FEINBERG/WHITMAN LITERARY FILE POETRY FILE "Old-Age Echoes" (Mar. 1891). Printed copies. Box 28 Folder 2This Number Contains The Sound Of A Voice Or, The song of the Débardeur. By Fredric S. Cozzens, Author of "The Sparrowgrass Papers," etc. Complete. March, 1891 LIPPINCOTT'S Monthly Magazine Contents The Sound of a Voice; Or, The song of the Débardeur. - - Frederic S. Cozzens 281-344 Some Familiar Letters by Horace Greeley.-I. - - Edited by Joel Benton - - 345 A Mysterious Case - - Anna Katharine Green - - 352 "The Refiner of Silver." "Fear Not." - - Clara Jessup Moore - - 357 Round-Robin Talks.-IV - - J. M. Stoddart - -359 A Lost Art - - Anne H. Wharton - - 369 Creation - - Charles Henry Lüders - - 375 Old-Age Echoes - - Walt Whitman - - 376 Some Personal and Old-Age Memoranda - - Walt Whitman - - 377 "Walt Whitman: Poet and Philosopher and Man" - - Horace L. Traubel - - 382 The Light-House and the Birds - - William H. Hayne - - 389 Three Famous Old Maids - - Agnes Repplier - -390 A Michigan Man - - Elia W. Peattie - - 394 A Fanatic - - Henry Collins - - 399 "The French Invasion of Ireland" - - Julian Hawthorne - - 400 Reading Bores - - Richard Malcom Johnston - - 401 Agricultural Education - - James Knapp Reeve - - 403 Cosmopolitanism and Culture - - W. W. Crane - - 406 "Little Jarvis" - - - - 408 "Treasures of Art" - - - - 408 With the Wits. (Illustrated by leading artists.) Price Twenty-Five Cents J : B : Lippincott : Co : Philadelphia : London: Ward, Lock & Co. Paris: Brentano's , 17 Avenue De L'opéra. Copyright, 1891, by J. B. Lippincott Company. Entered at Philadelphia Post-Office as second-class matter.The standard cocoa of the world. Van Houten's Cocoa "Best & goes farthest." "Once tried, always used." A Delicious Substitute for Tea and Coffee and Better for the Nerves. Purity Unquestioned. Easily Digested. Made Instantly. It only needs a single trial to convince anyone of the superiority of Van Houten's (the original, pure, soluble) Cocoa. Please insist upon Van Houten's and take no substitute. It is put up in 1/8, 1/4, 1/2 and one lb. cans. If not obtainable, enclose 25c. in stamps or postal note to either Van Houten and Zoon, 106 Reade Street, New York, or 45 Wabash Ave., Chicago, and a large sample can will be mailed postpaid, if you mention this publication. Prepared only by Van Houten and Zoon, Weesp, Holland. For Epicures. "Delicate and Piquant" best expresses our Soup Puree of Game which needs but a sprinkling of croutons to make it perfect. It is a new soup; your grocer may not have it, but will get it for you if you insist. It is ready for use, needs but warming, and has one point only in common with our 17 other varieties, the care with which it is prepared. Green Turtle, Terrapin, Chicken, Consomme, Puree of Game, Mulligatawny, Mock Turtle, Ox-Tail, Tomato, Chicken Gumbo, French Bouillon, Julienne, Pea, Printanier, Mutton Broth, Vegetable, Beef, Pearl Tapioca. First-class grocers keep them. A sample can sent on receipt of the price of postage. 14 cents. Packed in quart, pint and 1/2 pt. cans, and in 1 1/2 pint glass jars. The Franco-American Food Co., West Braodway and Franklin Street, New York City. The April Number of Lippincott's Magazine, Ready March 20, Will Contain a New and Complete Novel, entitled, Maidens Choosing. By the Author of "The Story of Margaret Kent," Mrs. Ellen Olney Kirk (Henry Hayes), Author of "Queen Money," "Sons and Daughters," "Walford," etc. For List of Complete Novels Contained in Former Numbers, See Next Page.The Complete Novels which have already appeared in Lippincott's Magazine, and which are always obtainable, are: No. 280. "MAIDENS CHOOSING".........By Mrs. Ellen Olney Kirk. No. 279. "THE SOUND OF A VOICE"......By Frederic S. Cozzens. No. 278. "A WAVE OF LIFE"........................................By Clyde Fitch. No. 277. "THE LIGHT THAT FAILED"..............By Rudyard Kipling. No. 276. "AN ARMY PORTIA"................By Captain Charles King. No. 275. "A LAGGARD IN LOVE".....By Jeanie Gwynne Bettany. No. 274. "A MARRIAGE AT SEA"....................By W. Clark Russell. No. 273. "THE MARK OF THE BEAST".By Katharine Pearson Woods. No. 272. "WHAT GOLD CANNOT BUY"........By Mrs. Alexander. No. 271. "THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY".....By Oscar Wilde. No. 270. "CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE"...By Mary E. Stickney. No. 269. "A SAPPHO OF GREEN SPRINGS"..........By Bret Harte. No. 268. "A CAST FOR FORTUNE"....................By Christian Reid. No. 267. "TWO SOLDIERS" ....By Captain Charles King, U.S.A. No. 266. "THE SIGN OF THE FOUR"............By A. Conan Doyle. No. 265. "MILLICENT AND ROSALIND"...By Julian Hawthorne. No. 264. "ALL HE KNEW"..............................By John Habberton. No. 263. "A BELATED REVENGE" ..By Dr Robert Montgomery Bird. No. 262. "CREOLE AND PURITAN"...................By T. C De Leon. No. 261. "SOLARION"........................................By Edgar Fawcett. No. 260. "AN INVENTION OF THE ENEMY"By W. H. Babcock. No. 259. "TEN MINUTES TO TWELVE".....By M. G. McClelland. No. 258. "A DREAM OF CONQUEST"...By General Lloyd Brice. No. 257. "A CHAIN OF ERRORS"..............By Mrs. E. W. Latimer. No. 256. "THE WITNESS OF THE SUN...............By Amelie Rives. No. 255. "BELLA-DEMONIA"...............................By Selina Dolaro. No. 254. "A TRANSACTION IN HEARTS"...........By Edgar Saltus. No. 253. "HALE-WESTON".............................By M. Elliot Seawell. No. 252. "DUNRAVEN RANCH"..By Captain Charles King, U.S.A. No. 251. "EARTHLINGS"............................................By Grace King. No. 250. "QUEEN OF SPADES," and Autobiography by E. P. Roe. No. 249. "HEROD AND MARIAMNE." A tragedy.By Amelie Rives. No. 248. "MAMMON"............................................By Maude Howe. No. 247. "THE YELLOW SNAKE"..............By Wm. Henry Bishop. No. 246. "BEAUTIFUL MRS. THORNDYKE" by Mrs. Poultney Bigelow. No. 245. "THE OLD ADAM"................................By H. H. Boyesen. No. 244. "THE QUICK OR THE DEAD?"............By Amelie Rives. No. 243. "HONORED IN THE BREACH"........By Julia Magruder. No. 242. "THE SPELL OF HOME." After the German of E. Werner. By Mrs. A. L. Wister. No. 241. "CHECK AND COUNTER-CHECK" By Brander Matthews and Geo. H. Jessop. No. 240. "FROM THE RANKS".........By Captain Charles King, U.S.A. No. 239. "THE TERRA-COTTA BUST"........By Virginia W. Johnson. No. 238. "APPLE SEED AND BRIER THORN"..By Louise Stockton. No. 237. "THE RED MOUNTAIN MINES"...By Lew Vanderpoole. No. 236. "A LAND OF LOVE"..................................By Sidney Luska. No. 235. "AT ANCHOR"..........................................By Julia Magruder. No. 234. "THE WHISTLING BUOY"........................By Chas. Barnard. No. 233. "THE DESERTER".................By Captain Charles King, U.S.A. No. 232. "DOUGLAS DUANE".................................By Edgar Fawcett. No. 231. "KENYON'S WIFE".........................................By Lucy C. Lillie. No. 230. "A SELF-MADE MAN"........................By M. G. McClelland. No. 229. "SINFIRE"................................................By Julian Hawthorne. No. 228. "MISS DEFARGE"..................By Frances Hodgson Burnett. No. 227. "BRUETON'S BAYOU"...........................By John Habberton. Single Numbers, 25c. #3.00 per year. Of any Bookseller or Newsdealer, or mailed, on receipt of price, to any address in United States or Canada. Address LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE, Philadelphia. BICYCLES Columbias "OLD RELIABLE" COLUMBIA S M T W T F S . . . . 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 JANUARY 1891 ALWAYS UP TO DATE Pope Manufacturing Co PRINCIPAL OFFICE BRANCHES BOSTON FACTORY NEW YORK HARTFORD CHICAGO CONN. Illustrated Catalogue for 1891 SENT FREE UPON APPLICATION.MISCELLANEOUS CHOCOLAT MENIER ASK FOR IT EVERYWHERE MAP OF THE UNITED STATES A large, handsome Map of the United States, mounted and suitable for office or home use, is issued by the Burlington Route. Copies will be given free when it can be done without expense for transmission; or they will be mailed to any address on receipt of six cents in postage by P.S. Eustis, Gen’l Pass. Agent, C., B. & Q.R.R., Chicago, Ill. PARALYSIS Successfully Treated by the New Method. 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Fine buildings and grounds and superior school equipment. Ten instructors. Prepares for leading colleges and scientific schools. Number limited to sixty. 20th year. $500. No extras. JOHN CALVIN RICE, A.M., Principal. PLAYS Dialogues, Tableaux, Speakers for School, Club, & Parlor, Best out. Catalogue free. T. S. DENISON, Chicago, Ill. A $550 COTTAGE. Among the marvellous things of this grogressive age is the low cost of small cottages that are skilfully planned. I have just published a book (Book No. 19) of 72 large pages, containing 25 such designs, most of them entirely new. The designs are fully illustrated and described, and range in cost from $350 to $750; called "$600 Cottages," because that indicates the cost of most of them. The complete list of my new publications for 1891 is as follows. In addition to the 25 "classified" designs, each book (except No. 32) contains 14 designs of various costs, making 39 designs in each book. Book No 19 contains 25 Designs of "$ 600 Cottages" " " 20 " 25 " " 1,000 Cottages" " " 21 " 25 " " 1,500 Cottages" " " 22 " 25 " " 2,000 Cottages" " " 23 " 25 " " 2,500 Cottages" " " 24 " 25 " " 3,000 Houses" " " 25 " 25 " " 3,300 Houses" " " 26 " 25 " " 3,500 Houses" " " 27 " 25 " " 4,000 Houses" " " 28 " 25 " " 4,500 Houses" " " 29 " 25 " " 5,000 Houses" " " 30 " 25 " " 6,000 Houses" " " 31 " 25 " " 7,500 Houses" Book No. 32 contains 20 Designs of Double Cottages and 20 Designs of Stables. Book No. 33 contains 25 Designs of Ten Thousand Dollar Houses. PRICES.--One book, $1; any 4 books, $3; and 7 books, $5; full set (15 books), $10. Mailed, all postage prepaid, on receipt of price. Address R. W. SHOPPELL, Architect, 63 Broadway, New York. Mention this magazine LANGUAGES. FRENCH, GERMAN, SPANISH, or ITALIAN, ACTUALLY SPOKEN IN TWENTY LESSONS (40 recitations), without leaving your home, by THE GASTINEAU METHOD. Entirely new system and process. PUPILS TAUGHT AS IF ACTUALLY IN PRESENCE OF TEACHER. All exercises corrected and questions answered by the author. Membership (including complete Method, together with a copy of "The Instructor"), $5.00, for each language. Send two cent stamp for "How to Speak a Language." THE GASTINEAU SELF-STUDY COMPANY, 297 Fifth Avenue, New York. Habla V. Espanol ? Parlez-Vous Francais ? Sprechen Sie Deutsch ? Prelate Italiano ? IN TEN WEEKS You can, at your own home, by DR. RICHARD S. ROSENTHAL'S MEISTERSCHAFT SYSTEM, learn to speak fluently either Spanish, French, Italian, or German. Specimen Copy, Spanish, French, German, or Italian, 25c. All subscribers--$5.00 for each language--become actual pupils of Dr. Rosenthal, who corrects all exercises and corresponds with them in regard to any difficulties which may occur. MEISTERSCHAFT PUBLISHING CO., 299 Washington St., Boston. YES! OR NO. DOES or does it not pay to advertise? Yes; if well done in good papers No; if not well done, and not inserted in good papers. The BOSTON HERALD publishes more columns of advertisements than any other New England paper and pays the advertiser well. TOILET ARTICLES HONEST SOAP. The Testimony of Half-a-Century. PEARS' Soap INDISPUTABLE EVIDENCE OF SUPERIORITY. From Dr. REDWOOD, Ph.D., F.C.S., F.I.C Professor of Chemistry and Pharmacy to the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain. BEING authorised by Messrs. PEARS to purchase at any and all times and of any dealers samples of their Soap (thus ensuring such samples being of exactly the same quality as is supplied to the general public), and to submit same to the strictest chemical analysis, I am enabled to guarantee its invariable purity. My analytical and practical experience of PEARS' SOAP now extends over a lengthened period--NEARLY FIFTY YEARS--during which time-- I have never come across another Toilet Soap which so closely realises my ideal of perfection, its purity is such that it may be used with perfect confidence upon the tenderest and most sensitive skin-- even that of a New Born Babe" 8 J. B. Lippincott Company's Monthly bulletin of New Publications. PHILADELPHIA, MARCH, 1891. CONTAINING a List of New Publications, with brief notices of their contents, etc., together with an announcement of works now in press to be issued shortly. Our Publications are for sale by Booksellers generally, or, if not obtainable of them, will be sent by mail, post-paid, upon receipt of price. NEW PUBLICATIONS. An Exceptional Case. A Novel. By ITTI KINNEY-RENO, author of "Miss Breckenridge, a Daughter of Dixie," etc. American Novel Series. Square 12mo. Paper, 50 cents; cloth, $1.00. Mrs. Reno is quite at home in her interpretation of the open-hearted hospitality and impulsive chivalry of the Southern people. She draws her characters admirably, and weaves into the story situations that are both charming and original. "Miss Breckenridge," her first novel, is a "genuine Southern love-story, redolent of the breath of the New South, full of the fragrance of Southern flowers, and instinct with the rich, warm blood of Southern youth." The new novel is realistic to a degree, and possess all the charm of its predecessor. Two Soldiers, and Dunraven Ranch. By CAPT. CHARLES KING, author of "The Colonel's Daughter," "Marion's Faith," etc. Complete in one volume in the American Novel Series. Square 12mo. Paper, 50 cents; cloth, $1.00. A successful writer of novels of life in the regular army. In 'Two Soldiers; he outdoes himself. 'Dunraven Ranch' is compact, interesting, and breezy. While authors who are less successful are analyzing Captain King's style and trying to discover the secret of its popularity, they may perhaps discover that a profession that compels a man to spend most of his time out of doors, filling his lungs with pure air and keeping his arterial circulation in fine working order, may be at the bottom of it. The only English author whose stories have as much manly sparkle and dash as King's is Blackmore, who also is an out-of-door man."--New York Herald. "Captain King's novels have among other qualities worth noting, the special distinction of ardent and poetic sentiment. He is almost the only American novelist who allows his heroes to be frankly, heartily, and romantically in love." New York Tribune. The Romance of a Spanish Nun. By ALICE MONTGOMERY BALDY. American Novel Series. Square 12mo. Paper, 50 cents; cloth, $1.00. The author knows Spain well, and dexterously weaves into her story those romantic qualities of Spanish life and character which have so often inspired the poet and novelist. She knows as well the human heart, its aspirations, its eccentricities, its loves its disappointments, and the solace it seeks in a religious life. These she uses with a cunning all her own to make the more fascinating this excellent story. 9 10 J.B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY'S Historic Note-Book. By the REV. E. COBHAM BREWER, LL.D., Trinity College, Cambridge, author of "The Reader's Hand-Book," "Dictionary of Phrase and Fable," etc. One volume. 12mo. Half morocco. Persons who are familiar with Dr. Brewer's reference books will appreciate the value of his new work. It is much the same general style as "The Reader's Hand-Book," but its subject-matter is more purely historical. Special pains have been taken to secure accuracy of statement and breadth of view. Aids in Practical Geology. By GRENVILLE A. J. COLE, F.G.S., Professor of Geology in the Royal College of Science for Ireland. With numerous Illustrations. 12mo. Cloth, #3.00. This work is a companion to any ordinary text-book of geology, and is of special service to those students who have made excursions into the field, and who wish to determine their specimens for themselves. A large section of the book has been devoted to rocks and to the ordinary minerals of the earth's crust, since these will always present themselves to the observer during any expedition or in any country. As for the names used for igneous rocks, the author has retained the comprehensive terms of pioneers, such as d'Aubuisson and Brougmart. Many of the figures of fossils illustrating Phillip's "Manual of Geology" are used in the work, supplemented with sketches and diagrams explanatory of special features. The Design of Structures: A Practical Treatise on the Building of Bridges, Roofs, etc. By S. ANGLIN. With numerous Diagrams, Examples, and Tables. 12mo. Cloth. The object of this work is to furnish to students of Engineering and Architecture a concise Text-Book, requiring on the part of the student a knowledge of elementary mathematics only. The different branches of the subject are treated from a practical as well as from a theoretical stand-point, and with this object a large number of practical examples are introduced and carefully worked out, such as occur in the every-day experience of the engineer. Several chapters are devoted to Strength of Joints, and to Punching, Drilling, Riveting, and other processes connected with the manufacture of Bridges, Roofs, and structural work, generally, being the result of many years' experience in the bridge-yard. An Introduction to the Study of Metallurgy. By W.C. ROBERTS-AUSTEN, C.B., F.R.S., Associate of the Royal School of Mines. With numerous diagrams. 12mo. Cloth, $2.50. For those who are beginning to study the important subject of Metallurgy this work is a desirable guide to a knowledge of the principles by which the art is rightly practised. "Ten years' experience," the author says in his preface, "has made me fully sensible that is is more important at the outset for the student to know what was the scope of mind of the early practisers of metallurgy, and to see what kind of aid the art may be expected to receive in future from the sciences, than to acquire familiarity with complicated details of processes and appliances." In many works on metallurgy, the specific metals are dealt with separately and in detail. In this, however, the author treats the subject as a whole, giving no minute descriptions of processes, but choosing typical appliances and indicating their use in connection with groups of metals. Such a method was adopted by the late M. Gruner, Professor of Metallurgy at the Ecole des Mines, Paris. MONTHLY BULLETIN OF NEW PUBLICATIONS. 11 Dramatic Sketches and Poems. By LEWIS J. BLOCK. 12mo. Cloth, $1.00. In this volume Mr. Block, who is not unknown to lovers of verse, writes upon a variety of themes with much poetic insight and skill. His refined and cultured taste, fertile imagination, and chaste style, as well as the nature of the subjects he chooses, give the book special attraction for thoughtful readers. Bohemia and Other Poems. By ISABELLA T. AITKEN. 12mo. Cloth, $1.00. Mrs. Aitken loves the sincerity, independence, and geniality of the class about whom she writes in so happy a vein in the poem which gives its title to the volume. Throughout she shows a freedom from conventional trammels and a certain waywardness in the selection and treatment of subjects which, with her own versatile genius, impart to her book a decided dash of individuality. A Draught of Lethe. The Romance of an Artist. By ROY TELLET, author of "The Outcasts." The latest issue in Lippincott's Series of Select Novels. 12mo. Paper, 50 cents; cloth, 75 cents. Novel-readers will note with considerable satisfaction the appearance of a new writer who is likely to provide them with good entertainment. Each scene of this excellent story is vigorously told, and the characters are well drawn. "It is some time," says the London Review, "since we have come across a novel more attractive and original." The Plunger. A Turf Tragedy of Five-and-Twenty Years Ago. No. 118 of Lippincott's Series of Select Novels. By Hawley Smart, author of "Long Odds," "Without Love or License," etc. 12mo. Paper, 50 cents; cloth, 75 cents. "The racing novels of Hawley Smart are exciting reading. The plot of his latest turns upon a mysterious crime, which is unravelled by a detective in a very clever manner. The story is exceedingly dramatic; the character-sketching is excellent; and the literary style of the work is far in advance of that in which stories of this character are frequently told." -Boston Gazette. "There is a pleasant, breezy style about all of the works of this popular writer. This is a 'horsey' novel, a tale of the turf and a tragedy of a quarter of a century ago. The style is good, and the incidents are narrated graphically." -Norristown Herald. The Other Man's Wife. By JOHN STRANGE WINTER, author of "Bootle's Baby," etc. No. 117 of Lippincott's Series of Select Novels. 12mo. Paper, 50 cents; cloth, 75 cents. "One would say that the author must have been most of her life in intimate association with the better people of the class described, and is certainly gifted with rare powers of observation and a fascinating grace and facility of narration." -Chicago Times. "John Strange Winter (Mrs. H. V. Stannard) knows how to write delightful military tales, in which her favorite hero, the young British officer, figures largely. John Ruskin says that we owe to her the most finished and faithful rendering ever yet gice of the character of the British soldier." -Public Opinion. "The story of the Lord Bishop of Blankhampton is as pretty a romance as could be desired, and one cannot help regretting that his transition from earthly scenes to a higher sphere should be thought necessary to make room for the performance of his son's deeds. 'The Other Man's Wife' is written with considerable dash and esprit de corps." -Philadelphia Ledger.12 J.B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY'S Patience. By ANNA B. WARNER, author of "Dollars and Cents," "My Brother's Keeper," etc. 12mo. Cloth, $1.25. "The Misses Warner are among the best friends a young girl can have as chaperones into the delightful kingdom of romance." -Philadelphia Public Ledger. "This book can go into any family in the land, be sure of a welcome, and a host of admiring readers." Norristown Herald. A Successful Man. By JULIEN GORDON, author of "A Diplomat's Diary." 12mo. Cloth, $1.00. The two volumes in neat box, $2.00. "The story will bring a new laurel to the successful novelist. As in the earlier work, 'A Diplomat's Diary,' we find the same intimate contact with life, the same firm grasp of character. The able, winning, superior man, strong on every side except against a superior woman's fascination; the excellent wife and mother, who does not keep pace with her husband's opportunities, and who falls out of touch with society, while he is drawn in without her; the fascinating woman of the world, who captures him and brings him to her feet, almost before either captive or victor knows it, -these are the leading figures of the story. In its progress not a word is lost; it marches towards its tragic denouement as surely as a tragedy of Euripides.... Keen insight into human nature, and a broad and far-reaching sympathy with it, great knowledge of the world, and the saving touch of homely humor, without which great gifts are void, -are not these enough for the endowment of a novelist?" -N.Y. Mail and Express. Her Brother Donnard. A Novel. By EMILY E. VEEDER. Illustrated. 12mo. Cloth, $1.25. "The story is a beautiful one, told in a plain, unsenstational sort of way; but it carries with the telling an interest that never lags until the end is reached. It is a novel that is not filled with improbable things or objectionable situations. The plot is laid in England, Scotland, and in this country. Charming characters are introduced, and, all through, they are desirable people to know." -Pittsburg Press. A Mystery of New Orleans Solved by New METHODS. A Romance of the Day. By WM. H. HOLCOMBE, M.D., author of "In Both Worlds," etc. $1.00. "The chief charm of the book is in the easy and masterly touches by which the author places the stamp of naturalness and verity upon all his personages and scenes. In this part of the work Dr. Holcombe shows that he possesses that highest quality of the imagination, -the power to reproduce nature without copying and without distorting it." -St. Louis Republic. Other works by WM. H. HOLCOMBE: "The Sexes," "Our Children in Heaven," "In Both Worlds," "The Other Life," "Southern Voices," "The End of the World," and "Lost Truths of Christianity;" reduced in price to $1.00 per volume. A Wave of Life. By CLYDE FITCH, author of the play "Beau Brummell." Complete in Lippincott's Magazine for February, 1891. 25 cents. Half cloth, 50 cents. The scene of this excellent story is laid in New York city, the author's own home. The characters are drawn from among the fashionable people of the metropolis. The story is full of cleverly-managed scenes and bright and sparkling dialogues, and has a strong, romantic interest. The Light that Failed. By RUDYARD KIPLING, author of "Soldiers Three," "The Story of the Gadsbys," etc. Complete in Lippincott's Magazine for January, 1891. 25 cents. Half cloth, 50 cents. "Mr. Kipling has a charm all his own in writing, and has always won a warm spot in the hearts of readers of English, as he has achieved a sudden fame not common to writers. 'The Light that Failed' will disclose to his admirers how well he sustains his suddenly-acquired reputation." -Toledo Blade. MONTHLY BULLETIN OF NEW PUBLICATIONS. 13 Chambers's Encyclopaedia. Vol. VI. Entirely New Edition, Revised and Rewritten. A Dictionary of Universal Knowledge. Edited and Published under the Auspices of W. & R. CHAMBERS, Edinburgh, and J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY, Philadelphia. To be completed in ten volumes. Issued at intervals of a few months. Price, per vol.: Cloth, $3.00; cloth, uncut, $3.00; sheep, $4.00; half morocco, $4.50. Specimen pages mailed on application "This Encyclopaedia is as reliable as it is celebrated." -Baltimore American. "The new edition of the cheapest of the large cyclopaedias continues to be highly creditable to the editors, artists, and publishers." -N.Y. Herald. "The Chambers has long held first rank among the reliable encyclopaedias of the day, and with the present reconstruction and extensions will continue to hold its own place within easiest reach of the careful reader, writer, and scholar. There is no padding in the Chambers, -everything concise, direct, accurate." -Davenport Democrat. "The workmanship of all the maps and illustrations cannot be too highly commended." -Buffalo Courier. "There is no doubt that this edition will meet the public approval. It is suited in price, conciseness, comprehensiveness, elegance, and accuracy for the widest circulation. Its publication is a most important event. In point of scholarship there is no encyclopaedia, not even excepting the Britannica, which will outrank this one. The chief charm of this edition is that its scholarship is put in shape to be taken and used profitably by the average reader. In the matter of maps, in which line we have examined the volumes with special care, we believe that no finer were ever published in a work of similar grade." -Pittsburg Christian Advocate. With Stanley's Rear Column. By J. ROSE TROUP, late transport officer of the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition. With Illustrations. Demy 8vo. Cloth, $5.00. "Mr. Troup's volume deals almost exclusively with the doings of Stanley's officers left in charge of the rear column. The author was 'much pained by reading most inaccurate accounts of what had taken place at Yambuya,' and considered that his honor and that of his comrades was concerned in refuting the charges brought against them by Mr. Stanley. He writes temperately, and evidently truthfully." -London Athenaeum. A Dream of a Modest Prophet. By M. D. LEGGETT. 12mo. Cloth, $1.00. "The book will repay a careful reading, and is full of wise suggestions and interesting matter. The style of the book is excellent. It is simple, direct, forcible. It can be read by the scholar with satisfaction, and the wayfaring man will not misunderstand its lesson." -Cleveland Leader. "The most ingenious, suggestive, and helpful work of the philosophical order that has yet appeared is written by an author who wields a scholarly pen, and whose remarkable imaginative gift in this case is exercised for a good and noble purpose. There is certainly nothing impossible for the future of the inhabitants of earth in the millenial-like condition of things that our author found in Mars, upon being recently transported to that planet, our nearest neighbor. Upon returning to consciousness in Mars, and proceeding to investigate the state of affairs there, it is no wonder that he was astonished and bewildered by all he saw, and the reader will pursue with the most lively interest the results of these investigations." -Boston Home Journal. Indications of the First Book of Moses, called GENESIS. By EDWARD B. LATCH, author of "Indications of the Book of Job," and "A Review of the Holy Bible." 12mo. Cloth, $1.50. "Mr. Latch has been engaged for a dozen or more years in the work of presenting the teaching of Holy Scripture as being what is commonly known as allegorical. The writer is thoroughly in earnest, goes largely into details, and by means of diagrams, landmarks, and bases, gives much consistency to the system he has worked out. By those inclined to studies of this sort, Mr. Latch's book will be found worth consulting." -Living Church, Chicago. 14 J.B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY'S The Threshold of Science. A Variety of Simple and Amusing Experiments Illustrating some of the Chief Physical and Chemical Properties of Surrounding Objects and the Effects upon them of Light and Heat. By C.R. ADLER WRIGHT, F.R.S. With Numerous Illustrations. 12mo. Cloth, $2.00. "It contains a great number of attractive experiments, clearly described and systematically arranged, 'illustrating some of the chief physical and chemical properties of surrounding objects, and the effect upon them of light and heat.' It will certainly be welcomed by teachers of elementary science, to whom the simple apparatus employed and the abundant examples available for instruction will be specially acceptable. It will find favor also with the large class of persons to whom such experiments are merely matters of amusement and fleeting interest, and who may be disposed to say to the professed man of science, 'Because thou art great, shall there be no cakes and ale?' It is possible, too, that some minds may receive from the book an incentive to earnest scientific study." -New York Nation. "An admirable book to place in the hands of any lad of a curious and experimental turn of mind. The volume contains numerous simple and amusing experiments illustrative of the chief physical and chemical properties of familiar objects. The reader is instructed how to frost glass windows, to extract spirit from wine or beer, to turn water apparently into milk by the breath, to dissolve gold, to prepare white vinegar, and to do many other easy and yet very interesting and edifying things. The volume is profusely illustrated." -Philadelphia Press. The German Soldier in the Wars of the UNITED STATES. By J.G. ROSENGARTEN. Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged. 12mo. Cloth, $1.00. "An important contribution to our war history. The Germans, skilled in strict discipline and instant obedience to orders, have been useful in war as they are valuable in peace, and a history of their military engagements, given with care and accuracy, is welcomed." -Boston Journal. "Mr. Joseph Rosengarten's excellent work takes up the story of the German-American soldier from times of early service in the French and Indian Wars, through the Revolution and the War of 1812 to the Mexican War and the great Rebellion. The substance of the narrative has been published both in English and German translation, and when the first edition became exhausted, Mr. Rosengarten embraced the opportunity to make considerable additions to the material already published and to add correcting touches which the lapse of time rendered necessary. It will be seen from the drift of the narrative that the share of the Germans in the wars of the United States was of no limited proportions. They went forth in great numbers from New York and Pennsylvania at the call of their adopted country. The records of early settlers and original documents have been ransacked to furnish details relating to stirring periods of history. The book is particularly rich in regard to the German settlers of Pennsylvania. The passages concerning the service of the German troops employed by the British government in the Revolutionary War are based upon Max von Eelking's account of the German soldier in the American War of Independence." -Philadelphia Public Ledger. ------------------------------ ------------------------------ BOOKS IN PRESS. Chambers's Encyclopaedia. Vol. VII. Entirely New Edition, Revised and Rewritten. A Dictionary of Universal Knowledge. Edited and Published under the auspices of W. & R. CHAMBERS, Edinburgh, and J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY, Philadelphia. To be completed in ten volumes. Issued at intervals of a few months. Price, per vol.: Cloth, $3.00; cloth, uncut, $3.00; sheep, $4.00; half Morocco, $4.50. The Old Navy and the New. By REAR-ADMIRAL DANIEL AMMEN, U.S.N., author of "The Atlantic Coast during the Civil War." With an Appendix of Personal Letters, from General Grant. MONTHLY BULLETIN OF NEW PUBLICATIONS. 15 Hypodermic Medication. The Treatment of Diseases by the Hypodermic Method. New Fifth Edition. By ROBERTS BARTHOLOW, M.A., M.D., LL.D., Fellow of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia. Two English Girls. By MABEL HART. Man-Immortal. An Allegorical Poem. By WM. STITT TAYLOR. Di. A Story. By SQUIER L. PIERCE. Tables for the Determination of Minerals. By PERSIFOR FRAZER, JR., A.M. New Edition, Revised and Enlarged Captain Blake. By CAPTAIN CHARLES KING, author of "Starlight Ranch," "Laramie," "Marion's Faith," etc. With Illustrations. Regional Anatomy. IN ITS RELATION TO MEDICINE AND SURGERY. By GEORGE MCCLELLAN, M.D. Illustrated from photographs taken by the author of his own dissections, expressly designed and prepared for this work, and colored by him after nature. Two volumes. Quarto. TO BE SOLD BY SUBSCRIPTION ONLY. International Clinics: A Quarterly of Clinical Lectures on Medicine, Surgery, Gynaecology, Pediatrics, Neurology, Dermatology, Ophthalmology, Laryngology, and Otology, by Professors in the leading medical colleges of the United States, Great Britain, and Canada. Edited by JOHN M. KEATING, M.D., J. P. CROZIER GRIFFITH, M.D., Philadelphia; J. MITCHELL BRUCE, M.D., and DAVID FINLAY, M.D., London. Octavo volumes of 300 pages each. Bound in cloth. SOLD BY SUBSCRIPTION ONLY. A Sketch-Book of the American Episcopate. By REV. H. G. BATTERSON, D.D. New Edition. 16 J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY. THE BEST FICTION. Mrs. A. L. Wister's Popular Translations FROM THE GERMAN. The Latest By Ossip Issue. "O Thou, My Austria!" Sehubin. $1.25. Erlach Court. 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WILSON, Patentee and Manufacturer of Rolling Blinds, Partitions, and Steel Shutters, 74 West 23d Street, NEW YORK. DR. WARNER'S CELEBRATED CORALINE CORSETS. 444. HEALTH 222. ABDOMINAL CORALINE 4 IN HAND These Corsets fit every variety of figure,--- thin, medium, stout, long waists and short waists. They are boned with Coraline, which is the only material used for Corsets that can be guaranteed not to wrinkle or break. Sold everywhere at popular prices. WARNER BROS., Manufacturers, NEW YORK AND CHICAGO. 24THE SOUND OF A VOICE or, THE SONG OF THE DEBARDEUR, BY FREDERIC S. COZZENS Author of "THE SPARROWGRASS PAPERS," ETC. PHILADELPHIA: J.B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY. Copyright, 1891, by J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY. PRINTED BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY, PHILADELPHIA, U.S.A. LIPPINCOTT'S MONTHLY MAGAZINE. MARCH, 1891. THE SOUND OF A VOICE.* CHAPTER I. IT had been a brilliant night at the Grand Opera in Paris in 18--. It was the opening night : the house was crowded, and a more elegant audience had rarely assembled in that gayly-toileted city. No wonder ! Grisi and Mario, then in the height of their fame, were to appear in "Norma." The performance over, the crowds began to surge from the doors into the brightly-lighted street, and, as carriage after carriage rolled away, three young men still loitered at the foot of the Opera-House steps, apparently waiting for some person or persons in the audience who had not yet appeared. Still the crowd did not seem to diminish ; it kept pouring forth from the Opera doors in a steady stream ; still the expected one was not of the number ; still the young man at the foot of the steps watched and waited. At length a tall officer-like gentleman in a Russian uniform, with a trim gray moustache and heavy gray eyebrows, his breast covered with decorations, came forth ; and leaning upon his arm was a slight feminine form, her head so enveloped in its violet-colored hood that her face was scarcely visible, and but for a pair of wild mischievous eyes would certainly have escaped notice. A wonderfully compact mite of *This story was written by Mr. Cozzens between the years of 1865 and 1869, and was found among his unpublished manuscripts after his death, which occurred December 28 in the latter year. It was the last story that emanated from his pen, and has lain undisturbed for a period of over twenty years. The manuscript has been unaltered in all respects, with the exception of the title, in which a change was made. The inference is that the material for most of the descriptive portions of the story was gathered during Mr. Cozzens's trip abroad in 1858, when he went as a delegate from the Century Club to the International Copyright Convention held in Brussels, and during which sojourn he spent some time in France. The rest of the story is simply a creation of his own, and is without foundation as to fact. 283284 THE SOUND OF A VOICE. a coupe now darted into the space between two of the heavier carriages, the door was opened by a groom in livery and almost as soon closed upon the lady and her companion, and in another moment it whirled out of the line and was on its way down the street. "And now, Bainbridge," said the youngest of the three, as the coupe vanished, "since you have seen your princess again, remember your promise to sup with me at the Trois Freres, where you can dream of her over your coffee and a cigar." The speaker was about three-and-twenty, and a Frenchman, dressed in strict accordance with the fashion, but with great simplicity; his brother Paul (a year or so his senior) was still more soberly dressed, but with similar taste. Their companion was a young American, about the age of the brother, but he was much taller than either, and his form was more robust; his ample form and clear intelligent gray eyes, his well-cut mouth and firmly-rounded chin, admirably set off his blond complexion and light hair, which otherwise might have given too delicate and effeminate a cast to his features. As it was, he might be set down as a model of manly beauty. "Tra-la-la! tra-la-la!" sang the younger and more volatile of the brothers, as a vagabond boy, a gamin, passed them, whistling like a lark; -"that Debardeur's song again; you hear it everywhere in Paris. My faith! I can't keep it out of my head. Who do you think was trying it this morning? -eh, Paul? Grandpapa, on my word." "And who is the Debardeur?" asked Bainbridge. "That's it. Who is she? That is just what everybody wants to know. That is what grandpapa wants to know." "I do not believe grandpapa troubles himself much with songs and Debardeurs at his time of life," interrupted Paul. "Why, Alfred, at any bal masque you can see dozens of them." "My faith," said Pierre, good-naturedly, "there is but one worth speaking of, and that is the Debardeur par excellence, -the singing bird. I never heard her, but Paris is alive with her song, and yet no one knows who she is, -except perhaps some sly fellow like little Paul here, -some fellow that keeps his mouth shut, goes to confession every week, to mass every morning, to prayers every noon, and to -sapristi! where do you go every night? -eh, Paul?" Paul ground his teeth with suppressed anger and rattled the heels of his tiny lacquered boots on the pavement. "You do me great injustice, my brother," said he, "even to hint at any impropriety in the way I spend my evenings. I go where gentlemen should not be ashamed to go, -to the Opera, or to M. Simon's lectures on Antiquities, or to the soirees of Madame Baisson, or to the Hippodrome, and not such places as you go to, I can tell you." "My faith!" replied Pierre, with a good-natured laugh that set off his handsome moustache and white teeth to advantage, "hear, oh, hear the moral youth! Tell me, where were you going last Thursday evening with that tall girl on your arm, when grandpapa and I met you as we were entering and you were coming from the Mabille?" "Sacre bleu!" said the elder one, losing his temper entirely, "what you tell is a heap of lies. I never go to the Mabille, nor does my THE SOUND OF A VOICE. 285 grandpapa either, who is a respectable old gentleman, nearly eighty years of age, and not fit company for you either, -profligate!" Both of his companions burst into a fit of laughter at the violent anger of the little man, it was so comical. They were at the door of the Trois Freres. "Adieu," said Paul. "I go not in to-night, Bainbridge. My brother can all the better entertain you." "Paul, Paul," cried the younger, as his retreating brother passed down the street, "not come for a glass of eau sucree? Ha! ha! Alfred, how angry my mortal brother is! But in half an hour he will recover himself. He is so good at heart." "Then why do you tease him so?" said the other. "My faith! what amusement would I have with him if I didn't tease him? He gets so angry! And how it amuses grandpapa! With my father it is different. But my grandpapa, he understands Paul, and enjoys himself at the passion of the little man. The truth is, Paul is no hypocrite: he is sincerely good and moral; but if he is religious he is also very stupid and very stingy. He knows, too, that grandpapa will leave a handsome fortune to somebody, and he hopes by encouraging the serious and devout in the old gentleman to come in for the larger share of it. But grandpapa does not wish to be piloted by his moral grandson. He has been too long a sinner to begin now to be a saint. He wants to enjoy life while it lasts: his health is perfect, his spirits always in a high key, he sleeps as sound as a peasant, and is as young in his feelings as you or I. So Pierre, the younger, without taking the trouble to secure it, wins his affection, and Paul, the elder, misses his aim. I know grandpapa at his time of life should perhaps be more sedate, but he is not. -Ah Francois," he said, to the bowing waiter as they entered the restaurant, "a private room, if you please, bon garcon, and let us have the pleasure of your company for the rest of the evening." The delighted waiter smiled, bowed, and, spreading out his hands, attempted to hook the tips of his bony shoulders into his huge ears, which failing to do, he dropped them again, took up a pair of lighted candles, and showed the young men the way to an apartment. "Now for the princess," said his companion to Bainbridge after they were comfortably seated. "First," replied his guest, "tell me if you know who she is." "Never saw her before, but I think I can guess what she is." "Ah, guessing does no good. I have guessed hundreds of times, I am sure, and always found at the end that I was as far as ever from being satisfied. When I first saw her-" "Then you have seen her before?" said Pierre, in surprise. "Let me tell you. Just a week ago to-day, I was going up the Rue de Boursault, when I saw in front of me a little girl singing to herself, and walking with a mincing step as if practising the airs of a fine lady, as children sometimes do. A rough fellow, a carpenter by trade, for he had a box of tools in one hand and a narrow strip of board under the opposite arm, passed me on the inside of the walk, in a great hurry, and, as the child was directly in his path, he called to her to get out of the way. The child not heeding him, he violently thrust the end of the strip against her head, striking her a severe blow that knocked286 THE SOUND OF A VOICE. her down, and hurriedly passed on. I called to him to stop, but he paid no attention to me either: so I ran after the brute, snatched the strip from under his arm, and, as he caught up a chisel out of his box to attack me, I knocked him down with it instantly. The fellow began to howl and bellow like a calf: so, leaving him to pick up his scattered tools, I ran back to assist the little girl. Would you believe it? -he followed me, and, with tears in his eyes, begged my pardon, and asked if Monsieur would allow him to take the strip he had thrown down at his side. If I had not been on my knees I would have kicked the cowardly brute: as it was, he went off with a wen on his forehead as big as an egg. While I was binding up the head of the little sufferer with my handkerchief, I was conscious of some one standing near me. I looked up, and there was a parasol, shading such a form, -such a face, -such a pair of eyes! Well, you have seen them, my friend: they were at the Opera to-night. 'Monsieur,' she said, in a voice whose ineffable sweetness thrilled me to the soul, and here she blushed deeply, 'accept the thanks of a stranger. I saw it all, monsieur, and-'" "Hark!" said Pierre. "Hark at what?" said Bainbridge. "The Debardeur's song again." (A fellow was singing it under the window as he passed by.) "It has a curious effect upon me, that song. So lively and so mournful; so full of mirth, and yet it brings tears to my eyes. It is like a wedding march and a funeral dirge in one. Ah," continued Pierre, "I am thoughtless enough, mon Dieu! but whenever I hear that song it gives me serious feelings." "But, tell me, who is the Debardeur?" said Bainbridge. "What is a Debardeur? I have heard the name, but have no the remotest idea what it means." "My good boy," replied the other, "a Debardeur is a woman in costume, -one of the dancers at a bal masque. The dress partly masculine, -wide pantaloons of velvet, sash of rick silk or cashmere, a wide-awake hat thrown carelessly on one side of the head, a tight-fitting chemisette of costly lace, set off with a love of a jacket, or a bodice inside, bewitchingly fitting the shape, striped silk stockings in a tiny shoe just peeping out of the ample folds of the pantaloons, a black mask, a rosy chin, a pair of bright eyes, -and there is a Debardeur!" "And of course," said Bainbridge, "such costumes are so attractive, and they are to be had at every costumer's, and so there are crowds of Debardeurs at every ball?" "By no means. The women here, even to the poorest grisette, have a peculiar idea of the proprieties of the dress. Very few, comparatively, venture upon that of the Debardeur. The wearer must have an elegant form, a little foot, grace at will, and wit in abundance: as the character had been well hit off by one of our poets. I will quote part of his description: "Fascination itself is that fair fantaisie! A murmur of love like the hum of the bee You pour in that rose-leaf, her ear; THE SOUND OF A VOICE. 287 With a glove all perfumed she returns the caress; Cinderella's own foot just peeps out of her dress, In a slipper a countess might wear. "Oh, costly her bodice, and richly is laced The sash of cashmere that imprisons her waist, - This siren, this goblin, this gnome! When she walks, 'tis the stride of a masculine sprite; Should she dance, 'tis a rose breathing love on the night. And she's only a woman, -at home! "That night at the ball! 'tis a dream of the past! Or it may lead to steps to repent of at last, Or to meetings -whenever you please; Or perhaps but a name -of a woman- alas! Which the soul keeps repeating as years on years pass And you murmur when down on your knees." While Pierre was repeating these verses, Bainbridge sat with his forehead resting upon his hand, in deepest thought. At the close he roused himself and said, - "But what of the song-bird, Pierre? Is she such a phantom of delight as you have pictured?" "Remember," replied the gay young fellow, "that I have never seen her- nor has any one else, that I know- with her mask off. She goes to the balls; her dress is of the most costly description; if a few gay fellows ask her to a petit souper at the Maison Dore, she accepts; she sings for them, bandies wit with them, but gives a single interview to no one. As she keeps masked, her face is unknown to any; and although she has been seen at times to speak for a moment to a tall mask who seems to hover near her, yet neither he nor she has been traced anywhere; they seem to vanish, as it were, and no one can ever say he saw them leave the ball-room. -Who is in the next room, Francois?" he suddenly asked, with an emphasis that startled that faithful servitor into attention. "I heard the rustle of petticoats just now as you opened the door to replenish the coffee." "Pardon, monsieur; not the next, but the very next to that. Ah, monsieur" (kissing the tips of all his fingers), "so beautiful! Ah!" (fingers and shoulders and ears coming together), "so graceful! Ah!" (fingers), "so kind! Ah!" (fingers), "from the bottom pit of my stomach I do wish I was a rich man, for the sake of that beautiful lady! I would marry her!" Both the young men laughed at the wish of Francois: he was a queer old man, with the face of an ape. "And how do you know she would marry you?" said Pierre. "Not if I had plenty of money?" replied Francois, in surprise. "Monsieur Laborde knows Paris too well to-" The garrulous waiter was interrupted here by Pierre: " 'Sh! again the song of the Debardeur." This time in the next room but one; this time in the voice of a seraph. It trilled like the song of the lark; it suggested dreamy ideas of love; the rapture, the delirium of passion; the melancholy despair of the dying and forsaken; now it seemed breathing out into beautiful flowers, -climbing and twining and spreading perfume in voluptuous affluence, -but a hidden strain, 288 THE SOUND OF A VOICE. a sad refrain, ever seemed to suggest, "Beautiful flowers! you smile above the earth from which you spring, you glorify the marble around which you twine, but the marble is the broken column, of a tomb; you thrive, but it is upon the mould of a grave; you grow richest in hues amidst decay. Alas! alas! beautiful flowers! By heaven! it is the Debardeur herself!" exclaimed Pierre. "It is the matchless song-bird that has captivated Paris." The American sat as if spell-bound. "You have hear that voice before, then?" said he. "Never, I tell you; but can there be any doubt? Can there be two such voices? See, the people are gathering beneath the windows. And I hear footsteps coming up the stairs, as if of listeners, -steps indeed, and very heavy steps, too." "It is strange," said Alfred, "what an effect that song has had upon me. It seemed as if a glimpse of pre-existence or dreams of a thousand years ago had passed through my brain. And yet I never heard it before, except from the street-boys." At this moment a loud and terrible shriek, mingled with hoarse masculine voices and the crash of glass, rang through the rooms. The sound was from the apartment where the voice had been heard. The young men sprang to their feet, but when they found their way out the hall was already half filled with chattering waiters. "Pardon, messieurs!" screamed out one of the long-aproned tribe, who stood at the closed doors of the apartment surrounded by his screaming fellows, -old Francois fought his way through, however, -"no one is permitted: we have sent for a sergent-de-ville." And as he spoke, a representative of the politest police in the world, followed by two others, dressed in their plain black suits, swords by their sides, and chapeaux on their heads, tripped up the stairs and entered the apartment. The angry altercation which still prevailed now ceased, like a lull after a storm, and presently the two guardians of the peace reappeared, between them a prisoner. He was evidently a peasant, coarse, vulgar-looking, red-faced, and none the better for the red wine he had been drinking, which stained the corners of his mouth and was splashed plentifully over his homespun shirt. Uncouth and slovenly, he walked between the two natty officers without even a sign of resistance, his head hanging down in an abject state of stupid humility. "You can tell who she is by the company she keeps," whispered Pierre, repeating a well-known proverb. "The Debardeur has the voice of a siren, but, after all, little Paul may have been right when he said, 'She is only a coarse woman in pantaloons:' eh, Bainbridge?" ---------------------- CHAPTER II. IF the song of the Debardeur had fascinated the light-hearted, volatile Pierre Laborde, it had exercised a different influence upon Alfred Bainbridge. To the young Frenchman, the spirit, the life, and the very essence of the music, like a perfume, captivated the senses; besides, it had the charm of novelty to recommend it. In due time the first im- THE SOUND OF A VOICE. 