co. 12mo. pp. 339. $1.00.

The Works of Francis Bacon. Vol. XIV. Being Vol. IV. of the Literary and
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The History of Latin Christianity. By Henry Hart Milman. Vol. IV. New
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The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus; to which are added those of his Companions. By Washington Irving. Author's Revised Edition. New York. G.P. Putnam. 12mo. pp. 494. $1.50.

The Westminster Review, for January, 1861. New York. Leonard Scott & Co. 8vo. paper, pp. 160. 50 cts.

Elsie Venner. A Romance of Destiny. By Oliver Wendell Holmes. Boston.
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The Deerslayer. By J. Fenimore Cooper. Darley's Illustrated Edition. New
York. W.A. Townsend & Co. 12mo. pp. 598. $1.50.

American Slavery, distinguished from the Slavery of English Theorists, and justified by the Law of Nature. By Rev. Samuel Seabury, D.D. New York. Mason Brothers. 12mo. pp. 319. $1.25.

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