289 pression might wear away, and some other novelty take its place, to be in turn supplemented by still another. But with Bainbridge it seemed rather like the echo of a melody that had haunted his soul and which never before had found utterance. The air itself, so often heard in the streets of Paris, had made but slight impression upon him, but coupled with that mysterious voice at the Trois Freres it came to him like the memory of something foreknown, -of something to be loved and lost, -a song of former times and of times yet to be, -of times once recalled never again to be erased from memory, -of the past and the future linked by inscrutable destiny together in a song, and that song -the song of his life! Never again would he forget that song. Never again would he forget the voice of the singer. He felt as if he would like to pursue it through the world. Pursue what? Only a woman's voice. And who was she? The Debardeur. And who was the Debardeur! Alas for him! the only idea of such a person was strangely linked with little Paul's description! The young American was the only son of a widow, upon whom years had fallen so lightly that she was still beautiful and attractive and her hand eagerly sought by many suitors. But, faithful to the memory of the one whose name she bore, she remained a widow, and her life was devoted to her son. Possessed of an ample fortune, she had taken the greatest care of his education, which had not been bestowed in vain. Surrounded not only with every comfort that could render home attractive, but with those accessories of taste and refinement which give grace and dignity to every household, carefully instructed in the higher duties of morality and religion, without which no man can succeed, and watched over by a tender mother's care, young Alfred reached maturity. It was the sight worth seeing to watch the affection that existed between the young widow and the handsome stripling her son. As old Mrs. Marigold said, "they were more like a pair of lovers than anything else." With such excellent training the widow had yielded to the long-cherished wish of her heart, and sent her boy to make the European tour alone, without a guide and at the early age of twenty-three, with no restrictions upon his allowance of money except those dictated by his own prudence, -with what results we shall see. The Labordes were formerly Alfred's school-mates in America, whither they had been sent by their father at an early age to acquire an English education. Although he had been three months in Paris, so little disposed was our American to form new acquaintances that, with the exception of these friends of his boyhood, he had made none; and yet, strange to say, a pair of bright eyes had bewitched him, and a certain voice had touched his heart: he was not surely in love with two women at once, the young rascal, but so often had he dreamed and thought of both that it would have been difficult for him to decide which of them he could the soonest dismiss from his memory. "Welcome, my friend," said Pierre, as Alfred entered the counting-room of M. Laborde the elder. "I have news for you." And, leading his friend through rows of polished desks and busy clerks into an interior apartment, he pulled a tiny white glove out of his vest-pocket, and, holding it up before the eyes of Alfred, said, "As you behold this290 THE SOUND OF A VOICE. little relic do you have any touch of the heartache ? or does it inspire you with perfect happiness? It is but an hour since it was accidentally left here by its fair owner, and I now present it to you; I have also her address ; fly with it, then, to her fairy bower and return it to the one whose hand it has just embraced. And who is she? Does not your heart tell you who she is? No less than the fair captivator at whom you gazed with such respectful eyes during the whole of the performance at the Opera last Friday evening." As Alfred listened with a flushed cheek and sparkling eyes to this good-natured raillery of his friend, he took the little white glove, and, folding it up very carefully in his hands, stood gazing at it as if in doubt whether or not he should cover it with kisses, then placing it in his breast-pocket he heaved a sigh, as if he had said to himself, "Alas that I must postpone the little ceremony until I am alone and in my own apartment!" The elder Laborde was one of the principal merchants of Paris, his father (the grandpapa of Paul and Pierre) having long since retired and left him a very large business, which by dint of enterprise he had expanded still more, until his commercial transactions reached to almost every quarter of the globe. This commission business had naturally engrafted upon itself a banker's business, which in turn had brought to M. Laborde's office a great variety of persons of every degree. Independent of the rooms in which the silent clerks were noiselessly directing the shipment of coffee from Rio de Janeiro or of palm-oil and ivory from the Slave Coast, there were several apartments beyond, handsomely furnished with carpets, curtains, mirrors, and sofas, for more distinguished visitors; for oftentimes on the stairs leading to his counting-room had the haughtiest of the French nobility, or a general officer proud of his rank and fame, brushed past the rough sailor in his homely rig, or the foreign clerk browned by the Asiatic sun, who perhaps, as bearers of good tidings, would be more welcome than they. "You see, mon ami," said Pierre, "as I was busy over the manifest, of the cargo of the Sulphide, which had been wrecked, as you know, who should come in but the Russian officer we saw at the Opera, accompanied by your fair innamorata, and inquired for my father. His object was to negotiate some bills on St. Petersburg for heavy amounts, which my father was very happy to cash for him, the houses he had drawn upon being the richest firms in that city, and his own credentials unquestionable. He is known as Count Imhoff, which is the extinct title of a branch of his family ; his real name would call to mind at once his brother, a cabinet officer high in the court of the Czar. This brother, it seems, although rewarded with many military orders for distinguished services in the field, unfortunately had a quarrel with a fellow-officer with whom he was engaged at cards ; the officer charged him with unfair play, a challenge followed, they fought outside the camp with swords, his adversary was killed, and the count was obliged to fly. In consideration of his own services, and those of his brother, he is permitted to retain his estates, which are considerable. He is represented also to be a desperate gambler, and a man without principle, although his manners are engaging and his information is THE SOUND OF A VOICE. 291 extensive. The lady with him is his niece, or is said to be. She is highly educated, but certainly has not the slightest look of the fair-haired, blue-eyed Russian beauties that I have seen. Neither has she any title, but is plain Mademoiselle Boscka. Paul and I will receive cards to their receptions, of course, and I shall take the earliest opportunity of presenting my friend Mr. Alfred Bainbridge, of New York, America : so that your happiness is much nearer than perhaps you had expected. All this information about her uncle is from a little red book of my father's which this morning he permitted me to look at. My faith! what a singular man that papa of mine is! He does not talk much, and yet in that little red book you will find the secret history of every distinguished visitor to Paris." A tremor of exquisite happiness passed through Alfred's nerves at the very thought of an interview with the beautiful Russian. Yet what was the meaning of that which Pierre had just said?--"she is his niece, or is said to be." It recalled those other words of Pierre's at the Trois Freres, which had been floating in his mind ever since: "I do not know who she is, but I think I can guess what she is." They had an ugly significance, and would crowd into the current of his thoughts do what he would to prevent it. Pierre in the mean time was changing his office coat for another, better suited to the street. "Besides, mon ami," he continued, "you came in good time for another purpose. I was just about to appear at your lodgings to summon you to go with me to Madame Choufleur's. Next Tuesday two weeks, you remember, is the last night of the bal masque. We must be early with our dresses. We go to Madame Choufleur's for our costumes. My faith! she is the greatest curiosity in Paris. She belongs to the Middle Ages, with her high hoop and farthingale, as well worth seeing as the obelisk of Luxor. Allons! Let us proceed to visit this ancient Choufleur!" The two young men bent their way through the lively streets of the gay metropolis until they reached a portion of the town which the hand of innovation had not touched. Queer wildly cranky little streets ran hither and thither, intersected by courts and alleys. Those houses, many of them tall, dismal, and blackened with smoke and age, had no doubt heard in former days the roar of cannon from the Bastille, or given out their hoarse multitudes to witness the execution of the beautiful Marie Antoinette. At times an ugly street-lamp, projecting on iron brackets from a dead wall, brought to mind the fatal cry of the old Revolution, "A la lanterne!" Shabby old cafes and estaminets were scattered here and there, interspersed with wilted green-grocers' shops, or the rookeries of ancient apothecaries that seemed to be slowly corroding with their own mineral poisons. Very few men were in sight, but squalid women screamed and squalled, in tattered caps and slipshod shoes, to children as ragged as themselves. An occasional sergent-de-ville, patrolling in the distance in his neat uniform, afforded a sense of security to the visitor to this quarter which otherwise he might not have felt. Passing onward until the towers of Notre Dame were far behind them, through streets of old tumble-down buildings surmounted with innumerable chimney-pots and decked in all the frippery292 THE SOUND OF A VOICE. pery of poverty, they came at last to a row of dingy buildings, taller than the rest, the lower part of them occupied as shops of the commonest description. Over one of the side doors, leading to the dwelling-part of the house, was a sign, on which was painted the figure of a courtier of the time of Louis the Fourteenth, indicating that his was the abode of the costumer. Through a narrow entry grimy with dirt, up a creaking staircase that once had been polished with wax, but was foot-worn into oval spaces from the dirty corners to the edge of each stair, with a pervading smell of dinner to come and dinner past, a sour, greasy, pauperish, sickly smell, the young men found their way to the head of the staircase, and, opening a door on the left, came suddenly upon an Aladdin's palace! For all the rooms in the second stories of the dingy row were, by a series of arched door-ways cut through the walls, made communicable, and you looked through a vista of arches upon suits of apartments piled upon with gorgeous costumes. Gold, velvets, jewels, armor, crowns, swords, and sceptres sparkled in endless profusion under the gas-lights (for all day long the shutters were closed and the rooms illuminated), and groups of busy visitors were examining and making their selections from the richly-decorated dresses, to the apparent delight of the sprightly female attendants. Passing through the first and second arches, they found themselves in the awful presence of the costumer herself, Madam Choufleur. In a huge easy-chair of tarnished brocade, studded with gilt-headed nails of a past age, her knitting ever in motion, with her cat at her feet and her parrot swinging over her head, sat a very tall old woman in a sort of recess, the background of which was formed of antique shields, Indian bows, rusty nails, swords without scabbards and helmets. Behind and over her chair, in which she sat as if upon a throne, an enormous lion's skin with grinning head and polished claws was stretched so as to form a sort of canopy, the tawny and gold hair shining under a bright light in curious contrast to the rusty trophies by which it was surrounded. Extreme age was visible in her face, in her sunken rheumy old eyes, in the deep chasms in her cheeks, not a little raddled with rouge; her nose was plentifully adorned with warts, and surmounted wit a huge pair of round horn spectacles, and by way of garnish a crop hairy moles had taken root on her high cheek-bones and added another lustre to her charms. She seemed to have just been taken out of bed, for she wore a sort of white night-gown with flowing ruffled sleeves, from which her brown arms, bony and skinny, kept darting her needles in a strange skeleton-like fashion. The gown was gathered around her neck in a prodigious ruff, and her broad bosom was upheld by a dingy black velvet bodice, cut a la Pompadour, which appeared to be as stiff as an old leather saddle and was secured to her shoulders by two straps of heraldic brocade. Under this velvet waist a thick flowered-silk petticoat descended to her feet, which were encased in a pair of tarnished embroidered shoes. Her head was equipped with a sort of white frilled night-cap, over which a velvet hood was drawn like a helmet; and, that nothing should be wanting to give her a distingue look, her grizzled hair sprouted out under her cap on every side in full frizzle. "She knows everybody," said Pierre, as the young men approached. "You will see she knows me." "Bonjour, my good Monsieur Pierre Laborde," screamed the old scarecrow, with an effort that showed a few rusty back teeth in her capacious mouth. "How fares it with you, my prince? And your excellent father?---I have not set eyes on him for many years; he seldom used to come here; but your grandpapa!--Ah!" she said, as if recollecting, "what a man your grandpapa was! such a wild young rake! so gallant! Many a time I danced with him at the bal masque; but you must not tell him,--he never knew who was the woman that teased him so; but I always knew him, for it was of me he always got his dresses, my dear." Here an awful wink overspread one side of her face. She continued: "And little Paul,--he was here just now. Would you like to know what costume he selected, my prince? It was a kind known as an impenetrable disguise: so when you meet him at the bal masque you will know him by that." And, as this had been a standing joke with the old witch for half a century, she shut her eyes and gave herself up to a spasm or so of convulsive mirth. How old people do enjoy old jokes! The older they are, and the older the jokes are, the greater seems to be enjoyment. "Most dread and awful sovereign of Love's own haberdashery," said Pierre, with a mock bow, "we, who are two of thy most unworthy subjects, desire to invest ourselves in costumes of the richest and rarest description. Excuse us from offering you the salute royal on the cheek, for, by the appearance of your majestic nose, we know that you have been taking about a cart-load of snuff to-day, and do not wish to disturb it by any agitating emotions, as we know from experience that your majesty is inclined to be fearfully covetous. We wish pay you the price you ask, and that will be four times as much as you ought to expect." Madame Choufleur, during this harangue, kept bobbing and winking as if it had been a series of elegant compliments, and, touching a hand-bell at its conclusion, summoned to her throne a huge fellow as hideously ugly as his namesake in the "Arabian Nights," with a wry neck, and almost as fantastical in his dress and appearance as herself. "Mesrour," she said, in a gruff and masculine voice, "tell Therese to take in charge these gentlemen,--a moment, Mesrour; not therese; let it me Mathilde:--you will like Mathilde, my dear," and she turned to Pierre with that awful wink again overspreading one side of her face; "she has large eyes, and drooping eyelids, and a modest languishing air about her, and-----" "And I suppose," interrupted Pierre, "can wheelde us out of more napoleons than Therese, my queen? Well, it is a good thing to love to see our sovereign's face, even when stamped upon a gold coin: so bring us Mathilde, Mesrour, and vive l'Empereur! The young men, under the guidance of Mesrour, soon found their way to Mathilde, who was not too busy to attend to them. She was one of those languishing beauties who under an air of quiet simplicity can disguise a trafficking spirit of no mean ability. Pierre selected a splendid new harlequin dress, and Alfred fell in with one that had294 THE SOUND OF A VOICE. some sort of a national character; it was the complete outfit, fringed leggings, hunting-shirt, moccasins, and weapons, of a North American Indian. The costumes being put aside for the young men, they left the presence and regained the narrow vile thoroughfares again. "It seems as if I had just awakened from a dream," said Alfred. "What a wonderful repository! What a wonderful old ogress is Madame Choufleur! She must be very rich, to own such stores of expensive finery." "As rich as a Jew," replied his companion. "Then why does she live in such a wretched quarter of Paris? It seems to me a position on some fashionable boulevard would be far better for the kind of business she carries on." "Ah, my dear innocent friend," replied Pierre, "you do not know all the business that is carried on in those mysterious rooms. She has day and night visitors there who would not dare to face the open boulevard. Her den in its very seclusion and remoteness from the gay world is all the more secure from prying eyes. Many a muffled form has descended from a coupe, many a gay gallant has stopped at that mean-looking door." "But one would suppose, with so much that is costly and valuable in her collection, she would not feel safe in so dangerous a neighborhood." "Trust her for that! She and the chief rogues understand each other. Besides, the Choufleur is on good terms with the police, and now and then a victim to justice finds himself in La Force, without having the least suspicion that he owes his incarceration to the old harridan of the Rue Moucharde." __________ CHAPTER III. THE quarters of Mr. Alfred Bainbridge, at the head of the second staircase in a house in the Rue St.-Honore, were as comfortable as a bachelor could desire. The back room overlooked a secluded garden, or rather little park, with winding walks amid green turf and trim flower-beds, in summer set of with shrubbery and shade-trees, through which you could catch a glimpse of the shimmer of a cool fountain surrounded with water-lilies,--a sort of green oasis lying in secrecy in the heart of a compact square of the tall houses that surrounded it. Into this room a lively young valet not in livery, his face flushed with exercise, now entered, his arms full of books; and a tolerable heavy load, too, for a man, were those old vellum-covered red-edged folios. Down they went on the floor in a cloud of dust, with a thud that made the windows rattle, and then, with arms akimbo, he stretched out his legs on each side of the pile like a Colossus, and surveyed it with a complacent smile. then, performing a pirouette with great agility, he danced off to one corner of the room, snatched a feather duster off its hook, and began to administer, with a thousand flourishes, such a lively THE SOUND OF A VOICE. 295 discipline to the old volumes that the dust flew more than ever; then, dancing off again, he threw open one of the back windows, and, leaning his body half out, shouted out, "Baptiste!" whirling his duster like a mop all the while. A voice from below responded, "La! la!" "More books!" And in popped the head and feather duster. Another flourish around the venerables like a broadsword-exercise, the dust flew, and again the head and feather duster popped out of the window. "Baptiste!" "La! la!" responded the voice again. "Plutarque! Homere! Nabucodonosor!" and as many more names as he could remember, and in went the head again. A few more flourishes, the feather duster was hung on its hook, and the folios placed upon the shelves, which were already tolerably well loaded. "Ma foi!" said Monsieur Isidore Hippolyte Rochejacquelin, as he placed his hands on his knees and sunk heavily in a chair, with a sigh, "what a man is this American Alfred,--this Bainbridge! He spends his money like a prince, but upon what? Books! He keeps me on the gallop all day--for what? Books! Ah, if he would be only sensible and get a little sweetheart! It would keep me perhaps on the gallop just the same, but it would be better for the pocket of Monsieur Isidore Hippolyte Rochejacquelin." Like many other young men of fashion, Bainbridge had equipped himself with a valet, who, though without the ordinary qualifications for that office, suited his master very well. He was an idle, careless, good-natured fellow, but he could brush a coat and run on errands as well as the next man. Besides, he had no tricks nor viciousness, and therefore commended himself to Alfred, who, being of a confiding disposition, esteemed highly those people whom he believed to be simple-minded and upright. There was a slight tap at the door,--so slight that it was almost unheard. But why does Isidore Hippolyte Rochejacquelin bound from his chair? Why does he advance on tiptoe to the door? Why does he peep through the key-hole? And why, oh, why does he open the door first just a little, then fling it wide open, and then fold a straw hat with pink ribbons in his arms? It is she! Mademoiselle Lucille Pitaud! All the way from Nanteuil to pay a long-promised visit. All the way from Nanteuil in her red petticoat, and her rustic flowered muslins, and her neat bodice, just now palpitating with exquisite happiness. All the way from Nanteuil in her gypsy hat and pink ribbons, and her brown, honest, innocent, loving face beneath it. All the way from Nanteuil in a rail-car, -- she had never travelled in one in her life before,--coming on the very day she promised. What for? To see Paris? No. To see the Emperor and Empress! No. To see the grand Exhibition? No. What, then, had she come for? To see Monsieur Isidore Hippolyte Rochejacquelin,--the lucky rogue,--to look into his honest eyes, to receive in one draught that exquisite drop of bliss which, when sincere, beams as surely from the296 THE SOUND OF A VOICE eyes of a valet as from those of a prince! That is what Mademoiselle Lucille Pitaud had come fro, all the way from Nanteuil! The first transports of joy being over, the shy little rustic began to fear the return of the master to his apartments, but Isidore assured her there was no danger of that: "I know him so well: first a long walk for exercise, then purchases, then the Bibliotheque Royale until three or four o'clock. Every day the Bibliotheque: there he goes to study. Since I have been valet for Monsieur Bainbridge, not one day has he returned from the Bibliotheque before three o'clock. Not one. No, Lucille; be assured, my good girl; not one." She, being thus presented as it were with the freedom of the rooms, took off her new shoes, in which her feet had been burning ever since she left home, laid them beside her gypsy hat, and made herself as happy as if she had been in a bower of rose. As for Isidore, with wonders did he not display to her astonished eyes! "Look, Lucille, what coats!--one, two, three, four, five, six: what fine cloth, eh? what buttons, eh? Lined with silk, you see, eh?--cut buttons, agate, --eh? Gold enamel! Ah, here are little pearl, Lucille, with little rings behind. Behold, also! here are his pantaloons, plain-ribbed, plaid, all colors!"--and here he beat his breast and threw up his eyes in rapture: "such pantaloons! the Emperor himself does not wear finer. Here, Lucille, a pin-cushion full of scarf-pins; see, a box of studs for his shirts; ah, he is a prince; look at these his shirts; whole drawers full of them! see, embroidered fronts, lace! worked fronts!--a million stitches in one front! Ah!" and here he kissed the linen with rapture. "Smell them, Lucille, my girl. Mille-fleurs, eh?" Thus did the joyous Isidore disport himself before the lady of his love, while she, with cheeks flushing and eyes sparkling with pleasure, surveyed the wondrous treasures of the wardrobe. Then did that gallant knight vanish for a time, to reappear with a little basket, in which were a napkin, a pot of hot chocolate, some china cups, and a white paper cone full of sweet cakes and confectionery. Spread the cloth y happy pair! draw chairs up to the table and may the god of love wave his rosy wings over your humble banquet! The drawers of the bureau, with their snowy burdens, were open; the lounges, the bed , the chairs, were spread with the treasures of the wardrobe, on which the simple country girl now and then glanced with innocent delight. She had never seen such things! She clapped her hands in childish glee. "Isidore!" "Lucille!" "Would Monsieur Bainbridge be angry if you wore his clothes?" The valet stood aghast at the very thought: "Of course he would, my girl." "Just for a moment? Just to please me, for an instant only? Ah, Isidore, if you were dressed like a gentleman, you would look so very, very handsome." Who is proof against flattery, when accompanied with appealing THE SOUND OF A VOICE 297 looks from a pair of loving eyes in whose depth you discover nothing but sincerity? Isidore hopped on one leg and then on the other into the air, whirled in and out among the chairs, tables, and piles of books, selected a rich vest, a showy scarf, an elegant dress-coat, arranged his hair with scrupulous precision, and arrayed himself in his costly apparel. Then, thrusting back tables, he bowed with the grace of a grand duke to Lucille, took her little red hand in his, and drawing her out in the centre of the room, proceeded to execute with her a sort of country waltz, to the great delight of the girl. Round and round they flew, Isidore in his gay vestments, Lucille in her bare feet, --when the door opened and in walked Monsieur Paul Laborde! Lucille shrank from the arms of Isidore like a wilted flower, and burst into tears. The little man folded his arms, cane in hand, in true pedagogue style, and looked with penetrating eye at the culprits. As for Isidore, no one could paint the shame and confusion in his countenance. He bowed with deepest humility to the visitor. "What is the meaning of this?" said the latter. "Where is Monsieur Bainbridge?" "At the Bibliotheque Royale," replied Isidore. "he is never here in the forenoon, monsieur. That is why Lucille is here; that is why his drawers are opened; that is why you behold his pantaloons on the chair; that is why we have our little cup of chocolate himself in the glass,--"that is why I wear his clothes, Monsieur Laborde. Do you think I would wear his clothes, mon Dieu! if he was here? No, Monsieur Laborde, never,--never! on my honor, never!" Lucille, who had at first supposed the visitor to be dreaded Bainbridge, now took heart, put on her shoes, and with tear still sparkling in her eyes, and with a bow and courtesy, accosted Paul: "Monsieur, it was me. To please me it was that Isidore dressed himself in the clothes of Monsieur Bainbridge,--to please me, his fiancee, who is to be his little wife, monsieur, when my sister Elise grows big enough to help in the house. My mother, monsieur," and here the tears welled over again, "has nine children, which Monsieur must know is too many for her; but I am the oldest, and work hard for her, and will not leave her until Elise is old enough: so you must pardon Isidore, m'sieur, it was not his fault to appear in this habit. And do, m'sieur, be so charitable, so pitiful to him, as not to tell Monsieur Bainbridge: it will never happen any more, be assured, monsieur." This simple appeal went to the heart of the unfortunate valet, and the big tears rolled down his woe-begone cheeks, but it did not touch the little man in the least. "Are you certain Monsieur Bainbridge is at the Bibliotheque?" "Yes, Monsieur Laborde." "Go give him my compliments and tell him to come at once and look at the condition in which I found his rooms during his absence. I will wait until he comes." There are some persons so exactingly moral in regard to the conduct of others that they must play the tyrant upon the appearance of the Vol. XLVII.--20 298 THE SOUND OF A VOICE slightest fault. So the luckless Isidore, after doffing his borrowed plumes, went forth upon his woful errand; and Paul and Lucille were left together and alone. The little man took up a book, threw himself upon a lounge, and appeared to be very much absorbed in its contents. Poor Lucille sobbed in a corner of the room as if her heart would break. The situation was sufficiently embarrassing. The thought uppermost in the mind of the moral youth was, "Now, since the affair is over and the coast is clear, why, in the name of all the saints, doesn't she go too?" He did not know that she was a stranger in Paris, that she had not a friend in the city but Isidore, and that the only one, save the aforesaid valet, who could pour balm into her bleeding heart, was seventy miles away, at Nanteuil, unconscious of the sufferings of the poor peasant-girl her daughter. So Paul read on, Lucille sobbed on, and the gypsy hat with the pink ribbons still lay upon the bed where it was thrown that sorrowful morning. But that little woman was watching the little man, in spite of her troubles. As he became more and more absorbed in the book, she rose and began silently to walk about the floor; finding that attracted no attention, she, with a true woman's tact, quietly lifted piece after piece of the scattered garments, replaced everything in its own repository, collected together in the basket the chocolate-cups and other furniture of the table, noiselessly closed the bureau-drawers, and when Paul raised his eyes again, behold, order was restored out of chaos! "Peste!" said he, grinding his teeth, "what did you that for?" "Did Monsieur wish them to remain?" she asked, quietly. "Certainly, to show Mr. Bainbridge." And he sullenly resumed his book. Hour after hour passed, and no appearance of the valet and his master. In truth, the poor fellow was so heartily frightened that Paul's little message was too great for him to carry, and therefore, instead of going to the Bibliogheque Royale, he went directly to the railroad-station, in hopes to find Lucille there in time to take the return train to Nanteuil. But he waited in vain until the train had gone. Then with a heavy heart he retraced his steps to the house in the Rue St.-Honore, but did not venture to enter, so great was his dread of encountering the anger of his master. As for poor Lucille, she was waiting for Isidore's return without giving a thought to rains and time-tables, while Paul, with pertinacity of a moral-virtueist, stuck to his post, determined not to leave the rooms in the possession of a woman who might be he did not know what. At last, his patience, or rather his obstinacy, being exhausted, he said to her, "It is useless for you to stay here any longer; it will do no good. I shall present the case fully to M. Bainbridge, and your being still here will only serve to irritate him; he is not disposed to regard women of your class who visit his apartments in his absence with favor: so there is your bonnet, and there is the door. Be off with you." "Oh, mon Dieu!" said Lucille, clasping her hands in agony. "Where shall I go, monsieur? I am stranger in Paris; I have no friend here but Isidore, but where is he? My poor Isidore! oh, come and take me from this place!" And the poor girl, with trembling fingers, essayed to tie to her bonnet, but her fingers failed to perform their duty, and she fell partly on the bed, and then rolled upon the floor and become insensible. It was now Paul's turn to be alarmed. The little man was by no means hard-hearted; in fact, his anger, which was temporary, had vanished when he saw the look of perfect innocence in the face of the poor peasant-girl during his piteous appeal. He lifted her from the floor with no little difficulty, supported her carefully to a sofa, sprinkled her face with water, bathed her temples with cologne, and felt much relieved when she heaved a deep sigh and opened her eyes. He saw that she was very beautiful, if her face was sunbrowned. Her rustic simplicity and sweet but sorrowful smile as she fainted said, "Thank, m'sieur," reproached him for the unkindness of his cruel words: in fact, M. Paul Laborde had suddenly taken a deep interest in the unhappy Lucille, and determined to make amends, if he could, for his past misconduct. Thus it was that, with kind and soothing words, he obtained from her the little story of her love, of her visit to Paris, of her poor mother, a widow, and of her own hard work at home, and felt that she was a good, pious, industrious girl, with no want of personal charms, peasant though she was. At last a thought seemed to strike the little man. "Are there plenty of stout peasant country girls in the village where you live?" "Plenty, m'sieur." "And could you not get some one to take your place and do the work for your mother if she were paid for it?" "Oh, enough would be glad to earn a few francs a month, m'sieur." "Would you be willing to live in Paris if you could earn four times as many francs as would pay the wages of a girl at Nanteuil?" "But my mother, m'sieur?' "You could help your mother so much; you could send her nearly all your wages, for ou would not want for handsome dresses, and would live in a handsome house and be served with everything you want, so you would have need of little money to spend, and you could send it all the Nanteuil to your mother; and, besides, here you would be near Isidore." The little man drew his chair nearer to the sofa. Lucille's eyes sparkles with pleasure, love, gratitude: to supply her mother with money, to wear fine dresses, to be near Isidore! "Yes, monsieur, I would like it." "Then I can get a place for you, with a beautiful Russian lady, Mademoiselle Boscka. It was only last night at her soiree that she said she preferred a country waiting-maid to any from the city, they were so faithful and innocent, and I told her I would write to my father's steward at the chateau for one,--he has plenty of daughters who would be glad enough for the place,--but the letter has not gone yet; here it is in my pocket. Shall I send it, or will you take the place?" And he drew his chair still nearer the sofa. "I fear I would not suit Mademoiselle. I know nothing of city work."300 . THE SOUND OF A VOICE "I know you will suit her: you will soon learn." And the little man became quite animated. "As M'sieur pleases, then. I am willing, if I will suit Mademoiselle." It was while this conversation was going that Isidore, growing more and more anxious as the afternoon wore away, determined to venture and at least take a peep, to see if he could catch even a glimpse of the absent mistress of his heart. As he stepped stealthily up the stairs, he felt followed by other footsteps, which caused him to pause and debate within his own mind whether it were best to stand still and let them pass, or rush up to the garret and throw himself headlong from the roof upon the crowded trottoir of the Rue St.- Honoré. Humanity prevailed: he slackened his footsteps; and behold! who should meet his eyes by Monsieur Alfred Bainbridge and Monsieur Pierre Laborde just returned from a promenade! Touching his hat respectfully, he allowed them to pass without a word of explanation, and so it was that the three entered the room, to find Monsieur Paul in close conversation with a little rustic beauty reclining on the sofa, her face wreathed in smiles and her gypsy hat with pink ribbons lying upon the floor. The effect was various. Bain bridge looked on in utter amazement. Pierre burst into a hilarious laugh of merriment, and flew to Paul, slapping him upon the back, with "I congratulate you, my dear brother!: The little man drew back his chair with a face in which all the colors of the rainbow were depicted. As for Lucille, she turned pale as ashes. And the green-eyed monster took instant possession of the soul of Monsieur Isidore Hippolyte Rochejacquelin. CHAPTER IV It is not difficult to imagine that the little man, after his confusion and chagrin had passed away, soon explained to his companions the mystery which for a moment seemed to surround his strange tête-à-tête with poor Lucille. Under instructions to Isidore, she was transferred to the care of the wife of the old concierge, Baptiste, and no doubt slept soundly after all her troubles. There is a sleep which only women an d children enjoy,--the refreshing sleep induced by innocent sorrows. As for that unlucky culprit Isidore, his bed was strewn with the nettles of jealousy and the thorns of despair. He had been caught in the act of wearing his master's best clothes,--an offence of the most flagrant kind, as he supposed, and therefore unpardonable. Little did he know how kindly Paul had been his friend. The latter, in explaining the whole matter to Bainbrdige, had rather heightened than diminished the comical scene by his odd manner of narrating it, and, instead of producing any displeasure in the mind of his master, he was often interrupted by bursts of laughter at the expense of the would-be gentleman valet. "Do you know," said Paul, "that a lady friend of ours," and he winked at his brother, "has been very particular in her inquiries about you lately, Alfred?" A blush passed over the face of Bainbridge. "Mademoiselle Boscka?" said he. "Mademoiselle Boscka?" echoed Paul. "Have you the pleasure of her acquaintance, mon ami? We were at the soirée at Count Imjoff's last night, but, I give you my word, she never said a word about you during hte whole evening." "Nor to me," said Pierre; "but the count himself, who has seen you often walking or riding with us, questioned me about you: he seemed to know something about you, too; that is, that you were an American, and a gentleman of good family and education. And, by the way, I forgot to tell you, he told me to bring you with us to the next soirée; so you may expect him to call and leaves his card upon you, for I gave him the address, which he wrote down in his visiting-book." "And you must go, Alfred," said Paul. "You will see many beautiful foreign ladies, and high play too, if you go. And the fascinating niece, --oh, by the bye, you saw her once at the Opera, I remember. What a pity she is not a little taller! Although Paul spoke in this encouraging way, yet one could see it was not altogether sincere. "Tall enough for your, my brother," said Pierre. "Chacun à son goút, my friend. She is not so tall by seventeen feet as the girl you say you saw me with at the Mabille," replied Paul, not very much pleased with this sly hit of Pierre's. :And pray," said Bainbridge, "who was the lady that had the goodness to inquire after your humble servant?" "Ah, you could not guess in a thousand years. An old lady, six feet high, who wears round horn spectacles, sits under a lion-skin canopy----" "Old Choufleur!" said Pierre. "You see," resumed the little man, "I was choosing a dress for the bal masqué, and the old witch began to question me about you: 'who was that young man with fair hair, so beautiful that he looked like an angel' (those were her very words), 'that was so often with me and my brother?' Where she got her information from, except from some devil's imp, I do not know, but at all events I found out that you and Pierre had been there together." "Not before you, though," said Pierre. "No, not before me the first time, but, as I supposed you would soon follow, I did not know what secrets the old hag might divulge. I went there a second time and changed my dress. Well, old Choufleur questioned me closely, and I assure you she was well satisfied. I told her you were an American of the highest birth and breeding, owned immense plantations with numerous slaves, drove four-in-hand always with black outriders in white-and-blue livery, and were as wealthy as a Jew, with ever so much more. The old witch stuck her tongue in her cheek at some parts of the story, but she believes you to be very rich, and---" "And," interrupted Pierre, "will make you pay accordingly when she comes to charge for the costume, thanks to Master Paul." 302 THE SOUND OF A VOICE "No, my brother," replied the latter, "I do not think that is her motive. She was so very particular in her inquiries that I have been thinking over the matter since, and have come to the conclusion that she is acting as a spy for somebody else." "Who would take the trouble to play the spy upon me?" said Bainbridge. "Except yourselves, I scarcely know a soul in Paris." "Ah, you don't know old Choufleur, Alfred. There may be more in it than you think for; but we shall see." "Among the many brilliant equipages that swept through the Arc de Triomphe on the Avenue to the Bois de Boulogne, that of the Russian count was most conspicuous, with its four fast grays in light harness, set off with silver mountings, its grooms and outriders in half-soldierly liveries of gray and silver, and the count himself, who handled the ribbons from his high seat in front with the air of an experienced whip, always in cold weather wearing the national military overcoat of gray cloth, partly open in front to show the dark-green undress uniform of an officer of the Czar. And, not on the broad avenue, where the greater crowd glittered through the dust in showy vehicles, but in the quieter side-path where equestrians galloped and cantered gayly, a solitary horseman was to be seen among them every afternoon, for Alfred had bethought him to buy himself a serviceable saddle-horse for the benefit of his health. And he was no mean rider,--that young American. Early practice had made him an accomplished horseman, his fine square figure being set off to great advantage when in the saddle, whil his grace and dexterity, combined with the free motion of the animal he bestrode, were so natural and easy that one might have supposed both horse and rider were animated with the same spirit. But, save a kindly bow of recognition from the haughty Russian, who had called and left his card of invitation, no greeting rewarded him from the showy equipage. In fact, the beautiful niece rarely accompanied her stern-looking uncle. Frequently as Alfred had visited the Opera, he had not seen her there since that night. The count was there often, but his fair companion never. Once Alfred caught a glimpse of her, nestling beside that tall soldier-like figure on the high seat of the vehicle, but, although she saw him, there was no sign of recognition. So he waited for the happy night when he could see her face to face and address her within the barriers of etiquette. The night at last arrived, and the three friends drove together to the mansion of the count. It stood on the St.Germain side of the Seine, but a short distance from the noble old palace of the Luxembourg. A narrow court-yard in front separated the porte-cochère from the street, but the huge gates were open, and in this space, now brilliantly lighted up, the carriage stopped and delivered to its guests upon a sort of inner portico. The doors of entrance to this vestibule were of plate-glass, which opened at once, as two tall lackeys were stationed on each side for the purpose; and in the vestibule were several servants in liveries, who offered their services to the visitors, and took care of their cloaks, canes, etc.,--all but their hats, the hat being considered part of the dress for an evening soirée. A lackey, without saying a word, indicated by his hand the direction they were to take, which was up a broad marble staircase profusely decorated with exotics in vases. Arrived at the first landing, they were politely waved up the second flight of steps by another silent lackey, until they reached a broad hall inlaid with highly-polished woods, on one side of which was the suite of reception-rooms, already partly filled with a not numerous throng of guests. And now the Labordes, making their way through the gay assemblage with their friend, presented him to the fair Russian, and Alfred saw that face which had for many weeks haunted his dreams by night and day, and heard the sound of that voice which was sweeter to his ear than the wild plaintive note of his native wood-thrush. A faint blush, a slight tremor of the diamond circlet on the neck of Mademoiselle Boscka, indicated that Alfred was not entirely forgotten by her, while that gentleman, as he addressed her, flushed all over his face up to his very temples. If he did not let his hat drop, it was by an extraordinary effort of presence of mind. A pair of keen eyes were watching this interview. They were those of Count Imhoff, who now came forward at once, as if with an old acquaintance. Then they moved from the little circle around Mademoiselle Boscka, and threaded their way through the crowd. The Labordes found friends with whom they were soon engaged, and Alfred was left alone with the Russian count, who introduced him to a number of titled gentlemen and ladies; but his thoughts were not with them. Yet to the eye of an American those splendid apartments and that wonderfully interesting assemblage afforded no ordinary spectacle. The suite of saloons, in all the gorgeous style of the Renaissance period, with frescoes of a couple of hundred years ago as fresh and glowing in colors as if laid on but yesterday; that gorgeous furniture, as old as the mansion itself, yet as rich as any that modern skill could produce; those flower-stands laden with the fresh blooms of to-day, yet themselves as fair as the flowers they held, although centuries had elapsed since the cunning hand of the artist had touched them. And why not as fair? Are the forms or colors of modern flowers new? Are not they but reproductions of those that bloomed at the beginning of the world in the original garden? Are the antique forms of sculptures not reproductions of those beautiful forms? Though one be poet or artist, can he excel the grace of the lily? As we shut our eyes on the present and recede into the shades of antiquity, we learn truly the immortality of art. In its naissance it is full-born. Time may imitate, but it can do no more. Thus, too, among the crowd that surrounded him, Alfred might have fels that those ribbons, stars, and crosses were but symbols of the past. A hero of a thousand years ago had won and left a dukedom to his descendants. That cross then was not a worthy decoration of the wearer; it had been won at the siege of Jerusalem by his ancestor who had served under Godfrey of Boulogne. The haughty lord who carried it on his breast was but that old hero's advertising agent, and recorded a fight that took place some eight hundred years ago! Yet it was interesting to note these descendants of illustrious sires whose names are recorded in history. It seemed like reading old Froissart over again. The observer was brought in conjunction, not with the304 THE SOUND OF A VOICE actors themselves, but with the stage jewels of their career, now worn by other men. A group of these old diplomats were seated in one of the smaller rooms around a table. There was not one of them without a decoration. On the table were packs of cards, which from time to time were dealt to two among the players. These players in turn gave place to others. The game was écarté. Piles of glittering gold changed hands rapidly. Alfred gazed listlessly at the table. All was life and enjoyment. A desire to join in the game to pass away the time came over him,--something to occupy his mind, something to take him from himself. Or should he seek Mademoiselle BOscka and be inexpressibly happy in her society? The latter thought gave him an exquisite thrill of pleasure: he soon found her, and---oh rapture! --found her alone. With some timidity she made a place for him beside her on the sofa, which the delighted youth was fain to occupy. She opened the conversation: casting down her eyes, she said, "Does Monsieur remember the first time we met?" "Certainly," replied Alfred, and again a blush suffused his features. She looked at him for a moment with those bright eyes. They expressed tenderness and gratitude; then thy were again cast down, and the long lashes veiled them for a moment; a little sigh followed. "Ah," she said, "I though Monsieur might have forgotten it." And then another piercing look of tenderness from those bright orbs. Alfred's heart fluttered; after all, he was but a boy, and what protection has the heart of a boy against a pair of blue eyes? "I saw you one night at the Opera," he said, "and waited on the steps after the opera was over." "And why?" "To see a lady whom I admire." "And who was that lady?" Alfred was silent; that question he was ready to answer,--the words formed themselves upon his lips,--but his courage failed him. "And to Monsieur I am indebted for the prettiest of waiting-maids. M. Paul Laborde has told me the whole of her comical little history. I can imagine the look of surprise of the poor thing when M. Paul entered the room. By the way, how good-hearted that M. Paul is! And what a lover is your valet Isidore! He has been here several times to see Lucille. I think he scolds her sometimes, for she does not look altogether happy after an interview; her eyes are red as if she had been crying. Do you think it is right to scold women, Monsieur Bainbridge? Sometimes we revolt, you know. I think Lucille, after she has lived a few weeks in Paris, will acquire some little feminine arts. She is perfectly innocent now, but Isidore is ruling her, I fear, with a high hand, in such a way as to change that innocent little heart. A little harmless deceit with those we love we always consider one of the privileges of our sex, monsieur; but Lucille will not use it with discretion. As soon as she learns her little catechism of female art, she will torture that poor valet of yours. Do you not think so?" Bainbridge was half disenchanted. So much of worldliness in these few words of his soul's idol! Deceit harmless? Deceit one of the privileges of the sex? Heavens! how he hated deceit in any form! And here it was instilled into his ear by one of the fairest, sweetest, and apparently most innocent of creatures,-- a fairy being, with an arm like Venus and a foot like a pearl shell! There was an awkward pause. "Do all Americans speak French well, monsieur? I have remarked that Monsieur's accent is perfect." "Pardon me, mademoiselle, your countrymen are said to be the best linguists in the world, and you speak the language of Paris like a native." "That is not surprising, monsieur: my mother was a Frenchwoman. But you must not tell that." Then her brows lowered a little, and an inquisitive glance shot from her eyes to the right and left. Another tender look at Alfred, then she uttered, in a whisper, "I have something to say to you,--but not here. Will you be at your rooms tomorrow afternoon? I will send." And then, lapsing into ordinary conversation, she rattled gayly on: "Does Monsieur see that tall lady? She is the Baroness Sigmaringen. Yonder Hungarian in full uniform is in the Austrian service,--Count Tipetsky. Lady Balmoral is yonder, under the chandelier, with the Marquis of Contrcœur. You see the Countess of Coventry does not notice her: once they were intimate friends. That fine-looking man with black whiskers is a duke,--an Italian duke,--but he has no estates now: they say the card-table supplies the need of any. Here are two Belgians, the Duke d'Aremberg and the Count de Marnie: the last is lord chamberlain to King Leopold,--a noble old king. Here comes the charming Marchesa Montepulciani: she ran away from her husband for love of a great tenor singer,--I have forgotten his name." And so she pointed out to Alfred many of that illustrious company, not to his very great delight. Meantime, the guests moved past the two who were engaged in this interesting tête-à-tête. If Alfred had been blessed with much experience, he would have seen in the faces of all the ladies of that gay party that sort of expression which comes from too familiar intercourse with men: a hackneyed expression, a hardening of the beautiful lines in the face, which once implanted there can never be removed; a reckless gayety, --an indurated smile of fashion, worn smooth and polished, as the pebbles of the sea are worn smooth by constant attrition. What a strange contrasts would the fresh innocent face of the rustic Lucille have offered to those of that assemblage! In face, though there were many ladies of rank in the crowd, yet there were non of very high or enviable reputation, except the beautiful English Countess of Coventry. She had come there with her "dear Cov." to see the curiosities of a Russian reception-night. It was said that she did not have much sense, but that what distinguished her from the rest was innocence; and it did distinguish her. Supper was now announced, and; amid a cloud of stars and ribbons, the young American, with the count's fair niece on his arm, made his way to the supper-room, which was the last of a suite of magnificent apartments on the same floor. It overlooked the ample garden, in 306 . THE SOUND OF A VOICE summer so cool and attractive, with its fountains, shrubbery, and ornamental trees. And here Alfred rejoined his friends the Labordes. The viands were exquisite, the wines in profusion. Champagne is the favorite of Russians as well as of Americans. Alfred's glass was replenished often. He began to feel his confidence restored. He looked with indescribable happiness upon the fair creature by his side. Love spread his rosy wings, pleasure invited him, the music tempted him, and when supper was over he was soon in the whirl of the dance. He could hear the murmur of applause as he glided over the polished floor with his graceful partner. Then came the time of breaking up, the gradual thinning out of the guests, the departures. More champagne, at the supper-table, though, and a steady old knot of diplomats at the écarté-tables. Some one offered him a seat. He knew nothing of écarté, but, under the guidance of his tall friend the count, he sat down to play. Little by little he acquired the simple laws of the game. He was lucky enough to win a few napoleons, and resigned his seat to the next in turn. He wished to know more about this fascinating amusement. There was just excitement enough to please him. Would the count sit with him for a few minutes? The play was brief, but decisive. When his friends the Labordes finally carried him off he had learned three new and fascinating things,---love, wine, and cards. Of course as the conversation in the carriage homeward related only to Mademoiselle Boscka, it need not be repeated here. It is the same that has been repeated times without number by infatuated youths who have fallen in love for the first time. Pierre laughed vociferously at the enthusiasm of his friend. Paul, on the contrary, was as grave as a sexton at a funeral. Had that pair of bright and merry eyes also penetrated his heart? When Isidore Hippolyte Rochejacquelin finally put his master to bed, he found an unusual quantity of gold in the pockets of the gentleman. "Parbleu!" said Isidore. "Gambling, eh? CHAPTER V. The next morning, while Isidore was holding the horse for his master in front of the house in the Rue St.-Honoré, he beheld the arch little face of Lucille coming down the street, under a trim waiting- maid's cap, for the rustic bonnet with cherry ribbons was laid aside forever, and her plump figure was decked in a becoming dress that was perhaps a trifle too short over the instep (it had belonged to her mistress), and a bewitching apron, with pockets and fly-away ribbons to match the cap. But the joy of that faithful servitor at seeing her was of short duration, for, except a little smile and a slight nod of the head, she took no notice of him, but went her way through the door and tripped up the stairs to the rooms of his master. You may be sure Isidore was astonished. Not one word from Lucille! If he could have led the horse up the stairs he would have followed her. THE SOUND OF A VOICE. 307 He called to her, but in vain. He struck his forehead, stamped his feet on the pavement, and gnashed his teeth. Time passes much more quickly with a lover in a comfortable easy-chair, in warm, cosey apartments, with a pretty girl by his side who has just brought him a note from his mistress, that it does with one who is holding a horse on a windy day on the sidewalk while his soul's idol is up-stairs with his master. So Isidore felt after an hour or more had passed. His thoughts began to shape themselves in a fervent desire to drop the bridle and let the horse dash wildly through the Streets of Paris, trampling down women and children, upsetting the little sergents-de-ville,—swords, cocked hats, and all,—his stirrups flying and flashing into the jewellers' plate-glass windows, while he himself rushed as wildly up the stairs and burst in upon his master and the false Lucille! Meanwhile, the above-named were quite at ease in the bachelor's apartments. Lucille had brought Alfred a tiny note from her mistress,—a few words: "May I beg the favor of an interview with you this afternoon? My uncle goes out to ride to-day at four. Lucille will let you in at the back gate. Tap twice." It was beautifully written in French, and signed "Louise." "The Louise is the name of your mistress?" "Yes, m'sieur." "Is she kind to you?" "Oh, yes, m'sieur,—like an angel." And then the grateful girl gave him a full account of the dresses she had received, of the beautiful dresses of her mistress, of all the accomplishments of Mademoiselle Boscka, her playing, her sweet voice in singing, and the rest, which Alfred could have listened to forever. But the note required an answer, which after some delay Alfred wrote and despatched by this rustic Hebe. Then, accompanying her to the door, he mounted his horse and slowly rode away. Lucille looked after him with admiration. "Oh, Isidore, what a gallant gentleman!" But that sub-gentleman, putting on as bitter a smile as he could throw into a round, pulpy, good-natured face, sail to her snappishly,— "And what brought you here?" "To see you, Isidore." "Me? Ah! excellent! Me? Ah, traitresse! she of the snake called the viperre! feminine of the animal called the dog! You came to see my master, M'sieur Bainbridge!" "Isidore!" And the rears stood in those pretty eyes. "Explain!" said the valet. "You have been with him alone one hour and a half." But, alas! Lucille could not explain. She had been warned not to give the note to any one except M. Bainbridge,—not to mention to any one a word of her mission,—not even to Isidore. Like a true lady's-maid, in true diplomatic phrase, she was bound to carry out her instructions; but how satisfy Isidore? There he stood, with his china-blue eyes looking at her like a blasted forget-me-not! She made an effort to speak; her innocent bosom308 The Sound of a Voice heaved a little: she had not yet acquired the rudiments of the profession of a lady's-maid She cast down her eyes, and, in the eloquent words of the poet, "turned away in sadness and passed on." Meantime, Alfred was pursuing his solitary ride towards the Bois de Boulogne. The champagne and the cards of the previous night had excited him, -the brief conversation of mademoiselle, -"but why call her Mademoiselle now, when she has confided to me her charming name?" and he drew forth the little note and kissed it with rapture. His steed bounded under him with a slight but unconscious touch of the spur: thus do we communicate our happiness to dumb animals; our own feelings inspire us to drive the rowels into them. As Alfred began to feel the inspiriting motion of his steed, and to revert to the happiness of the afternoon to come, he saw an approaching figure, likewise on horseback, which by a well-known gray overcoat he recognized as the count himself, who was taking saddle-exercise also to brush away the cobwebs engendered in his brain by late hours, cards, and wine. Some feelings of compunetion assailed Alfred at seeing him. He had a secret to keep from him, an appointment to be fulfilled at his house, -all of which gave him no little uneasiness. Besides, he had won money the night before his host, which weighed heavily upon his conscience; and although he had determined to restore it in some way, yet at that moment he was not prepared to say how. The count's greetings was frank and friendly; indeed, he turned his horse and slowly rode with Alfred back towards the wood of Boulogne. The latter, after some compliments expressive of the pleasure he had experienced the night previous, reverted to his success in placing écarté. "It was so unexpected that I, for the first time a player, should also be a winner, that with the wine and success I lost my good judgment. I know now that it was only your indulgence, and not any skill or even luck of mine, that gave me the game: so you will pardon me, I know, and relieve my conscience by permitting me to return you the money." "How?" said the count, scowling at him in utter amazement. "Return to me the money you fairly won in play?" "That was my intention," replied Alfred, "if I might do so without offence. But, since you object, I have no more to say." "Sapristi!" said the count with a satiric laugh, that showed his teeth under the gray moustache, "this is the first time I ever knew a winner to be uneasy in his conscience; but, since you will have it so, I must needs to be content to match you again and win it all back if I can. Suppose we say Monday evening next?" And he took out his tablets. "Agreed," said Alfred joyfully: he had a double reason for his joy. "And come early, too, -say at nine. I promise you some good music. The Countess of Balmoral is to be with us that night, -she is a charming singer, -and my niece-" "I hear is one also." The count slowly turned his head and looked him full in the eyes: "And, pray, may I ask who gave you that information?" Alfred was upon the point of saying, "Lucille," but a moment's THE SOUND OF A VOICE. 309 reflection checked him, so he simply said, "Common rumor attributes to Mademoiselle Boscka a voice like an angel." "It is false," said the count, passionately. "She has no more voice than a crow." "Pardon me; her voice in speaking is beautifully modulated, and no doubt it is as exquisite in music as it is pure in accent: I could not help complimenting her upon it, for she speaks French with astonishing fluency." "Indeed!" said the count, looking more and more surprised; "but that is no wonder. My sister, her mother, who had very little practice in the language, brought Louise up among a host of servants who spoke nothing else." "But I thought the mother of MAdemoiselle was a native of France?" "And who gave you that information?" said the count, levelling his keen eyes once more at the speaker. Again Alfred had to resort to equivocation: "I scarcely can tell you where I heard it." The count looked at him with suspicion. "Ah, well," he said, "until Monday, au revoir." And, turning his steed, he galloped homeward, with his groom at his heels. Left to himself, Alfred began to revolve in his mind the substance of the conversation he had just held, and it by no means suggested pleasant feelings. Twice had he been obliged to tell, if not an absolute untruth, yet something very like it. Besides, his secret visit that afternoon perplexed him. Was it right? Was it honorable? When a gentleman had been invited to enter the house by the front door, was it not pitiful thing to sneak in also by the back? He began to repent him of his promise to Lucille. But then the thought of Louise, the thought of being with her alone, even for a brief moment only, filled him with transport. All other thoughts vanished; love silence every scruple. Love! And here his spur-rowel again conveyed to the animal he bestrode the depth of his affection. But there were other thoughts that would intrude into his mind. They came unbidden, Like foes at a wedding. If the mother of Louise were a sister of the count, how could she be a Frenchwoman? If Lucille had told him the truth, that she sang so sweetly what motive could the count have for denying it? He would satisfy himself; he would ask Louise herself, and if he found her true, oh, then he would throw himself at her feet, and pour out his love and satisfy the yearnings of his soul in a thousand terms of tenderness and endearment; and he would write to his mother for her blessing, and ask the haughtily count for the hand of his niece, and- Just here a boy struck up the song of the Débardeur. The singer was invisible amid the shrubbery, but he had a sweet voice, and it trilled through the twigs and branches like the song of a linnet. It recalled at once that mysterious night at the Trois Frères, -the never-310 THE SOUND OF A VOICE. to-be-forgotten melody he heard there, and the voice which gave it utterance. For a moment he forgot all about Louise, and his heart beat with vague recollections of another. Shall it be said that his thoughts turned towards the approaching bal masqué, where he had hopes of seeing this siren, this woman who had bewitched all Paris, and that during all his morning ride, and even after he had regained the quiet of his chamber, the sounds kept ringing on and on, in all their wild and voluptuous sadness, twining about his soul, as it were, and shedding fragrance around his solitary life? Shall it be said of him that he was in love with Louise and Not her, not her, but a voice? So fickle even are our very emotions that we cannot say whether we love the real, or the ideal, in one and the same person. About four o'clock in the afternoon, under the nimble hands of Isidore, the young American was dressed for his visit to his soul's idol, or, rather, to one of his soul's idols. And, as if that unhappy valet was doomed to experience twinges of guilt and of jealousy at one time, his master chose to array himself in nearly the same garments with which he had aforetime displayed his own figure to the gaze of the delighted Lucille. "I shall not want you," said Alfred to the valet, "this afternoon. I dine with the Messieurs Laborde to-day at the Trois Frères: so your time is your own." With a profusion of thanks M. Rochejacquelin accepted the liberty of the city, and as soon as his master's back was turned clapped on his own little pinched-up hat and sallied forth. He was as much in love as his master, and fate unluckily took him in the same direction. Yes, he too wanted an explanation; he would ask Lucille herself for it, and if he found her to be true, oh, then he would throw himself at her feet, etc., etc. So, with his heart alternately filled with hope and shrunk with suspicion, he hurried on, when suddenly he stopped, and made a crab-like movement through one of the avenues in the gardens of the Tuileries. For just before him, crossing the bridge over the Seine, was his master. Avoiding him, Isidore hastened to the next bridge below, and, hurrying again by a détour towards the abode of his Lucille, came very near meeting his rival face to face, but fortunately the latter was so much absorbed in thought that he did not see.him. Making another détour, the unhappy valet gained the end of the alley of which thee back wall of the garden of Count Imhoff formed one side, when, to his amazement, he beheld his master again, entering it from the opposite end. Isidore had just time to retreat behind a pile of rubbish without being observed. Here through a crevice he espied all that was going on. He saw his master advance to the green garden door. Here he paused and listened. Then, raising his cane, he gave two distinct raps. A pause. Slowly the door opened, and he saw a cautious face peep out. Ah! Lucille, the traitresse! Then her face was all wreathed with smiles as she recognized the visitor. Then M. Alfred Bainbridge stepped over the threshold, and the door closed. "Ah, monstre! there THE SOUND OF A VOICE. 311 you go with my clothes on your back,—those I have appeared to her sight in,—and she will compare us; she will prefer the aristocrat to the valet. Ah!" And here Isidore Hippolyte Rochejacquelin took a brick off the pile behind which he was hiding, and threw it with such violence at the door that if his arm has been stronger, or the distance shorter, he would have bravely smashed it in. As it was, the missile fell short of the mark. Then Isidore, taking hold of the rim of his little pinched-up hat, brought it down over his eyes with terrific violence, and gave vent to his passion in a mingled outpouring of tears and curses. Unhappy Isidore! he went to the nearest wine-ship and buried his grief in ordinaire at a franc a bottle. Meantime, his master followed the footsteps of Lucille, who cautiously led him through the garden path to a side door of the mansion and up a flight of stairs with a small vestibule, from which another flight of stairs led up a story higher. Here a door was partly open. Lucille gave a tap at this door, and, opening it, ushered Alfred into the boudoir of her mistress. It was a small apartment, arrayed with all the luxury of taste. In shape it was ovoid, with panels of orange-color watered silk, surrounded with mouldings of rich brown woods highly polished and inlaid with mother-of-pearl. Choice bits of sculpture and bronze seemed to half hide themselves behind a profusion of rich curtains; a table of malachite and candelabra of the same material afforded an agreeable contrast by their coolness of color to the warmer hues that pervaded the room as the sun shone through the tinted folds at the damask windows. The ceiling was like the scroll of a shell, winding in waves from the walls to the centre, and on one side of the mantel, exquisite in slender and delicate foliage, fruits, and flowers wrought in pure Parian marble, stood a piano in brown and pearl, with mother-of-pearl and ebony keys. Nothing could surpass the richness of color and texture and the luxurious softness of the sofas, divans, and lounges which stood about this beautiful chamber. And when, with easy grace, the lovely Russian entered it, she seemed the very spirit of the place, so rich the bloom of her complexion, so soft the blush upon her cheek, so spiritual the tender glances of her eyes. She extended her hand to Alfred with winning frankness and made him seat himself by her side. "Will Monsieur Bainbridge pardon me for my presumption in sending for him?" was her first question after Lucille left the room. "Rather accept my thanks for the favor," he replied. "Ah, monsieur," she replied, in a sorrowful tone of voice, "if any friend of mine would but respect me enough to believe that I have no other motive but a sincere desire to save him from trouble, and would therefore abstain from paying me any compliments, I should esteem him so highly." "May I not express how much pleasure this visit gives me, as indeed it does, mademoiselle?" "No. Pardon me, but anybody can say that. Monsieur Paul Laborde always says so. But if what you say be really true, then repeat it only to your own heart. I shall never find it there, and it would give me pain if I should."312 THE SOUND OF A VOICE " But, mademoiselle----- " " But, monsieur, it is I who have sought this interview, and for a good reason. Will Monsieur pardon me if I say I have taken an interest in his welfare?" At these words Alfred felt like dropping on his knees before the lovely Russian ; but he only said, " And, pray, may I ask what I have done to deserve it?" " Ah, monsieur, the other day, when I saw you protect that poor child against that rude man, when I saw your brave arm raised in defence of that poor helpless little one who was to you a stranger, that infant who seemed to be so friendless, how could I help it? Do you know, monsieur, I think so often of the children of the poor? they seem to have none to help them, none to protect them ; their own parents often are their constant oppressors. And the little one seemed so helpless, so truly alone, so weak when compared with that great fellow ; and when you came to her assistance, pardon me, monsieur, but it seemed as if you had fallen from heaven at the right moment, like a fallen angel, indeed monsieur!" The oddity of this compliment, which was but equivocal, caused Alfred to smile in spite of himself. She shook her head sorrowfully, very sorrowfully. " Ah, I see you think I do not feel what I say ; but that day brought to mind the says when I was a little one, just her age, monsieur, as helpless, as friendless, as that poor little child." Here she stopped, her face full of confusion. " What am I saying to Monsieur? Oh, I forgot. Will you pardon me for asking you to do me a favor?" Of course he was ready to promise anything. " Then," she continued, laying her hand impressively upon his arm, "do not play e!!!!! with the count." Alfred drew back in surprise. He could not promise that ; he had already an engagement to the contrary. " Why do you hesitate?" she said. He told her the reason. " It is then too late!" she exclaimed, in a voice full of sorrow. " Oh, monsieur," she said, " what scenes I have witnessed in this house !---what sorrow ! what ruin ! Do you know these people that surround us ? Few of them, titled though they be, are fit company for good men like Monsieur. Ah, here is Lucille. The count will soon return. Perhaps Monsieur may be guided by what I say. If so, it will be happiness to me. And now farewell !" She extended her hand to him. He gently pressed it, in acknowledgment of her kind advice, and once more threaded the garden path towards the little gate. ______________________________ CHAPTER VI. ALFRED had not satisfied his doubts by the interview with Louise ; nay, now he had fresh cause for perplexity in thinking over one of her expressions, by which she gave him to understand that Paul Laborde was also a visitor to the Russian mansion, ---a circumstance that Paul had never mentioned to him. But all these seemed trifles THE SOUND OF A VOICE 313 in the light of his great joy : Louise had interested herself in him; she had told him so ! Oh, when that little jewelled hand lay in his own at partying, why had he not expressed his gratitude by pressing it to his lips ? The truth must be confessed, Louise was as complete a coquette as any in Paris : she had not only inveigled the little man, but she was artfully trying to make an impression upon his brother Pierre also. She cared for neither, but that had nothing to do with her amusement. As for Alfred, that was quite another affair. Before him, she would have her soul appear as pure, upright, and sincere as those of the saints she worshipped. She instinctively felt that he was as yet unstained, and she likewise felt for him, in her very heart of hearts, that reverence which an honorable man always inspires in a loving woman. With others she could give way to the wildest caprices of her nature, but with him her spirit was subdued and gentle as the dove's. Did she love him ? Well shall see. Meantime, Isidore was threading his devious path through the mazes of uncertainty. In his visits to Lucille he had become acquainted with one of the valets-in-waiting at the residence of the wealthy Russian, who, like himself, was a Frenchman, and from him he learned that M. Paul Laborde was a frequent visitor to that opulent mansion. "Mon Dieu !" said the miserable Isidore, " not content with one, she had two!" And he gave way to a paroxysm of despair. In good sober truth, this love is but a kind of lunacy. It never occurred to Isidore that the visits he imagined to be paid to the maid were in reality bestowed upon the mistress. How he beat that coat of M. Bainbridge ! How he just checked himself one day from spitting into the hat of M. Paul ! Ventre bleu ! what accusations, what weepings, what outpourings of grief on either side, whenever he met the innocent Lucille now ! Monday seemed as if it would never come. The money that Alfred had determined to restore to Count Imhoff lay in a roll safely stowed in the top of his dressing-case. To restore ? To lose rather by the established rule of polite society. But it is sometimes as difficult to lose as to win, with an accomplished adversary. Gambling is a flattering Iago. It is, as some one says, "as a magic stream, in which if you but venture to wet your shoes you are soon in over head and ears." The appointed day arrived at last : the sun rose, the sun went down ; the evening followed : there was a young man impatiently waiting for it, with a little roll of paper in which were some scores of napoleons, his very heart burning with a desire to see his mistress and to get rid of his money. Are such things unusual among young people ? If Russian nobles understand anything, it is the art of making their guests happy. At least Count Imhoff understood it. The utmost ease and good humor prevailed. The singing of Lady Balmoral was superb ; the playing of Mademoiselle Boscka was graceful as the flight of the humming-bird. Would Mademoiselle favor them with one little song ?-- So excellent a musician surely must sing. It was against nature not to believe she had a voice ! Alas ! that young lady did not, or would not, VOL. XLVII.--21314 THE SOUND OF A VOICE. open her pretty mouth and give that voice a hearing. She did not sing, positively ! The count knit his bushy gray brows at the importunity of Alfred. The supper was perfect, as well as the wines. In spite of himself, Alfred drank more champagne than he had intended. The count pledged him over and over. He drank to the count, to the ladies, to the health of his good mother (oh, how loyally he drank to her !), to Russia and America. He pledged Louise in a bumper, and their eyes met over the brims in intoxicating glances. Why should he not bathe himself in wine ? He was young, at the very time of life for enjoyment, no cares to harass him : so why, when the foaming cup was offered to him, should he decline ? When he rose from the supper-table he did not care about limiting himself to losing the money he had won : he wanted to lose, in a gallant and spirited way, at least as much more to his noble host. He was soon at a table with the cards in his hand. The party was made up with Count Casino and the Duke of Libretto. Louise stood behind her uncle's chair for a while. When he held a good hand she would frown at Alfred, as much as to say, "Be careful." But this only confused him. He played on recklessly. Still he won. In his anxiety to lose, he kept betting larger and larger sums. At last the tide turned. The betting had grown so heavy that to go back to lighter stakes was to lose the excitement of the game. Louise disapproved. There ensued a silence such as is heard only at the gaming-tables when the rattle of the cards alone furnishes a sound. Alfred had frequently given up his place to the other players, as is the rule, but every time he renewed the game he found the stakes were higher. His small roll of napoleons soon vanished. He kept a record of his losses and gains on a card with a pencil. How much it amounted to, all told, he did not know, and in truth he did not care. Daybreak overtook the players, and the iced champagne, after so many hours of feverish excitement, was refreshing. At last, from mere weariness, the players ceased. Alfred handed his card to the count, who glanced over the figures and nodded his head. "I wish you better luck next time," he said, as he returned the card. "The game has been against you tonight." " As Monsieur Laborde is my banker," said Alfred, " I will get you a draft on New York cashed by him to-morrow." " Oh, don't speak of it. Any time, Monsieur Bainbridge," replied the count, with wonderful politeness : " it is but a trifle. Or, if you please, we will have another trial, as you understand écarté now, and you may win it all back from me." " Thank you," said Alfred, bowing very low at this generous proposal, " but I think it is best to settle one's debts promptly." And, bidding them adieu, he walked to his rooms through the cool morning streets of sleeping Paris. If M. Laborde the elder, banker, and négociant had not been a man of the world, he might have expressed some surprise at the amount of the sum for which Alfred wished to make a draft upon his banking-house in New York the next morning. But M. Laborde was not disposed to inquire into any one's affairs that were not legitimately THE SOUND OF A VOICE 315 within the sphere of his own business. Alfred's letter of credit was not limited, the house he drew upon was undoubtedly good, and the widow Bainbridge was very wealthy. So, taking the memorandum of the sum as if it had been only for a few francs, he handed it over to his cashier and bade him draw a bill upon Messrs. Flint, Snap & Peppercorn for the amount, which Alfred signed, and, after deducting a trifling exchange and interest, the banker cashed it, and handed the clean white bills to the young American. Scarcely had the latter stepped into the street on his way to the residence of Count Imhoff when M. Laborde senior, holding the bill in his hand, stepped into the office where his own sons were busy with their usual correspondence and beckoned them into one of the smaller rooms which formed part of the establishment. Here he placed the bill of exchange in the hands of Paul, and with an inquisitive glance said, " What is the meaning of this?" Paul understood the truth at once. Indeed, during the very last visit he paid to Mademoiselle Boscka she had intimated that it was not altogether prudent for young men of fortune to venture too far with her uncle. His passion was to play, while theirs was pastime. His was a serious employment, theirs was but a temporary enjoyment. Thus, without distinctly saying anything, she, with true woman's tact, gave warning as it were to Paul ; but might not this have been intended for his friend ? so he told his father his suspicions. " Ah, I see," said the wise little banker. " We must get your friend out of the clutches of this cursed Russian, or he will ruin him. Paul, do you invite young Bainbridge to dine with us to-morrow. The count is not such a bad hand at écarté. Forty thousand francs is a tolerably good prize for one night's play." In the quiet of his chamber Alfred sat down to write a letter to his mother. And he told her all. If his cheeks burnt as he wrote down in black and white the figures of the amount he had lost in gambling, yet he felt that is was lost in his endeavor to restore the money he had won, and that he knew his mother would approve of. And that good widow, when she received the letter in far-off America, did not blame her boy for his folly so much as praise him for his frankness. " So long as you conceal nothing from this anxious heart," she wrote in reply, " I feel that you are safe, Alfred." The old-fashioned dwelling-house of M. Laborde senior, in the aristocratic quarter of St. Germain, was as quiet and respectable an abode as you could find in a day's journey. You entered through a large carriage gate-way into a small vestibule, which, when the hospitable door opened, let you into an inner hall, through which you passed to a sitting-room so softly carpeted, so richly curtained, so cosily cushioned, that it seemed to be the very nestling-place of ease and idleness. Thither Alfred went on the next day in acceptance of Paul's invitation : he felt a trifle nervous, for he had divined from a few words let drop by the little man that his ill luck at écarté was already known by the sharp-eyed banker. However, he must be brave and meet the consequences of his folly, bitter though the task might be. " Ah, Alfred," said Pierre, who was the first to enter the cosey apartment after him, " so you have been dreaming of a pretty girl,316 THE SOUND OF A VOICE. while her wide-awake, uncle has helped himself to your money? My faith! what a spirited fellow you have become! You lose your thousands with the ease of a duke. Courage, my friend, " and here the good-hearted fellow wound his arm around Alfred's waist, "courage! do not look so chagrined : it may be better for you to lose your money to the uncle than to lose your heart to the niece. My faith ! I believe she is the more to be feared of the two. She has bewitched Paul already, and has tried her fascinations upon me. I sometimes think she is but a decoy, in spite of her pretty, innocent ways. I do, my friend. And here is Paul. Well, my brother, what word of the beautiful Muscovite?" The little man did not look overpleased at this raillery of his junior, especially in the presence of Alfred. However, he saluted the latter with as much nonchalance as he could assume. " And here is grandpapa," continued Pierre. Both the boys, taking the old man's head reverently between their hands, in turn, kissed him on the forehead. He shook Alfred cordially by the hand. The old gentleman was as straight from his heels to his back hair as either of his grandsons. His shoulders were very broad, and his chest was of great fulness and capacity. It is said that people of advanced age, like the cow's tail, grow downward instead of up; and old grandfather Laborde certainly seemed to verify this saying; for although his shoulders were so broad, and his arms so powerful and long, yet the tail of his dress-coat nearly touched the floor. His age was beyond fourscore and yet his eyes twinkled with delight as Pierre resumed his favorite pastime of teasing Paul, and when he spoke or laughed his hearty and sonorous voice seemed to roar as from a ship's trumpet. When dinner was announced, he took the arms of Alfred and Pierre and marched off with great gravity to the dining-room, keeping step with the youngsters as if on parade. If old age ever did fully enjoy life, then grandfather Laborde was an exemplar of it. he ate a prodigious dinner, entered heartily into the conversation, and was as wide awake at the end of it as he had been at the beginning. To his own son, the banker, he spoke with the same air of authority that the latter assumed towards his own boys. Indeed, he was far more familiar with his grandsons than with the son of his own begetting. M. Laborde père was sharp, adroit, and sarcastic in his warnings against gambling with adventurers; M. Laborde grandpère was for giving youth rather too long a rope in such amusements; he spoke of his own freaks in early life, some of them rather rakish too, with great admiration, although many of them dated back more than sixty years. The conversation gradually emerged into the theme that just then was absorbing the gay world of Paris,—the approaching bal masqué at the Opera-House. "Ah," said old Laborde, "I used to get my dresses of Madame Choufleur, a wild black-eyed widow, or so she pretended to be. Many is the frolic I have had with her. I suppose she is dead long since." The boys looked at each other. "No, grandpapa; it is of her we get our costumes. She spoke of you the other day, and said she knew you," said Pierre. THE SOUND OF A VOICE. 317 "She did?" said the old man, with that terrific voice and laugh of his. "And so she did know me well! But take care of her, boys, take care: she can turn a young fellow's heart round her finger if she chooses." Just then a messenger for M. Bainbridge was announced. Alfred excused himself and went to the outer hall, where he found Isidore. "Come to your rooms, monsieur, as soon as possible. Lucille is there. Something has happened at the great house. Lucille will tell me nothing, but she is crying all the time. Oh, come, monsieur, if possible, at once. I have a coupe' for you in the porte-cochère" And Isidore wrung his hands in helpless woe. Alfred returned to the dining-room, and, making his excuses to his hospitable friends, was soon flying over the smooth streets on his way to the Rue St.-Honoré. CHAPTER VII. A WEEPING figure sitting huddled up in a chair was the first thing that saluted the eyes of Alfred as he entered his own apartment. She was so buried in grief that some time elapsed before Lucille could give a coherent account of what had happened. At last, with many a sob and tear, she told her story. It seemed that her mistress had written another note to M. Bainbridge, which she had confided to her maid to carry in safety, but the unfortunate girl had dropped it in passing through the hall, where it was picked up by the count. He opened it and read it, then in a fury turned upon Lucille, and gave her several sharp cuts with his riding-whip,—"on my arms, m'sieur, on my arms! See here! behold the marks!" said the crying girl. At this part of the story Isidore tore off his coat and doubled up his fists: "Cre! he would go and kill every Russian in Paris! beasts! cowards! Cre! to strike a woman! his Lucille! his fiancée! By Saint Denis, patron saint of France, he would stab, and torture, and burn, and extirpate every man, woman, and child of Muscovite origin,—cre!" or else he would go and tell the police,—cre!" and mingled with his storm of imprecations were such weepings and wailings from Lucille that Alfred at last had to command silence, that he might get a hearing of what really had occurred. Then with sighs and tremblings the poor girl told him that the count had run up-stairs to the boudoir of her mistress and with furious menaces threatened to kill her, that Mademoiselle had defied him and laughed at his rage, and that he tore down again into the hall where she was standing, with a long sharp stiletto in his hand, and ran at her, and would have killed her on the spot, if she had not escaped into the garden through the kitchen; "and you know the garden, m'sieur," said the weeping girl, drying her eyes, "and Isidore he knows it too. But here is the note; for the count tore it up in his anger, but I gathered all the pieces together when he went up-stairs, and here they are, everyone." So saying, she put into Alfred's eager hand the fragments, and he, with such patience as he could command, began to arrange them on the table. Meantime, a light seemed to break in upon the round-faced valet.318 THE SOUND OF A VOICE. The angry lines vanished from his face, and a pleasant smile spread over every part of it. His blue eyes beamed with lambent fires, as gently as two fresh-rubbed phosphorus matches in the dark ; and sweet peace and serenity, two long-neglected applicants, made themselves guests in his now happy bosom. For there dawned upon his perceptivities that which he had never thought of before,--that it was Mademoiselle Boscka, the mistress, and not Mademoiselle Pitaud, the maid, to whom the attentions of his master had been directed. Oh, how he wanted to fall down at his injured master's feet and beg a million pardons for his unjust suspicions! If he could with propriety have kissed the tip of Lucille's little finger, wouldn't he have done it? Wouldn't he ? Oh, wouldn't he? The note was finally pieced together, and ran thus; "Once more I warn you as a friend. Avoid this house, or certain ruin will follow. If you take my advice, and I should lose sight of you forever, I could bear my fate with fortitude, in the reflection that to you I have been of service. LOUISE." When Alfred had finished reading, a storm of rage took possession of his soul. He glanced fiercely at the two sharp duelling-rapiers that he had bought two days ago as trophies from an old-curiosity-shop. They were crossed upon the wall. How he wished that one was clutched in his own hand and the other in the hand of the count ! Then off scabbards and cross them again! Louise to be in the power of such a man !--a base villain who would strike a woman !--a cowardly wretch who would draw a stiletto upon a helpless girl ! He paced the floor in a tearing rage. He had almost made up his mind to drive to the Russian's residence that evening. It was still early. A second thought deterred him. He would wait until morning. Meantime, he despatched Isidore for his friend Pierre Laborde. The valet, with some misgivings expressed in his face, notwithstanding his recent convictions, departed, and, getting a hack, drove rapidly to St. Germain. As soon as Lucille found herself alone with Alfred, she got up from her chair, and, approaching him with rustic timidity, said, "Please, m'sieur, I have something to tell you." He signed with his head for her to proceed. "Mademoiselle Louise----" "Well?" "Loves you. Mademoiselle Louise talks to me all day of you. Mademoiselle Louise first begins to ask me if Isidore--if I love him ; and then she talks of M'sieur. Ah, and I know, I feel in my heart, she loves you. Her eyes, m'sieur, tell me so ; they look so sweet with love ; her cheeks--ah ! sometimes pale, sometimes red ; and, m'sieur, when I help her to dress, and she speaks of you at her toilet, she sighs so I cannot fasten her frock, m'sieur, --no, not in several times. And, m'sieur, if you please, Isidore thinks that you," --and here her eyes dropped, --"Isidore--ah, what folly ! he is so angry with me; he thinks you have been my lover all the time, -- not the lover of Mademoiselle, --and he is so jaloux! Ah, perhaps, M'sieur will tell him the truth?" Alfred nodded in token of assent. He was full of his own perplexities, but Lucille's made him smile. THE SOUND OF A VOICE. 319 " But not quite yet, m'sieur, if you please. I like Isidore to be jealous, just a little ; then I know he loves me. He will not beat me, like that beast of a count, m'sieur." When Pierre Laborde joined his friend, the latter laid before him the whole history of his love for the fair Russian, and the unhappy consequences to her, as related by Lucille. Pierre looked very grave. He had much of his father's quick discernment, and he saw that Alfred was being drawn into an adventure which was likely to lead to troublesome consequences. In fact, he had always looked upon the count as a first-class titled scamp, and he had a not much better opinion of his niece. How could he disengage his friend ? He made him promise that for the present at least he would take no steps without consulting him. " If it should come to the worst," said he,--and here he glanced at the two sharp, wicked-looking swords hanging peacefully on the wall,-- " I will be your second ; and I know by experience that with the foils you are no baby in the play of carte and tierce." So Lucille was despatched again to the home of her mistress, with strict injunctions from Pierre to keep silence, even with her, as to what had been said, and, under the convoy of Isidore, went on her way, with her little face full of trouble. The next morning, however, rendered Pierre's injunction of little effect. For Lucille brought word that the count and his niece had departed, no one knew whither ; " A few days in the country," they said. But the count's steward had orders to pay off all the servants and discharge them, and even the grand house and furniture, it was rumored, were to be leased for the ensuing summer. So there was an end of all projects until the fugitives were heard from. One person, however, was not ignorant of the whereabouts of the uncle and niece, and that was Paul Laborde. For the little man, so soon as his brother had left the dining-table at the summons of Alfred, set his wits to work to find out what was the matter. And finally he determined to visit the Russian's mansion, where he would be certain to hear something. On reaching it, however, he found the huge gates of the carriage-way closed, and the house quite dark ; but upon ringing the bell the porter made his appearance, and informed him his master and mistress were not at home. Scarcely had the words passed his lips when he heard the voice of the count from the interior ; " It is Monsieur Laborde ! Ah, welcome, my friend ! to you I will open my doors this evening, and to you only." The truth was that Count Imhoff, in discovering the note his niece had written to Alfred, had stepped as it were upon an unsuspected torpedo. He could scarcely comprehend what it meant. Such a letter from her to a youth whom she had never seen but once, as he supposed,--whom he had invited expressly to pluck ! What could it mean ? Certainly they must have had some previous intimacy. but when ? Where ? Of how long duration ? A letter of warning ! " Once more I warn you as a friend," it said. " Once more ! Then he had been warned before. The Labordes must know something of it. I shall inquire of the little one. His brother I do not like ; he is too sarcastic." In the midst of these reflections, the count was interrupted320 THE SOUND OF A VOICE. interrupted by the sound of the gate-bell,k and recognized the voice of Paul just at the time when he needed him most. Paul Laborde, although generally amiable in disposition and affable in his manner in intercourse with others, was not the less careful of his own interests. So long as his friendly feelings ran parallel with yours, it was well. But if you crossed his path, beware! you were certain to make him an enemy. And he was not one to cherish wrath and indulge in it in a manly, straightforward way. He concealed it and bided his time. It was the nature of his nervous and timid disposition to hide his enmities. If the cause of them were removed, or ceased to be, he was your friend again. If not, beware of the chance that gave him the opportune moment. In this case he had really fallen in love with the fair Russian and he knew also that Alfred greatly admired her. He therefore felt piqued that the count should have invited Alfred to a private evening party, even although it was for his own purposes, for it likewise threw him in the way of the niece, and gave him a freer access to her than he himself had ever enjoyed. Of Mademoiselle Boscka's feelings towards his rival he knew little or nothing. She had shown much preference to himself. What he expected to find out by this night's conference was some clue to guide him in the future. Thus each party in this interview had a desire to pry into the secrets of the other and conceal his own. "I was passing by," said Paul, "and, seeing the house closed, thought I would inquire of the concierge the reason." "Thanks, my dear friend," said the count. "|And if the house had not been closed, would M. Laborde have passed it?" "Pardon me, certainly not," said the little man. "When have you seen your friend the American?" said his host, an almost imperceptible sneer curling his moustache as he spoke. "But this evening he dined with us, and was called away, --left us a few hours ago." "Indeed!" ("That cursed Lucille! She must have gone directly to his rooms.") "And what did he give as a reason for his departure?" "Nothing whatever. He simply excused himself." "And you, as his friend, followed him?" "No. I have not seen him since." "No? Aha! a cigar, my good friend," he continued, drawing an embroidered case from his pocket. "Light. Here is the match." Then to himself, "It is evident he knows nothing of the affair of to-night; but I must pump him further." "My good friend Laborde, you must pardon me; the welfare of my niece is very dear to me. This young American, -- do you know of any clandestine correspondence between them? Had he ever met her before the soire'e [italics] when he came to this house under your auspices, as your friend?" Paul smiled to himself. He thought of his father's words, --"Forty thousand francs is a tolerably good prize for one night's play!" --and he admired the cunning of the Russian. Under his auspices, indeed! Then he became a little puzzled at the questions, for he knew nothing of, nor had he dreamed of there being, any correspondence between Alfred and Louise, clandestine or otherwise. Finally he told his THE SOUND OF A VOICE. 321 interlocutor all he knew, which was very little : that Alfred had seen his niece at the Grand Opera, -- that he had gone wild about her after the soire'e, -- that he, Paul, had attributed that to the wine he had drunk; and that was all. It was now the Russian's turn to be perplexed, he had ventured so much and gained so little. So, putting a good face on the matter, he said, "I have reason to suspect that a sort of correspondence, by letter, or through my niece's maid, whom I believe you recommended to her, M. Laborde, has been going on between them. My own honor and a regard for her, compel me to put a stop to this. I must take her for a while from Paris. I shall go to-morrow morning to Ostend, and if M. Laborde feels inclined to join us there he will be most welcome. We leave by the train at daybreak. I confide this to you, my friend, and to no one else, and therefore--you understand?" He put his fingers to his lips. Paul made the same significant gesture. "Pardon me," said the count, "if I excuse myself now, for I have enough to do to settle affairs between this and daybreak." So Paul found himself dismissed and in the street before he had time to ask after her who was the cause of all these movements of the index-hands upon the dial-plate of destiny. "Never mind," said he to himself: "Fortune is in my favor. If I win the confidence of the uncle, I win the niece also. His approval will also lead to a dowry, --ah, immense! Leave papa to see to that! And as for grandpapa, when he sees me married and settled he will make his little will in favor of his married grandson, for he always says that he likes boys to begin and get wives early in life, as he did." With these bright thoughts for the future, the little man walked through the silent streets of St. Germain, happy as if they had been fulfilled. So the count and his niece were off, incognito, to Ostend, whither the little man followed them. let us leave them there for a while. It is a bitter and inhospitable place in winter. __________________ CHAPTER VIII. PARIS in the men time was quietly preparing itself for the approaching Saturnalia, the masked ball of all masked balls, --the one held on the night before Lent, --the closing pageant, the transcendent spectacle of folly, with which that great city fills its yearly cup of madness before it dashes it down and plunges into all the melancholy of the opposite extreme, on the succeeding Ash Wednesday. A clear, cold night ushers in the scene of riotous debauchery. The moon is riding serene in the cloudless blue heaven above, casting such a flood of light upon the streets of the great city around the Grand Opera-House that even the brilliancy of the clustering lamps seems to wither and pale in the calm depths of her effulgence. An unusual 322 THE SOUND OF A VOICE. quite pervades the metropolis. Is the city asleep? It is verging on towards midnight, and yet all seems silent and motionless. At last the streets begin to fill with grotesque multitudes; carriages of every description crowd and jostle together; the sidewalks are thronged with a phantasmagoria of figures who seem be in the moonlight So withered and so wild in their attire, They look not like th' inhabitants of the earth, And yet are on it. As these move on they are met by intersecting throngs from side-streets, swelling the tide, but all quiet and orderly; a stray laugh here, a whiff of song there, perhaps, but in general there is but a steady murmur, as of bees when you approach the hive. At last the masks approach the street that surround the Opera. Here the crowd becomes denser; and yet how quickly by twos and threes it melts into the vast receptacle, the gorgeous building, which for this night is to be a French heaven of delight! Inside of the brilliantly-lighted dome, you watch the quieter class of revellers, who, in endless variety of domino, people the encircling rows of boxes. But it is upon the floored-over parquette that your eyes are directed. Human ingenuity has been taxed to its utmost capacity to produce that motley crowd. It counts by thousands, and yet, in the flood of light that pours upon that white floor, you can distinctly recognize the dress, the air, the figure, of each of the dramatis personae. [italics] Nearly midnight, and quiet reigns supreme in that vast assemblage. One by one the orchestra-players take their places on the stage and tune their instruments. There is a hush of expectancy, a straining of eyes. Every one is watching for one little potential figure. A small man, dressed in black, with white cravat, white waist-band, white gloves, and an ebony baton in his hand, now emerges from a side door and stealthily glides to the stand in front of the orchestra. This insignificant figure is the genius of the Carnival. He looks around him; a pause, a wave of the baton, and down it comes! Then roars up from that stage a thunder-storm of drums! Then bursts forth the summoning call of a choir of trumpets! Instantly the place is infected with delirious frenzy! A hundred fiddles with triangular motions invoke the spirits of the enthusiastic tempest. The motley monster below suddenly starts into life and whirls about in grotesque transports. It is not a dance, it is not a measure, a stately galliard of noble men and lovely women; it is a clumsy pell-mell, a jostling, a pandemonium of ungraceful motions. On and on it swirls, with yells, with shrieks, with overwhelming fury, a maelstrom of hoarse passion, a whirlpool of frantic evil. The sexes, coupled together, sweep about and about, in maddening confusion. Music lends its potent power to drive these unthinking souls to destruction. Folly, with its cap and bells, reigns triumphant. Vice, in hideous costume, is the master of this glittering rout. It is the masque of Comus. it is an intoxicated crowd of men and women transformed by a Circean spell into beings with instincts little superior to those of the characters in that drama: THE SOUND OF A VOICE. 323 Their human countenance, The express resemblance of the gods, is changed Into some brutish form of wolf, or bear, Or ounce, or tiger, hog, or bearded goat, All other parts remaining as they were; And they, so perfect is their misery, Not once perceive their foul disfigurement. In this whirl of giddy frippery, this crowd of moving velvets, silks, and ragged embroidery, it is not easy now to distinguish individuals; but the eye becomes familiar with them in time, and the conspicuous characters reveal themselves, as the large pebbles are thrown up by the waves of the sea. Among these are the De`bardeurs. What beautiful costumes! What a variety! One shabby little figure in this garb glides almost unnoticed among the tinselled crowd. You notice that her hands and feet are enchantingly small and her figure is perfect, but, alas! her dress is shabby and faded, a sure indication that the face is not attractive, --commonplace, perhaps, --perhaps ugly. She has one male attendant, in the armor of Hector, with a tremendous red plume in his helmet, and a nose like the beak of a flamingo. But she does not enter into the whirl of dancers, but merely wanders about as if in search of someone as yet unfound. From the other side of the house, jostling and jostled, and making free use of his sceptre of lath, a lithe harlequin makes way through the press, and beside him stalks a sedate Indian chief. Harlequin whispers to his companion, "Do you know we have been dogged ever since we have been in the building?" "Indeed! By whom?" "Yonder two. Ah, they see we are talking of them, and have disappeared behind that group of rustics who are dancing together. We shall meet them again. One is rather tall and dressed as a Pierrot, all in white, with hanging sleeves and a white mask; the other is quite short, and parades all in black, with a short cloak, round hat, and a white ruff." "Have you any idea of who they are?" "Not the least. In such a mixture as this one sees all kinds of people. Who knows?--the thief, just escaped from his bird-cage, is probably dancing vis-a'-vis [italics] to the judge who sentenced him there ten years ago; the washerwoman is chasse'ing to a countess opposite; wrinkled old women are frisking with youths of nineteen or twenty. If all these people could be revealed to each other, my faith, what a scamper would take place on all sides!" "But what of our De'bardeur, Pierre?" said the Indian. "Oh, I fear me she is not here. They say she dresses with almost regal splendor. None that I have seen comes up to that description. But who is this coming towards us?" The figure in the helmet of Hector and the red plume approached them, and, by a multitude of respectful but awkward bows, intimated that he would speak with the chief. The latter, inclining his ear towards him, heard the words in a whisper, "Take this," and the burlesque representative of the Trojan hero attempted to slip a note in his 324 THE SOUND OF A VOICE. hand, but, owing to his awkwardness, it fell upon the floor. As the latter stooped to pick it up, Alfred caught a glimpse over his shoulders of the Pierrot and his dismal-looking companion in black. They turned away and were lost to sight in the shifting crowd, but they had seen the note. At this time there was a pause in the music. The orchestra was taking a brief rest after its arduous labors. Still there was such a roar of voices in the vast building, such shoutings, such vile attempts at wit, such screams and bursts of lunatic laughter, that the tumult of sound seemed to increase rather than diminish. But at last there came a lull even amidst this tempest of discord, and at that moment a single voice rose above the buzz of the enormous hive, so pure, so silvery, so exquisite, that it hushed chaos itself into silence. Harlequin grasped the Indian by the arm. "Do you recognize it? By heaven, it is the song of the De'bardeur." And for the second time Alfred listened to that entrancing voice. His very soul seemed to expand under its influence; the love, the passion, the despair, the unimaginable emotions that took possession of him, the rapture, the agony, and then the dying refrain, all seemed to unite in that one song and in that one voice which still seemed to be the only voice in the world for him, the one that he could follow forever! And, pressing onward in that wild crowd, he at last caught a glimpse of the singer. It was the little shabby De'bardeur who had passed unnoticed amid that motley multitude. The roar of applause that followed the song was like the wind-gusts at sea when the storm pours its billowy fury upon an iron-bound coast. In a moment the De'bardeur had disappeared, but you could trace her movements by the current through the crowd of the numbers that followed her. Alfred at last bethought him of the note, and, getting through the press, found his way to a quiet corner in the second tier of boxes, where he could peruse it at leisure. But even here his thoughts were of the singer, and as he cast his eyes below he could see the train of those who followed the singing De'bardeur, and could discern the helmet and flowing feather of her attendant, and close behind them a tall figurein white, arm in arm with his black companion. The note ran briefly as follows: "I will be at Madame Choufleur's, No. 215 Rue Moucharde, at two o'clock this morning. May I beg you to meet me there? Bring a friend that you can depend upon. There may be danger. LOUISE." To find Pierre and communicate the contents of the note to him was the next thing to be done. The two friends consulted briefly over the strange epistle. "A queer place indeed for a young lady of rank to appoint for a rendezvous," said Pierre. But the note was in the handwriting of Louise, and Alfred was bound to obey it. And -- strange inconsistency -- he left the Opera-House with no little reluctance, for he wanted, if possible, to discover the mystery of the singing De'bardeur. Thus was his heart divided in spite of himself. It was an easy matter to get a hack at that time of night, or rather morning, for few persons left the ball so early. But what a change! The sky was filled with flying clouds; the streets were white with snow, --a mere flurry, to be sure, of no depth, but death-like and ghastly in comparison with the warm moonlight of the preceding midnight. As they turned from the brightly-illuminated vicinity of the Opera-House into the dim street beyond, a heavy gloom seemed to rest upon the city. They rode on in silence. At last Pierre spoke. "Had we not better call at your rooms on our way?" "Why?" said Alfred. "We have no time to change our dress, if that is your object." "No, my friend, and a visit to old Choufleur this convivial night would not be in good taste unless we went in costume. But I saw a few days ago a nice little pair of implements hanging on the wall of your rooms; and, as the place we are going to is by no means free from suspicion, I think your hand mine would feel more comfortable if they were fitted to a yard or so of sharp, cold iron. it is not often you want such things, but when you do you want them very much indeed." "Or pistols, which would be more convenient. I have a pair." "No, indeed; pistols make too much noise, and sometimes give the alarm needlessly to the police. For defence, a good little sword is better. You are a master of fence, and I am no poor swordsman. Besides, there is a lady in the case, and fire-arms might alarm her." "Very true," replied Alfred, and, telling the driver to go to No. ___ Rue St.-Honore', they procured the requisite weapons. "My valet is out late to-night," Alfred remarked. "No signs of him at home. Perhaps he is at the bal masque'. [italics] you cannot tell the valet from the master at the Carnival." They soon struck into the dreary solitary streets through which they had to pass on their way to the Rue Moncharde. Darker, narrower, with tall houses on either side, with here and there a light twinkling from some grimy casement, where the sick perhaps were tossing in the restless attacks of fever, or the dying were gasping for the last breath, where the criminal perhaps was preparing himself for some deed that should startle all Paris with its atrocity on the coming of the next day's sun, or the helpless pauper was meditating over his last son and the suicidal razor. How different from the gay scene of life and light they had just left behind them! Darker and more dreary seemed their way through the avenues of suffering and crime. At last a lurch, a snap, a sudden stop of the carriage. "Are we there?" "No, monsieur, not half-way, but they have broken up the street here, and there is a barricade across it. One of my horses is down in a pit, on one side. it looked so white, like the rest of the street, I did not see it." And, sure enough, on getting out they found one of the horses down in a sort of hollow, lying on his side, the harness twisted in a knot, and the pole broken. "Do you know the way?" said Alfred, hurriedly. "I think I might find it." "Come on, then. We have no time to lose." So, giving directions to the driver to procure such assistance as he could and to follow with another carriage, the two threaded their way 326 THE SOUND OF A VOICE. along the barricaded and broken street. But the whole length of the street seemed to be in a sort of eruptive disorder. In fact, they were cutting through a new boulevard in this fearful region, --a much-needed avenue to let in the light of day upon this festering contagion, and open it up, and scatter its criminal inmates. Their path took them down by the river, a wide de'tour from the direct road; here they passed a little stone building, lighted up with gas, and shining cheerfully in the distance in the midst of this dismal neighborhood. As they passed it Pierre turned away his head, but Alfred, more curious, looked through the open door. The dead bodies, stripped stark naked, save a small square of black cloth for decency's sake, lay white and ghastly in a blaze of light upon broad tables of snowy marble. A shudder passed through Alfred at this unexpected sight; he had come suddenly upon the dead-house of Paris, -- La Morgue. Turning again to the left, they struck into the narrow silent streets again, their footsteps creaking and echoing as they strode through the snow. At every squalid tumble-down corner they could fancy some dark object lying in wait for them, and, grasping their swords, they pursued their way onward, drawing a long breath as they advanced as if escaped from a nameless danger. At last they heard the sound of retreating carriage-wheels, and could see relieved against the leaden sky the row of tall houses in the Rue Moucharde, and, tapping at the narrow door, were let into the building by Mesrour. _________________ CHAPTER IX. A SOLITARY jet of gas, freely burning, showed them the way up the creaking staircase. All was hushed in the house. The vast store-rooms of grotesque apparel were open, and here and there a bluish light from a turned-down burner glimmered over a pile of colors and tinsel. Passing these rooms, they ascended to an upper story, where Mesrour, taking the harlequin on one side, led him into a small room comfortably warmed and lighted. "Here," he said, in a whisper, "you will stay for a time. Your friend will not be far off. If he wants you he will call." Then to a similar room, farther on, he convoyed Alfred, whom he only knew as the Indian chief, -- such were his instructions, -- and, ushering him in, closed the door. A female figure, wrapped in a dark cloak and mask, confronted him. She dropped the cloak, but, to his amazement, it was not the expected Louise that he saw: it was the figure of the shabby Debardeur of the bal masque'. "Pardon me for this liberty, monsieur," said a well-known voice behind the mask, "but in a masquerade one may assume all disguises. Do you recognize me?" Alfred dropped upon his knee, threw aside his mask, and seized that delicate hand and pressed it to his lips. He was delirious with joy: the mystery of his fate was solved; the voice that had found an echo in his heart was hers; thus two divinities had resolved themselves into one. She laid aside her mask. Yes, it was she, --it was the being for THE SOUND OF A VOICE. 327 whom he would risk all, and protect--ay, until the last drop of his blood. "Dear Louise," he said. She put out her other hand, and, drawing him up towards her, fell upon his neck. He felt her tears fall; he pressed her lips to his. It was but a moment. Suddenly she threw back her arms, and pressed him from her again, with a gesture as of terror. "Do you know what has just happened? has Mesrour told you? Perhaps not. Madame Choufleur---" And she shuddered. He saw by the expression of her face what had occurred. "Is dead," she continued. "Therese just told me so. I have been here but a few minutes. Therese is my friend. It is by her friendship I am here to-night. It is to see you that I have come." He again drew her to his side. "Dear Louise, I love you! Oh, happy heart, that can make such a declaration to you, and feel, too, that you will not reject me!" She pressed him from her with the same gesture as before, --the same look of terror. At last she said, in a faint voice, "If Monsieur will but hear me, perhaps he will change his opinion. I could be content to follow him to the ends of the earth as his servant, but never aspire to be other than that, for I am not worthy. Look at this dress of mine. Is it the dress of a lady? See how I have exhibited myself in the coarse crowd of to-night! Would Alfred Bainbridge consent that his wife should do such things? I enjoyed the momentary triumph. It is my nature to be free and wild at times. But to-night it was for you I sang, in hopes that my voice might search you out and find you in that crowd. I knew that you had heard me before ----" "Impossible! How could you know that?" "At the Trois Freres. Ah! you look surprised. There was a waiter there, Francois, an old man--you recollect? I asked him who was in the room adjoining. He described you, and the others. You I recognized. Then I thought the song of the poor Debardeur might touch your heart. I felt like singing that night: in spite of the remonstrances of Count Imhoff, I sang my poor little song, but it brought a visitor whom I did not expect, a visitor from the street, and but for my good fortune all would have been at an end then." "I remember you were interrupted," said Alfred. "Oh, yes, monsieur: it was a poor peasant from my own parish, Antoine, a former lover of mine. He was violent. He is terrible when he is angry; he is like a giant. But I spoke to him in the old patois [italics] of our native village , which the count did not understand, and he wept like a child, monsieur, and suffered himself to be led away by the police." Then said Alfred, still more astonished, "You are not a Russian?" "No, indeed, monsieur. I am a poor French girl." And she wept bitterly. "I am not a niece of Count Imhoff. Oh, monsieur," and she looked at him with piteous eyes, but still beautiful in their bright tears, "do you not know what I am?" An icy horror, like the hand of death, was laid upon Alfred's heart. He turned from her in such dismay as is felt when one sees amid beautiful flowers the horrible coil of a poisonous adder. His spirit seemed to shrink up and wither within him, as she said, weeping as she spoke,328 THE SOUND OF A VOICE. "I am not the niece of Count Imhoff. I am not even a relation of his. Imagine what I am; but do not judge me too severely; oh, Alfred, it would break my heart! I saw you, and loved you at first sight. Had you been as wicked as myself, I would have endeavored to engage your affections and make you my lover. As it is, since I know your noble nature, I look up to you with such reverence as I should feel towards y God. I love you with such feelings, not as one should love a man, but as one should worship a Deity. For an hour of pure love in your arms, a hope forever barred against me now, I would suffer all the torments of the damned forever!" She covered her face in her hands and sobbed convulsively. Alfred took her hand. Tenderly he caressed it; tenderly he spoke to her. "What is your sad history? There is a mystery about it that I would like to hear. Perhaps you do yourself injustice." "If I may tell you, and you will have patience to hear me, perhaps you will pity me. If so, it will be a solace to me. Perhaps you will blame me. I cannot hope otherwise. But, whether you pity or condemn me, I shall still remember that wherever you go upon the earth, in these or in future times, you will not forget me. Then I shall comfort my heart even in the sleepless hours of the night, and say,'Perhaps even now he is thinking of me,—perhaps even now he remembers my little story.' Shall I go on?" Alfred bowed his head. Then she continued: "I was born in the parish of St.-Michel, near the wood of Ardennes, in the department of Marne. I was an only child. My parents were hard-working peasants; they lived in a little house, and by dint of work and economy managed to save a small sum, year by year, by which I was sent to school and received a little education. As soon as I learned to read, all the treasuries of the world seemed open to me. St.-Michel was no place for books, but a young scholar who had large store of them, and who came from the College of Ste.-Esprit, Eugène Boissard, occasionally visited his father's residence. As soon as I grew old enough to attract attention, I found his large melancholy eyes fixed upon mine sometimes. He soon learned my passion for reading. His liberal hand supplied me with many coveted authors, so that in time my shelf of volumes was quite a parish curiosity. "In those days I used to sing with other children in the parish choir. As my voice developed itself it was said to be something remarkable. Father Jean-Baptiste, the parish priest, engaged to teach me music. But he had but a limited knowledge of the art, and it was not long before I learned all that he knew. I had a yearning to learn more, but there was no one to teach me. So, too, with reading books. I learned more from them than all the parish knew. Oh, how I wanted to commune with some spirit of intelligence, some one who had a brain as active and as acquisitive as my own! As for the peasant-girls of the parish, they could only converse on a few barren topics. Their homespun ideas were too coarse and commonplace for me. I did not care to talk for talk's sake, but what I wanted was to acquire by conversation more than I had already acquired. Alas! THE SOUND OF A VOICE. 329 their talk could not afford one grain of comfort! I knew all they knew already, and ten times more than they ever dreamed of. "By this time I had nearly grown up to be a woman. One Sunday, wandering through the woods of Ardennes with a boy lover of mine, Antoine Rocambo, we were startled by a large wolf that crossed out path and showed a disposition to attack us. He was nearly famished, as was evident by his skeleton form, scarcely hidden by his skin, and his glaring hunger-struck eyes. But Antoine was not one to wait for the attack. Drawing a knife from his belt, he fell upon the wolf with such fury that the famished beast was soon despatched,—not, however, before he had given Antoine some frightful wounds. From that time he was called Antoine the Wolf-Killer, and proclaimed himself my little husband. My father and mother approved of this youthful attachment. "As soon as Antoine recovered from his wounds, he looked upon me as his future wife as a matter of course. He began to persecute me with his attentions; but he was not one whom I could love. I began to long for the return of Eugene from the university. When he returned he had finished his education. Oh, how handsome he was! Besides his other accomplishments, he had an exquisite taste for music. Often did I wander, in secrecy and silence, at night, near the old château to listen to his playing. He it was who first gave me the impression that music had a soul. "As time rolled on, our intimacy was renewed and increased. As his father was often in Paris, and his mother was no more, I went almost daily to the château to take my lessons of him. He urged e to play and to sing. He had once been to a bal masqué in the city, and the figure of a Débardeur had made a strong impression upon his melancholy imagination. He it was who composed for me the song that I sing,—the words and the music. Under his care I became a skilful musician, and also acquired great proficiency in other accomplishments. "My parents, far from objecting to this intimacy, encourage it. They did not seem to know the danger. The whole parish talked of it incessantly, however, and the whole parish learned my song of the Débardeur. Often of an evening have I heard it sung, first by a single voice, then another would take it up, a third would repeat it, a fourth would echo it, until at last it would swell upon the night from a hundred cottages. "Antoine often spoke to me of Eugène in great anger. At times he was very violent, and swore he would kill him if I did not cease my studies with him. He had no right to say this to me: the poor fellow had no claim upon me. Yet it is not unpleasant to be loved, even if you cannot return it. "The parish at this time lifted up its voice and began to prophesy. There was no cause for suspicion then, for I was as innocent as a child; indeed, I was but a child in thought; I knew no evil and feared none. People began to avoid me. It made me feel unhappy. Eugène perceived it, and asked me the reason of my tears, and I told him. Folding me in his arms, he said, 'They shall no longer torment thee, poor little sorrowful heart; thou art too good to live amid such a base crew; VOL. XLVII.—22330 The Sound Of A Voice. thou shalt see the world, my child, and know that it is a larger place than the parish of St.-Michel.' "How my heart bounded at these words! It took but little argument to persuade me to see that which my heart coveted, -- the outer world that lay around the narrow parish. In a word, I fled one night from my parents with Eugene, and by daybreak was amidst the roar of the metropolis. "It was midsummer when we came to Paris. We took apartments, and led a happy life. Not a soul came to inquire after me from St.-Michel. My father and mother troubled themselves no more about me. Except Antoine, who heard my voice in the street that night when I was singing at the Trois Freres, I have not since seen one person from my native place. "At last the season of the Carnival approached, and Eugene was ambitious that I should appear at the masked ball in the costume of a Debardeur and sing the song. He had an attachment for that song of his own composing that was wonderful to see. He put it above any melody of Auber or Verdi. 'You will see,' said he, 'the impression it will make.' To sing it before that vast assemblage frightened me. I felt an unknown courage as I first ventured to sing it. The noisy Carnival was soon hushed to silence. Next day the song was in everybody's mouth. It was upon that night that the Count Imhoff heard it. "Alas! I need not tell you the particulars of this part of my story, further than to say that in order to find out who I was he employed her who now lies dead in this house. It was in this place that I first hired the dress of a Debardeur, in which I went to the ball, and it was upon that occasion that I became acquainted with the girl I spoke of just now, Therese. It was while paying her a visit that the count first saw me. He was attracted, not doubt, by my appearance; but when he heard that I was also the mysterious singer of the masked ball his passion for me was excited to the highest pitch. Through the art of Madame Choufleur I was induced to give the count an interview. He had already sent me beautiful presents,--jewels, dresses,--which I could never enjoy the triumph of wearing in public, but had to secrete in our secluded domicile, even from the eye of Eugene. At last my vanity tempted me to show them to another girl who resided in the same house. The story that I had beautiful dresses and diamonds was soon known to others. No one believed that I came by them honestly. At last the rumor reached the ears of Eugene. He ran in a fury to my room during my absence, broke open my trunk, and discovered the proofs, as he supposed, of my infidelity. He wrote me a brief note, bidding me farewell, and left me to my fate. I flew to Therese and told her what had occurred. She replied, with a smile, that now I was free, and a life of certain happiness was before me, and in a few moments laid before me a present that captivated my heart. It was a new Debardeur dress of the richest materials conceivable. It had taken many hands and many weeks of labor to complete the splendid embroidery alone. I thought of the splendid appearance I should make at the next bal masque; I remembered the applause which greeted the The Sound Of A Voice. 331 song at the last one. My heart fluttered with joy. I was overpowered by the generosity, the good taste, of the count; and, in a word, I yielded to his addresses. As I was totally unknown in Paris, the count, for his own purposes, passed me off as his niece. He hired the beautiful mansion we occupied, and furnished it as you have seen." "But I should suppose," interrupted Alfred, "that the chances of detection would have been great. Some of your own countrymen, or rather his own countrymen, or some of the people of rank who visit you, might have discovered the truth, and----" "No, monsieur, no Russians of rank ever visit Count Imhoff; and the other people," -- she shrugged her shoulders,--"ah! except a few who are innocents, most of them are poor adventurers, monsieur, --what you call in English 'swells.' Ah, the count is very bad, but generous, with immense incomes, but a spendthrift, and he loves to deceive the innocent and ruin them, if he can, by his arts at cards. Cards are his passion. If any one should betray him at cards I think he would kill himself, he is so proud of his superior skill: you could not flatter him more than to tell him he is the autocrat of gamblers, monsieur. After the discovery of the note which I gave Lucille to carry to you, the count took me to Ostend, where no one goes at this season. After that I know not where he will go. So I determined to see you once more, and fled to Paris. Here, I got from Therese a Debardeur dress; all the best ones had long before been engaged: you see, monsieur, what it is, --too shabby to lend to any one. I know that even if the count should see me at the ball, this would elude his vigilance." "But after the song I observed two person who followed you wherever you went." "Ah! the song!" she said, putting her hand to her forehead in dismay. "I never thought of that! I thought only of you when I sang the song; I never thought of him! Ah, it was dangerous! I saw two that I thought followed me, but I eluded them in a crowd and escaped." "And who was the mask that followed me and gave me your note?" said Alfred. "Isidore, your own valet. As soon as I reached Paris I sent Therese for Lucille. By Lucille I found Isidore, who agreed to go with me. Alas! in my haste to escape, I had to leave him at the ball: it was impolite, I confess." "But how did he know me?" "By your dress, monsieur. Therese told me that. Hush! I thought I heard a footstep." All was silent, and she resumed: "When I ran away from Ostend the count had a friend with him, --a friend, too, of yours, monsieur: they can scarcely imagine wither I have fled; and I shall soon be back to them; and then, oh, monsieur," she continued, looking at him tenderly, her eyes filling with tears as she spoke, --"then I will try to pass my life in quiet, in thinking of a young American who once used to think kindly of poor Louise."332 The Sound Of A Voice. Bainbridge took her hand gently but firmly. A struggle to resist all reason, to clasp her in his arms, to call her his own, almost overcame him, and a deep groan burst from his lips, but he nevertheless kept his firmness. "Louise," he said, at last, and he turned as pale as he spoke, "you know I must leave you. Delay, even for a few brief moments, might cause me to forego my purpose. If it had been otherwise, --oh, would to God that it had!" he said, in a burst of anguish, --" a happier fate would have been mine, perhaps yours. But now---" He could say no more: he rose, and, turning his eyes full of sorrow upon her, shook her pale cold hand in token of farewell, not even daring to trust himself to bestow one farewell kiss upon those pallid lips. But the little hand detained him still. "Hark! I thought I heard a footstep again. Ever since I have been in this house I have had forebodings of evil. The two masks that followed me--now I think of it, one was tall, and the other---- Hark! Could it have been they? And the count has a key that will open the door of this horrible place. He may be in the house now!" She listened again; then, shrinking back against Bainbridge, she suddenly stretched out her opposing hand towards the door, as if to protect him from an unwelcome guest. Was the door opening itself? It seemed so. Noiselessly a widening aperture showed itself between it and the wall. Alfred could feel the heart of Louise beating fearfully against his side. Putting her away from him, he with a stride advanced to the door, and, throwing it wide open, brought to light the figure of the tall maker in white, with his sable companion. "Who are you, and what do you do here?" said Count Imhoff, removing his mask. "Do you know me now? I came here to reclaim this property of mine." And he advanced towards the shrinking girl, speaking some fierce words to her in Slavic, and seized her rudely by the wrist. Alfred caught him by the arm with the grasp of a young giant. "Release her!" said he, in a transport of fury. The Russian turned to him. "Do you know who I am? I am the Count Imhoff, and know how to punish intruders." And he struck the young American a violent blow in the face. In an instant the latter threw his adversary prostrate upon his back. The Russian seized the sword which Alfred had dropped upon the floor. The black mask ran forward. "For God's sake, not here!" he said. "To the Bois de Boulogne!" The noise of the fall woke Pierre, who had been fast asleep in the adjoining apartment. He had forethought enough to clap on his mask as he rushed to the assistance of his friend. He was followed by Mesrour, who probably had not been very far off. The count glared at both as he rose from the floor. Pierre flew to Alfred, sword in hand. "It is as you say, my friend," said the count to his companion. Then, with a slight bow, he turned the sword-hilt to Alfred. "I return you your weapon. I see you have another, and a friend. Your The Sound Of A Voice. 333 carriage is at the door. So is mine." And, without a word to Louise, he strode from the apartment with his mute companion. Alfred had just time to give one farewell look at Louise, who had fallen in a fainting-fit upon the sofa. He beckoned to Mesrour: "Tell Therese to come here and see to this young lady." Then, taking Pierre by the arm, he followed. In a few minutes after, the wheels of the two carriages, as they slowly toiled through the untracked morning snow on their way to the wood of Boulogne, made the only sounds heard in those silent streets in the early morning. Chapter X. The carriages slowly moved on their way through the white unsullied streets of a sleeping city! On their way through unnumbered thousands, who though sleeping had the vital current moving through their arteries, whose myriads of hearts were keeping time almost in unison! On their way through torpid thoroughfares soon to be pregnant with activity, with the business and bustle of life! On their way past sculptured bridges, and columns, and statues, and colossal libraries, and triumphal arches! On their way past temples, and galleries, and churches, where soon devout worshippers would be assembled in harmonious thanksgivings with the coming of the day! On their way through the cold gray mist of a frosty dawn and on the path of death! The sun had not yet risen upon the deeds they were to do! Even the rosy greetings in the east, the bright harbingers of day, were not visible, but an ashen curtain of clouds, as if in sympathy, was drawn over the canopy of heaven. In that long ride through the streets, almost as yet untouched by carriage-wheels, save where some tipsy revellers were returning from the Carnival, Alfred had time to unbosom himself to Pierre. After giving him a brief sketch of the story of Louise and the peculiar circumstances by which he had been accidentally led into this quarrel, he said, "If I should fall, I entreat you, Pierre, to write to my mother and tell her the truth. Tell her my last thoughts will be of her. And, as my dying request, let her carefully provide for Louise. She may even invite her to America to spend the remainder of her days with her. Do not suggest this to her, but, if she proposes it herself, do not object. I know that Louise is impure, and the world would think her an unfit companion for one so saint-like as my mother. But sorrow sanctifies even guilt, and it is in my mother's nature to spread a halo of pure and innocent light around every dwelling she inhabits. If I do not fall, this morning shall pass away unstained by deadly blood, for I shall act only upon the defensive, and if I wound my antagonist it will be merely to disable him." Pierre clasped the hand of his friend. At that quiet hour, when thoughts of the approaching struggle filled the minds of those who were on their way to the field of the bloody encounter, a carriage filled with revellers turned out of a cross-street and rolled on side by side with the other two,--a noisy set of maskers, smoking cigars, and 334 THE SOUND OF A VOICE. roaring out snatches of songs evidently inspired by the champagne of the Maison Dorée and the company of some of the female performers of the preceding night. At last a song, the most unwelcome that could be to the sense of the duelists, broke upon the silent morning: it was the song of the Débardeur whooped out from the adjoining sports in tipsy chorus. Alfred covered his ears with his hands to shut out the sounds. At that moment the carriages stopped. The door of the last one was opened, and Black Mask thrust in his head. "Gentlemen," said he, "we are unprovided with a surgeon. In the neighboring carriage is one of the most eminent of the young practitioners of this city, Dr. Rembaut. With your permission, I will engage his services. I know him well, and will vouch for his skill, as well as for his honor in this affair." Pierre replied, "I know him also, and will accept him for our part, with our thanks for your courtesy." Black Mask bowed and shut the door. They could see the surgeon, from the open windows of their vehicle, as he stepped down the steps; he was dressed in flowing crimson robes with a broad collar of ermine, no doubt the costume of an ancient Venetian senator. He climbed nimbly into the carriage before them. "Ominous for your rival," whispered Pierre. "The surgeon goes straight to him. I hope he will remain with him for good." The carriages again moved on. The convoy they had met soon rolled off in another direction: they could hear, as it retreated, the distant chorus of the song that had made so many hearts unhappy. The carriages kept moving on, under the Arc de Triomphe of the elder Napoleon, past the barriers of the city, till the jaded horses, with funeral pace, were slowly moving under the melancholy boughs of the wood of Boulogne. As last they came to an open space, an amphitheatre as it were, around which huge trees were thickly clustered. I was a secluded place, the scene of many a former rencontre. No carriage-track through the snow showed that it had been visited by others that morning. A gray mist through which the dripping trees and shrubbery looked like shadowy phantoms, hung over the white snow which they were now crunching under their feet, as they walked towards the most distant part of the plateau, the carriages remaining on the broad avenue at the end of the wood. Count Imhoff, as he tramped over the snow in his white flowing dress, his brows bound tightly with a knotted white handkerchief which he had substituted for the tall hat of his costume, looked like the malicious spirit of the landscape itself. His short gray moustache and gray eyebrows would sometimes move in unison to a passing thought, but other wise he was collected, and he went to his place with a quick pace and a face filled with deadly hatred. Black Mask, who seemed to fulfil the position of master of ceremonies, introduced the surgeon Rembaut to Alfred and to Pierre, and they moved on after the count, Pierre carrying the swords. Some preliminaries were arranged between the seconds, and then THE SOUND OF A VOICE. 335 the principals, sword in hand, were placed face to face. The seconds retired, each one to the left-hand side of his principal. A salute was given, and the swords were crossed. "Are you ready?" said Black Mask. The count dropped the point of his sword. Then, carefully rolling up the long voluminous sleeve of his dress, so that his powerful arm was bared from wrist to shoulder, he again crossed swords with his adversary, and nodded his head. "Begin," said Black Mask. Instantly a thousand sparkles in the air. Instantly the clash, the glitter, the deadly struggle. The weapons played like forked tongues of steel around the combatants. It was evident that count was bent upon the destruction of his rival. He seemed to seek out with his sword a vulnerable spot, to let out the life-blood of his adversary. Alfred, on the defensive, wore a face as calm as his arm was nimble and skilfully turned. He parried every time. Imhoff became furious at these baffling tactics; he changed his ground, repeating his attacks on every side. Alfred wheeled as his rival moved, as steady as a pedestal on a pivot, never leaving an opening unguarded by his active sword. Imhoff turned black with passion; the veins swelled in his neck, his eye glittered like a viper's, he stamped the snow with his feet; then, concentrating all his strength, he drove with a quick thrust upon Alfred's left breast. The steel passed the guard of the youth, but he caught the thrust on his left arm. The thick buckskin of his costume prevented ore damage that a severe flesh-wound. Imhoff's sword for a moment was entangled in the sleeve of his adversary, and in that moment Alfred, disengaging his own weapon, essayed to lance that bare right arm and end the fight. But the count, fiercely plucking his sword from his rival's sleeve, threw up his sword at the same instant, and the direct thrust of Alfred, intended for the arm, went under it, and the point of his sword entered the right breast of the count in deadly incision. Alfred plucked away his weapon. A little crimson rill jetted out, and sprinkled with re drops the white dress. Imhoff stood for a moment paralyzed, then fell backward into the arms of his second. Dr. Rembaut ran forward, and, pulling aside the dress, surveyed the incision with a face of horror. In the struggle the second in black dropped his mask, and Pierre, to his dismay, beheld the frightened face of his own brother, Paul. Turning from him with a shudder, he hurried his principal away from the fatal ground, and, regaining the carriage, they drove as fast as the tired horses would permit towards Paris. Let us pause here for a moment, not to moralize upon the uncertainties of human life, but to think of one of our characters who was so unceremoniously left behind at the masked ball, in the guise of Hector, son of Priam. In vain did Isidore seek for Mademoiselle Boscka, or his master in the Indian dress: a masked ball has this disadvantage, that, with the crowds of performers and the variety of characters, one can never tell when the search ought to be concluded. So he wandered about for hours, a melancholy man in the midst of joy, like a stray dog in a railroad-car, uncertain whether to get out of336 THE SOUND OF A VOICE. stay in, jostling and jostled, in everybody's way, and not unfrequently the recipient of a lusty kick from some of the irascible whirligigs of either sex. The poor valet, though in the garb of Hector, was not in the mood to resent such salutes by kicking back, and the consequence was that he was soon a mark for certain youths who had more gymnastic abilities than mercy. They kept his tall helmet and plume in sight always, and reducing the circle of the walk on purpose, would sail within reaching-distance at every sweep of the dance. At last Isidore, thinking that this foot-practice would debar him from chair- or sofa-practice, wisely concluded to leave the glittering crowd and make his way to the residence of the count, where he would be able to see Lucille. It was nearly morning when he got in the streets, so rapidly had time flown in that gay assemblage, even with that pedal music of his tormentors. Securing his cloak from the cloak-room, he wrapped himself up and proceeded to the residence of Count Imhoff. Meantime, Lucille, who had scarcely closed her eyes all night on account of her anxiety for her mistress, had been watching for her lover from a high window ever since daybreak, for she had told Isidore to come and tell her the news as soon as it was morning. At last she saw his red feather nodding through the snowy streets, and flew down to open the little door at the back of the garden, the concierge having the key of the front gate, and instantly admitted to her arms her wounded Hector. What little Lucille learned from Isidore need not be repeated; but the conversation, even though brief, was soon interrupted by visitors of another description. The bell at the gate rang a summons to the concierge, who upon rousing himself from slumber was surprised to find a carriage there, with two gentlemen in ball-costume, on of whom he recognized as M. Paul Laborde. But that which fixed his eyeballs in his head with terror was a hospital-barrow, which the bearers had just set upon the sidewalk, and upon which, in bloody white vestments, lay stretched the body of Count Imhoff. His face was fixed as in death, his eyes were closed, the sweat of death was upon his brow, and the jaws were as rigid as marble. Yet one could see by a faint convulsive movement of the cheek that life was not yet extinct. "If, as I surmise," said Dr. Rembaut to Paul, "the blade only passed through a portion of the right lung, he may live yet, and breathe to a good old age through the other. I have seen cases of the kind. I know a man now who was stabbed through the right lung with a knife: an incision must have been made entirely through the lung; and yet, except that the shoulder on the right side is lower by several inches that the other, you would not observe any difference in the appearance of the man: he is robust, active, and as free from complaints as you or I." The bearers now carried the body into the house, where we will leave them and return to Alfred. THE SOUND OF A VOICE. 337 CHAPTER XI. IF any man ever felt the keen pangs of remorse, that man was Alfred Bainbridge. On his way home he scarcely uttered a word to Pierre, who attempted to console him, but sat ruefully silent, consumed by a grief that gave no outward show or admitted of any relief. It seemed as if in his agony he could find no solace save in self-torture. He to take the life of a fellow-being!—to deprive him of that priceless breath given him by his Creator!—to pierce with a death-wound his breast! to spill his blood! "Murderer!" he muttered to himself, and thought with calmness of a just punishment, of the condemned cell, and his own execution, as the fitting ending of a tragedy so vile and unchristianlike. Arrived at last in the Rue St.-Honoré, he found he had unconsciously carried with him the sword with which he had fought the duel. He threw it upon the table. "Lie there," he said, "lie there, bloody witness! you at least I will keep, and until the day of my death you shall ever be before me to remind me of my crime." Pierre, with kindly words of comfort, assisted him to change his dress, and, sitting by his side, pointed out to him the necessity of attending at once to many things that were indispensable. "Did he intend to fly, or to remain in Paris?" "I shall stay here," replied Alfred, "and let the authorities decide what shall be my punishment. i shall feel freer, more reconciled to myself, if I should even pass the ordeal of a prison and escape with my life." But Pierre reminded him of the old adage, "that he who voluntarily goes into a prison in hope to come easily out of it may stay therein so long that he will be too late convinced of this error," and added, "Even if not arrested here, Paris will be a painful place to reside in. Besides, think of the anguish it will give your mother when she hears of this. Her heart will be tormented with suspense until she is assured of your safety." All these arguments had their influence with the poor boy; but another visitor who arrived put a new and brighter face upon everything. This was Isidore Hippolyte Rochejacquelin, come to inform them "that the count had been wounded by some assassin after the ball, and was brought home on a stretcher in a bad state, but yet the doctor had hopes that his life might be spared." The valet could not understand why this intelligence made the two friends suddenly look so happy. "Now, my dear friend," said Pierre, "as this affair is not so bad, after all, take my advice and make the tour of Europe. You should not be here to worry yourself with anxiety day by day during the uncertainty of his recovery. Arrange your affairs as speedily as possible, and let to-morrow see you an your way to Switzerland. You have not yet seen the Alps?" Alfred shook his head mournfully: "Never." "My faith! you must see them. They are—" and here Pierre338 THE SOUND OF A VOICE. raised himself on tiptoe, stretched both hands upward, and said, with emphasis, "immense!" "And will you see to Louise, that she does not suffer from want? Perhaps she had better return to her parents. A mother's heart rarely turns against a repentant child; and she is their only one, and now softened and ready to lead a life of innocence in future. I am sure of this." Pierre promised everything, and Alfred, with a lighter hear, set to work seriously to prepare for his journey. Books had to be packed, and his apparel to be overhauled for a plain suit or two. In this selection the happy Isidore became the possessor fo many of the richest treasures of his master's wardrobe. The books were sent to M. Laborde's warehouse, to be forwarded to New York. Before evening nearly all was completed, and, after a brief leave-taking of the seniors of the Laborde family, he stepped into the evening train with Isidore, and was soon on his way to Lausanne, Switzerland. In the mean time Louise had heard, through the faithful Lucille, the story of the count's assassination, and had divined the truth. Giving directions to the girl to find the little trunk which contained the humble dresses she had worn when she eloped form St.-Michel, she arrayed herself in those poor clothes, and, with scarcely enough money to carry her there, embarked in the first train that ran nearest to her native parish. Thus were these two unhappy souls flying away from each other, only their spirits, as it were, keeping company and traveling side by side. There is a secret sorrow which slowly consumes the hardest spirit and saps the vital energies of the unconscious victim. Travel amid the most magnificent repositories of nature, or the philosophy of books, or the influence of society, nay, even friendship itself,- Thine, friendship, thine the hand so tender, Thine the balm dropping on the wound,- may assuage, may alleviate, but cannot wholly subdue this secret sorrow, the sorrow of a heart wasting away in the solitude of its own love. In spite of the satiric reflection that "men have died from time to time, and worms have eaten them, but nor for love," yet many there are who unsuspected by any carry their death-wound with them in secrecy to the grave, like the uncomplaining dove hiding with her bruised wing the fatal arrow in her bleeding side. Amid the gorgeous scenery of Alps and lakes, Alfred grew visibly paler and more dispirited. Exercise failed to around his latent energies; riding on horseback only tired him; he felt that melancholy lassitude which seems to break down body and spirit and knows no cure. A visit from Pierre for a few weeks brought to his lips a melancholy smile, but it seemed to be rather an effort than a natural motion: it soon faded away, to return but rarely. "Mon Dieu!" said Pierre, with tears in his eyes, appealing to Isidore, "what a change has taken place in your master!" Pierre had very little to tell him, for of Louise he knew absolutely nothing. She had gone, no one knew whither; not a trace of her remained. THE SOUND OF A VOICE. 339 All her diamonds and other jewels, her dresses and presents of all kinds, remained at the great house untouched. The count was slowly recovering. He had even taken a ride out a few days before Pierre left Paris-"with my brother," he came very near saying, but he checked his tongue in time. At last Pierre's visit was at an end, and the friends parted. The summer passed away, the beautiful autumn came, and Alfred rarely wandered from his lodgings. He pined for the society of books,-his old friends, his midnight companions. So away from the land of mountains in the most beautiful season of the year, and down the Rhine to Cologne, from Cologne to Aix, from Aix to Brussels. Here is a Royal Library worthy to be called so, and bookstore with all the quiet and comfort of libraries; and day by day the visitors to these might have noticed a thin pale gentleman with a light moustache, who dressed in gray, and passed hours looking over the title of books that lay on the table, occasionally buying one, holding no communication with any except the storekeeper, and now and then swallowing a little pellet of some tonic, probably to keep himself, as it seemed, alive. But Brussels brought a calm to Alfred's mind that he had not enjoyed among the wild scenery and the tempestuous panoramas of the Alps. It was a sort of miniature Paris, but without its activity,-a true "villette," or "little city," as Charlotte Brontë has wonderfully portrayed it. In his walks he could easily bury himself among the wonderful architecture of the Middle Ages by descending to the old town, or forget his thoughts in the rare treasures of the Burgundian Library, or find his cares fading away as he surveyed the gems of Flemish art in the priceless collection at the Palais d'Aremberg. But as the season advanced, a new but not uncongenial pleasure awaited him. He had promised Isidore that he would attend the celebration of his nuptials, and the time was near at hand when that faithful valet was to lead to the altar the idol of his heart, Mademoiselle Lucille Pitaud. "How long will it take us to ride to Nanteuil?" said his master. "I supposes twelve hours, monsieur," replied the valet. "Oh, not in the cars. On horseback I fancy it will be an interesting tour, through the vinelands of Champagne. We can stop at Namur on the way, and pass through Rheims, and the cities on the Marne,- Châlons, Epernay, and-" "But monsieur," exclaimed the impatient valet, "it is so far we shall never get there on horseback,-at least not in time. It is so comfortable in the cars, monsieru: you know that it will be better for your health, monsieur, to ride on the rail." "I think it better to go by saddle, Isidor. You are by this time a tolerable rider, but I must say that in your trial trips through Switzerland a worse horseman I never saw. So allons! to-morrow we start, after and early breakfast." The truth was that Alfred had a secret desire in his heart to visit the parish of St.-Michel. Often had he been tempted to write to Louise, for he supposed her to be there, and her memory clung to his heart as a nursing child will cling to the breast of its mother. But how could he write to her? She had never told him her family name, 340 THE SOUND OF A VOICE and, besides, a parish, like a county, is a large district, and contains many villages, and she had not made hers known to him. Only by diligent search could he find her residence, and to that he had but one clue, and that was the name of the resident of the château in her neighborhood. But how could he write to M. Eugène Boissard? No; he would go himself and carefully find his way to the neighborhood by inquiring for the chateau. The weather was mild and warm when the master and valet set out on their journey. It was quite late in December, but the season had been generous, and winter with tardy kindness had still lingered amid the fading bloom of autumn. As they travelled farther south, an occasional cloudy sky and shivery gusts would creep over the level plains of Belgium, and on the second day's journey, when they were fairly over the French frontier, the rough weather increased, with squalls of rain and occasional flurries of snow. But on they rode, as if regardless of wind or weather: nevertheless Isidore's spirits occasionally would reach a low ebb, as the thought presented itself to his mind of the difference between a cold ride in the saddle and the comforts of a cosey, warm, cushioned railroad-car, travelling at high speed towards the village where she, his soul's idol, was waiting in expectancy for him. In the little village of Mézières they were detained a couple of days by stress of weather, the storm setting steadily in with a continued wet and dismal prospect of much worse. Some of the streams now rose to threatening floods, that made travelling not only uncomfortable, but dangerous. For two days in the dingy precincts of an obscure inn they watched the gray clouds and the downpouring rain with impatience. The next day after this the rain held up, but the sky was burdened with heavy clouds. It was but a day's journey now to the ancient city of Rheims, and Alfred determined to push on, to his valet's evident satisfaction. But the splashy clay roads, and the wrecks of bridges on their way, retarded the travellers, until at evening a faint streak of red in the western horizon gleaming under a bank of clouds gave promise of a brighter to-morrow. This, however, soon faded away; the gorgeous light turned to ashy hues, and finally the west presented one vast gray plain slowly deepening into melancholy darkness. In darkness and silence then on rode master and man. But for the white clayey roads, or rather chalk roads (in this part of France so common), they could scarcely have found their way. At last a series of vast walls, surmounted by lofty towers, began to gleam in the south, as the full moon, slowly emerging from the clouds in the east, threw her radiance upon the stupendous proportions of the distant cathedral of Rheims. Its grand outlines became more and more defined, as her mellow light illumined its towers and pinnacles. Between the city and the travellers lay a wide plain, now partially discovered by the moonlight, but the cathedral, distant as it was, was still a welcome sight,—a beacon, as it were, to guide them. For Rheims must be reached that night; the journey had been prolonged far beyond the time they had anticipated, by the condition of the roads over which they had pursued their weary way, but, save the cottages of the peasants, or the twinkling lights among the trees of a sequestered THE SOUND OF A VOICE. 241 sequestered chateau, nothing on the road afforded any hope of shelter. So on to Rheims! Still the clouds hung black and threatening on every side of them; the moon at times was obscured; it had ceased to rain, but a chilling wind had set in,—a damp wind, that seemed to depress the spirits more than rain. For hours they travelled on in silence, sometimes in light, sometimes in darkness, as the clouds revealed or concealed the uncertain luminary. The white chalk road, however, was a safe clue to the feet: so long as they kept on that, they knew they were on their way to Rheims. They had now reached a more elevated part of the causeway than they had travelled upon heretofore; a high stone wall ran along on each side of it, no doubt to prevent the unwary passengers at night from tumbling off into the vineyards that lay below. The moon was now wholly obscured. Some distance before them, and far below the road, they were surprised to see a number of twinkling lights moving about, as of persons gathered together in the sunken fields and searching for something. Their path now seemed more dismal than ever. As they looked down upon these far-off spectres of fire, Isidore began to tremble, and, drawing nearer to his master, whispered, "Ghost-candles!" Even the horses appeared to partake of an undefined fear. Who could be astir on this night and at this hour? Hark! They heard, in the fitful pause of the wind, a sound as of voices, rude coarse voices, rustic bass voices, hoarsely chanting what seemed to be a sort of funeral dire. At the same time a sound of footsteps, and the figure of a man relieved against the distant lights, assured them of the presence of a fellow-traveller on foot. As they approached him they drew bridle, and Alfred said, "What place is this?" "Gravier," replied a hoarse voice. "Gravier!" echoed Isidore. "I never heard of that place before." "Maybe not," answered the voice. "It is a very small village." "What parish are we in?" "St.-Michel." At this moment the chant broke forth again. With coarse masculine throats, with waving torches, now lifted high in the air, now held down over some broken ground at their feet, the black figures in the distance seemed to be performing some antics below on the midnight sward. The sounds seemed familiar to Alfred, but he could not hear them distinctly. They rode on. "They are about to lower her body down into the grave," said the voice. The travellers at last gained that part of the road directly over the group of dusky figures below. The moon, again emerging from the black clouds, cast from her high throne a sudden light upon the scene. The man with whom they had been talking now stood revealed. His clothes were ragged and dirty; his face—what could be seen of it under his slouched hat—was bloated and flushed, as if from a week's debauch; now and then a pair of unsteady eyes, bleared with wind, gleamed from under the jagged brim of his hat. Alfred dismounted from his horse and leaned over the parapet.THE SOUND OF A VOICE "Curse it," said the fellow, "how lazy I've grown to be!-too late for her funeral." "How strange it is," said Isidore, "a funeral with no women, no priests to sprinkle and bless the ground, and at this time of night, too! And surely this scrubby hollow can never be consecrated ground?" "Oh, ho!" shouted the fellow, with a rude laugh, as he leaned over the wall. "Good Catholic you must be!" Here he turned and surveyed the valet with a sarcastic look out of the corners of his eyes. "Consecrated ground? Don't you know we never bury suicides in consecrated ground? Oh, ho!" "Who was she?" said Alfred, with a fearful foreboding at his heart. "Oh, monsieur," replied the fellow, with mock courtesy, taking off his had as he spoke, and revealing a face which Alfred recognized at once as that of the man he had seen in the custody of the police on that night after the opera at the Trois Freres, "only one of our peasant-girls. She was too good for us poor fellows, we about here, who were her best friends, indeed, and so she ran away to Paris with an aristocrat. When she got in trouble she ran back again, and her mother took her to her dying arms and gave her her blessing. But her father? No; he never would even speak to her. Her mother lived some months after her return, but die she must at last, and, when she did, her father turned her out, and after a few weeks of wandering around she was found dead by the roadside. What she took nobody knows. I offered to marry her myself, but she would none of me." Even the rude peasant, could he have seen the agonized face of Alfred during this harangue, would have been struck with deep pity. He, with a once powerful frame, now worn down by sorrow and disappointed love, clung with his hands to the stone parapet for support, vainly trying to get a glimpse through his tears of the proceedings below. "Hark!" said the peasant; "they have nearly filled up the grave. You see, gentlemen," with another mock bow in scorn as he pronounced the word,-"you see, she learned a little song here, which she took with her when she ran away from St.-Michel. She used to sing it among the gay birds, the cursed aristocrats of Paris! No doubt it brought her a great deal of money there, and a great many lovers besides. She could sing it, too!-better than any one of us. Our girls could make nothing of it. I used to sing it myself sometimes; but it is all over with me now. And now our village boys have come to sing it for the last time over her grave." And now, as if from the very earth at their feet, rose into the midnight air the last song of the Debardeur! How it thrilled the heart of Alfred with undefinable torture, to hear those beautiful strains, which had once so inspired his soul with love, poured forth in horrible dissonance over her grave! It seemed as if foul birds of night had come together, as if obscure ghouls, with violence and screech-owl clamor, were assembled to desecrate the last resting-place of the delicate being who was at last in their power,-rude masculine voices croaking forth in stridulous discords sounds and fragments of what had been the perfection THE SOUND OF A VOICE perfection of melody! How often had he been led, as he listened to that wonderful air, to think with sad emotion of flowers, beautiful flowers, scattered and flourishing over a grave, the grave of a beloved one! and here was the reality!-a dark midnight dance of brutish peasants as of demons with bellowing discordance around her sepulchre!-hers, fair flower of St.-Michel! The last rites were performed, the last peasant had left the grave, and still Alfred hung over the parapet. With difficulty Isidore persuaded him to mount is horse, and had it not been for the assistance of the valet and Antoine the Wolf-Killer he could not have accomplished it. On towards Rheims in solitary sadness. As they came to another rising in the roads, they saw once more the long procession of scattered torches disappearing in the distance, and heard the last notes, faintly borne upon the night-wind, of the song of the Debardeur. A week of the quiet and repose at the comfortable hotel at Rheims opposite the great cathedral, and Alfred was sufficiently restored to travel quietly to Nanteuil. Here he met with the kind-hearted Pierre. How shocked the latter was at the appearance of his friend! The last week had changed him more than all the rest of the time that had passed between the duel and the night-burial. But we must give over our cares for a time: have we not a wedding in prospect? Have we not Touchstone and Audrey to unite in the holy bonds? And news, too, from Paris! For some weeks Alfred had not heard from Pierre, who now brought the intelligence that Grandpere was dead. Before he died he had called the boys to his bedside and told them that he had made his will according to their various dispositions. "Paul," he said, tenderly squeezing him by the hand, "you will find I have not forgotten you." But upon reading the will they found this clause in it: "To my grandson Paul I leave ten thousand francs and my blessing. Serious persons have little need of money here, as their enjoyments are chiefly to be looked for in another world." "The rest of his fortune," said Pierre, "save some legacies, he left to me." Here the lively fellow's eyes filled with tears. "Poor grandpapa! how I shall miss the dear old man!" The wedding now made its appearance. And such a wedding! Thanks to Pierre who undertook the trouble, and Alfred who provided the means, such a wedding had never been seen before in Nanteuil. The widow Pitaud and the eight children had all new dresses, and -only think of it, too!-from Paris! Confections, wind, and wonderful dishes were not wanting in the humble cottage that day. As for the bride, this humble pen cannot describe the ravishing perfection of her dress. Her head was dressed with such skill that it drew the eyes of all the village girls upon it, and awed them so much at church that they never heard a word of the ceremony. Her plump little arms were bare from the shoulders to the wrist, where her white gloves clung to them like a drowning sailor to his mast; a pair of elegant pearl bracelets gleamed over her gloves and over the folds of her delicate lace handkerchief, and her plump dove-like neck and shoulders were sufficiently bare to show off to great advantage a sympathetic circlet also of fine pearls, that would never be quiet, but kept bubbling up and down344 The Sound Of A Voice. with momentous emotion, as if the necklace itself were to be married, and not the bride. Then for the music: why, there was not a black-and-tan-colored violin, nor flute, nor clarionet, in the village, nor reedy bassoon, nor church violencello, that did not do parade-duty that day. And as for flowers? Winter as it was, they had flowers enough scattered through Nanteuil to make you feel that you were on a picnic in the bowers of Eden. As for Isidore, he was dressed in a brand-new suit from head to heel, that still had the smell of the tailor's goose upon it, and a white favor upon his breast that was as big and as round as his own happy face. Yet he was in trouble. He had not had time to go to Paris to get his hair cut. It had been cut by the village barber. Alas! Pierce Laborde, whose wedding-presents were numerous and appropriate, was the life and soul of the party. Alfred, with melancholy grace, gave away the bride. But at the dance afterwards even Isidore was eclipsed by Monsieur Laborde. Every peasant-girl, now a sunburnt blonde with yellow hair and blue twinklers. Even old widow Pitaud came in for a share of his attentions. He was the idol of the village musicians, for he could play a little on the violin, and it was amusing indeed to see his trim figure and his intellectual moustache at work amidst the rustic orchestra, with their grotesque faces and their old viols and clarionets. But even a wedding must have an end. Rest, happy bride and groom. Long years of content and joy be your portion in this life! Alfred provided for then moderately according to the advice of his friend. As for her who had so untimely perished in the flower of her youth, what could be done? A small spot was purchased around her humble grave, and laid out with sward and sweet-smelling shrubs. An iron railing enclosed all. Thither he went from time to time with baskets of rare flowers, and tenderly laid them upon the sacred repository of her dust. But not long. In obedience to a tender letter from his mother, he crossed the seas once more and was clasped in those maternal arms which alone could alleviate the aching of his heart. As years rolled on, his strength and health returned, and as the world newly awakened to him he loved again, and married at last. Nor was he the worse husband for his brief experience in Paris. A tender melancholy ever played about his sweet smile; and as his little boys and girls grew up and clustered about the young mother., Alfred would quietly place his chair by the side of his mother, take her hand in his, and gaze at their happy gambols with peace in his heart. The End. Some Familiar Letters By Horace Greeley. 345 Some Familiar Letters By Horace Greeley. If we except Abraham Lincoln and Benjamin Franklin, there is hardly another so individual and piquant a personality to be found in American history as that of Horace Greeley. What a strong, effusive character he was, --autochthonous, and unique in many ways. The good nature and beneficence and homely philosophy of the two great men we have classed with him were qualities that he, also, eminently illustrated. We may differ in opinion with such men as these, as we sometimes must; but we cannot easily doubt their inherent nobleness and sincerity. Their very style of speech revealed their downright, straightforward meaning. Hypocrisy was as foreign as generosity was natural to each of them. In the search for truth it was the real meaning of a thing-- or, to use Matthew Arnold's phrase, "to see the thing as it, in itself, is" --that was the end of all their studies and mental quests. Mr. Greeley may not have kept up the Plutarchan parallel one is tempted to draw, in steady balance of mind, or in certain other qualities, with either his illustrious predecessor or with his famed contemporary with whom I have compared him; but he completes with them a somewhat homogeneous trio, the like of which, I imagine, it will take more than another century of our national existence to repeat for us. Mr. Greeley's pen was surely not always velvet-footed. He gave heavy blows in a time when the amenities of journalism were not even thought of. Resentments were endangered, often, and it is not the nature of resentment to be judicial. On account of these, perhaps,-- though he lived before the public with a frankness equalling the fidelity of his utterance,--he was, occasionally, one of the most egregiously misrepresented persons of his time. There were a few chosen friends, who shared in a close intimacy with him, who could at any time have corrected the uncharitable inferences that gained currency about his alleged ambition, and who knew that the loss of the Presidency did not seriously disappoint or affect him. But--so little has their opinion prevailed--it is still popularly supposed by many that the died on account of his defeat. On the contrary, there has probably never been a man defeated in the struggle for that high place who did take, or could have taken, the disappointment with a more cheerful philosophy. Two years before the Presidential election of 1872, as I happen to know, his health was badly broken by the results of malarial poison. I doubt if he ever quite recovered from its malign effects. Yet he was idle. Such letters as he wrote were with his own hand; and he was even writing for a cyclopedia, among other tasks,--to say nothing of enduring the tiresomeness of greeting and shaking hands with thousands of people for the long six months of his candidacy. H was at different times travelling and making speeches. When he was upon that Vol. XLVII.--23346 SOME FAMILIAR LETTERS BY HORACE GREELEY. famous Western tour, near the end of the Presidential campaign,-- marvellous for his twenty and more speeches a day from the railroad platform, and no one of them repeating another,--it was currently said that he "tired almost to death" the young representatives of the press who followed to report him. This tour was hardly ended, when it became apparent that his wife was slowly dying ; and for weeks he lost sleep in his anxiety over her situation. Then a conspiracy to take the Tribune from him followed. Is not here enough to account for the destruction of two or three men ? But malevolence must have its say, and it has been busy saying that he died from disappointed ambition. During the campaign spoken of--as well as before it--Mr. Greeley was engaged on a remarkable private correspondence with an esteemed friend, a correspondence which let everything be spoken. In fact, its freedom was so great that passages in these letters can never properly be printed. Fortunately, they happen to throw some light upon the matter of his ambition, and illustrate the man in more than one retrieving direction. These familiar and friendly letters have been confided to me to edit, and to publish, so far as they can be resonably exhibited to public scrutiny. They are offered by the person to whom they were adressed, in the belief that they will do him credit, and help-- where ha has been maligned--to give the truth which will prove to be his vindication. The person to whom they were written is a lady of remarkable judgment and intelligence ; and she was, perhaps, the most intimate friend and acquaintance of all Mr. Greeley's later life. Of this attachment--formed first through religious sympathies--she was entirely worthy. But her benevolent character, he keen disconcertment, and her sunny spirit, she drew, and still holds, a social circle of noted people about herself, who cannot say too much of her philosophy and virtues. She shrinks with natural delicacy from having her name connected with this presentation, but gives me--except a command not to omit certain paragraphs which she has named in correspondence --the widest latitude in it preparation. The task, as I saw from the first, requires a nicety of judgement which I trust I have not overstepped. The letters are arranged below in chronological order. I have made in them only such omissions as seem absolutely necessary, and which are indicated. Here for the last few years of his life Horace Greeley laid his whole heart open to be read as an open book. They constitute unquestionably the most unreserved correspondence he ever indited. Written in haste, in moments of fatigue,--sometimes in the midst of a rapid journey, and hardly ever with the benefit of leisurely composition, --they furnished for him the most welcome communications and relaxation he ever had. It cannot be possible that the public will not read them with keen interest and rise from their perusal with and enhanced admiration of the man. The recent sad destruction, too, of so many of his papers by the burning of his daughter's house at Chappaqua, will make more rare and welcome these utterances, as well as whatever else is left, in any new quarter, to add to his history. Joel Benton. SOME FAMILIAR LETTERS BY HORACE GREELEY. 347 I. NEW YORK, September 24, 1870. MY FRIEND,--I found at Gloucester what seems to be my fate,-- hard work. Going into the Convention,* I listened to the report of a committee which had been chosen last year to prepare and submit reformed constitutions for the denomination throughout. There was instantly developed a strong opposition, which seemed intent on talking the Convention into a postponement as nearly indefinite as might be. So I took hold for the committee and made myself a general nuisance by insisting that delegates should speak to the question or subside, by calling incessantly for a vote instead of mere talk, and by moving the previous question whenever I could with any hope of being sustained. The result was that I made some enemies, but the constitutions, slightly amended, were all carried and sent to the State Conventions for approval and ratification. This took nearly all my time, and I at last ran out of the Convention to snatch my valise and strike for the cars. Wednesday morning we adjourned to hear Dr. Miner's sermon, and that was all the sermon I heard in Gloucester. I heard none of the popular speeches. Wednesday afternoon from three to five o'clock I devoted to looking for you, standing on high ground between streams of people from the tent and from the mass meeting outside, where they met to take the way back to Gloucester ; but, while I saw almost every one, including Rev. ---- looking hard for his wife, I recognized no face [from your town] ; and so, at 1:35 on Thursday, I came off, having business at Salem which compelled me to take the owl train from Boston at 9 P.M. I hope we shall meet again ere many months, but I cannot join the pilgrims to Good Luck, as I start for St. Louis at 9 P. M. of Tuesday. I did not see you yesterday--or rather you did not find me--because I was obliged to visit my farm, and that tool all day. But I received your friend's note on my return last night, and beg her to receive this with thanks as my response. Tell her it is the only letter among at least thirty received together that I have found time to answer. That health may bless you and happiness crown your days, and that these may be long in the land, is the fervent prayer of Yours, HORACE GREELEY. II. GREELEY, COLORADO, Thursday, October 13, 1870. MY FRIEND,--I have been a fortnight (almost) wandering through West Virginia, Ohio, Missouri, Kansas, etc., to this place, where on my arrival from Denver to-day I found your welcome letter,--none among the many awaiting me more welcome, except that of my daughter I----, * The Universalist Convention,--not a political one.--J. B.348 Some familiar letters by Horace Greeley. informing me of her safe arrival in London with her invalid mother, who seemed scarcely the worse for the long and ill-advised journey. Let me give you some ides of this place and people. Between the main branches which form the river Platte, several smaller rivers or large creeks issue from the eastern base of the Rocky Mountains, and, after a short cruise over the Plains, fall into the North or the South Platte. The largest of these is the Laramie; next comes the Cache a Poudre, which rises in the snowy range near Long's Peak and runs nearly due east into the South Platte, about half-way of its course over the Plains. The new Denver Pacific Road connecting the Kansas Pacific at Denver with the Union Pacific at Cheyenne crosses the Cache a Poudre five miles above its junction with the South Platte, and here is located around the railroad station, which has as yet no depot, the new village of Greeley, youngest cousin of Jonah's gourd. The location was pitched upon by the locating committee of our Union Colony about the 1st of March last, the land secured soon afterward, and the settlers began arriving on the bare, bleak prairie early in May. There were no buildings, and nothing whereof to erect them, and the soil could not be cultivated to any purpose without irrigation; yet here we have already some seven hundred families, three hundred houses built or nearly finished in the village, one hundred more scattered on the prairie around, and probably two thousand persons in all, with more daily arriving. We have an irrigating canal which takes water from the Cache six miles above and distributes it over one thousand acres, as it will do over several thousand more; and we are making another in the north side of the Cache very much longer, which is to irrigate at least twenty thousand acres. WE are soon to have a newspaper (we already have a bank), and we calculate that our colony will give at least five hundred majority for a Republican President in 1872, after harvesting that year a wheat-crop of not less than fifty thousand bushels, with other crops to match. And we hope to incite the foundation of many such colonies on every side of us. But enough of this. I spoke to the colonists in the open air yesterday, traversed the settlement and examined its canal, to the head and leave this morning on the train for home, where I hope to be, thankful for a safe and rapid journey, on Monday evening next. This letter would reach you sooner if I carried it, but I wish it to bear the proper post-mark, and to show you that I write at sunrise, looking off upon the Rocky Mountains, which present a bold and even front some twenty-five miles westward, with Long's Peak about sixty miles off as the crow flies, and many others covered with eternal snow glistening behind and around it. Excuse great haste, for I have much to do before leaving a 9:45, and believe me ever Yours, Horace Greeley. III New York, February 28, 1871 My Friend,-I have refrained for a week from thanking you for the happy day I had at J--, and which I should probably Some Familiar letters b Horace Greeley. 349 have missed but for you. Mrs. R--'s eyes were very pathetic, but am hardening myself to say "No" to such, but the thought that you would be glad to see me in your village on the occasion decided me to go. And my reward was the only day in many months that was one of enjoyment and not work. For this-though I believe I first volunteered to go, as I did to speak-I give all my thanks to you. Seeing Barnum at church on Sunday, I asked him about your expected visit, and he said he thought you (and Mrs. R--) would come to his house whenever I would. But he had not seen your mother, which I had, and I am so accustomed to sickness that is serious that I apprehend your mother may not be able to spare you while the weather remains capricious and at times severe as in our March. I do not know how old your other is; but she looks over seventy, and if so her hold on life cannot be firm. Now, I want you to be without care and unlikely to be called suddenly home when you visit our city, and this involves your mother's complete restoration and reasonable assurance that her good health will endure. Please let me hear what is the prospect, and when we may expect you to come over resolved to remain not less than two Sundays at least. I am anxious, if the weather should permit, that you should be one of a small party to visit my country home (where nobody lives*) and see what a nice place it would be if only good people actually did live there. But I am forgetting that my pen-marks are hard to decipher, for which forgive me, and good-by. Yours, Horace Greeley. IV. New York, March 17, 1871.My Friend, -I have your letter of the 15th, but will not yet abandon the hope of your visit. I saw when with you that your mother was likely to be quite sick; but spring is a good restorer, and I will hope to hear that she Is well again, and that you will come to see us. If you can obtain another copy of the J-- paper, please cut out the account of your dedication and enclose it to me. Mr. Barnum received the copy you sent him but mine failed. I infer that the Tribune office devoured it. I would like to see it. I am very glad that my remarks satisfied your judgment. At the time it must have seemed presumptuous and even intrusive in me to offer to speak when no one asked me, but I felt that some things needed to be said that others would not be likely to say, so I volunteered; and I think what I said would make the orthodox regard our little band more kindly. Since you approve, I am doubly glad that I offered to speak. *As allowance must be made for some reader who may not quite understand Mr. Greeley's vein of humor, it will be proper to say that he had many neighbors at Chappaqua, whom he highly esteemed. His playful expression meant, of course, that the hamlet about his house was a quiet little dreamthorp. -J.B. 350, SOME FAMILIAR LETTERS BY HORACE GREELEY. I do not reconcile myself be Br. R____'s bodily weakness. It seems to me that he has no right to be an invalid. I must speak sharply to him on the subject when we meet again. I shall surely try to visit J_____ again, even though you never come to see us. No doubt I shall find an excuse where the will is so good. With kind remembrance to all friends, I remain Yours, HORACE GREELEY. VI. NEW YORK, April 5, 1871. MY FRIEND,--- I have yours of the 3d. I hoped that you could come to spend a few days with us. Now that this is not to be, I am convinced that all is for the best. I should have been too busy to see much of you, except on Saturday and Sunday, with half an hour at breakfast on other days; and I wished to meet you under better auspices. Yet I can't attend the General Convention (Universalist) next September at Philadelphia, where you are sure to be, since I must then be in the West. Next month I go to Texas. So, you see, my life is all a fevered march, and I now seem unlikely ever to sit down and have a quiet talk with you. (I have some dry cedar wood up at Chappaqua, which I have long purposed to burn in an open fireplace on a succession of winter evenings, while I sit before it with a few dear friends, read poems, and talk over our past lives. But I guess that cedar will remain unburned till after my funeral.) I regret to find you inclined to disparage yourself. There are but two kinds of people on this planet, - those who try in some humble way to do good, and the other sort. The former are all equals, and should so regard themselves, as well as each other. I have no friends who would not be happy and proud of your acquaintance. SOME FAMILIAR LETTERS BY HORACE GREELEY 351 Well, I shall take my daughter G_____ (now fourteen, almost) and go up to Tarrytown on Friday evening to see a good friend, and then over to Chappaqua next morning, even though it rain. I hope to have a long bright day there. And so, dear friend, adieu, and believe me. Yours truly, HORACE GREELEY. VII. NEW YORK, April 20, 1871. MY FRIEND, -- I have yours of the 18th, and thank you for so good an excuse for saying that I and my baby (almost fourteen) had a very choice Saturday at Chappaqua. We went up to Tarrytown on Friday evening to visit dear friends, then drove across (ten miles) to Chappaqua. The day was bright and quite warm, as you know. A friend and his daughter accompanied us, and brought us back in the afternoon to Tarrytown, whence we came home that night. I remember few days more entirely enjoyable. I went up again last Saturday; but the day was dull and many things went awry. I lost my pocket-book coming down, telegraphed two ways for it, and it was thereupon found in the Sing-Sing depot; but I did not receive it till yesterday, and meantime I had two places to speak, for one of which I relied upon my memorandum in diary and had hard work to find the place. I was befriended by a good Providence in that, as in finding my pocket-book after it had lain three hours in a busy depot unnoticed. So, on the whole, that visit turned out well. I go to Texas reluctantly. There seems no choice but to be in the world or out of it. I am not sufficiently broken down to refuse to bear my part among men; so I keep on. It will be just the same a hundred years hence. You judge that men will not suffer forever. If to suffer implies pain, I agree with you. In the sense of loss, I think suffering will endure. That is, I believe the very wicked here will never be quite so well off as though they had been good- that they will never make up the leeway they lost while serving the enemy here. I judge that Mary Magdalene is now, and ever will be, in a lower grade than Mary the mother of Jesus. As to the Scriptures, please consider Daniel xii, 3. I do not insist that this refers especially to the future life; I only urge that it indicates the general principles on which the divine government rests. So of all that speaks of "rendering to every man according to his works." These passages may not specially apply to the future life; but their spirit pervades all God's dealings with men. I did send you The Independent, wishing you to see what I hold. I hope your friend's visit gave you real pleasure, and that you will yet visit your friends in this city, and never fail to count among them. Yours, HORACE GREELEY352 A MYSTERIOUS CASE A MYSTERIOUS CASE It was a mystery to me, but not to the other doctors. They took, as was natural, the worst possible view of the matter, and accepted the only solution which the facts seemed to warrant. But they are men, and I am a woman; besides, I knew the nurse well, and could not believe her capable of wilful deceit, much less of the heinous crime which deceit in this case involved. So to me the affair was a mystery, and, as such, a matter to be penetrated, though the difficulties in the way of doing this seemed at the moment insurmountable. The facts were these. My patient, a young type-writer, seemingly without friends or enemies, lay in the small room of a boarding-house, afflicted with a painful but not dangerous malady. Though she was comparatively helpless, her vital organs were strong, and we never had a moment's uneasiness concerning her, till one morning when we found here in an almost dying condition from having taken, as we quickly discovered, a dose of poison instead of the soothing mixture which had been left for her with the nurse. Poison ! and no one, not even herself or the nurse, could explain how the same got into the room, much less into her medicine. And when I came to study the situation I found myself as much at a loss as they; indeed more so; for I knew I had made no mistake in preparing the mixture, and that, even if I had, this especial poison could not have found its way into it, owing to the fact that there neither was nor ever had been a drop of it in my possession. The mixture, then, was pure when if left my hand, and according to the nurse, whom as I have said, I implicitly believe, it went into the glass pure. And yet when two hours later, without her having left the room or anybody coming in it, she found occasion to administer the draught, poison was in the cup, and the patient was only saved from death by the most immediate and energetic measures, not only on her part, but on that of Dr. Holmes, whom in her haste and perturbation she had called in from the adjacent house. The patient, young, innocent, unfortunate, but of a strangely courageous disposition, betrayed nothing but the utmost surprise at the peril she had so narrowly escaped. When Dr. Holmes intimated that perhaps she had been tired of suffering and had herself found means of putting the deadly drug into her medicine, she opened her great gray eyes with such a look of child-like surprise and reproach that he blushed, and murmured some sort of apology. "Poison myself?" She cried, "when you promise me that I shall get well? You do not know what a horror I have of dying in debt, or you would never say that." This was some time after the critical moment had passed, and there were in the room Mrs. Dayton, the landlady, Dr. Holmes, the nurse, and myself. At the utterance of these words we all felt ashamed and cast looks of an increased interest at the poor girl. She was very lovely. Though without means, and to all appearance A MYSTERIOUS CASE 353 appearance without friends, she possessed in great degree the charm of winsomeness, and not even her many sufferings, nor the indignation under which she was then laboring, could quite rob her countenance of that tender and confiding expression which so often redeems the plainest face and makes beauty doubly attractive. "Dr. Holmes does not know you," I hastened to say. "I do, and utterly repel for you any such insinuation. In return, will you tell me if there is any one in the world whom you can call your enemy? Though the chief mystery is how so deadly and unusual a poison could have got into a clean glass, without the knowledge of yourself or the nurse, still it might not be amiss to know if there is any one, here or elsewhere, who for any reason might desire your death." The surprise in the child-like eyes increased rather than diminished. "I don't know what to say," she murmured. "I am so insignificant and feeble a person that it seems absurd for me to talk of having an enemy. Besides, I have none. On the contrary, every one seems to love me more than I deserve. Haven't you noticed it, Mrs. Dayton?" The landlady smiled and stroked the sick girl's hand. "Indeed," she replied, "I have noticed that people love you, but I have never thought it that it was more than you deserved. You are a dear little thing, Addie." And though they knew and I knew that the "every one" mentioned by the poor girl meant ourselves and possibly her unknown employer, we were none the less touched by her words, or inclined to believe that the facts were as she had stated, and that the accident rather than malice lay at the base of the deplorable occurrence we were endeavoring to fathom. But what accident? Does poison drop from the walls or evolve itself out of the air which we breathe? The more we studied the mystery, the deeper and less explainable did it become. And indeed I doubt if we should have ever got to the bottom of it, if there had not presently occurred in my patient a repetition of the same dangerous symptoms, followed by the same discovery of poison in the glass, and the same failure on the part of herself and nurse to account for it. I was roused from my bed at midnight to attend her, and as I entered her room and met her beseeching eyes looking upon me from the very shadow of death, I made a vow that I would never cease my efforts till I had penetrated the secret of what certainly looked like a persistent attempt on upon the poor girl's life. I went about the matter deliberately. As soon as I could leave her side, I drew the nurse into a corner and again questioned her. The answers were the same as before. Addie had shown distress as soon as she had swallowed her usual quantity of medicine, and in a few minutes more was in a perilous condition. "Did you hand the glass yourself to Addie?" "I did." "Where did you take it from?" "From the place where you left it,— the little stand on the farther side of the bed."354 A MYSTERIOUS CASE "And do you mean to say that you had not touched it since I prepared it." "I do ma'am." "And that no one else had been in the room?" "No one, ma'am." I looked at her intently. I trusted her, but the best of us are but mortal. "Can you assure me that you have not been asleep during this time?" "Look at this letter I have been writing," she returned. "It is eight pages long, and it was not begun when you left us at ten." I shook my head and fell into a deep revery. How was this matter to be elucidated, and how was my patient to be saved? Another draught of this deadly poison, and no power on earth could resuscitate her. What should I do, and with what weapons should I combat a danger at once so subtle and so deadly? Reflection brought no decision, and I left the room at last, determined upon but one point, and that was the immediate removal of my patient. But before I had left the house I changed my mind even on this point. Removal of the patient meant safety to her, perhaps, but not the explanation of her mysterious poisoning. I would change the position of her bed, and I would even set a watch over her and the nurse, but I would not take her out of the house,—not yet. And what had produced this change in my plans? The look of a woman whom I met on the stairs. I did not know her; but when I encountered her glance I felt that there was some connection between us, and I was not at all surprised to hear her ask, — "And so how is Miss Wilcox, to-day?" "Miss Wilcox is very low," I returned. "The least neglect, the least shock to her nerves would be sufficient to make all my efforts useless. Otherwise―" "She will get well?" I nodded. I had exaggerated the condition of the sufferer, but some secret instinct compelled me to do so. The look which passed over the woman's face satisfied me that I had done well; and, though I left the house, it was with the intention of speedily returning and making inquiries into the woman's character and position in the household. I learned little or nothing. That she occupied a good room and paid for it regularly seemed to be sufficient to satisfy Mrs. Dayton. Her name, which proved to be Leroux, showed her to be French, and her promptly-paid ten dollars a week showed her to be respectable: what more could any hard-working landlady require? But I was distrustful. Her face, though handsome, possessed an eager, ferocious look which I could not forget, and the slight gesture with which she had passed me at the close of the short conversation I have given above had a suggestion of triumph in it which seemed to contain whole volumes of secret and mysterious hate. I went into Miss Wilcox's room very thoughtful. "I am going― " A MYSTERIOUS CASE 355 But here the nurse held up her hand. "Hark," she whispered; she had just set the clock, and she was listening to its striking. I did hark, but not to the clock. "Whose step is that?" I asked, after she had left the clock and sat down. "Oh, some one in the next room. The walls here are very thin, — only boards in places." I did not complete what I had begun to say. If I could hear steps through the partition, then could our neighbors hear us talk, and what I had determined upon must be kept secret from all outsiders. I drew a sheet of paper towards me and wrote, — "I shall stay here to-night. Something tells me that in doing this I shall solve the mystery. But I must appear to go. Take my instructions as usual and bid me good-night. Lock the door after me, but with a turn of the key instantly unlock it again. I shall go downstairs, see that my carriage drives away, and quietly return. On my re-entrance I shall expect to find Miss Wilcox on the couch with the screen drawn up around it, you in your big chair, and the light lowered. What I did thereafter need not concern you. Pretend to go to sleep." The nurse nodded, and immediately entered upon the programme I had planned. I prepared the medicine as usual, placed it in its usual glass, and laid that glass where it had always been set, on a small table at the farther side of the bed. Then I said,"Good-night," and passed hurriedly out. I was fortunate enough to meet no one, going or coming. I regained the room, pushed open the door, and, finding everything in order, proceeded at once to the bed, upon which, after taking off my hat and cloak and carefully concealing them, I lay down and deftly covered myself up. My idea was this: that, by some mesmeric influence of which she was ignorant, the nurse had been forced to either poison glass herself or open the door for another to do it. If this were so, she or the other person would be obliged to pass around the foot of the bed in order to reach the glass, and I should be sure to see it, for I did not pretend to sleep. By the low light, enough to could be discerned for safe movement about the room and no enough to make apparent the change which had been made in the occupant of the bed. I waited with indescribable anxiety, and more than once fancied I heard steps, if not a feverish breathing close to my bed-head; but no one appeared, and the nurse in her big chair did not stir. At last I grew weary and fearful of losing control over my eyelids, I fixed my gaze upon the glass, as if in so doing I should find a talisman to keep me awake, when great God! what was it that I saw! A hand, a creeping hand coming from nowhere and joined to nothing, closing about that glass and drawing it slowly away till it disappeared entirely from before my eyes! I gasped, — I could not help it, — but I did not stir. For now I knew I was asleep and dreaming. But no, I pinch myself under the clothes and I find that I am very wide awake indeed; and then, —356 A MYSTERIOUS CASE look! look! the glass is returning; the hand— a woman's hand — is slowly setting it back in its place, and― With a bound I have that hand in my grasp. It is a living hand, and it is very warm and strong and fierce, and the glass has fallen and lies shattered between us, and a double cry is heard, one from behind the partition, through an opening in which this hand has been thrust, and one from the nurse, who has jumped to her feet and is even now assisting me in holding the struggling member, upon which I have managed to scratch a tell-tale mark with a piece of the fallen glass. A sight of the iron-like grip which this latter lays upon the intruding member, I at once release my own grasp. "Hold on," I cried; and, leaping from the bed, I hastened first to my patient, whom I carefully reassured, and then into the hall, where I found the landlady running to see what was the matter. "I have found the wretch," I cried, and drawing her after me, hurried about to the other side of the partition, where I found a closet, and in it the woman I had met on the stairs, but glaring now like a tiger in her rage, menace, and fear. That woman was my humble little patient's bitter but unknown enemy. Enamoured of a man who—unwisely, perhaps—had expressed in her hearing his admiration for the pretty type-writer, she had conceived the idea that he intended to marry the latter, and, vowing vengeance, had taken up her abode in the same house with the innocent girl, where, had it not been for the fortunate circumstance of my meeting her on the stairs, she would certainly have carried out her scheme of vile and secret murder. The poison she had bought in another city, and the hole in the partition she had herself cut. This had been done at first for the purpose of observation, she having detected in passing by Miss Wilcox's open door that a banner of painted silk hung over that portion of the wall in such a way as to hide any aperture which might be made there. Afterwards when Miss Wilcox fell sick and she discovered by short glimpses through her loop-hole that the glass of medicine was placed on a table just under this banner, she could not resist the temptation to enlarge the hole to a size sufficient to admit the pushing aside of the banner and the reaching through of her murderous hand. Why she did not put poison enough in the glass to kill Miss Wilcox at once, I have never heard. Probably she feared detection. That by doing as she did she brought about the very event she had endeavored to avert is the most pleasing part of the tale. When the gentleman of whom I have spoken heard of the wicked attempt which had been made upon Miss Wilcox's life, his heart took pity upon her, and a marriage ensued, which I have every reason to believe is a happy one. Anna Katharine Green. "THE REFINER OF SILVER." 357 "THE REFINER OF SILVER" (MALACHI iii. 3) "FEAR NOT." TWO "LEAFLETS" SENT BY AN UNKNOWN FRIEND ON CHRISTMAS DAY, 1890. "God has burned up your happiness. Be thankful that you have been found worthy of the fire of trial."— REV. S. BROOKE. "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God [i.e., work for good ends], to them who are the called according to His purpose." — Heading to one of the Leaflets:— from ROMANS viii. 28. SERENELY on my thorny way From year to year, from day to day, My steps are led by guiding Hand, From land to sea, from sea to land. I know, though molten heat be great, Who sits to watch the liquid state: When His blest image* falls within, Then doth the Master's work begin. He will not make the flame too strong, He will not leave the flame too long; No fear have I of furnace-fire, Since what He wills I most desire. In all His words believe I must,― For though He slay, in him I trust: He is my Light, my Light, my All; What could affright? — what can appall? His purpose chose me in the past, When, in the billowy fire cast, My dazed eyes all my treasures saw Burn like the stubble and the straw. No, not my erring will be done! The Master's work is but begun; He'll take the silver from the flame To stamp His image and His name. Clara Jessup Moore. ——————————————— *"The refiner of silver only knows when the process of purifying is complete by seeing his own image reflected in the silver." —Leaflet.CLAGHORN. DU CHAILLU. GILL. STODDART. CHILDS. LATHROP. GRIBATEDOFF HAWTHORNE. PHILIPS. COOK. GARRISON. ROUND-ROBIN TALKS. 359 ROUND-ROBIN TALKS. IV. THIS meeting was practically impromptu. There chanced in town two notables, charming fellows both, whom one would gladly go far to seek. Mr. Paul B. Du Chaillu, African explorer, cosmopolite, discoverer of the gorilla and of the pygmies, and author of "The Viking Age," has made his name not only beloved of all general readers, but respected of naturalists, archaeologists, and historians. The Hon. T. P. Gill, Irish member of Parliament, not less broad in his scholarship than strenuous as a statesman, paused for a few hours in the furtherance of a great mission and cheerfully joined us at table. Mr. Du Chaillu came to us escorted by Mr. George W. Childs, whose guest he was; and of Mr. Childs the merest introductory word of ours would be superfluous. Lately he told in brief the story of his interesting life to readers of this magazine; and to all the world, the lowliest and the loftiest in it, his name has been made known through the glory of his good deeds. George Parsons Lathrop was there; the poet of the circle; a rare good fellow, seldom seen away from home. Mr. Lathrop's various contributions to literature are of the kind that lives; his conversation is of the kind that charms. Next to Gill sat Mr. Raymond Claghorn, son of the late James L. Claghorn, a distinguished Philadelphia patron of art, who possessed at the time of his death the most valuable private collection of prints in the United States. Captain Robert J. Cook, deep and broad of chest, sat beside Melville Philips. The captain ("Bob" Cook, as college men like to call him) has achieved distinction in the management of a great newspaper; but, aside from his success in the more serious affairs of life, the "Cook stroke" alone would perpetuate his name and fame in bringing about scientific cultivation of the art of rowing among amateurs in America. To be a judge so learned and just as Charles G. Garrison of New Jersey means, to those who know him, the enviable realization of a lofty ambition. Albeit not yet arrived at middle age, Judge Garrison has attained to great success in the two learned professions of medicine and the law. Few men are so multiform in ability as the polyglot artist Mr. Valerian Gribayedoff. Born in Russia, but educated in the countries of Central Europe, his English is as faultless as his French, and both are beyond criticism - like his German and Spanish. In our own tongue he writes and talks delightfully. His pen-and-ink sketches are finely free and full of vigor. Mr. Julian Hawthorne and Mr. Melville Philips have sat at the Round Table before. 360 ROUND-ROBIN TALKS. The talk rippled around and splashed across the board until it lay bare of cloth. Then the steady current set in, as follows: Du Chaillu (contentedly). —A good dinner. Hawthorne.—A goodly company. Childs. —And the two make perfection. Stoddart.—You ought to know. I suppose no man alive has dined more delightful people. Childs. —Nonsense! Gill. —That is your reputation abroad. You see, you have done so many good things for us foreigners, and you have are given so many of us such good things to eat, that it's no wonder you are commonly esteemed over there as the best of men. Philips. —How does it feel to be a man of distinction? Stoddart.—Speaking to me? Philips.—I was soliloquizing. Lathrop.—Well, Philips, in the first place― Cook.—If you will ask me that question, my dear Philips, when I'm at leisure, I'll take pleasure― Garrison (rapidly and with decision). —It's a very delightful feeling. Claghorn.— I've found it so. Childs. —Some men of distinction have not. The achievement of a great reputation is likely to entail a loss of personal liberty. Some men, it seems, find that irksome. I remember that Dr. Elisha Kent Kane, the Arctic explorer, came to me one day after his book, which I published had won its great success, and complained in a quizzical tone of the harm I had worked him. "See here, Childs," he said, "my life is a burden. I am no longer a free man. One of the joys of living is an oyster-stew, and until lately I relished it. Now that you have made such a big man of me, I can't venture into the cellars I used to haunt. Give me back my liberty." Cook.—Mr. Du Chaillu, speaking as an explorer and à propos of that oyster-stew, what did you find worth eating in the Equatorial forest of Africa? Du Chaillu.—Monkeys. Hawthorne.—Let us change the subject. Stoddart.—Tell us, friend Paul, how old you were when you tackled your first gorilla. Philips.—Don't embarrass him! Du Chaillu has lived ninety-two years, and has never clapped eyes on a gorilla yet. Ask him how long he expects it will be before he does see one. Du Chaillu.—Ha, ha! (Smiles grimly, and goes on in his inimitable Creole brogue). —Yes, I see him. Dat was in 1857. I was eighteen, — eighteen. Stoddart. —In Africa, wasn't it? Whereabouts? Du Chaillu.—On ze west coast, — about three hundred miles inside. Come, I tell you about it. You see, I am a boy, and I take the map of Africa: all black! — all black! I think to myself, 'I go there!' I buy a ship, — five thousand dollars. We get there, — off the coast, — and I go ashore; all alone. Here there was a chorus of interrogations. Was he scared? Did ROUND-ROBIN TALKS. 361 they try to kill him? How did he talk to them? Did he fight his way, like Stanley, or get friendly with them? — Du Chaillu replied that he made himself as agreeable as he knew how; that he wooed them with glass beads and other baubles; that he conversed by sign-language: and of this he gave us some vivid illustrations. The people were cannibals: "I find zem very nice fellows — ze cannibals," he observed; but he would not admit that he had partaken of of their banquets. When he sought to get recruits to go with him after gorillas (of which they gave him accounts), they declined. But upon his offering them a bribe of as many beads as each man could carry, three warriors consented to accompany him. The price was measured out, and they set about their preparations. First, with the points of their knives they gashed their hands and wrists, holding them over a dish, into which the blood fell, with which they rubbed themselves. Then they fetched certain skulls of the more heroic among their ancestors, and scraped some of the bony dust off their surface, and mixed it with grass and some other things in the war-dish. Finally they swallowed the mixture, affirming that it would render them also heroic. Thus fortified, they gathered together their weapons and provender, and set forth into primeval forest. The story of the march through this forest cannot be written: no one who listened to the telling but knows that. The narrator forgot his audience: he was in the forest again, and he took us with him. He rose from the table, and stood in the space at the end of the room. The light fell upon his small, sturdy figure, and showed the changing expressions of his vivid, swarthy face, and the gestures of his arms and hands. But we became unconscious of the room, and of the light, and of one another. We saw the shadows of the enormous forest, with trees whose boles rose four hundred feet aloft and were thirty feet in diameter at the base. They stood thickly together: the sunshine could not pierce their canopy. The fallen leaves of generations upon generations had formed a mould beneath them many feet in depth. But amidst this pathlessness there was a path, — the only means of communication between the coast and the remote villages of the interior. Stray from this trail but a few rods, and you might spend the rest of your life trying to find it again. As they left the settled region behind them, the traces of animal life became more and more scarce; for it is a singular fact that most birds prefer to live in the neighborhood of man. The vast, shadowy forest became silent: even the songs of the birds (some hundred varieties of which Du Chaillu learned to recognize) were heard no more. Mile after mile the little white man and the three tall cannibals strode after one another, hearing no sound louder than their own almost noiseless footfalls. Mile after mile, day after day, the march continued. Everywhere solitude, the gigantic columns of the trees, the overspreading foliage far above, the sense of remoteness, of suspense, of curiosity. But, stout-hearted, unweariable, he enjoyed it all. Unlike another great explorer, he was not oppressed with horror of that interminable wilderness, for he was a botanist and a naturalist, and found at every step something to interest or surprise him. He dreaded no human foes, for he had none: the man-eaters were his friends, and would not harm him. Onward VOL XLVII.—24362 ROUND-ROBIN TALKS. they trudged, along the faint path, through the interminable vistas. No gorillas yet. But after several days there was an event. Du Chaillu was walking, as was his custom, some distance in advance of his companions, ranged in single file, when his ears were saluted by a strange, hitherto unheard sound. It riveted his attention at once. Could it be the noise of some cannibal tribe preparing for combat, or of an elephant disturbed by his approach? He cast himself down and with ear pressed to the earth listened breathlessly. Once more the oppressive silence was broken, this time by a sound of snapping timber, loud as a gunshot, and then there came crashing to the ground a great branch of a tree,--so big that he said to himself, "Goodness! these must be giants!" Another bough was pitched down, and it was plain, though he could not see the enemy, the enemy could see him. Then from somewhere aloft there issued a prolonged, guttural growl, full of mis- chief, a blood-curdling sound never to be forgotten: Gr-r-r-r-r-r! Gr-r-r-r-r-r! He stopped, and made the native signal of danger,—a peculiar clicking noise of the tongue against the roof of his mouth. He got his rifle in readiness. The bombardment of boughs had now ceased : there was absolute silence, save for the thumping of his heart against his ribs. It thumped so loud that he feared it would betray him to the unseen and unknown foe. "Wait a little, Paul! wait a little!" he said to himself. "You are not ready to fight quite yet." Peering into the twilight around and above him, he was suddenly aware of an object in his immediate neighborhood. A short, hairy, man-like creature, with a black, hideous visage, fierce staring eyes under low brows, an enormous mouth with huge canine teeth; this head set on an enormous chest and paunch, mounted on short crooked legs, and furnished with a pair of arms long and muscular enough to squeeze a lion to death. This was the being he had come so far to behold : this was the creature that no white man, unless it were Hanno two thousand years ago, had ever seen. This was the gorilla. The brute was near him before he saw it, and now it thumped on its chest and emitted another long-drawn terrific yell resembling the sound of thunder in the sky. It advanced : its black lips curled away from its long teeth in a savage snarl. It was not going to wait to be attacked. It was eager for the fray, and advancing beat its breast with sounds as from a big drum. Du Chaillu was alone. He drew his rifle to his shoulder. He said to himself that the nearer the creature came, the better would be his chance of giving it a fatal wound. Savage though it looked, it must have a vital part. He waited until its hairy body was less than twice the length of his rifle from the rifle's muzzle. Then he pulled the trigger, aiming for a spot over the heart. It was a shot upon which a good deal depended for the young explorer,—not to mention the gorilla. The smoke hung in the still air; but he saw that he had succeeded. The animal lifted its long arms and bent forward, uttering groans that were human but full of brutishness. It stumbled forward and fell on its ugly face, and was dead in a few minutes. "For," observed Du Chaillu, "eet is lucky, ROUND-ROBIN TALKS. 363 though they are so strong, they die very easy." Such was the end of his first gorilla. When Du Chaillu finished his story, he came back, with a smile and a shrug, to his actual environment. He was hoarse from growling and clucking, and weary from the incidents and emotions that he had lived over again. He resumed his seat, and emptied his glass. "I kill zirty-five of zem," he said : "zey were some small like that," holding his hand two feet above the table, "zome big-gar, but ze first one he was ze biggest." Hawthorne.-—It's the best story I ever listened to. Garrison.— What is the native name for the gorilla? Du Chaillu.—Kombo Nyina; but with some tribes Ngilla. Stoddart,—After you have rested a little, Du Chaillu, I am going to ask you a few more questions about Africa. Du Chaillu.—All right; after a while. Stoddart.—Now, captain, you have yourself a story of physical endurance and skill to tell us, if you will. How did you come to take the interest you have in rowing? Cook.—Well, it came about in this way. When I first went to Yale the athletic interests of the college were suffering from the causes that could not possibly interest you if explicitly stated. They were controlled by a clique. I was in excellent physical condition at first, but, you see, in reaching our for the glory of scholarship—the only object I had in view—I worked too hard at the books, and soon began to suffer from lack of regular exercise. I wanted to row, but the traditions of the college made any ambition I might have in that direction seem hopeless. Nevertheless I boldly went to the captain of the crew and stated my wish. I was laughed to scorn. The thing was absurd, it was preposterous, because I was a Freshman. Hawthorne.—Poor fellow! Cook.—By that time I had the bit in my mouth, however, and I modestly informed the haughty oarsmen of the college that I proposed to row as I pleased, and that if they chose to ignore me I might presently be in condition to challenge each one of them to trial of skill. They gave me the trial, and the year following they elected me captain. It is enough to say that afterwards, upon my return from abroad, the tide, which had been setting steadily against us, turned in our favor, and we began to draw away from Harvard. Hawthorne.—But what was the origin of the "Cook stroke"? Cook.—The disgraceful defeat we received the first year of my experience in the crew. That was in 1873. I didn't believe our American style of rowing was the most effective, and I felt that the quickest way to improve upon it would be by studying the methods of Oxford and Cambridge, which had hitherto prevailed in the contests with Harvard. The idea came to me in a reading of "Tom Brown at Oxford." I suggested it to some of our leading college men, and they promptly arranged to despatch me on a mission of inquiry. There was no need of using the influential letters I took with me. I arrived in Cambridge one evening, and, in looking up the quarters of the captain of the crew, came to a house from which there issued a muffled sound of364 ROUND-ROBIN TALKS. revelry, knocked, and was admitted to the fee-and-easy companionship of the jolliest fellows in the world. I explained my mission, and the next morning they had an English thoroughbred ready for me to ride along the bank of their little river and watch them as they rowed. They gave me, in a word, every opportunity of learning what I had come to seek. At Oxford, later on, I was accorded the same privileges. But, besides, I practised hard at the oars, rowing on the Thames from Putney to Mortlake, accompanied by an expert oarsman of the London Rowing Club. And by this time I had discovered our mistake,—the mistake of pulling with a flexed arm. I brought the principle home with me, adopted and improved upon it, and that was the origin of the "Cook stroke." Hawthorne, as a Harvard man, can tell you what it is. Garrison.—While the captain was talking it occurred to me, Mr. Gill, that your party in Parliament might enter upon a winning race if you would all "pull together" now, and— "keep stroke." How does that strike you? Gill.— A happy allusion, and a fact. Hawthorne.—A great political drama, that,—the Irish question. Stoddart.—No politics! Lathrop.—Well, I'm sure, Mr. Gill, I hope your political drama will not meet with the untoward reverses which befell my "Elaine." There was luck for you! You may remember that it was first produced on the stage by Annie Russell. Then Miss Russell fell sick. Philips.—Naturally. Lathrop.—I then sent it to Mary Anderson, who liked it, and was in negotiation with me about it, when—she, too, became desperately ill. Du Chaillu.—You should have sent some medicine with the manuscript. Was it disinfected? Lathrop.—Later on I submitted the play to Mrs. Langtry. She was enchanted with it; arranged with me to bring it out, and—suddenly she was stricken down with fever. Philips.—My dear fellow, be shrewd, and sell that play to the British War Office. Consider how effective it might be to the Nihilists. The thing's simple. Hostilities break out; your insidious manuscript, reeking with deadly bacteria, is introduced into the enemy's camp— Lathrop.—Finally, the other day, I despatched it to Miss Julia Marlowe, who was then playing to large houses in Philadelphia. The poor girl, all unsuspicious, came under its alluring spell, and—was prostrated within the week. Stoddart (in a low whisper after an awesome silence).—Lathrop, I sincerely trust you have not imperilled our lives by bringing that poisonous thing to the Round Table? Lathrop.—The fact is, I have in my pocket, and would like to read you some passages which— Hawthorne (briskly).—Speaking of the uncertainty of life and its influence on human endeavor, I have here a poem that will surely interest you. It is written by Howard Hall, is entitled "Mortality," and runs as follows: ROUND-ROBIN TALKS. 365 MORTALITY. "Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion?" Job. I know that time will thwart me,—I shall love And lose, soar and sink back, aspire and fail. Why mourn because Decay is throned above Invincible Desire?—will it avail? Does Death incline his ear to catch man's wail? My heart may yearn with might to move the world, The powerful Silence heeds not,—futile frail My cry. Not by man's skill is flower impearled With dew, not by man's strength the flying spheres are whirled. Man has no throe o'er Earth; he cannot climb. Showed he unto the Moon her way? She rolled Long cycles ere his race emerged from time. Not as he nods blow flowers blue or gold,— They sink their roots into his quiet mould, And o'er his docile dust laugh into light. Not his the thunder's rugged speech; of old He scattered not, all beautiful and bright, The stars like shining seeds in the broad field of Night. From out the glacier's path he steps aside. Can he meet glance for glance the sun's great eye O'er many a ruined empire opened wide? Decay doth beard him : can he flight or fly,— Do aught but curl his carcass up and die? Because he oversleeps, do meteors stray? By his might were the mountains heaped on high? He has some vasty yearnings,—what are they? They span immensity, and then-converge to clay. The stars have never heard his voice; they rush. Austere and lonely. The prismatic arc He bends not 'neath the misty blue, nor blush The rosy cheeks of Morning through the dark By his weak wish. Did he bid soar and lark Dizzy against the sun? With rapture rife She revels skyward—to her singing hark! He has no part in Nature's stir and strife, Not his the voice that spake the universe to life. The lightnings scorch him, and the careless earth Upheaves and swallows him. The seas o'erclose And shut him from the light. Fate gives him birth, Her facile playmate; and dismissed he goes Unto ignoble, impotent repose. His breath is not th' imperious hurricane, Nor by his will rude oak from acorn grows. His life is formed for pleasure,—filled with pain; Old Earth drinks up his tears and knows them not from rain. When he would sleep does he dismiss the sun? Or does he whirl the seasons like a wheel? Do avalanches on his errands run, Or does his biting glance their snows congeal? Not him doth Nature know. He cannot feel The fulness of her. When her deeps rejoice And her heights glow with godhead, let him steal Away abashed; his life endures by choice Of chance. And hath he price, and doth he lift his voice?366 ROUND-ROBIN TALKS. Philips.— If Gill would tell us about the first speech he made in Parliament— Stoddart.—Or make it over again for us. Gill.—I remember the substance of it well; but it wouldn't entertain you. I queried the government concerning the progress that was being made in the translation of a valuable collection of ancient Irish laws. As a matter of fact, the work, which was of the great interest and importance to scholars was not getting on at all. There was a scandalous "job" in it. My speech had the effect I intended,—of advancing the translation. Garrison.—It is not easy to get the ear of the House, is it? Gill.—That depends, of course, on the manner and matter of one's speech. There are but two kinds of oratory practised in England. First, there is the "grand manner," that goes with a life-effort in a great debate, and no one dares to assume it save a ranking statesman. It goes well with Gladstone. The other is the simple, direct, and conversational style, that sets will on any man and is suitable for the discussion of any question. Cook.—How would Du Chaillu's dramatic story have taken in Parliament? Gill.—Ah, that's another matter. That is a gift. But surely it is the same with you in this country. I understand the declamatory, sophomoric style has practically died out in Congress, as well as disappeared from the dining-table. Garrison.—And, in the interests of honesty, sincerity, and true eloquence, what a fortunate loss it is! Stoddart.—But, judge, how about the grand manner in forensic oratory? Garrison.—It is rarely attempted. With the reputation of a few great criminal lawyers it does not seem incongruous; but the most successful of the younger members of the bar cultivate a more cogent and less flowery eloquence. The bench frowns on coups de théâtre; the bar regards the dramatic attitudes and intonations of David Paul Brown as a tradition. Gribayédoff.—It is not yet so in France. I suppose it never will be, the vehemence of the Gallic orator being universal and temperamental. Claghorn.—Speaking as an artist, where can one find the most picturesque national life, Mr. Gribayédoff? Gribayédoff.—That is no easy question to answer. Every artist is entitled to his own preferences in the matter of natural picturesqueness, if I may use such a term. The difficulty appears when one endeavors to define the reasons from which such preferences arise. Why, indeed, should the Gaelic Highlander in tartan and sporran, in his mountain cabin, be a more or less fit subject of artistic inspiration than the stolid Dutch bargeman poling his cumbersome craft over the sluggish bosom of his native canal? Every explanation you may advance can only lead to the conclusion that preferences of this kind are matters of individual taste and valuable alone as expressing the artistic tendencies of those who hold them. No such opinion is authoritative, and ROUND-ROBIN TALKS. 367 consequently I will not even risk one; but, while we are on this subject, let me deplore the gradual disappearance of the picturesque all over the world. Each trip I take to Europe confirms me the more in the belief that the vandalism of our civilization is slowly but steadily accomplishing its fell work, and that a hundred years hence we shall all be brought down to the level of the matter-of-fact. Already have the "stovepipe" and "swallow-tail" invaded the remotest villages of the Netherlands, of Switzerland and the Tyrol; already have the iron horse and the steamboat, not to mention contact with the Cook's tourists, transformed the primitive peasant into a worshipper at Fashion's shrine. In a small village on the outskirts of Ghent I chanced upon a rustic home whose ancient faïence wainscotings and antique carvings for some moments riveted my attention. The owner, an old-timer, who remembered the revolution of 1830, noticed my admiration of a handsome brass charcoal-burner that did service on chilly mornings, and somewhat hesitatingly offered it for sale. I was more than surprised at his readiness to part with what appeared to be a valuable heirloom, but all was explained when he later told me that he had seen a patent American oil-stove in Ghent with bright nickel trimmings and had made up his mind to acquire it. The incongruity of placing this object amid these surroundings never troubled him a bit, although the thought for a moment saddened me. Perhaps at the end of that hundred years when the picturesque in Europe has entirely disappeared our American artists will cease going there in search of themes for their brushes, and the splendid material we possess on this side of the water will commend itself to them. While our national life as a whole may not be extremely picturesque, I doubt if any part of the world offers more possibilities of artistic inspiration than does this Western Hemisphere. Some of our younger men, like Mr. Frederic Remington, for instance, have recognized this fact, and have well merited the unstinted praise of their fellow-artists by showing a commendable spirit of independence in their choice of subjects. Yet it will be long, I fear, before our public, influenced as it is by speculative and rapacious art-dealers, extends the encouragement that is absolutely necessary to the establishment of a distinctly national school of art. At present the American artist must be satisfied to paint Breton fishwives and Dutch milkmaids with a New Jersey background, or he stands very little show. He must imitate, not originate, if he wishes to get along financially. Yes, indeed, there is a great deal to be done in the way of reform, and not the least necessary is a cessation of the "toting around" of alleged foreign masterpieces at a twenty-five-cent admission fee, by which Jew speculators enrich themselves without benefiting the public. Stoddart.—All essentially picturesque elements of life abound in this country. Painters and poets are getting to know this fact. Claghorn.—One of the first, it seems to me, to realize it was T. Buchanan Read,—an extraordinary man. I remember my father saying that when Read displayed his modest shingle in the dingy building which until lately adjoined, on the west, the United States Mint in Philadelphia, he went to him there one day and commissioned him topaint a portrait of my mother. Read thankfully accepted, and then asked for an advance of money to buy the necessary materials. Childs.— I knew your father well. A magnificent collection of engravings, that. All dispersed now, I believe? Claghorn.— No, not dispersed, but sold en bloc to Harrison Garrett, of Baltimore. I suppose the collection, at the time of his death, represented an expenditure of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. The sale yielded considerably less than that amount. Stoddart.— Now, Du Chaillu, get into the witness-box. I should like to know whether much ivory is to be got in the forest country. Du Chaillu.— A great deal. Stoddart.—Which means―? Du Chaillu.—Well, in my days a fair haul would have meant from two hundred thousand to three hundred thousand pounds,—perhaps more. Lathrop.—Does the getting of it involve bloodshed? Du Chaillu.—No, no. It is a safe trade though peculiar. The trader arranges with a tribe the purchase of its ivory, promising to send back by the bearers of it, on his return to the coast, the beads or other articles agreed upon in barter. But he also promises in his progress a commission for the peaceful right of way through each village; and, as a rule, the bearers, on their return, make faithful settlement with the various tribes of the dues which in this way each tusk is made to pay. But when the toll is paid in spirits or liquor of any kind the bargain is not always fulfilled. Rum rarely advanced beyond the first tribe. Cook. —Are you forced to cut your way through these forests? Du Chaillu.—No, indeed. The paths are so well defined from one village to another that it is quite possible to go with comparative safety and ease from the west to the east coast of Africa. Stoddart.—How, then, about the great difficulties Stanley encountered? Du Chaillu.—Oh, he lost the path, and, as I said before, the forests are so dense that he was compelled to chop his way out. Sometimes, when you are lost, you must cut a path for forty or fifty miles. Stoddart.—And now as to the pygmies. Du Chaillu.— I first met them in the country of the Ashangos, where I saw some small huts which appeared to me to have been built for religious purposes. My men, however, told me they were the houses of the pygmies. I only half believed this until a few days later, when we came upon an entire village of the dwarfs, who fled at our approach. Garrison.—What was their height? Du Chaillu.— From three feet nine inches to four feet four inches. Stoddart.—To-night I shall see a long procession of pygmies bearing each a tusk of ivory through the half-light of a vast forest. Hawthorne.— I shall see, I am sure, a huge ngalli, brandishing a giant oak-tree, and uttering that awful growl,― Du Chaillu.—Gr-r-r-r-r! Gr-r-r-r-r! J.M. Stoddart A LOST ART. 369 A LOST ART TO lament over what he is pleased to call the "lost art of epistolation" is the favorite occupation of one who has ranged with delight through the voluminous and charming letters of men and women of the two centuries that lie behind our own. These productions are open to the student of to-day, who may at will compare the letters of Madame de Sévigné, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Sir Horace Walpole, Mrs. Delaney, and all that goodly company, with those of the last thirty years, and wonder, as he reads, why no such pen-pictures as these afford are being stored up for the entertainment and instruction of those who are to move in the centuries to come. That the art of letter-writing has sustained a decline in the past hundred years, in descriptive power, picturesqueness, amplitude, and minuteness of detail, if in no other respects, is a proposition that seems too self-evident to require elaborate demonstration. That as brilliant epistles as were ever composed in the past are still written, is equally true; but they are condensed, epigrammatic, and pungent, partaking of the intensity of the life of the time. They are not history-making letters, like those that have come down to us from the last century, telling us how the prominent men and women of the period looked, walked, talked, dressed, dined, and supped. Who will ever again write to a daughter such letters as Madame de Sévigné sent to Madame de Grignan, to keep her au courant of the gay doings of Paris while leading her country life in remote Brittany? —letters written with such a magic pen that they not only kept the absent daughter apprised of the daily movement of her little world, but serve to-day to place the reader in touch with that brilliant circle in which the writer lived, moved, and most essentially had her being. Who will again put on paper such descriptions as Walpole sent to his friend Mann of the last court ball, or the latest bit of gossip about dull George III. and beautiful Sarah Lenox? — letters that fairly take away one's breath, even at this distance of time, bought of the cruel candor with which this child of monarchy handled the royal and distinguished personages of his day, as when he wrote of a certain fancy ball, "There were dozens of ugly Queens of Scots: the Princess of Wales was one, and covered with diamonds." He is too loyal to new sovereigns, or too prudent, perhaps, to tell his correspondent, in so many words, that the recently-imported queen is a plain little body, with no style whatever: instead he gives him a grotesque picture of the manner in which her small person is encumbered and pulled about by her rich gown and heavy voluminous train of velvet and ermine. Of Walpole's correspondence, he says himself, "It is a register of events and æras, a chronicle of wars and revolutions in ministries." In reality it is much more, being a vivid picture of court and high social life of the day, the like of which we shall probably never see again on written or printed page. It is also the work of a consummate.370 A LOST ART. artist, so skilled an artist, indeed, that the hand of art nowhere appears, and the extreme naturalness of the letters is what most forcibly impresses the reader, as when he says of Lady Mary Wortley's appearance in London after a long absence, "Her face is less changed in twenty years than I could have imagined; I told her so, and she was not so tolerable twenty years ago that she needed have taken it for flattery, but she did, and literally gave me a box on the ears. She is very lively, all her senses are perfect, her languages as imperfect as ever, her avarice greater." If Walpole gives us the leading events and court ceremonials of the reign of George III., it is to Miss Burney's letters that we are indebted for a description of the vie intime of the royal family. The dulness of their lives, as it comes to us from her pen, — which could romance on occasions, as her novels prove, but was painfully true to life at other times, — penetrates to our brain-centres. We grow sleepy, from intense sympathy, while we sit up with her, waiting for the return of the good queen who comes home at a late hour from her drawing-room or ball, to be undressed by the first literary lady of the land. The queen is exemplary but dull company; the king is duller; the daughters are good and dutiful, but their lives are sadly bornés; the royal sons occasionally vary the monotony by getting royally drunk, stumbling in to supper, quarreling with the equerries, and making themselves generally insufferable. We see it all, we live in these scenes, as we read the letters which are intended for the eyes of the people at home. We go through the trial of Warren Hastings with living interest. We know how Hastings looked, and how other persons talked, and what Edmund Burke said to Miss Burney in between the speeches. With all that Boswell has recorded with such photographic accuracy of the great English lexicographer, we could ill afford to dispense with the lighter and more graceful touches that are to be found in some women's letters of the time, as when the authoress of "Evelina" records that Dr. Johnson sat beside her at Mrs. Thrale's table, and declined to partake of mutton, "because sitting beside Miss Burney made him too proud to eat of it," while he interlarded his conversation with frequent allusions to the Brangtons, Mr. Smith, and other characters in "Evelina," to the great confusion but evident delight of the young novelist. It is all so charmingly informal. The great man is down from his pedestal. He kisses Fanny Burney's hand, and says that he lay awake far into the night because he had talked to her of a rasher of bacon before retiring, quite forgetting that his having partaken freely of this same rasher may have had more to do with his sleeplessness than his thoughts of her; and then, true to his dictionary-making, he tells her that he rose and looked up the derivation of rasher, tracing it back to Dryden. Again, he is admiring her dress, and dogmatizing about women's dress in general in his own peremptory fashion, ordering Fanny to take off her cap, and Mrs. Burney to go up-stairs and put on another gown. Yet we gather from the letters that these women, whom Johnson alternately praised and berated, sat around him listening, as to an oracle, to his violent expressions and invectives against Whig, dissenter, or deist, partly because he was the fashion of the hour, but more A LOST ART. 371 because behind all his rough exterior Johnson's heart was of gold, and, woman-like, they had found that out. Another pleasant little glimpse of the great man is to be found in a letter of one of the More sisters, in which she tells of the violent palpitation of heart that overcame them as she and Hannah approached the mansion of the Abyssinian's Johnson, Dictionary's Johnson, Rambler's, Idler's, and Irene's Johnson, of how Hannah sat in the scholar's chair, hoping thereby to catch a little of his genius, and of the laugh it raised when Johnson told them that that was a chair he never sat in, and ended be calling the distinguished writer of tracts and moral plays "a silly thing." In America the closing years of the last century were almost as rich in correspondence as the same period in Europe. From the letters of Dr. Franklin and his sprightly daughter Mrs. Bache, Mr. and Mrs. John Adams, Silas Deane, the gifted and versatile Hopkinson, Mrs. Deborah Logan, her spirited correspondent Sally Wister, and from the domestic letters of Thomas Jefferson, and many more, we can readily form a picture of the life of the day, full of color, warmth, and movement. From the pen of William Black we have some quaint pictures of colonial life as early as 1744. In describing the darkness of the Philadelphia streets, after explaining that he had partaken of "a Glass of Good Wine" with a friend, but "was as free from it as an Apple Tree of its fruit on a Windy Day of July," he says, "I grop'd my way to where I Lodged, after having Butted against some Posts on the Sides of Pavement, who kept me in my Road; about the mid hour I got to Bed, where I incline to let myself rest till morning." Is there not a suggestion of the caustic Pepys in the following description of a talkative lady? We can almost imagine him calling his wife "a poor creature," after the fashion of the English chronicler, whose wit was also finer than his gallantry. "He* introduced me to a Company of five young ladies and two Gentlemen, they Receiv'd me kindly and asked my acquaintance why he did not Come soon enough to Drink a Dish of Tea, he made his Excuses and then follow'd a General Silence, which did not Reign long before one of the Ladies began a Discourse on Love, wherein she pull'd all the other Sex to Pieces, Setting forth the Constancy of their Sex, and the Unstability of ours, every One of the Young Ladies put in an oar and helped her Out, at last being quite tir'd of the Subject, or rather, being run out and at a Loss what More to say, the Lady that began it turn'd from it, artfull enough to criticising on Plays, and their Authors, for sometime that continued. Addison, Prior, Otway, Congreve, Dryden, Pope, Shakespeare, &c. &c. &c. were names often in question; at last they Exhausted this Subject, and gave Truce to their Tongues a little, and after a little chit chat & a few Glasses of Madeira, My Acquaintance and I took leave. . . . After I got to his Room, I was for Sometime in ——————————————————————— *A townsman of Mr. Black's. William Black came to Pennsylvania, as secretary to a commission appointed by Governor Gooch, of Virginia, to unite with that Colony in treating with the Iroquois Indians about some Allegheny lands.372 A LOST ART the Condition of Men Escaped from Shipwreck, who tho' they Rejoice in their safety, yet is there such an Impression left on them, by the Bellowing of the Waves, the Cursing and Swearing of Some of the Sailors, the Crying and Praying of Others, with the Roaring of the Winds, that it is sometime before they are themselves again: After some Reflections on what we had seen and heard we went to Bed after 11." Mr. Black's ungallant description of the conversational powers of Philadelphia women is in striking contrast to what Miss Rebecca Franks, a Tory toast and beauty of the Revolutionary period, records of the respective charms of the belles of New York and Philadelphia, suggesting social rivalry between the two cities even at that early date. "By the way," she writes, "few New York ladies know how to entertain company in their own houses, unless they introduce the card-table. Except this family, who are remarkable for their good sense and ease, I don't know a woman or a girl that can chat above half an hour, and that on the form of a cap, the color of a ribbon, or the set of a hoop, stay, or jupon. I will do our ladies, that is in Philadelphia, the justice to say they have more cleverness in the turn of an eye than the New York girls have in their whole composition. With what ease have I seen a Chew, a Penn, Oswald, Allen, and a thousand others entertain a large circle of both sexes, and the conversation without the aid of cards, not flag or seem in the least strained or stupid." After describing in most attractive colors Miss Cornelia Van Horn, with whose family she was staying, Miss Franks says, "The misses [of New York] if they have a favorite swain frequently decline playing cards for the pleasure of making love—for to all appearances it is the ladies, not the gentlemen, that show a preference nowadays. —''Tis here, I fancy, always leap-year. For my part that am used to quite another behavior, I cannot help showing my surprise, perhaps they call it ignorance, when I see a lady single out her pet. . . . The advances first come from the lady's side, or she has got a male friend to introduce him, and puff her off. 'Tis really the case, and with me they lose half their charms. I fancy there would be more marriages were another course adopted—but they've made the men so saucy, that I scarcely believe the lowest ensign thinks 'tis but ask and have— a red coat and smart epaulet is sufficient to secure a female heart."* What surprises the reader most, in the majority of these old-time letters, is their extreme naturalness, which is the more remarkable as they were written at a period when great formality and some affectation in dress and manners prevailed. Parents were usually addressed in letters as Respected Sir and Reverend Madame, while friends were wont to write to one another over fictitious names, some of them fanciful enough. If Swift wrote to his Stella and Vanessa, young Major André, who had a happy gift with his pen, addressed Miss Seward of Lichfield as his Julia for no other cause that can be guessed at, says his biographer, than that her name was Anna. He was himself cher Jean *From a manuscript letter in possession of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. A LOST ART 373 to a select circle of intimates. We find entire circles of damsels writing to one another as Clarissa, Juliet, Delia, and Ariadne, while their correspondents of the other sex, instead of signing themselves plain Johns or Samuels, appear on the yellowed pages as Lysanders, Lotharios, Orlandos, and the like. Miss Southgate, who is content to subscribe herself Eliza, expresses herself in English as unvarnished as Walpole's in speaking of the tardiness of her lover, upon whose addresses she has already thrown some cold water: "Mr. Bowne has not arrived, I am out of all patience, cannot imagine what detains him,—4 weeks tomorrow since he took Mr. Codman's letter. These Quakers are governed by a slow spirit—I wish the deuce had them. I shall be really uneasy if he don't come soon." Mrs. John Adams gives us some charming domestic touches in her letters, that are in pleasing contrast to her pictures of distinguished personages and state ceremonials. While living at Bush Hill, near Philadelphia, she writes, one day, of a dinner given to the Washingtons; on another, of difficulties in her household from cold, damp, rooms, new paint, etc., which necessitate blistering and dosing Thomas, who has rheumatism, and Polly, who has pleuritic fever, and nursing Louisa and Mrs. Briesler; in the midst of which Mrs. Bingham comes to see her, and Nancy Hamilton, whom she is amiable enough to find more charming than ever. To add to her troubles, her best gown is spoiled during the voyage from New York. Do not Mrs. Carlyle's troubles pale before those of this sprightly lady, who was ill during the early part of her residence in Philadelphia, but who, like her English sister, is always ready to see company and take all the fun and pleasure that is to be had? Perhaps, however, she deserves less credit for her cheerfulness in view of the fact that John Adams was not Thomas Carlyle. This contrast she brings out more forcibly in a subsequent letter to her daughter, in which she tells her how well the great statesman her husband had acquired "l'art dêtre grandpère," long before Victor Hugo had taught it in inspired verse: "As to John, we grow every day more fond of him. He has spent an hour this afternoon in driving his grandpapa round the room with a willow stick." What conquest over dyspepsia and bad temper might not the sage of Chelsea have gained had there been a stirring young creature like this in the house to drive him out of the "valley of Frederick" and his own ill humors! From these letters, and others, it appears that we are largely indebted to the pens of women for spirited pictures of colonial life. Indeed, they have been at all times the most satisfactory and agreeable correspondents, because, as Miss Mitford said in describing Mrs. Browning's letters, they put "their own talk upon paper, just what letters ought to be." Why are no such charming letters written nowadays, describing family and social events, weddings, birthnight balls, christenings, and the like? we ask, resolving ourselves, like Burdette's growing boy, into a large interrogation-point. Are not the reasons for the decline of the art of letter-writing to be found deeply rooted in our advancing civilization, with its added facilities for intercourse and communication? Thus, in the great centres where progress is running at its most breakneck374 A LOST ART. breakneck pace and where the student finds the coveted atmosphere of culture, intellectual friction, and stimulus, he soon realizes that with these keen delights of life he has lost the exquisite repose that belongs to a rural habitat, and the hours for reflection and sustained thought that have given to the world such poems as those of Milton and Wordsworth, and such essays as those of Emerson, Thoreau, and Lowell. This rule, which may be called the reverse of the comfortable law of compensation, is especially applicable to letter-writing, which received its first check when the stage-coach, the slow-going packet, and the tardy and expensive postal service were superseded by by the railroad, the ocean steamer, and the rapid mail delivery system. Again, the ever multiplying, enlarging, and encroaching newspaper has given the letter another excuse for retiring from the scene. Instead of writing elaborate descriptions of public or private ceremonials and the handsome maids and matrons by whom they were graced, the man or woman of fashion in our day sends his absent friends a London, Boston, or New York journal, as the case my be, which gives him all the court or republican festivities at length, even to the costumes of the ladies present, and with a minuteness of detail and a brilliancy of invention to which the faithful chroniclers of olden time did not even aspire. Why, indeed, should the letter-writer of to-day take the trouble to enter into elaborate descriptions of the English royalties or American beauties abroad, when their fair presentments in Court dress are to be obtained of any of the leading London photographers for a shilling or two? Yet each age throws a halo around its favorites, and the portraits of Mrs. John Jay, Mrs. Bingham, and Dolly Payne, lovely as they are, would fail to convey to us a full conception of the beauty and grace of these ladies without such descriptions as the letter-writers of the day give us. Mrs. William Smith tells how her London hairdresser inquires whether she knows the lady so much talked of there from America, — Mrs. Bingham,— adding, with a twirl of his comb, "Well, it does not signify, but the American ladies do beat the English all to nothing!" Mr. Richard Henry Stoddard said some years ago that the decadence of the art of letter-writing was mainly attributable to an "an impatient sense of the loss of time involved," citing as proof that good letters could still be written such comparatively recent writers as Miss Mitford, Leigh Hunt, Mrs. Browning, and others. The Hawthorne letters, charming enough to overturn half a dozen theories on the decline of letter-writing, had not been given to the world when Mr. Stoddard wrote, nor had Thackeray's, but the former have, in common with those already named, the sunshine and shade of a more leisurely time, while Thackeray's letters, fragmentary, desultory, and sparkling, have in them the light of to-day, although Thackeray the man is rapidly becoming a shadowy figure, personally remembered by only a few among those who were privileged to meet him. Mr. Stoddard is undoubtedly correct in what he says; nor is it altogether our fault that we do not find time to write such letters as our ancestors wrote. All the conditions of life are so different. Our grandfathers were not involved in one-quarter the schemes and organizations, CREATION 375 organizations, municipal, political, and philanthropic, that engage the professional and business men of our day. And our grandmothers,— how different were their lives! The fashions did not change so often, the tardy packet brought them to Philadelphia and New York full six months after they were started in Paris or London, and if brocades and satins were rich and costly they were purchased for a lifetime. Living was upon a much more simple basis, hospitality was more genuine and spontaneous, and, although superb balls were given in all our large cities, the sharp competition that now makes so many women strain their nerves and pockets to outdo one another in the magnificence, the variety, and above all the novelty of their entertainments, did not prevail so universally as now. It was understood that certain persons of means would give great balls or elaborate suppers, and the rest of the world seemed content to attend these festivities and enjoy them, without attempting anything of the sort themselves. People did not undertake as much then as in these days, when it seems that instead of writing on a woman's tombstone the old inscription, "She hath done what she could," a more truthful record would read, "She died of trying to do what she could not." The modern woman not only attends to her household and social duties, but reaches out her hand to a dozen charities besides. Few hospitals existed in old times; even in Philadelphia, that most philanthropic of cities, there was for a long time only one, and we find no record of its having enjoyed the patronage of a board of lady managers. The children of the poor, to say nothing of dogs, cats, and other unfortunate waifs, were not then tenderly cared for by charitable individuals; Dorcas societies and bazaars were of later introduction; the idea of educating the negro had not then penetrated the Northern cerebrum; the Indian question had not then come up, or rather it had come up in a different form and one that could be adjusted only by the fathers and brothers of the Republic, and with the sword rather than the spelling-book. Such a state of society made up in peacefulness what it lacked in progress, and gave our revered grandmothers leisure for elegant and lady-like accomplishments, for embroidery, correspondence, and conversation, which latter sometimes seems destined, like its sister art letter-writing, to become extinct in the rush and whirl of modern life, not because women have nothing to talk about, but rather because they have too much, and in some cases surfeit is as dangerous as starvation. Whatever else these excellent ladies our ancestresses did or did not do, they have enriched our age with charming pictures of the olden time, for the like of which the coming generations will sigh in vain. Anne H. Wharton ————— CREATION. A RAIN-DROP, made a diamond by the sun, Tells from a rose-leaf that the storm is done: Rain-drops seem instants, jewels ages, old, Yet both the self-same moment were begun. Charles Henry Lüders376 OLD-AGE ECHOES. OLD-AGE ECHOES. BY WALT WHITMAN. SOUNDS OF THE WINTER. SOUNDS of the winter too, Sunshine upon the mountains - many a distant strain From cheery railroad train - from nearer field, barn, house, The whispering air - even the mute crops, garner'd apples, corn, Children's and women's tones - rhythm of many a farmer, and of flail, An old man's garrulous lips among the rest - Think not we give out yet, Forth from these snowy hairs we too keep up the lilt. THE UNEXPRESS'D. How dare one say it? After the cycles, poems, singers, plays, Vaunted Ionia's, India's - Homer, Shakespeare - the long, long times' thick dotted roads, areas, The shining clusters and the Milky Ways of stars - Nature's pulses reap'd, All retrospective passions, heroes, war, love, adoration, All ages' plummets dropt to their utmost depths, All human lives, throats, wishes, brains - all experiences' utterance; After the countless songs, or long or short, all tongues, all lands, Still something not yet told in poesy's voice or print - something lacking, (Who knows? the best yet unexpress'd and lacking). SAIL OUT FOR GOOD, EIDÓLON YACHT! Heave the anchor short! Raise the main-sail and jib - steer forth, O little white-hull'd sloop, now speed on really deep waters, (I will not call it our concluding voyage, But outset and sure entrance to the truest, best, maturest ;) Depart, depart from solid earth - no more returning to these shores, Now on for aye our infinite free venture wending, Spurning all yet tried ports, seas, hawsers, densities, gravitation, Sail out for good, eidólon yacht of me! AFTER THE ARGUMENT. A group of little children with their ways and chatter flow in, Like welcome rippling water o'er my heated nerves and flesh. SOME PERSONAL AND OLD-AGE MEMORANDA. 377 SOME PERSONAL AND OLD-AGE MEMORANDA. BY WALT WHITMAN. ANYTHING like unmitigated acceptance of my Leaves of Grass expression, and heart-felt response to it, in a popular however faint degree (though a big certificate came early from Emerson,*) bubbled forth as a fresh spring out of the ground in England in 1876. The time was a critical and turning point in my personal and literary life. Let me revert to my memorandum book, Camden, New Jersey, that year, fill'd with addresses, receipts, purchases, &c., of the two-volume work, publish'd then by myself, the Leaves, and the Two Rivulets - some ---------- *This letter, and its publication, may be worth a note. Here it is verbatim: CONCORD, Mass'tts, 21 July, 1855 WALT WHITMAN - DEAR SIR, I am not blind to the worth of the wonderful gift of "LEAVES OF GRASS." I find it the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has yet contributed. I am very happy in reading it, as great power makes us happy. It meets the demand I am always making of what seemed the sterile and stingy nature, as if too much handiwork, or too much lymph in the temperament, were making our western wits fat and mean. I give you joy of your free and brave thought. I have great joy in it. I find incomparable things said incomparably well, as they must be. I find the courage of treatment which so delights us, and which large perception only can inspire. I greet you at the beginning of a great career, which yet must have had a long foreground somewhere, for such a start. I rubbed my eyes a little, to see if this sunbeam were no illusion; but the solid sense of the book is a sober certainty. It has the best merits, namely, of fortifying and encouraging. I did not know until I last night saw the book advertised in a newspaper that I could trust the name as real and available for a post-office. I wish to see my benefactor, and have felt much like striking my tasks and visiting New-York to pay you my respects. R.W. Emerson. I met Chas. A. Dana (he was always friendly to me - he was then managing editor of the Tribune) in the street in New York, where we had a confab, and he requested the letter to print, but I refused. Some time after, at a second request of Dana, and knowing he was a friend of Mr. Emerson, I consented. The following from a newspaper of Aug. 1890, contains an authentic and further explanation of the general matter: "A person name Woodbury says in a just published book that R. W. Emerson told him how Walt Whitman appeared at a dinner party, in New York, coatless, in his shirt sleeves. Of course and certainly Walt Whitman did not so appear, and quite as certainly, of course, Emerson never said anything of the sort. The extreme friendliness of a few critics toward Walt Whitman is met by the extremer malignance and made-up falsehoods of other critics. One of the latter printed in a New York weekly that Whitman always wore an open red flannel shirt. Another story was that the Washington, D.C., police 'run him out' from that town for shamelessly living with an improper female. In a book of Edward Emerson's, a foul account of his father's opinion of Walt Whitman is sneaked in by a foot note. The true fact is, R.W. Emerson had a firm and deep attachment to Whitman from first to last, as person and poet, which Emerson's family and several of his conventional literary friends tried their best in vain to dislodge. As Frank Sanborn relates, Emerson was fond of looking at matters from different sides, but he early put on record that to his mind 'Leaves of Grass' was 'the greatest show of wit and poetry that America had yet contributed,' and to this mind he steadily adhered throughout." VOL. XLVII. - 25378 SOME PERSONAL AND OLD-AGE MEMORANDA. home customers for them, but mostly from the British Islands. I was paralyzed from the Secession war, poor, in debt, was expecting death, (the doctors candidly put four chances out of five against me)—and I had the books printed during the lingering interim to occupy the tediousness of glum days and nights. Curiously, the sale abroad proved prompt and what one might call copious; the names came in lists and the money with them, by foreign mail. The price was $10 a set. Both the cash and the emotional cheer were deep medicines; many paid double or treble price, (Tennyson and Ruskin did) and many sent kind and eulogistic letters; ladies, clergymen, social leaders, persons of rank, and high officials. Those blessed gales from the British Islands probably (certainly) saved me. Here are some of the names: Wm.M. and D.G. Rossetti, Lord Houghton, Edwd. Dowden, Mrs. Ann Gilchrist, Keningale Cook, Edwd. Carpenter, Therese Simpson, Rob't Buchanan, Alfred Tennyson, John Ruskin, C. G. Oates, E. T. Wilkinson, T. L. Warren, C. W. Reynell, W. B. Scott, A. G. Dew Smith, E. W. Gosse, T. W. Rolleston, Geo. Wallis, Rafe Leicester, Thos. Dixon, N. MacColll, Mrs. Mathews, R. Hannah, Geo. Saintsbury, R. S. Watson, Godfrey and Vernon Lushington, G. H. Lewes, G. H. Boughton, Geo. Fraser, W. T. Arnold, A. Ireland, Mrs. M. Taylor, M. D. Conway, Benj. Eyre, E. Dannreather, Rev. T. E. Brown, C. W. Sheppard, E. J. A. Balfour, P. B. Marston, A. C. De Burgh, J. H. McCarthy, J. H. Ingram, Rev. R. P. Graves, Rev. T. E. Brown, F. S. Ellis, W. Brockie, Rev. A. B. Grosart, Lady Hardy, Hubert Herkomer, Francis Hueffer, H. G. Dakyns, R. L. Nettleship, W.J. Stillman, Miss Blind, Madox Brown, H. R. Ricardo, Messrs. O'Grady and Tyrrel; and many, many more. Severely scanned, it was perhaps no very great or vehement success; but the tide had palpably shifted at any rate, and the sluices were turned into my own veins and pockets. That emotional, audacious, open-handed, friendly-mouth'd just opportune English action, I say, plucked me like a brand from the burning, and gave me life again, to finish my book, since about completed. I do not forget it, and shall not; and if I ever have a biographer I charge him to put it in the narrative. I have had the noblest friends and backers in America. Wm. O'Connor, Dr. R. M. Bucke, John Burroughs, Geo. W. Childs, good ones in Boston, and Carnegie and R. G. Ingersoll in New York; and yet perhaps the tenderest and gratefulest breath of my heart has gone, and ever goes, over the sea-gales across the big pond. About myself at present. I will soon enter upon my 73d year, if I live—have passed an active life, as country school-teacher, printer, carpenter, author and journalist, domiciled in nearly all the United States and principal cities, North and South — went to the front (moving about and occupied as army nurse and missionary) during the Secession war, 1861 to '65, and in the Virginia hospitals and after the battles of that time, tending the Northern and Southern wounded alike—worked down south and in Washington city arduously three years—contracted the paralysis which I have suffered ever since—and now live in a little cottage of my own, near the Delaware in New Jersey. My chief book, unrhymed and unmetrical (it has taken SOME PERSONAL AND OLD-AGE MEMORANDA. 379 thirty years, peace and war, "a borning") has its aim as once said, "to utter the same old human critter—but now in Democratic American modern and scientific conditions." Then I have published two prose works "Specimen Days," and a late one "November Boughs." (A little volume "Good Bye my Fancy" is soon to be out.) I do not propose here to enter the much-fought field of the literary criticism of any of those works; on another page however are presented some fresh poetic pieces of mine. The portrait in this number was taken a year or so ago last summer, and is a pretty good likeness. Now for a few portraiture or descriptive bits. To-day in the upper of a little wooden house of two stories near the Delaware river, east shore, sixty miles up from the sea, is a rather large 20-by-20 low ceiling'd room something like a big old ship's cabin. The floor, three quarters of it with an ingrain carpet, is half covered by a deep litter of books, papers, magazines, thrown-down letters and circulars, rejected manuscripts, memoranda, bits of light or strong twine, a bundle to be "expressed," and two or three venerable scrap books. In the room stand two large tables (one of ancient solid mahogany with immense leaves) covered by a jumble of more papers, a varied and copious array of writing materials, several glass and china vessels or jars, some with cologne-water, others with real honey, granulated sugar, a large bunch of beautiful fresh yellow chrysanthemums, some letters and enveloped papers ready for the post office, many photographs, and a hundred indescribable things besides. There are all around many books, some quite handsome editions, some half covered by dust, some within reach, evidently used, (good-sized print, no type less than long primer) some maps, the Bible, (the strong cheap edition of the English crown) Homer, Shakespeare, Walter Scott, Emerson, Ticknor's "Spanish Literature," John Carlyle's Dante, Felton's Greece, George Sand's Consuelo, a very choice little Epictetus, some novels, the latest foreign and American monthlies, quarterlies, and so on. There being quite a strew of printer's proofs and slips, the place with its quaint old fashioned calmness has also a smack of something alert and of current work. There are several trunks and depositaries backed up at the walls; (one well-bound and big box came by express lately from Washington city, after storage there for nearly twenty years.) Indeed the whole room is a sort of result and storage collection of my own past life. I have here various editions of my own writings, and sell them upon request; one is a big volume of my complete poems and prose, 1000 pages, autograph, essays, speeches, portraits from life, etc. Another is a little Leaves of Grass, latest date, six portraits, morocco bound, in pocket-book form. Fortunately the apartment is quite roomy. There are three windows in front. At one side is the stove, with a cheerful fire of oak wood, near by a good supply of fresh sticks, whose faint aroma is plain. On another side is the bed with snow white coverlid and woollen blankets. Toward the windows is a huge arm-chair, (a Christmas present from Thomas Donaldson's young daughter and son, Philadelphia) timbered as by some stout ship's spars, yellow polished, ample, with rattan-woven seat and back, and over the latter a great wide wolf-skin of hairy380 SOME PERSONAL AND OLD-AGE MEMORANDA. black and silver, spread to guard against cold and draught. A time-work look and scent of old oak, attach both to the chair and the person occupying it. But probably I can give no more authentic brief sketch than "from an old remembrance copy," where I have lately put myself on record as follows: Was born May 31, 1819, in my father's farm-house, at West Hills, L.I., New York State. My parents' folks mostly farmers and sailors--on my father's side, of English--on my mother's, (Van Velsor's) from Hollandic immigration. There was, first and last, a large family of children; (I was the second). We moved to Brooklyn while I was still a little one in frocks--and there in B. I grew up out of frocks--then as child and boy went to the public schools--then to work in a printing office. When only sixteen or seventeen years old, and for three years afterward, I went to teaching country schools down in Queens and Suffolk counties, Long Island, and "boarded round." Then, returning to New York, worked as printer and writers, (with an occasional shy at "poetry.") 1848-'9.--About this time--after eight or nine years of experiences and fun and work in New York and Brooklyn--went off on a leisurely journey and working expedition (my brother Jeff with me) through all the Middle States, and, down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. Lived a while in New Orleans, and worked there. (Have lived quite a good deal in the Southern States.) After a time, plodded back northward, up the Mississippi, the Missouri &c., and around to, and by way of, the great lakes, Michigan, Huron and Erie, to Niagara Falls and lower Canada--finally returning through Central New York, and down the Hudson. 1852-'54--Occupied in house-building in Brooklyn. (For a little while of the first part of that time in printing a daily and weekly paper.) 1855.--Lost my dear father this year by death. . . . Commenced putting Leaves of Grass to press, for good--after many MS. doings and undoings--(I had great trouble in leaving out the stock "poetical" touches--but succeeded at last.) The book has since had some eight hitches or stages of growth, with one annex, (and another to come out in 1891, which will complete it.) 1862.--In December of this year went down to the field of war in Virginia. My brother George reported badly wounded in the Fredericksburg fight. (For 1863 and '64, see Specimen Days.) 1865 to '71--Had a place as clerk (till well on in '73) in the Attorney General's Office, Washington. (New York and Brooklyn see more like home, as I was born near, and brought up in them, and lived, man and boy, for 30 years. But I lived some years in Washington, and have visited, and partially lived, in most of the Western and Eastern cities.) 1873.--This year lost, by death, my dear dear mother--and, just before, my sister Martha--(the two best and sweetest women I have ever seen or known, or ever expect to see.) Same year, February, a sudden climax and prostration from paralysis. Had been simmering inside for several years; broke out during those times temporarily, and then went over. But now a serious attack, beyond cure. Dr. Drinkard, my Washington physician, (and a first-rate one,) said it was the result SOME PERSONAL AND OLD-AGE MEMORANDA . 381 of too extreme bodily and emotional strain continued at Washington and "down in front," in 1863, '4 and '5/ I doubt if a heartier, stronger, healthier physique, more balanced upon itself, or more unconscious, more sound, ever lived from 1835 to '72. My greatest call (Quaker) to go around and do what I could among the sick and wounded was, that I seem'd to be so strong and well. (I considered myself invulnerable.) But this last attack shatter'd me completely. Quit work at Washington, and moved to Camden, New Jersey--where I have lived since, receiving many buffets and some precious caresses*--and now, write these lines. Since then, (1874-'90) a long stretch of illness, or half-illness, with occasional lulls. During these latter, have revised and printed over all my books--Bro't out "November Boughs"--and at intervals leisurely and exploringly travelled to the Prairie States, the Rocky Mountains, Canada, to New York, to my birthplace in Long Island, and to Boston. But physical disability and the war-paralysis above alluded to have settled upon me more and more, the last year or so. Am now (1891) domiciled, and have been for some years, in this little old cottage and lot in Mickle Street, Camden, with a housekeeper and man nurse. Bodily I am completely disabled, but still write for publication. Though paralyzed and sick I am probably one of the resultants of a sound natural constitution, good genesis and (may I say?) of temperate and warm (not ascetic) habits. That I have come out from many close calls of war and peace, and live and write yet after all, is attributable to that physical solidity, born and grown. As to my books they are less received and read in America, and more on the continent of Europe, in translations everywhere, and especially in their own text in the British Islands. They certainly obtain there a curious personal regard, and fulfil something of what is looked for from the New World. To-day, "old, poor, and paralyzed," I keep generally buoyant spirits, write often as there comes any lull in physical sufferings, get in the sun and down to the river whenever I can, retain fair appetite, assimilation and digestion, sensibilities acute as ever, the strength and volition of my right arm good, eyesight dimming, but brain normal, and retain my heart's and soul's unmitigated faith not only in their own original literary plans, but in the essential bulk of American humanity east and west, north and south, city and country, through thick and thin, to the last. Nor must I forget, in conclusion, a special, prayerful, thankful God's blessing to my dear firm friends and personal helpers, men and women, home and foreign, old and young. W.W. * From an English letter, summer of 1890, to J.C.T., jr., Philadelphia: "Speaking of Browning, do you know that Walt Whitman is enthusiastically admired in England? Mr. Harrison, for instance, is quite devoted to him, and says that Tennyson says that W.W. is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, of living poets, or words to that effect. Mr. Gordon, you know, surprised me by manifesting the greatest interest in him. Verily, a prophet is not without honor, save in his own country. In this, too, I must want training. There are fine things in W.W.'s writings, but I cannot help wishing he had put them into prose, instead of into such rocky verse."382 "WALT WHITMAN: POET AND PHILOSOPHER AND MAN." I. AFTER the storms and perils and superficial reverses of more than three decades, Walt Whitman remains the one unique influence developed in the literature of our Western democracy. Greeted with almost universal laughter, neglect, or scorn, he has lived to see all trivial objections thrown into disrespect, all traditions and hypocrisies more or less questioned, and much of even the popular opposition yielding to inevitable applause. This is the history of all daring genius of the first order. But our modern lives are lived so compactly - the years crowd so fast one upon another - that the justice which anciently came only for the memory of greatness may now crown ts gray hairs. There are any proofs in the case of Walt Whitman that his foothold is gained and that he forecasts new religious and political revelations. Not for hair-splittings or professional displays or simple ends of art or merely to dally with the edge of life had he come and had his summons excited custom and prejudice to alarm. Whitman is an American. In the large sense he is a child of the republic. In him democracy first found unapologetic voice. Through his book have swept all airs out of the free heavens, gushed all streams aromaed by the wild earth. The grave problems of our youthful history find in him solace, judgment, and exit. What has he done to justify the declaration? How is his book greater than a thousand books of his time? Wherein is his individuality majestic above the majesty of other men who have had their hour of speech or song, of philosophy or story? Walt Whitman is the first man to utter the message of our democracy, the first to indicate by other than hints and signs the future to which it tends, the first to show that America is important in the measure of its ability to cover the globe with its entail, the first to prove that man is complete even in his incompleteness, the first to put standard into the Pacific of iniquity and to claim it as virtue's own, for ends not less certain because obscure. These facts impose upon us a peculiar obligation to understand the word he has spoken, the demeanor which has distinguished him the issue that he involves. II. Whitman's life from its start was rebellious to all formal lines. His father possessed a free individuality, and his mother was distinguished by the abundance of her optimism. In Whitman himself these cardinal factors combined to produce the most exalted effects. Whether he writes or speaks, he tenderly and wisely alludes to his stock, the Quaker element in his spiritual cosmography, the Dutch and English sturdiness that gave him such superb physical background, the sacred potent mother-light that flashed peace and content into all moods and seasons, the pauseless sea from whose musical lips he caught the first pulse and rhythm of song. He had heroic history back of him. Members of the line had participated in the Revolution. His grandfather had known Thomas Paine ad was in positive friendly relations with Elias Hicks. His father was a builder of houses, and was reputed in his trade to be a man of marked and peculiar integrity. The common schools have Walt Whitman his only technical instruction. By happy gradation he was printer, country school-teacher, writer for newspapers and magazines, participant in the largest practical activities of natural culture, - the wholesome air of immediate experience. As a boy of nineteen, he established The Long Islander in Huntington, his native town. After celebrating its golden birthday, this weekly journal is still a regular visitor. Follow him in the drift of his joyous freedom, as he absorbs the great cities, and passes not only unscathed and unsoiled, but with astonishing spiritual increase, through their barbarisms, - as he accepts the significance of all their horror, squalor, injustice, equally with their populousness, beauty, splendor, and virtue; their light and shade, placidity and storm. No spot in this measureless garden went untouched; the food and the bad were equally his demesne, - perhaps the evil his more incessant companion, attracting him by the very bitterness of its necessity. We are told that his magnetism was as full and round and potent then as in his more mellow old age; that he rescued and elevated the degraded and oppressed; that no political, social, religion aspiration, no matter what its color, nor whether his literal agreement could be given to it, went altogether without his friendly examination and respect; that he accepted the tribute of libraries and museums, of books and pictures and curious and antiques; that he loved Homer, Shakespeare, Ossian, - would pay his respects to reviews, improvising books from leaves which contained cherished essays, so as the more easily to provide reading-matter for his travels afoot; that he affected pilot-houses, boatmen, - almost in mass the creatures of movement, - transportation men, serving on cars, boats, in the postal service, - who symbolized the flowing and creative character of our racial life. The main organization of "Leaves of Grass" was mentally laid line by line in the midst of these shifting scenes, so that when in future years pen and paper became his agents of communication it was not for the setting-out of an expedition into strange territory, but for a revoyaging, - his duty being to repeat, not to make or form anew. He shared in the political life of the pre-war times, after an appropriate non-partisan fashion. He was a born lover of the drama and of music. All through his writings and speech are scattered allusions to the actors and singers. What he says he owes to Alboni and the elder Booth almost transcends belief. In 1847 and thereabouts we find him editing the Eagle, in Brooklyn. Two years later, accompanied by his young brother Jeff, he entered upon his Southern tour, working and writing, observing the current life, responding to the impress of man and scene. He returned to Brooklyn in 1851, where he started and for a year controlled the Freeman. Again a twist in the fates, again a change of occupation, - now to take up an ancestral line: to become carpenter and builder. He was highly successful in this choice, which, he says, threatened to make him rich; but384 "WALT WHITMAN: POET AND PHILOSOPHER AND MAN." he eventually abandoned all its glittering prospects for two reasons, these being, first, his deep-rooted distaste for material accumulation, and, second, the fact that "Leaves of Grass" was at last coming into practical mental consistence and required his immediate application. Now the book: the year 1855, the poems only twelve, the public derision and outcry everywhere tremendous. He had scarcely expected a greeting in such terms: he had rather anticipated inattention. But he deliberately resolved to persevere. In 1862 his brother George was wounded at Fredericksburg. Walt hastened thither, found the injured man in no serious condition, lingered about the camp, went to Washington with some wounded Brooklyn soldiers, whom he nursed, and through no design, but by natural sympathy and easy transition, found himself occupied with the army hospital work which has become an immortal integer of his fame. It is matter of interest no less than of amusement to observe how studiously Whittier (to quote but one name) speaks of Whitman's concern and affection and labor for the soldiers and ignores "Leaves of Grass." The detail of the years from 1862 to 1873 has been much exploited both by writers upon Whitman, and by Whitman himself in "Specimen Days" and in detached prose articles. Dr. Bucke quotes samples of Whitman's correspondence at this period. Some day, when the yellowed letters now fastened together by odd pieces of tape in Whitman's room may perhaps be given to the world, they will present the rarest portraiture of our war possible outside of "Drum Taps." Whitman had a preliminary physical break-down in 1864, but a trip North, away from the anxious and malarious scenes of the hospitals, effected a temporary return to health. About his time he was given a clerkship in the Interior Department. It was no misfortune that the head of the department happened to be a narrow pietist and politician who summarily ejected Whitman upon discovering that he was the author of "Leaves of Grass." But for this coupled stupidity and injustice, we should never have had O'Connor's magnificent eulogium and philippic,—which is to imagine the world bereft of one of its choicest combinations of passion and learning and perfect prose. Instantly appointed to a clerkship in the Attorney-General's Office, Whitman remained without further change till 1873, from which year of paralysis he has never been able to pursue any continuous daily imperative task. While in Washington, Whitman at first sustained himself by correspondence for Northern papers, Henry J. Raymond being particularly friendly. Much of his income from the clerkships, along with various Northern contributions, went into the service of the army patients. Whitman's near intimacies during the decade in Washington were with Burroughs and O'Connor. He had close friendly association with Peter Doyle, a railroad-man, who had neither professional nor scholarly interests. I have known no richer treat than an hour's talk with O'Connor or Burroughs when either was in the humor to review the remarkable comradeship they shared in Washington. The paralytic attack of 1873 proved really the culmination and summing-up of many encroaching previous attacks, and was the fruit "WALT WHITMAN: POET AND PHILOSOPHER AND MAN." 385 of Whitman's hospital labors, too long persisted in, over a period of four strenuous years. He was on his way to a resort on the New Jersey sea-coast, when, suffering a severe reverse in Philadelphia, he was conveyed to Camden, where he took up his residence. His health there has been fluctuating. But after the first two or three years he resumed and maintained a certain vigor and strength which, until 1888, protected him against the more painful sacrifices of freedom and labor. At different times he issued forth from this Camden nest for long or short flights,—into the pines, down to Timber Creek, west as far as Denver, north into the Canadas, to Long Island, to New York City. He went to Boston in 1883 to supervise the issue of the Osgood edition of "Leaves of Grass." He has lectured sundry times upon Lincoln, and written at intervals for magazines and papers. His life has been quiet, undisturbed even by literary tempests in teapots. He has published new editions of his books,—his latest, "November Boughs,"—and has collected and is prepared to issue a further, perhaps final volume, a poetic and prose mélange, within the next six months. These crude glimpses of Walt Whitman's career on its statistical side serve to show the expansive structure of his genius. He has never been content with what one class or one sect or one party or merely superficial power and knowledge may show. He has met with and possessed America on the side of her cohesion and unity. In the early years a dweller in town and city, on sea-shore, farm, and street, a teacher in common schools, a writer on journals, a dreamer with books, a companion of low and high, a wanderer in untrod ways, North and South, he compassed the full circle of active factors which belong to the making of this new nation. Unlike most of the poets, he has never had a professional chair, never enjoyed the repose and ease of a study, never been a stay-at-home or a man oracular of proprieties and forms. Comprehend these features, remember the appellant and sacred character of the hospital years, take in the patient faith of the long period of his physical disability, trace with sufficient confidence the inspirations which have haloed his passage, and the purpose and courage of his history become manifest. III. But if Whitman's life has expressed a peculiar flavor and drawn its meanings from other than the usual swim and courtesies of affairs, it must be that his is a creative individuality. And he in fact initiates a peculiar type. Regard introductively the breadth of his manhood. Physically, morally, spiritually, he is and has been large and free. His corporeal two hundred pounds is tallied on every side by the posture of person and spirit. In days of perfect health he must have been of superb stature, for even now the indication of symmetry is without flaw. His head has a noble weight, ease, and repose. To unite such strength and mass with such control and movement implies exceptional adjustment. The always-opened shirt-front discloses the neck and breast. Hand and arm are large and well formed. I have never known an artist to leave him disappointed in any one of these386 “WALT WHITMAN: POET AND PHILOSOPHER AND MAN.” physical features. Constructively, they answer to an almost ideal standard. It is true, the lameness of recent years has served to detract from the emphasis of the first impression, but a brief stay in his room, and the silent witness which reminiscence everywhere throws out in voice and gesture, speedily convince. I have yet to find one among the strangers I have taken to see Whitman who has not confessed that he realized the presence of subtler forces which haunted him in after-days. The long hair and beard, the large dreamy eye, the nose and lips, a voice which plays with all shades of tone and color,—the breeze and tempest and rainbow of speech,—everything artless and unschooled, unite to the disaster of criticism. Here, too, are traits of great sweetness. Critics in earlier days of "Leaves of Grass"—and the echo of these accusations is not altogether lost—were very specific in description of the rowdyism of its author. Walt Whitman, they said, being what he was,—a consort for loafers and prostitutes, and no more,—could scarcely be expected to rise above himself in his books. Now that we honor him for his universal associations, no gibe can be other than a further note to his merit. It was the necessity of the man that he should proffer this sunny hospitality. So far as body will bear the strain, all are welcome at his door. But pretence, or glitter, or fame, pride of name or place, need at no time expect a special salutation. If the laborer from the street or the beggar or the criminal bring the true message of self, secreting no honest trait in an effort to impress or attract or overawe, Whitman will respond with word and act. For the moment this true sinner will confuse all the false saints in the calendar of pilgrims. Here, then, is the open door,—the secret passage, which after all is not a secret passage but to the veiled and the blind. His is the way of vigorous individuality: to hail all with infinite patience and affection; to utter no harsh words to friends whose service about him may halt or stumble; to discuss contemporaries with freedom, yet to save at all times the hyper-censuring phrase; to endure pain with resignation, to confront show with simplicity, to win hate by love, to give his cause fire and impersonality. What can rebuff a faith which defies school and creed in the interest of that nature without which scholars and priests, whatever their gaudy possessions, would go houseless forever? Whitman has always delighted to roam the streets. As long as strength remained he went afloat on that hastening sea. Driven to chair and attendance, he still enjoys what air and river and the lives of cities bestow. Whitman vindicates the declaration that in all the essentials of culture nature provides the profoundest resources. School, church, social respectability, were but the minor, almost forbidden, elements to his making, except as they stream unheralded into him and, in common with the whole area of life and phenomena, are adopted in his philosophy. His teacher has been the joy and despair, the calm and passion, the belief and denial, the love and hate, the virtue and vice, the purity and squalor, of peace and war. New York, Washington, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Quebec, Boston, Denver,—these, with their unity and contrariety, have passaged and tilled the field. America—the essential America—that is, the toilers, soldiers, sailors, railroad-men, laborers,— "WALT WHITMAN: POET AND PHILOSOPHER AND MAN." 387 all artisans—equally with classes called learned and professions called respectable—has mentored and sustained, and finally will confirm him. Such tuition has gathered about no other man. No college would have done other than injure him. No perpetual lien laid by a single calling would have spared or softened his ruin. He belonged to city and prairie, to opera and brothel, to jail and prison, to years before war, to war, to after-suffering, to labor and to the pen, to boats that sail, to movement, to liberty. If Whitman is in any manner set apart from puppetry, from echoes lost in their last refinements, it is by virtue of this inherent genius which went straight through all cries of sect and model, past all danger-signs, across deepest streams and impenetrable fastnesses,—-the drag-way and wreck of mediocrity and sham,—to primal spirit and law. This faithfulness elevates his old age as it inspired his youth. It blesses him with gentleness, fortitude, content; it passes into the folds of his dress, governs his appetite. connects the clean body and the clean soul; it presides over his reverence for ancestry, his love of family and companions, his enduring hail and kiss for outcast and victim; it suggests morality, imposes cheer, restrains intemperance; and, crowning the lofty summit, it honors man for the infinitude of the processes which have worked the mystery and darkness into love and dawn. IV. "Leaves of Grass" started in almost universal displeasure. It shocked literary and sex traditions. Two things, at least, in its own plane and theory, were necessary to its life. It needed to reflect the broadening spirit of our new age and new land. The rhyme, the convention, the formal measure, insisted upon by old literary codes, were unequal to the current conditions. Whitman made his own vehicle. His book was to get as close to nature as her reserves would permit. The natural was to reflect the healthy and the abiding. Sex, under this treatment, must reclaim its heritage. No middle-age monastic contempt could longer be visited upon motherhood, the body, or any corporeal functions. To dare so dire a thraldom, to strike so near the throne, seemed to be to dare everything. No anti-subjectivist could delight in "Leaves of Grass," for that one volume uncurtains the frankest confession of life found in annal or story. Who touches this, the author himself teaches, touches not art nor intellect, but a man. Yet there was no sign, as in Amiel, of the disease of introspection. The Whole work precipitates the manliest salutations. "Leaves of Grass" has passed through about ten editions. "Specimen Days" appeared in 1883. But the whole force of protest has centred about the poems. They outrage so much that has been held sacred, they so invade the precincts of art with a natural equipment which art may hate but cannot destroy, that the conflict is not surprising and can have but one issue. As Whitman has added, period after period, to this volume, it could be perceived that he constructed upon a coherent plan. No chance-building was evident; indeed, no building at all. Whitman simply reasoned that if "Leaves of Grass" was to reflect life, the prevailing quality of its utterance must be, not388 "WALT WHITMAN: POET AND PHILOSOPHER AND MAN." architecture, but spontaneity. I have been told by various independent that they could think of no phase of American society missed from the circle of description. Nor is there a poem in the book which does not bear unmistakably upon and reveal the period of its composition. "Sands at Seventy," added in 1888, may easily be specified, along with the war poems, the early "Starting from Paumanok," "Song of Myself," "Children of Adam," and so on. The new pages will contribute the same evidence. No element is omitted from the transcript: all flows in happy sequence, in exposition of a typical person, moved by and moving, acted upon and battling with, the conditions of the dominant civilization and of each emergence. Through this person, America, democracy, the future, summons and dispenses. The necessary completeness of our nature is repeated in marvellous illustration: as of its trial-voyagings in first years, as of its individuality in "Song of Myself," as of its sex in "Children of Adam," as of its comradeship in "Calamus," and so in special traits through the four hundred pages. To glorify sex, to attest identity, to enclose religions by religion, to bring near to man the circuitous forces which he may operate for great ends, in himself, in society, in star and sun, are fragments of the message. V. Was the new singer heard? Had this strange voice any vibrant call for its neighbors? There was no long wait ere Emerson had passed in his vital gift. Thoreau was quick to perceive that there was something high in the new note. At that moment few others were ready to speak. But one by one remarkable men gathered, read, inspected, enjoyed, glorified, the denounced prophet. Emerson and several times visited him at his home in Brooklyn. O'Connor, Burroughs, Bucke, Ingersoll, Kennedy, are additions of later times. Mrs. Gilchrist was among the first to raise protest for him in England. The friendliness of Tennyson has been indicated by letter and message. Swinburne's original impulse was undoubtedly towards approval. "To Walt Whitman in America," is as warm as average or even more satisfying poetic fires ever burn. But his violent retraction confuses all attempt at explanation. Rolleston has made a translation of selected poems into the German. Rudolf Schmidt has rendered "Democratic Vistas" in the Danish. There have been fugitive French translations. Gabriel Sarrazin has written a splendid series of essays on English and American poets, in which Whitman is figured with glowing pride and power. I think Whitman regards this estimate, linked with what O'Connor and Ingersoll have said on our side of the water, —not omitting Burroughs's and Bucke's biographies and Mrs. Gilchrist's early prophetic recognitions, —as perhaps constituting to date the best and most adequate explanation of himself. Symonds, Forman, Rossetti, Rhys, Carpenter, in England, have done him all the offices of comradeship. Italy and Russia register partial translations. The list could be prolonged. Gradually, individuals, groups, periodicals, have passed from the stage of opposition to the plane of respectful attention. The Whitman parody no longer sits in judgment. There have been fragmentary translations THE LIGHT-HOUSE AND THE BIRDS. 389 into divers unmentioned tongues,— certainly into the Spanish and Hungarian. In his darkest years—notably, 1873 to 1877—Whitman's best, most efficient, support came from England. The American magazines have been, with but few exceptions, substantially hostile. But in reviews, in literary discussions, among especially the thinking young people,— women full as much as men,—signs appear of the most spontaneous acceptance,—an enthusiasm which unquestionably will give Whitman the future. The slow certainty with which this light penetrates unwonted spots proves is efficacy. Whitman has been willing to wait. Long ago he burned all his ships. His phrenology has "caution" marked at "6 to 7,"—which is high,—and yet he has never retraced a single step. The conviction which cradled the babe houses and pillows and sustains the old man. After the passion of darkness and war, during which he was harassed by enemies and co-operated with by as high devotion and valor as ever distinguished an heroic past, this Democrat, mounted on highest ground, the sunrise at last in his face, reaffirms the promised land. Horace L. Traubel. THE OLD MAN HIMSELF. A POSTSCRIPT. Walt Whitman has a way of putting in his own special word of thanks, his own way for kindly demonstrations, an may now be considered as appearing on the scene, wheeled at last in his invalid chair, and saying, propria persona, Thank you, thank you, my friends all. The living face and voice and emotional pulse only at last hold humanity together; even old poets and their listeners and critics too. One of my dearest objects in my poetic expression has been to combine these Forty-Four United States into One Identity, fused, equal, and independent. My attempt has been mainly of suggestion, atmosphere, reminder, the native and common spirit of all, and perennial heroism. Walt Whitman. THE LIGHT-HOUSE AND THE BIRDS. The light that lures them from the sea They dream is sunshine on the lea, And with anticipation bright They wing their way across the night. Alas! they have no strength to pass That brilliant barrier of glass, And with a death-dirge from the beach Die near the light they cannot reach! William H. Hayne. 390 THREE FAMOUS OLD MAIDS. THREE FAMOUS OLD MAIDS. IT is a curious fact that three of the most successful and eminent literary women in England - Miss Austen, Miss Edgeworth, and Miss Mitford - should have been typical old maids; not merely unmarried through stress of intervening circumstances, - ill health, early disappointment, or a self-sacrificing devotion to other cares, - but women whose lives were rounded and completed without that element which we are taught to believe is the mainspring and prime motor of existence. To undestand how thoroughly this was the case, we have but to turn to a later and very different writer, Charlotte Brontë, who married when she was thirty-eight, and died one year afterwards, and whose whole literary life was accordingly passed in spinsterhood. Yet if that very grave and respectable gentleman, the Rev. Mr. Nicholls, had never appeared upon the scene at all, it would have been impossible to call Miss Brontë a typical old maid. She had the outward signs of one, indeed, the prim demeanor, the methodical habits, the sarcastic attitude towards the male sex; but burning in every fibre of her being, and evident in every page of her writings, is that fierce unrest, that inarticulate, distressful longing of a woman who craves a mate. We can easily imagine Elizabeth Bennet and the very sensible Elinor Dashwood, and even Emma Woodhouse, dearest and brightest of girls, slipping from their lovers' grasp and growing into old maids as charming as was Miss Austen herself; but poor plain Jane Eyre, and that insignificant little school-mistress, Lucy Snowe, are shaken and consumed with the passion of their own desires. Such women cannot walk from the cradle to the grave, handling their lives with delicate satisfaction and content; they must find what they need or die. It is amusing to note how the various critics and biographers of Miss Austen, Miss Edgeworth, and Miss Mitford have debated and fretted over the painful lack of romance in their careers. Feminine critics, especially, find it difficult to believe that there is no hidden tale to tell, no secret and justifiable cause for this otherwise inexplicable behavior; and much time and patience have been exhausted in dragging shadowy memories to light. In the case of Miss Mitford, indeed, it seems quite hopeless to search for even the ghost of a lovestory, and, although she certainly did devote her life with touching unselfishness to the comfort and support of a very exacting father, it cannot for a moment be urged that, in so doing, she relinquished any distinct desire or prospect of matrimony. Perhaps the exasperating qualities of her parent inclined her unconsciously to remain single; for, with all her unsparing devotion, she must, in the course of sorely-tried years, have grown to regard men very much as Dolly Winthrop regarded them, - "in the light of animals whom it had pleased Heaven to make naturally troublesome." Mr. Mitford, a most genial and handsome old gentleman, of the Turveydrop pattern, managed to keep his daughter's hands full of work, and her heart full of love, and THREE FAMOUS OLD MAIDS. 391 left her little chance or disposition for any wandering fancies. All the exuberant affection of her girlhood, all the mature attachment of later years, were concentrated upon him alone. Her youth waned, her freshness faded, her indomitable courage and cheerfulness quailed a little before the ever-increasing burdens of her life; but through it all, in joy and sorrow, no shadow of a suitor stands beckoning by her side. Her serene old age was haunted by no dim voices crying out from the past for the joy which had slipped from her grasp. She wrote lovestories by the score, always approaching the subject from the outside, and treating it with the easy conventionality, the generous yet imperfect sympathy, of a warm-hearted woman, not prone to analyze motives. They are very pleasant stories for the most part, sensible, healthy, and happy; but they are not convincing. The reader feels that if Polly did not marry Joe she would be just as well satisfied with William, and that if Edwin failed to win Angelina he would soon content himself with Dorothy. This is a comfortable state of affairs, and doubtless true to life; but it is not precisely the element which makes a successful lovetale. The fact is, Miss Mitford described things pretty much as she found them, not seeking to dive below the surface, and always adding a little sunshine of her own. She was a happy woman, save for some sad years of overwork, and her life was full of pleasant detail, of cherished duties, and of felicitous labor; but, from first to last, love had no part in it, and, fancy free, she never reckoned of her loss. Miss Edgeworth, too, seems to have been lifted from the sphere of matrimony by the unusual strenght of her family affections. Her devotion to her father, to her two step-mothers, and to her nineteen brothers and sisters was of such an absorbing nature as to leave her little leisure or inclination for mere matters of sentiment. She was so busy too, so full of pleasant cares, and successful work, and a thousand-and-one delightful interests, above all, she clung so fondly to her home, and country, and the familiar faces she had known from babyhood, that love had no chance to storm her well-defended walls. When that handsome and earnest young Swede, he of the "superior understanding and mild manners," came to woo, he found, alas! that the lady could not tear her heart away from Ireland and her beautiful young step-sisters to give it to his keeping. She aknowledged his merits, both his mildness and his superiority, she liked and admired him in every way; but marry and go to Sweden! - that she would not do, either for M. Edelcrantz or any other man. Dear Mrs. Edgeworth, who was distinctly sentimental, and who would have been delighted to see her clever step-daughter happily wedded, says quite touchingly that Maria was mistaken in the strength of her own feelings; that she really loved M. Edelcrantz, but refused to marry him because her family could not bear to part with her, because "she would not have suited his position at the court of Stockholm," and because she feared her lack of beauty would one day lessen his regard. Shadow of shadows! Was there ever a woman who declined to marry the man she truly loved for such cloud-built reasoning as this! Maria was doubtless the darling of her own home circle, and would have been sorely missed had she winged her flight to Sweden; but there were daughters enough in that overflowing household to admit392 THREE FAMOUS OLD MAIDS. of one being spared. As for the other obstacles, it is hardly possible that they should have been urged seriously by a woman as free from morbid sentiment as was Miss Edgeworth. There is a sweet humility which is born of love, and which whispers to most women—and, let us hope, to most men—that they are unworthy of the choice which has fallen upon them, of the jewel which has been flung at their feet. But to push this delicate emotion so far as to sacrifice happiness at its bidding is not the impulse of a sound and healthy nature. Miss Edgeworth could never have been pretty, and had spent most of her life in retirement ; but she was by no means unacquainted with the ways of the world, by no means destitute of womanly charms, and, above all, by no means without the exhilarating consciousness of success. In fact, when we read her biography, we are principally impressed by the amount of adulation she received, by the extraordinary enthusiasm her pleasant tales aroused. The struggling novelist is tempted to wish that he also might have lived in those halcyon days, until he remembers that a far greater writer, Miss Austen, had no share in this universal and unbounded applause. Miss Edgeworth was as much the pet of the literary world as of her own household and friends. She had little need to doubt her powers, or to fear neglect and indifference. If she really regretted poor M. Edelcrantz,—who went back to Sweden with a sore heart and never married anybody else,—she gave no outward token of repentance, but lived to be eighty-two, the most cheerful and radiant of old maids, faithful to the last to her family affections, and happy to die in the midst of those who had made the sunshine of her life. It is in the case of Miss Austen, however, that truly strenuous efforts have been made to cultivate a passable romance upon scanty soil. Miss Austen was pretty, she was gay, she possessed an indefinable attraction for men, and she was in turn attracted by them, as a healthy-minded, happy-hearted girl should be. Her letters to Cassandra are full of amusing confidences on the subject,—confidences far too amusing, in fact, to give any sign or token of genuine feeling beyond. She writes with buoyant cheerfulness about Mr. Tom Lefroy, for whom she "does not care sixpence," yet prefers him to all other competitors, who must have ranked pitiably low in the scale. "I am almost afraid," she confesses, "to tell you how my Irish friend and I behaved. Imagine to yourself everything most profligate and shocking in the way of dancing and sitting down together. I can expose myself, however, only once more, because he leaves the country soon after next Friday, on which day we are to have a dance at Ashe after all. He is a very gentlemanlike, good-looking, pleasant young man, I assure you." Not without grave faults, though, it would seem, for a little later we hear of a morning coat which is much too light to please Jane's critical eye. She cannot possibly give her maiden affections to a man who would wear such a coat, and so, after a while, he disappears from her pages and from her life, to go out into the world, and win much legal renown, and be Chief Justice of Ireland, and always to remember with great tenderness the gay young girl at Ashe. Then there appears on the scene that unnamed friend of Mrs. Lefroy's, whose love is so THREE FAMOUS OLD MAIDS. 393 sudden and fervent that Miss Austen feels quite sure it will soon decline into "sensible indifference," as, no doubt, it does. Then the suitor who has "the recommendation of good character, and a good position in life, of everything in fact except the subtle power of touching my heart,"—which seems to have been the real difficulty with them all. Sir Francis Doyle, indeed, tells a very pretty and pathetic tale of Jane Austen's engagement to a naval officer who, after the peace of 1820, accompanied his fiancée and her family to Switzerland. Here he started off on foot one fine morning, promising to meet his friends at Chamouni. He never came, and they waited and waited with fast-growing fears, only to learn, when all was over, that the young man had been seized with a sudden fever, and had died, unknown and scantily cared for, in some poor cottage home. It is a sad story, but happily does not rest upon any shadow of foundation. Miss Austen was never engaged, and never was in Switzerland; and, although Sir Francis has the tale from a friend, who had it from a member of the family, it merely goes to prove that even relatives are not wholly incapable of weaving romances out of thin air, rather than be, like the knife-grinder, without a tale to tell. Mrs. Malden, Jane Austen's latest biographer, discredits most unhesitatingly this particular love-legend, while at the same time she manifests a lively desire to give form and color to another, scarcely less intangible. The third chapter in her little volume is enticingly headed "Her Life's One Romance," and in it is narrated at some length the story of an attractive young clergyman whom Jane and Cassandra Austen met one summer at a sea-side resort in Devonshire. He openly admired the younger girl, and, when they parted, "impressed strongly on the sisters his intention of meeting them again." He died, however, shortly after, and Jane neither gave any outward token of grief nor indulged in any confidences on the subject. Nevertheless, Cassandra, whose own youth was shadowed by the blight of a lost love, was wont to say, after her sister's death, that she believed this to have been her one and only romance; and Miss Thackeray, in her sympathetic sketch of Miss Austen, alludes very sweetly and very confidently, to the tale. "Here, too," she says, "is another sorrowful story. The sisters' fate (there is a sad coincidence and similarity in it) was to be undivided; their life, their experience, was the same. Some one without a name takes leave of Jane one day, promising to come back. He never comes back; long afterwards they hear of his death. The story seems even sadder than Cassandra's in its silence and uncertainty, for silence and uncertainty are death in life to some people." But if there is one thing more than another to be avoided and ruthlessly condemned, it is this quiet assumption that a woman has parted with her heart, when she herself has breathed no word to warrant it. The cheerful serenity of Jane Austen's daily life showed no ripple of storm, her lips told no tale; and why are we to assume that a young man whom she met for a few idle weeks and never saw again had broken down the barriers of that self-possessed nature, had overcome the gay indifference which showed no signs of hurt? As for the VOL. XLVII.—26394 A MICHIGAN MAN. popular theory that Anne Elliot's gentle enduring love and poor Fanny Price's hours of bravely-borne pain were imaged from the depth of their author's experience, we have but to remember that the same hand gave us Harriet Smith, with her fluctuating, lightly-won affections, and Charlotte Collins, sensible and happy, enjoying her pleasant home and enduring—or avoiding—her solemn, pompous, servile, stupid husband. As well connect one type as another with the genius that revealed them all. "Of Jane herself I know no love-tale to relate," says her nephew and biographer, Mr. Austen Leigh; and this seems about the conclusion of the matter. "No man's life could be more entirely free from sentiment," admits, very reluctantly, one of her cleverest critics. "If love be a woman's chief business, here is a very sweet woman who had no share in it. It is a want, but we have no right to complain, seeing that she did not shape her course to please us." This is a generous reflection on the critic's part; but is the want so painfully apparent as he thinks, or may we not be well content with Jane Austen as we have her, the central figure of a little loving family group, the dearest of daughters and sisters, the gayest and brightest of aunts, the most charming and incomparable of old maids? Agnes Repplier. A MICHIGAN MAN. A PINE forest is nature's expression of solemnity and solitude. Sunlight, rivers, cascades, people, music, laughter, or dancing could not make it gay. With its unceasing reverberations and its eternal shadows, it is as awful and as holy as a cathedral. Thirty good fellows working together by day and drinking together by night can keep up but a moody imitation of jollity. Spend twenty-five of your forty years, as Luther Dallas did, in this perennial gloom, and your soul—that which enjoys, aspires, competes—will be drugged as deep as if you had quaffed the cup of oblivion. Luther Dallas was counted one of the most experienced axe-men in the northern camps. He could fell a tree with the swift surety of an executioner, and in revenge for his many arboral murders the woodland had taken captive his mind, captured and chained it as Prospero did Ariel. The resounding footsteps of Progress driven on so mercilessly in this mad age could not reach his fastness. It did not concern him that men were thinking, investigating, inventing. His senses responded only to the sonorous music of the woods; a steadfast wind ringing metallic melody from the pine-tops contented him as the sound of the sea does the sailor; and dear as the odors of the ocean to the mariner were the resinous scents of the forest to him. Like a sailor, too, he had his superstitions. He had a presentiment that he was to die by one of these trees,—that some day, in chopping, the tree would fall upon and crush him as it did his father the day they brought him back to the camp on a litter of pine boughs. A MICHIGAN MAN. 395 One day the gang-boss noticed a tree that Dallas had left standing in a most unwoodmanlike manner in the section which was allotted to him. "What in thunder is that standing there for?" he asked. Dallas raised his eyes to the pine, towering in stern dignity a hundred feet above them. "Well," he said, feebly, "I noticed it, but kind-a left it t' the last." "Cut it down to-morrow," was the response. The wind was rising, and the tree muttered savagely. Luther thought it sounded like a menace, and turned pale. No trouble has yet been found that will keep a man awake in the keen air of the pineries after he has been swinging his axe all day, but the sleep of the chopper was so broken with disturbing dreams that night that the beads gathered on his brow, and twice he cried aloud. He ate his coarse flap-jacks in the morning and escaped from the smoky shanty as soon as he could. "It'll bring bad luck, I'm afraid," he muttered as he went to get his axe from the rack. He was as fond of his axe as a soldier of his musket, but to-day he shouldered it with reluctance. He felt like a man with his destiny before him. The tree stood like a sentinel. He raised his axe, once, twice, a dozen times, but could not bring himself to make a cut in the bark. He walked backwards a few steps and looked up. The funereal green seemed to grow darker and darker till it became black. It was the embodiment of sorrow. Was it not shaking giant arms at him? Did it not cry out in angry challenge? Luther did not try to laugh at his fears; he had never seen any humor in life. A gust of wind had someway crept through the dense barricade of foliage that flanked the clearing, and struck him with an icy chill. He looked at the sky: the day was advancing rapidly. He went at his work with an energy as determined as despair. The axe in his practised hand made clean straight cuts in the trunk, now on this side, now on that. His task was not an easy one, but he finished it with wonderful expedition. After the chopping was finished, the tree stood firm a moment; then, as the tensely-strained fibres began a weird moaning, he sprang aside, and stood waiting. In the distance he saw two men hewing a log. The axe-man sent them a shout and threw up his arms for them to look. The tree stood out clear and beautiful against the gray sky; the men ceased their work and watched it. The vibrations became more violent, and the sounds they produced grew louder and louder till they reached a shrill wild cry. There came a pause; then a deep shuddering groan. The topmost branches began to move slowly, the whole stately bulk swayed, and then shot towards the ground. The gigantic trunk bounded from the stump, recoiled like a cannon, crashed down, and lay conquered, with a roar as of an earthquake, in a cloud of flying twigs and chips. When the dust had cleared away, the men at the log on the outside of the clearing could not see Luther. They ran to the spot, and found him lying on the ground with his chest crushed in. His fearful eyes had not rightly calculated the distance from the stump to the top of the396 A MICHIGAN MAN. pine, nor rightly weighed the power of the massed branches, and so, standing spell-bound, watching the descending trunk as one might watch his Nemesis, the rebound came and left him lying worse than dead. Three months later, when the logs, lopped of their branches, drifted down the streams, the woodman, a human log lopped of his strength, drifted to a great city. A change, the doctor said, might prolong his life. The lumbermen made up a purse, and he started out, not very definitely knowing his destination. He had a sister, much younger than himself, who at the age of sixteen had married and gone, he believed, to Chicago. That was years ago, but he had an idea that he might find her. He was not troubled by his lack of resources: he did not believe that any man would want for a meal unless he were "shiftless." He had always been able to turn his hand to something. He felt too ill from the jostling of the cars to notice much of anything on the journey. The dizzy scenes whirling past made him faint, and he was glad to lie with closed eyes. He imagined that his little sister in her pink calico frock and bare feet (as he remembered her) would be at the station to meet him. "Oh, Lu!" she would call from some hiding-place, and he would go and find her. The conductor stopped by Luther's seat and said that they were in the city at last; but it seemed to the sick man as if they went miles after that, with a multitude of twinkling lights on one side and a blank darkness, that they told him was the lake, on the other. The conductor again stopped by his seat. "Well, my man," said he, "how are you feeling?" Luther, the possessor of the toughest muscles in the gang, felt a sick man's irritation at the tone of pity. "Oh, I'm all right!" he said, gruffly, and shook off the assistance the conductor tried to offer with his overcoat. "I'm going to my sister's," he explained, in answer to the inquiry as to where he was going. The man, somewhat piqued at the spirit in which his overtures were met, left him, and Luther stepped on to the platform. There was a long vista of semi-light, down which crowds of people walked and baggage-men rushed. The building, if it deserved the name, seemed a ruin, and through the arched doors Luther could see men—hackmen— dancing and howling like dervishes. Trains were coming and going, and the whistles and bells kept up a ceaseless clangor. Luther, with his small satchel and uncouth dress, slouched by the crowd unnoticed, and reached the street. He walked amid such an illumination as he had never dreamed of, and paused half blinded in the glare of a broad sheet of electric light that filled a pillared entrance into which many people passed. He looked about him. Above on every side rose great, many-windowed buildings; on the street the cars and carriages thronged, and jostling crowds dashed headlong among the vehicles. After a time he turned down a street that seemed to him a pandemonium filled with madmen. It went to his head like wine, and hardly left him the presence of mind to sustain a quiet exterior. The wind was laden with a penetrating moisture that chilled him as the dry icy breezes from Huron never had done, and the pain in his lungs made him faint and dizzy. He wondered if his red-cheeked little sister could live in A MICHIGAN MAN 397 one of those vast, impregnable buildings. He thought of stopping some of those serious-looking men and asking them if they knew her, but he could not muster up the courage. The distressing experience that comes to almost every one some time in life, of losing all identity in the universal humanity, was becoming his. The tears began to roll down his wasted face from loneliness and exhaustion. He grew hungry with longing for the dirty but familiar cabins of the camp, and staggered along with eyes half closed, conjuring visions of the warm interiors, the leaping fires, the groups of laughing men seen dimly through clouds of tobacco-smoke. A delicious scent of coffee met his hungry sense and made him really think he was taking the savory black draught from his familiar tin cup; but the muddy streets, the blinding lights, the cruel, rushing people, were still there. The buildings, however, now became different. They were lower and meaner, with dirty windows. Women laughing loudly crowded about the doors, and the establishments seemed to be equally divided between saloon-keepers, pawnbrokers, and dealers in second-hand clothes. Luther wondered where they all drew their support from. Upon one sign-board he read, "Lodgings 10 cents to 50 cents. A Square Meal for 15 cents," and, thankful for some haven, entered. Here he spent his first night and other nights, while his purse dwindled and his strength waned. At last he got a man in a drugstore to search the directory for his sister's residence. They found a name he took to be his brother-in-law's. It was two days later when he found the address,—a great, many-storied mansion on one of the southern boulevards,—and found also that his search had been in vain. Sore and faint, he staggered back to his miserable shelter, only to arise feverish and ill in the morning. He frequented the great shop doors, thronged with brilliantly-dressed ladies, and watched to see if his little sister might not dash up in one of those satin-lined coaches and take him where he would be warm and safe and would sleep undisturbed by drunken, ribald songs and loathsome surroundings. There were days when he almost forgot his name, and, striving to remember, would lose his senses for a moment and drift back to the harmonious solitudes of the North and breathe the resin-scented frosty atmosphere. He grew terrified at the blood he coughed from his lacerated lungs, and wondered bitterly why the boys did not come to take him home. One day, as he painfully dragged himself down a residence street, he tried to collect his thoughts and form some plan for the future. He had no trade, understood no handiwork: he could fell trees! He looked at the gaunt, scrawny, transplanted specimens that met his eye, and gave himself up to the homesickness that filled his soul. He slept that night in the shelter of a stable, and spent his last money in the morning for a biscuit. He travelled many miles that afternoon looking for something to which he might turn his hand. Once he got permission to carry a hod for half an hour. At the end of that time he fainted. When he recovered, the foreman paid him twenty-five cents. "For God's sake, man, go home," he said. Luther stared at him with a white face and went on.398 A MICHIGAN MAN. There came days when he so forgot his native dignity as to beg. He seldom received anything; he was referred to various charitable institutions whose existence he had never heard of. One morning, when a pall of smoke enveloped the city and the odors of coal-gas refused to life their nauseating poison through the heavy air, Luther, chilled with dew and famished, awoke to a happier life. The loneliness at his heart was gone. The feeling of hopeless imprisonment that the miles and miles of streets had terrified him with gave place to one of freedom and exaltation. Above him he heard the rasping of pine boughs; his feet trod on a rebounding mat of decay; the sky was as coldly blue as the bosom of Huron. He walked as if on ether, singing a senseless jargon the woodmen had aroused the echoes with: "Hi yi halloo! The owl sees you! Look what you do! Hi yi halloo!" Swung over his shoulder was a stick he had used to assist his limping gait, but now transformed into the beloved axe. He would reach the clearing soon, he thought, and strode on like a giant, while people hurried from his path. Suddenly a smooth trunk, stripped of its bark and bleached by weather, arose before him. "Hi yi halloo!" High went the wasted arm - crash! - a broken staff, a jingle of wires, a maddened, shouting man the centre of a group of amused spectators! A few moments later, four broad-shouldered men in blue had him in their grasp, pinioned and guarded, clattering over the noisy streets behind two spirited horses. They drew after them a troop of noisy, jeering boys, who danced about the wagon like a swirl of autumn leaves. Then came a halt, and Luther was dragged up the steps of a square brick building with a belfry on the top. They entered a large bare room with benches ranged about the walls, and brought him before a man at a desk. "What is your name?" asked the man at the desk. "Hi yi halloo!" said Luther. "He's drunk, sergeant," said one of the men in blue, and the axe-man was led into the basement. He was conscious of an involuntary resistance, a short struggle, and a final shock of pain, - then oblivion. The chopper awoke to the realization of three stone walls and an iron grating in front. Through this he looked out upon a stone flooring across which was a row of similar apartments. He neither knew nor cared where he was. The feeling of imprisonment was no greater than he had felt on the endless, cheerless streets. He laid himself on the bench that ran along a side wall, and, closing his eyes, listened to the babble of the clear stream and the thunder of the "drive" on its journey. How the logs hurried and jostled! crushing, whirling, ducking, with the merry lads leaping about them with shouts and laughter. Suddenly he was recalled by a voice. Some one handed a narrow tin cup full of coffee and a thick slice of bread through the grating. Across the way he dimly saw a man eating a similar slice of bread. Men in other compartments were swearing and singing. He A FANATIC. 399 knew these now for the voices he had heard in his dreams. He tried to force some of the bread down his parched and swollen throat, but failed; the coffee strangled him, and he threw himself upon the bench. The forest again, the night-wind, the whistle of the axe through the air! Once when he opened his eyes he found it dark. It would soon be time to go to work. He fancied there would be hoar-frost on the trees in the morning. How close the cabin seemed! Ha! - here came his little sister. Her voice sounded like the wind on a spring morning. How loud it swelled now! "Lu! Lu!" she cried. The next morning the lock-up keeper opened the cell door. Luther lay with his head in a pool of blood. His soul had escaped from the thrall of the forest. "Well, well!" said the little fat police-justice, when he was told of it. "We ought to have a doctor around to look after such cases." Elia W. Peattie. A FANATIC. A YOUNG knight made his battle-cry, - "I'll fight the evil till I die!" And forth he rushed with heedless might To do his battle for the right. And recklessly he laid about, And ruthlessly, and felt no doubt, But blindly struck whate'er he saw That seemed to him to have a flaw. At length a doubt came to his mind: He paused, and turned, and looked behind. Alas! too late he understood How deftly mingles ill with good. With swimming eye, with reeling brain, He saw the good that he had slain. Himself seemed evil to him now, And then he thought upon his vow. And, lo, the warrior lay at rest, With his own dagger in his breast! Henry Collins.400 "THE FRENCH INVASION OF IRELAND." "THE FRENCH INVASION OF IRELAND." THIS belated page of history is written by a young Russian, Valerian Gribayedoff, a naturalized American, who has the cause f human liberty at heart, and who has made a striking but almost unknown episode his special study. That it should have remained so long untold - over ninety years have passed since the event - is less inexplicable than might at first sight appear. The English have neglected it, because it contains nothing to their credit, and much that is disgraceful to them. The Irish have failed to give it prominence, because, to tell the truth, their own part in it reflects no glory upon them, and because their people have never been rich in historians. Lastly, the French, at the period when it occurred, had so many affairs of greater importance to occupy their attention that this gallant enterprise has almost escaped their notice. And yet it is well worth narrating; and few achievements of French prowess have put in their courage and character in a better light. Told in brief, the story is as follows. In 1798, a body of some eight hundred French veterans, under the leadership of General Humbert, and at the invitation of the insurgent Order of United Irishmen, appeared on the north coast of Ireland in three men-of-war, and landed at Killala. Joined by small bands of rebels, who were ill armed and without discipline, they advanced to Ballina, on the river Moy, and, having captured that town, marched onward to Castlebar, near Newport Bay. Here they encountered an army of six thousand English soldiers, commanded by the infamous General Lake, with Hutchison second in authority. Humbert, with his handful of men, attacked this overwhelming force in its strongly intrenched position, and in a few hours inflicted upon it a total and disastrous defeat, - though with a loss on his side of nearly two hundred men. From the scene of this victory, after some delay in attempting to form a republican government, Humbert continued his march under harassing difficulties as far as Ballinamuck, a distance of one hundred miles. There he was attacked by a combination of the British forces, - there were altogether not less than one hundred and fifty thousand of them in the island, - and was defeated, surrendering, when resistance was hopeless, with the honors of war. Throughout the campaign the Irish insurgents on whom he had relied for support behaved more like sheep than heroes on the field of battle, and during their temporary success could be but partially restrained from pillage and rapine. After Humbert's surrender, they collapsed on every side, and were hanged and slaughtered by the British with monstrous brutality. Humbert, with the remnant of his force, was exchanged and returned to France, and thus ended the Invasion of '98. Mr. Gribayedoff draws a fine picture of the French commander. Such a figure would furnish admirable material to the historical novelist, and one almost regrets that our present author did not cast his narrative in the romantic form. Humbert in peace did not cast his narrative in the romantic form. He was an irreclaimable vagabond, a destroyer of domestic peace, and a social pariah. But the music of the drum and fife attuned his qualities to heroism and nobility. His personal bravery in the field was equalled only by his forethought for his troops and his masterly handling of them. Next to READING BORES. 401 him in interest is Teeling, his aide-de-camp, an Irishman by birth, and a commissioned officer of the French army. This man, handsome and gallant in person, was courageous and dignified in conduct; and his tragic end - he was hanged in cold blood, and in defiance of the rules of war and the laws of humanity, by the British general - raises him to the level of that young champion of our own Revolution who regretted that he had but one life to give for his country. The style of this book is so pure, strong, and idiomatic that one marvels how a writer born and educated in a foreign country could have produced it. From the first page to the last, there is not a trace of alien phraseology; indeed, not many of our native writers could have done the work so well. The spirit, color, and vivacity of the narrative are Mr. Gribayedoff's own. Though his volume contains less than two hundred pages, it is so tersely and compactly done that nothing could be added to it. It is embellished with upwards of a dozen capital illustrations, by the author and others; and added to it are an interesting appendix and a complete and useful index. The publisher is Somerby, of New York; and no one who cares for thoroughly enjoyable reading on a captivating and unhackneyed subject will neglect to possess himself of it. Julian Hawthorne. READING BORES. CITY people are less sorely infested by these creatures than dwellers in small towns and villages, because in the former they are less often thrown into compelled, purposeless intercourse and have less leisure for boring and being bored. Rare as is the faculty of reading aloud well, it is curious that so many are fond of using what they possess. Unhappy is the man who has intimate friends in that class. Inflictions are to be borne during their joint lives. For of all the infirmities to which mankind are subject, this same of reading ill and being fond of it is the very last which there is ever a hope of curing, because it is the last of whose existence they can be made aware. Have you (especially you of a village or small town) one such among your friends? Of course you have, and I am sorry for you, and sympathize with you. Yet it is ludicrous to know how hopeless and dismal you often seem under the load of that friendship's one vast encumbrance. You hear your friend read. You see how cordially he enjoys both the pleasure received and that imparted. Seeing all this, what chance of escape is there for you? You cannot complain of his faulty pronunciation and more faulty emphasis, knowing that, if you do, you will lose him forever. You cannot run away, foreseeing that when he meets you again he will pay you double. You dare not stop him to discuss an idea in the article, because you know that before he utters a word in answer he will go back to the beginning, and read it all over again so as to have the case distinctly put for the argument, and this he will repeat every time you manifest a disposition to dispute. So you just keep still and silent until he is through. Would that you could feel even then as if you were entirely safe! Yet the smallest imprudence will cost you a good deal. When, after taking a long breath, he looks squarely at you and asks how did you like it, you are obliged to answer that you were pleased. If you do not, taking for granted that you did not fully understood, in while or in part, he will read it again straightway. If there is an occasion on which this practice is specially grievous, it is when such a friend has picked up a book wherein one has been reading, which he is impatient to get hold of in order to continue. Such a person would as soon begin at one place as another. What he loves is to hear and make others hear himself read, and it is simply agonizing to have to listen, as, opening anywhere, he rolls along, never doubting that his hearer's delectation is at least as sweet as his own. For your life you must not remonstrate, urging that you would prefer to take the whole in due sequence of connection, and especially if it be a story, that you do not like to anticipate. You know perfectly well that in such case he will turn far back and read, and read, and read, until it is time for both to separate, go home, or go to bed, or somewhere else where temporary relief may be had. In such a trial there is nothing to do but try not to hear, the while hearing with torment-ing distinctness every single word, hating now what you expected to life, and tempted to revolve in your mind from whom of the two, a man's enemies or his friends, it were most needful to pray to be delivered. I intimated that his sort of infliction is a lifetime matter. One might en-dure it with less anguish if he could indulge a hope that at some time in the not too remote future the liberty of dropping a hint of a wish that it might be taken off would not stop all friendly relations. But we all know that this is not to be thought about. You may criticize your friend's gait, or manners; you may ridi-cule his dressing, the color or quantity of his hair, the shape of his nose or his legs; you may express contempt for his powers or argumentation; nay, you may even whistle when he sings,--although I admit that the last is not always per-fectly safe; but if he is addicted to reading aloud, and that badly, there is but one thing left for you to do,--to weigh him in your mind, and count up his values to you in other respects. If his good qualities overbalance this one incurable vice, keep to him, only lamenting that he ever saw a book, a magazine, or a news-paper. If, however, the other scale preponderates, if he will not, then do you go in peace. Yet, if you value your after-comfort and desire security from the malignity of a lifetime enemy, do not let him, upon parting, suspect that his reading aloud was ever a bore. The recollections of my own sufferings in this behalf, sore as they were, have always been much consoled while thinking of what one of my old friends told me once of what he had to endure until his deliverance. His words were about as follows: "It was when I lived in Wilkinson. Jim--no, I won't call his full name--but he was as true and stanch a friend as any man, I don't care who he is, out ever to wish to have. He'd help you in your business, take all sorts of risks for you, if you were sick, come to see you every day, sit up and wait on you every night, and, in spite of being in the church, fight for you if you wanted him to. He was a good Christian, especially of Sundays. But right there was the diffi-culty. His church paper came of a Friday, but he never put down his business to read it till Sunday, and that after he had come from meeting and got his dinner. That would all have been well enough if he could have been satisfied to read it just to himself. But no. Of all the men who were proud of their reading and loved for other people to hear him, I do think he must have been the beat. Every blessed thing in it would he read aloud, and any man must be pushed who would ever have wanted to listen to a meaner reader. We lived close together, and, being warm friends, we must meet almost every Sunday evening. If I didn't go to his house, he would come to mind. Sometimes, when I knew of his coming, I'd either go somewhere else, or hide in the woods behind my lot. But, you see, then my wife had to stand it, until at last she said right down that the fact was, I had to quit throwing such things on her. Why, sir, he'd make a pointer out of his forefinger, and he'd read about all the marry-ings and deaths of people he knew not one blessed thing about, and all the letters, from nobody knows where, telling about revivals, and quarterly meetings, and I don't know what all, and, if you'll believe me, he'd come out with the sermon which they printed in the thing to help fill up. Why, sir, he seemed to have no more pity on me than if I'd been a cur-dog. And--well, it just got so, I couldn't stand it. For it didn't look right for a man, especially with a family to raise, to get so mad as to feel like cursing every single Sunday of the world." "What did you do, Jack?" I asked. "What was there to do?" "Well, sir, I'll tell you, and that in short. I just sold out, lock, stock, and barrel, and moved away from there." R.M. Johnston ----------------------------------------------- AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION IT is among the signs of the times that the emancipation of the American farmer cannot be much longer delayed. If his thraldom has not been that of which gyves and manacles are the visible signs, it has been almost as bad; for he has stood still, while progress marched past on every side. Agriculture itself has not stood still; that has kept step with, or led, the march. Our tillable area has increased; so have the quantity of our products, and our ability to handle great crops. But the condition of the individual farmer has not been greatly advanced. Not at once, nor primarily, are the manacles of toil to be stricken from him, and agriculture made the idyllic occupation of the unpractical theorist; for it will always imply manual labor of severe and often unpleasing sorts. The plough cannot be guided with the same gentle effort that suffices to wield the pen or the artist's brush; nor is the labor of the farm compatible with the same attention to habiliments and surroundings that may be wholly practicable for the merchant or banker. Yet a more liberal education, bringing with it a better understanding of the opportunities and possibilities of his occu-pation, may enable the farmer to pursue it under much more satisfactory condi-tions and with a more pleasing environment than he now does. Agriculture, which in all ages men have united in calling the noblest of the arts ("Him I honor," quoth Carlyle, "that with earth-made implement laboriously conquers the Earth, and makes her man's"), should have every refining influence case about it; instead, it is hemmed by narrow boundaries that produce the most sordid conditions; under such limitations as ordinarily obtain, the farmer is rarely a free agent to move toward the elevation of his own condition or that of his fellows. Empiricism has long been the withholding cause, and the emancipation of agriculture from this influence has been slow because of the principle involved in any change of methods has come after the discovery of the effect wrought by it. Now we are changing that, and are studying principles for the purpose of producing definite results by their application. 404 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION There are now agricultural colleges and agricultural experiment stations in every State in the Union, working harmoniously together for the advancement of the twin causes of agricultural education and agricultural science. The experiment station is the handmaid of the college, and they are the complement of each other. In the college not only are the theories of agriculture taught, to be followed by demonstration in the station, but the mind of the student is fitted to follow, receive, and assimilate the practical object-lessons which the work of the latter offers. The primary object of all agricultural training is to make better farmers: that accomplished, and all else follows in due course,--increase in productive-ness, checking of wastes, conserving of soil-fertility, etc. The better the farmer, the greater the profit from the farm. It may seem a narrow view to take, but not until it has been demonstrated that "there is money in it" will the occupation of farming become more popular and a better class of men be attracted to it,--men who are better educated, better equipped in every way for that or any other occupation. These men should come from the farm to the farm. They should be of the generation now approaching manhood, and should come from the farm to the college and thence again to the farm, carrying with them to put in practice there the teachings of the school, to the end that they may become better farmers than their fathers. Farm-life will be denuded of many of its sordid and narrowing conditions as soon as the struggle for bread and for the occasional surplus dollar becomes less grinding; and whenever the educated man is able to pursue the occupation with the probability of a pecuniary reward approximating that which the same exercise of his talents would bring in other walks of life, and to surround himself and his family with the same privileges that they would have were he otherwise engaged, then the end toward which all present effort for higher agricultural education is being directed will be achieved, and the farming classes "become awake to the value of a trained mind." But the value of the trained mind in agriculture will not be generally appreciated unless very substantial evidences of that value are apparent. It is useless to balk the fact that money is the chief end for which men toil,--if not for its own self, for the things it may accomplish. This admitted, the question remains, In what manner does agricultural education help toward this end? "Science with practice" was the motto chosen for the Royal Agricultural Society of England. While scientific farming--the reducing of the practice to an exact science--may be but an "iridescent dream," yet it is the key-note to all agricultural progress. The relations of science to the practice of farming should not be overrated, for already the glittering promises that it has held out have been the means of leading more than one enthusiast far upon false trails; still there is a vast field in agriculture that is legitimately within the domain of science. In each foot of soil are potent influences for plant-growth and the sustenance of the human race. Under certain unfavorable conditions these influences will remain inoperative, or only partially operative. The labor of cultivation may be expended upon them, but they will return only a scant harvest. Perhaps the soil has been depleted through excessive cultivation, yet there remain in it properties of value which may be utilized by proper manipulation, or by supplying some one missing element which will render all the rest available. For science does not recognize a "barren" soil. It is a nice point, and quite beyond the power of the ordinary farmer, to determine AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION 405 determine what the missing quality is, how this missing quality can be best supplied, what crop will give the best return upon its cost, and, finally, whether it will pay to build up this particular soil at all. The full producing capacity of a soil is rarely understood. At country fairs we occasionally see huge ears of corn and mammoth potatoes, which are looked upon as abnormal growths. But in agriculture there is no result without it determining cause. The ear of corn has grown to double its usual size because the soil that fed it contained in available form just the quantity and quality of foods most useful for the complete development of the corn-plant. The same food-elements may have been in an adjoining plot, but only partially available; or the soil there may have been deficient in some one quality. The difference in the product of the two plots is not because the corn on one "happened" to grow larger than on the other, but because in one case were present the very conditions with which science would have surrounded it, and in the other case these conditions were in part lacking. Very much is accomplished when the farmer has learned that these things are not the result of chance, nor determined by the influence of the moon. It is well that a trained corps of workers is constantly engaged at the experiment stations in solving and explaining to him the problems of the soil, and better still that there is a constantly-increasing proportion of men engaged in agriculture who are able to pursue independent investigation for themselves. The great work, then, that the college does for the farmer is to so train the faculties that they may work together conjointly, and enable him with the mind, the eye, and the hand to study and apply the true principles of cultivation. Whether this is done at one of the great universities or at an agricultural college, the end to be accomplished is the same. Of course at the latter the work bears more closely upon the lines that the farmer is to follow in after-life, and so is the more immediately available; but the graduate of Yale or Harvard is not the less qualified for the farm because of his knowledge of the classics and sciences gained at those institutions. In agricultural colleges not only are the objects aimed at those which may be classed as practical, but the design is to broaden one's appreciation of Nature so that the highest satisfaction may be gained from the constant inter-course with her which the agricultural life necessitates. The fundamental practical principals which it is the aim to teach are, briefly, the elements of plant-food, the sources from which they are derived, how assimilated by the plant, the physiological changes that take place at different stages of the plant's growth, methods of tillage by which the plant-food can best be made available, how the fertility of the soil can best be conserved, how lacking elements can be most easily supplied, and--the one item of paramount importance--how to make the most of such resources as already exist in the soil. Some of these are serious questions in our agriculture; the conditions are present with us that demand their immediate solution. They are questions with which the uneducated farmer is wholly inadequate to cope, and so his condition goes from bad to worse as his land becomes depleted in fertility and his crops grow less. In the various agricultural and scientific schools of the United States are now more than ten thousand students. All of these are not fitting themselves for the occupation of agriculture, or even taking the agricultural courses, but enough of them are doing it so that a large and constantly-increasing leaven of enlightenment is emanating from the schools to the farm. Owing to his isolation406 COSMOPOLITANISM AND CULTURE. isolation from centres of thought, and to the hardships that a single failure imposes, the farmer is slow to take up new ideas or to experiment with new theories; but he is quick to adapt himself to changes which by practical object-lessons are shown to be beneficial. An educated farmer, successfully applying the principles of scientific agriculture upon his soil, is bound to be a potent factor in influencing his neighbors toward the higher education and the new agriculture that is following in its wake. James Knapp Reeve. ------------------------------------------- COSMOPOLITANISM AND CULTURE. Now that newspapers are published at Athens and the voice of the telephone may be heard on the banks of the Congo, it is natural to speculate about the probable effects of the cosmopolitanism which is beginning to show itself nearly everywhere. Its results in all purely practical matters may be predicted with some confidence, as its benefits in extending commerce, developing business enterprise, and increasing the comforts of life have already made themselves apparent. But, viewed from aesthetic stand-point, the subject presents grounds for a difference of opinion. That "free speech of the soul" which Goethe, in his "Dichtung und Wahrheit," ascribes to provincial utterances can hardly retain its naturalness under different conditions, and it is true that the merging of such special types into one unvarying whole is most likely to involve a loss of variety as well as of spontaneity and naïveté. People who look back with a romantic and sentimental interest to the things of the past and who have a constitutional dread of time's iconoclasm are inclined to think of this extinction of all localisms with dislike and distrust, and generally fail to see its recompensing advantages. Yet those advantages are unquestionably very great. Most of the famous authors, composers, and artists of recent times have owed much to their contact with the national lives of other lands than their own. Macaulay, Thackeray, Victor Hugo, George Eliot, Ebers, Browning, Motley, Longfellow, and a host of other authors show the ripening effects of cosmopolitanism in their best works, and even Turgenieff and Björnson, though writing almost entirely about their native countries, gained the power to judge their compatriots fairly and picture them truly by living elsewhere. Gounod's sojourn in Italy and Germany, as well as his profound study of old Italian church-music, helped to give him a force and freedom which most French composers entirely lack. In a lower order of musical composition Offenbach showed plainly some of the advantages of a double national life. Leaving his Westphalian birthplace when he was on the verge of manhood, he kept fresh in his memory many old German volkslieder, whose sweetness and strength no one could have felt more thoroughly than he. In his operas their substance often reappears, galvanized by an unmistakable French tone. Each element of the compound supplies what the other needed, and French grace and spirit and German depth and melody join in making his music popular wherever European music is heard at all. COSMOPOLITANISM AND CULTURE. 407 The good effects of such free intercourse and reciprocity have been less perceptible in plastic and graphic art than in literature and music; perhaps because modern sculptors and painters in all countries have been carefully trained to imitate the same ancient and mediæval works. But more of this internationalism in thought, as it may be called, would be very useful in those departments also. In painting, especially, its absence is often a serious defect. Many French painters give their pictures an obtrusively personal character which detracts greatly from their merit. In some cases we seem to see the artist standing in front of his work and saying to the public, "It was I who did it. Behold me!" An intense Gallicism likewise pervades and injures some French pictures; but in the possession of that fault the artists of France are by no means alone. The celebrated German school of which Kaulbach and the lately deceased Piloty were long the chief lights is trammelled by an ultra-Teutonism which narrows and hardens its conceptions and keeps it from expanding into the really great world-influencer which the genius of some of its members ought to have made it. National feeling helps to give an artist sincerity and enthusiasm, and, when kept within reasonable bounds, its effect is thoroughly good. But when he allows it to take entire possession of his brain and hand, he is in danger of sinking to the level of those Flemish painters whose Roman soldiers carried matchlock muskets, wore Dutch uniforms, and smoked enormous meerschaum pipes in the time of Pontius Pilate. Taking an impartial view of the whole subject, we can hardly doubt that in becoming more cosmopolitan we gain more in every respect than we lose by the change. The process is not unlike the development of boys and girls into men and women. Looking back at childhood's days, our view is often affected by the glamour of the past, and we see them in a rose-colored light; yet if we could become children again we should find the pettiness and the narrow limits of a child's life intolerable. It is natural to regret the dying out of time-honored customs and the loss of old associations, and to find whatever takes their places incongruous and unattractive. But their extinction means that kind of progress without which life would be mere vegetation, and the sacrifice we make in giving them up is an unqualifiedly wholesome one. Controlling our unreasonable prejudices in such matters, we can learn to think with calmness even of Thackeray's prospective steamboatmen in Palestine shouting, with strident voices, - Ease her! Stop her! Passengers for Joppa! In the United States this outgrowing of old-fashioned and narrow ideas ought to be easier than it is anywhere else. Our population is made up of so many different national elements that we may familiarize ourselves with a great variety of such types without going beyond our own borders. Many of our foreign-born citizens are quite as American in feeling as any native of the country, and in that respect their descendants seldom differ at all from the rest of the people. Still, they both necessarily retain some of the characteristics of their original stocks, and both have helped to carry out the work which was begun by the diversity of the colonial populations. In the natural order of things we Americans ought to be the most cosmopolitan people in the world. W. W. Crane."LITTLE JARVIS." THOSE who light up the pages of American history, especially those who do it attractively for young readers, certainly perform good service for the com-munity. This Miss Seawell has done in her story of "Little Jarvis" (Appleton), in which she has taken for the groundwork of her narrative the encounter in open sea of the Constellation, commanded by gallant Commodore Truxtun, with the French frigate La Vengeance. The manner in which the character of "Little Jarvis" is developed, from the most mischievous and irrepressible young midshipman on board the Constellation, to the heroic young sailor who refused to quit his post when death stared him in the face, "became an officer must die at his post," shows no small amount of knowledge of boy nature and life, blended with a keen sense of humor. Although Jarvis was doing nothing whatever at his post of duty, and we most seriously object, on general principles, to the manufacture of heroes of the Casabianca type, and feel that orders should be both given and received with several grains of common sense, in official as well as in private life, Miss Seawell cannot be charged with either the creation or the murder of "Little Jarvis," as the episode is an historic one, and the name of James Jarvis, Jr., has come down to us as honored by a resolution of Congress in consequence of his heroic devotion to duty. Miss Seaswell, who is know to the readers of Lippincott's Magazine as the author of "Hale-Weston" and some exceptionally clever short stories, has enshrined this boy hero in a pathetic and humorous narrative which must delight the heart of the juvenile reader. ______________________________ "TREASURES OF ART." ALTHOUGH the high tariff upon foreign art works in this country has raised us a wall so lofty that few foreign pictures of merit are ever carried over it, yet there is a method of reproducing these works so that families even in humble circumstances can possess excellent reproductions of the great art treasures of Europe. These reproductions are made by the lately-discovered photogravure process, which combines the softness and accuracy of the photo-graph with the fineness and beauty of the steel engraving. At first the Parisian firm of Goupil & Co. seemed the only one able to produce fine pictures by this process, but the art has travelled to America, and there are now several firms here doing excellent work. "The Treasures of Art from Paintings of the Mas-ters," published by Carson & Simpson (Philadelphia), furnishes an example of what beautiful photogravures are made in the United States. For a remarkably low price the purchaser of this work can make himself the possessor of a great number of highly-finished photogravures, reproductions of the choice pictures of the great modern artists, representing all the principle schools of painting, at home or abroad. The collection embraces also some fine engravings and etchings. Descriptions of the pictures, as well as biographical and critical notes, are furnished by J.W. Cathcart and Walter Rowlands. The letter-press is a fit accompaniment for the beautiful illustrations. NEW PUBLICATIONS THERE are a few novels of modern Spanish life written by Spaniards, nota-bly by Valdes and Galdos, that are superlative in the art of fiction. There is only one, however, to our knowledge, written in the English language that is worthy of note. Alice Montgomery Baldy is the gifted author of it.* She takes us to Seville and at the outset introduces us to an interesting group of young men, among whom are a sculptor, a poet, and a priest. Quickly, when once we have been brought into touch with the Spanish life, the story begins to tell, and telling it is indeed. The dramatis personae are few, but picturesque; they stand out from the pages like creatures of flesh and blood,--the anti-Catholic Dona Dolores, who reads Cervantes incessantly; the cold, ascetic, and unhappy priest, fond of his power and secretly nursing a love of art; the poet Emilio, careless and free until he tingles at sight of the beautiful Magdalena. It is the distinc-tive merit of this work that it transports us to Spain without obvious effort; with such gentle adroitness is the Spanish coloring laid on, we do not feel like tourists in a foreign land. The early scene in Antonio's studio, the exquisite evening when the grand passion swelled in the hearts and sealed the lips of Emilio and Magdalena, the suddent blinding weakness of the priest in the little chapel,--these are salient passages full of throbbing life and loves of Andalusia. In that one central scene, indeed, to which we have referred, between the hero-ine and the cura, the story attains a dramatic strength most rare and thrilling: "Swiftly now he drew her within his arms and kissed her lips...Again he kissed her, again and again, till, drunken from the new draught, he yielded to the pressure of her hands against his breast and loosened his embrace. 'For the love of Christ!' she cried, and struggled from his clasp. The name she had invoked fell upon his ear like a trumpet. In his veins the blood that has surged so wildly a moment before seemed now to ebb away, leaving him cold and benumbed. Opposite him she stood, looking at him with wide, horrified eyes. He felt her terror to be a scorching iron laid against his flesh." That is the situation; but the approach to it, no less than its consequences, reveals the powerful pathos of this "Romance of a Spanish Nun." _________________________________________ There is a field in fiction that belongs almost exclusively to Hawley Smart,--the field of the turf, if one may so express one's self. At any rate, just at present there is no one to dispute his lordship. A knowingness, an unmistaka-ble personal knowledge of and interest in horse-racing, give to his novels an authority and a charm dear alike to those who thrill on the grand stand and those who shout at the track. In "The Plunger,"* his latest tale, the horsey atmosphere is indicated by the title. But there is far mroe in it than the talk at clubs and paddocks: the story suddenly takes a tragical turn, and in the solu-tion of a mysterious murder les much of its interest. The characters, particularly that of Squire Wrexford, are excellently drawn, albeit one feels inclined to quarrel with the author's manifest prejudice against the nephew who was honest, ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________ * THE ROMANCE OF A SPANISH NUN, bu Alice Montgomery Baldy. American Novel Series. J.B. Lippincott Company. Paper, 50 cts. * THE PLUNGER: A TURF TRAGEDY OF FIVE-AND-TWENTY YEARS AGO, by Hawley Smart, In the Series of Select Novels, 16mo. J.B. Lippincott Company. Paper, 25 cts,; half cloth, 50 cts. VOL. XLVII.--27serious-minded, and not in love with horses. For "Robby Gauntlett" it is hardly possible to entertain the kindly feeling he aroused in the breast of his pretty cousin Rosie; while Henry Curtice is sure of winning from most readers a portion at least of that sympathy which was coldly denied him by Jenny. _____________________________________ The spirit that breathes through the volume of verse written by Isabella T. Aitken* is sometimes jocund and generally genial. It is wholly catholic in selection of theme, ranging from "Kisses" to "Consumption," from "The Irish Banshee" to "The Sea-Nymph." The author's largest measure of success, as it seems to us, is achieved in the writing of her purely imaginative pieces, as in that entitled "A Day's Diary in the Infernal Regions." The volume concludes with a sympathetic poem on "The Wissahickon," containing this pretty stanza: Banished, and no trace remaining Save the gray rock's time-work stone; Banished, and no sound revealing Save the wild-bird's note alone. Mr. Block sings in a deeper tone and more solemnly.* His book of poems is divided into two parts, the first comprising four dramatic pieces, "Exile," "Tantalus," "Pygmalion," and "Hanging the Pictures," all written in blank verse, the form which lends itself gracefully to his use. "Exile," occupying more than eighty pages, is the piece de resistance of the volume. It is a purposeful poem, exhibiting in dignified dialogue the triumph of human affection over the pursuits of a cold intellectual philosophy. Among the fine and forceful lines with which the poem abounds, the following, spoken by the philosopher, seem to us particularly noticeable: My life has all the magical repose Of some sweet island in a pale lagoon: The ripples break upon the clear green waters, The mainland lies afar enwrapped in mists, The air is of a soft, mixed hue, not bright As where the beast conglomerate, mankind, The many-headed life that is but one, Each puddled with the soul of each, doth dwell; Even the sun veils here his rigorous splendors, And paces with slower step the blue-stretched heavens; The woods are peopled but the cool-eyed blooms And slender well-poised ferns; and here and there The white fire of the sudden springs, and brids Whose voices are the sounds interfluous thoughts Subtly project when several merge in one, Conjoining rays in concord of one flame, And the long grasses swaying in the wind. The second part of the book embraces numerous lyrical and narrative poems, nearly all of a sedate sentiment or expressive of a lofty and serene philosophy of life. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ *BOHEMIA, AND OTHER POEMS, by Isabella T. Aitken. J.B. Lippincott Company. Cloth, $1.00. *DRAMATIC SKETCHES, AND OTHER POEMS, by Louis James Block. J.B. Lippincott Company. Cloth, $1.00. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ CURRENT NOTES. Delicious Bread The Most Wholesome that can be made, and with Least Trouble. The great perfection to which the Royal Baking Powder has been brought as a leavening agent has induced its use in lieu of yeast by many of the most expert bakers in the making of fine bread. It is found that it not only leavens the dough most perfectly, but that it makes the sweetest, finest flavored, most tender, delicious and wholesome bread possible to pro-dice. Old and celebrated bread-makers declare that it exceeds the most successful yeast bread they have ever made. The following receipt for making bread without yeast, using Royal Baking Powder to raise it, appears to be the favorite with lovers of good, wholesome, fresh bread. Please notice that it requires water for mixing the dough. Do not use milk. This receipt, using water, will be found, if carefully followed, to produce one loaf of ex-ceedingly handsome, light, sweet, wholesome bread, that will keep moist, fresh and sweet for many days: Royal Unfermented Bread 1 quart flour, 1 teaspoonful salt, half a teaspoonful sugar, 2 heaping teaspoonfuls Royal Baking Powder,* half me-dium-sized cold boiled potato, and water. Sift together thor-oughly flour, salt, sugar, and baking powder; run in the potato; add sufficient water to mix smoothly and rapidly into a stiff batter, about as soft as for pound-cake; about a pint of water to a quart of flour will be required--more or less ac-cording to the brand and quality of the flour used. Do not make a stiff dough, like yeast bread. Pour the batter into a greased pan, 4 1/2 by 8 inches and 4 inches deep, filling about half full. The load will rise to fill the pan when baked. Bake in very hot oven 45 minutes, placing paper over first 15 minutes baking, to prevent crusting too soon on top. Bake immediately after mixing. *Perfect success can be had only with the Royal Baking Powder. ~~~~~~~~~~~ Some of the advantages by this method of making bread with Royal Baking Powder are: The saving of the nutritious constituents of the flour from consumption in the process of rising. Saving of time, ordinary yeast bread requiring preparation over night, care for hours before bak-ing, and dependence on a variable supply of yeast. A bread that retains its moisture longer, and does not mold as readily. Uniformity of result, while the result with yeast is of doubtful issue, and in household production is more frequently indifferent than good. A bread that even person of delicate digestive apparatus can use without the ills peculiar to fer-mented bread following. Bread that can be eaten warm with impunity, etc. IT WILL PAY EVERY HOUSEKEEPER TO TRY THIS. The Royal Baking Powder Co. will thank those trying this receipt for information as to result. ROYAL BAKING POWDER CO., 106 WALL ST., NEW YORK, U.S.A.CRESSETS AND LAMPS IN CHURCHES.--Among the legends of the early Celtic saints nothing is more common than the story of the saint being sent to borrow fire, and carrying it in his lap without the fire injuring the garment. In Ireland, before St. Patrick introduced Christianity, there was a temple at Tara, where fire burned ever, and was on no account suffered to go out. When Christianity became dominant, it was necessary to dissociate the ideas of the people from the central fire as mixed up with the old gods; at the same time some central fire was an absolute need. Accordingly, the church was converted into the sacred depository of the perpetual fire, and a lamp was kept in it ever burning, not only that the candles might be ignited from it for the services, without recourse had to friction or tinder, flint, and steel, but also that the parish, the village, the town, might obtain thence their fire. There exist still a few--a very few--contrivances for this perpetual fire in our churches; they go by the name of cresset stones. The earliest I know is not in England, but is in the atrium outside the remarkable church of Sant' Ambrogio at Milan. It is a block of white marble on a moulded base, now broken, but banded together with iron. It stands three feet ten inches high, and is two feet six inches in diameter at the top. It consists of a flat surface in which are depressed nine cup-like hollows. These were originally filled with oil, and wicks were placed in them and ignited. In England one is still in situ, in the church of Lewannick, in Cornwall. There it is not far from the door. It consists of a circular block containing on its flat upper surface, which is twenty-two inches across, seven cup-like hollows, four and a half inches deep. The stone stands on a rudely-moulded base, octagonal, and is in all about two feet six inches high. In Furness Abbey, among the ruins, has been found another, with five cups in it; at Calder Abbey another, with sixteen such cups for oil and wicks. At York is another with six such fire-cups, and at Stockport another with the same number in a square stone table. At Wool Church, Dor-set, is again another example built into the south wall of a small chapel on the north side of the chancel. It is a block of Purbeck marble, and has in the top five cup-shaped cavities quite blackened with oil and smoke. In some of the examples there are traces of a metal pin around which the wick was twisted. In addition to these, in several churches are to be found lamp-niches. Some have chimneys or flues, which pass upward, in some cases passing into the chimneys of fireplaces. Others have conical hollows in the heads or roofs, in order to catch the soot and prevent it passing out into the church. Now, although these lamps and cressets had their religious signification, yet this religious signification was an after-thought. The origin of them lay in the necessity of there being in every place a central light from which light could at any time be borrowed, and the reason why it was put in the middle of the church was to dissociate heathenish ideas with it.--The Cornhill Magazine. HONORARY TITLES FOR WARD MCALLISTER.--Ward McAllister, author of "Society as I have Found It," has been variously dubbed by the foreign and domestic press "The Lackey of the Four Hundred," "The Autocrat of the Drawing-Room," "Lord High Steward of the Four Hundred," "The Pepys of Contemporary New York," "The Boswell of the Lum Tum," "The Social Scene-Shifter," "The Great American Toady," and "The Door-Mat of the Upper Ten." FILLS THE BILL. "The bill of fare is all right, waiter; but I am not." "What's de trouble, sah?" "No appetite--that's the trouble." "Well, sah, day's anoder gemmen comes yere as useter be troubled dat a way." "Yes? And how is he now?" "Te-he! Plenty appertite now, sah." "That so? What did he do?" "Didn't do nuff'n, sah. He on'y went an' took AYER'S SARSAPARILLA, dat's all--an' now he kin eat de whole bill, an' arx fo' mo' !" Pompey was correct To strengthen the appetite and relieve dyspepsia, Ayer's Sarsaparilla has no equal. "For several years I was a great sufferer from dyspepsia. I tried all kinds of remedies without avail, until, by the advice of a friend, I began to take Ayer's Sarsaparilla and Ayer's Pills. I soon felt the benefit of this treatment. In three months I was completely cured of the complaint that afflicted me so long, and from which I had but little hope of recovery."--MRS. MARY RIELLE, Little Canada, Ware, Mass. "I have found Ayer's Sarsaparilla an excellent remedy for indigestion."--REV. J.L. MORIN, Holyoke, Mass. "For some five years I was troubled with sour stomach and indigestion, but was relieved and cured by using Ayer's Sarsaparilla. I believe this remedy has done me more good than any medicine I ever took."--JOS. A. VERGE, 75 India Street, Boston, Mass. Ayer's Sarsaparilla, prepared by Dr. J.C. Ayer & Co., Lowell, Mass. Sold by all Druggists. Has cured others, will cure you. THE HAIR, when not properly cared for, loses it lustre, becomes crisp, harsh, and dry, and falls out freely with every combing. To prevent this, the best and most popular dressing in the market is Ayer's Hair Vigor. It removes dandruff, heals troublesome humors of the scalp, restores faded and gray hair to its original color, and imparts to it a silky texture and a lasting fragrance. By using this preparation, the poorest head of hair soon becomes luxuriant and beautiful. All who have once tried Ayer's Hair Vigor want to other dressing. "I have used Ayer's Hair Vigor with great benefit, and know several other persons, between forty and fifty years of age, who have experienced similar good results from the use of this preparation. It restores gray hair to its original color, promotes a new growth, gives lustre to the hair, and cleanses the scalp of dandruff."--BERNARDO OCHOA, Madrid, Spain. Ayer's Hair Vigor, prepared by Dr. J.C. Ayer & Co., Lowell, Mass. Sold by Druggists and Perfumers.414 CURRENT NOTES. STEVENSON ON REALISM.—The realists will not let themselves enjoy anything. The moment anything enjoyable appears they must remind the reader that there is a cesspool under the kitchen floor, a corpse in the back parlor cupboard, and a volcano in the immediate vicinity. I do not say it is not so in real life. I only say that in life nobody cares. If he is meeting his sweetheart or combating his enemy at the moment, cesspool, corpse, and volcano are all blotted from his mind. He does not look out of the window to analyze a smell and consider the miserable fate of humanity or the geological conditions of the earth. He does not care a farthing candle if the whole thing is going to explode to-morrow. At that moment he is all upon the present passion, and his being thrills. It is this sympathetic thrill of emotion that I miss in so-called realists. Writers appear to have become infected with a desire to imitate painters. Laborious and minute description has become the disease of literature. We can make our hero speak, we can make him move, we can make him think, we can make him travel, we can let him grow old, we can let him die, and even hear what his survivors say of him. But one thing we cannot do; we cannot tell what he looked like. Observe the efforts of artists to realize characters, even the elaborately described. Every draughtsman makes a new thing of them. One sense literature can only serve by a half-miraculous tour de force, and that sense is the sense of sight. I believe they are blinded, on the one hand, by a technical preoccupation, by the supposed necessity of perpetual minute and always original observation; while they are blinded, on the other hand, by the habit of living in towns, in a mean, poky, hole-and-corner civilization, where they live in clubs and restaurants, never seeing people in the open air, in their working-clothes and undergoing healthy toils and dangers.—Melbourne Argus. GENERAL BOOTH AT WORK.—At Oceanville, a small villa overhanging the sandy cliffs on the outskirts of Clacton-on-Sea, "General" Booth lived and worked beside his afflicted wife, only going to his London head-quarters when matters of urgency called for his presence there. He lives on intimate terms with every one beneath his roof, has a faculty for understanding people and their circumstances, and knows the likes and dislikes of his servants as well as those of his own children. He is a friendly, companionable man to work with, and before you have been many minutes in his company will make you feel he takes an interest in you. He does not lay much store on ceremony, and is easily approached on any subject. When consulted he lets out frankly what he thinks and what he will do, but at the same time respects dissenting opinions. When engaged on literary work he dictates to a short-hand clerk the whole day, and prepares the matter for next day's dictation after every one else has retired to rest. His capacity for work is enormous. He seldom spends more that three or four hours in bed, and that rest during Mrs. Booth's illness was frequently broken in attending to her. He takes no exercise or recreation apart from drawing rein for a few minutes to chat about some every-day occurrence to his clerk. Although he frequently works night and day without cessation, he is considerate of others, for when a new clerk is sent to Clacton the "general" gives him strict injunctions to put down his work the moment he feels fatigue and take a ramble on the beach or go hunting for mushrooms in the fields. There is no eye-service beneath his roof.—Wit and Wisdom. CURRENT NOTES. 415 Taking A Pill is often a "happy thought," and Beecham's Patent Pills are the most wonderful antidote yet discovered for Bilious and Nervous Disorders, Sick Headache and Weak Stomach. A Box of these Pills, costing only twenty-five cents, constitutes a family medicine chest. Wind and Pain in the Stomach, Giddiness, Fullness, Swelling after meals, Dizziness, Drowsiness, Cold Chills, Flushings of Heat, Loss of Appetite. Shortness of Breath, Costiveness, Blotches on the Skin, Disturbed Sleep and all nervous and trembling sensations are cured by using these Pills. The First dose will give relief in twenty minutes, and pain, apprehension and uncertainty can be avoided by having a box always at hand wherever you are,—in the house, on the train, on the steamer—ready for immediate use. Safe, Painless, harmless, do not gripe, but are effectual, and will save may doctor's bills if promptly taken. Some idea of how generally this is understood can be had from the statement that BEECHAM'S PILLS have the largest sale of any proprietary medicine in the world. Prepared only by THOS. BEECHAM, St. Helens, Lancashire, England. B. B. ALLEN CO., Sole Agents for United States, 365 and 367 Canal St., New York, who (if your druggist does not keep them) will mail BEECHAM'S PILLS on receipt of price, 25 cents,—but inquire first. Correspondents will please mention "Lippincott's Magazine."416 CURRENT NOTES. THE DANGERS OF HYPNOTISM. - At Nancy I have seen a young women return on three consecutive mornings to be hypnotized for a headache. After each seance she expressed herself as feeling quite relieved. Now, if the hypnotic cure of a headache has to be repeated three consecutive mornings, it has nothing to boast of over simpler remedies, whereas it may, as I have shown, be but substituting a dangerous neurosis for a headache. Again, it seems to be that the public may be deceived on reading the published accounts into imagining that the striking results are generally obtained. The authors generally refrain from stating the number of cases in which hypnotism entirely failed, and also from showing clearly whether it was only with a very limited number of cases that the phenomena, which to the uninitiated appear so "miraculous," were obtained. Now, it is well known that certain "neurotics" exhibit those phenomena, and that in large centres of medical education - like Paris - they pass from one medical school to another exhibiting their abnormalities. By so doing they develop the morbid delight they themselves take in these displays, and prevent the medical man from tracing their subsequent history. I remember that when I was house physician in a London hospital a patient presented herself with a large abdominal swelling, which proved to be a "hysterical tumour;" i.r., a simulation of the appearance of a tumor, caused by the spasmodic contraction of the muscles of the abdominal walls. Over the centre of this swelling was a small cicatrix, which she said was due to an operation made some years previously, when a similar tumor was removed in another hospital. Hardly believing that any medical man could have made such a mistake in diagnosis as to have opened the abdomen for a tumor which did not exist, we questioned her as to whether she had seen the tumor which was removed. She answered ingenuously that she had not seen it, but had heart the doctor say it was a "phantom tumor." A small incision had evidently been made only skin deep, she had treated as if a serious operation had been performed, and the effect so induced on her mind was sufficient to make the false tumor disappear for two years. I found that she had previously been in the hospital for other hysterical symptoms, and she continued to return from time to time as a museum of varying phenomena, full of interest to successive generations of students. It is from experiments in a few such cases as these that the striking articles in popular magazines are drawn. - The Westminster Review. THE question of purity in food is a matter of the greatest importance, and deserves most careful and constant consideration; yet so ingenious are the methods nowadays adopted to adulterate, and the processes employed to cheapen manufacture, that it is often very difficult to determine the merits of any particular article of food. With W. Baker & Co.'s Breakfast Cocoa, however, no such difficulty arises, for it is produced from the finest cocoa seeds only, exclusively by mechanical processes, and, as no chemicals whatever are used in its preparation, all possibility of impurity is avoided. The result is that W. Baker & Co.'s Breakfast Cocoa is not excelled in solubility and is not approached in purity by any similar product in the market, and it still remains, as for over one hundred years past, the standard of purity and excellence, and the most healthful and nutritive cocoa in the world. CURRENT NOTES. 417 HEALTH! - Established in 1858. - REST! [*THE JACKSON SANATORIUM DANSVILLE N. Y.*] Offers an unequalled combination of natural advantages, therapeutic appliances, and favorable conditions for the restoration of the sick and exhausted. Hill-side location, unsurpassed scenery, healthful climate, pure air and water. Magnificent (brick and iron) fire-proof main building, and twelve cottages, steam- heated, complete in sanitary details, and designed to meet every requirements of invalids or seekers of rest and quiet. The Sanatorium is under the personal care and management of a PERMANENT STAFF OF REGULARLY EDUCATED AND EXPERIENCED PHYSICIANS. Skilled attendants minister to every need. Extensive apartments for treatment arranged for individual privacy. All forms of baths, electricity, massage, etc., scientifically administered. Dr. Taylor's Swedish movements. Delsarte system of physical culture. Comfort without care; freedom from taxations of fashionable life; together with the helpful influence of a Christian home, which provides for recreation and amusement without dissipation. Bet mail, telegraphic, and telephonic facilities. Open all the Year. For illustrated Circulars, Testimonials, and other information, address, enclosing stamp, J. ARTHUR JACKSON, Cor. Secretary, Dansville, Livingstone Co., New York. Formerly Jackson & Leffingwell. 418 CURRENT NOTES. LE COUP DE JARNAC. - Chasteneraye and Jarnac, both peers of France, had fallen out over the virtue of the latter's mother-in-law. The king had interested himself in the matter, and it was finally settled that the whole question should be referred to the arbitrament of arms. As it chanced, Chasteneraye was one of the first swordsmen of France, so that Jarnac exhausted his ingenuity in devising some abstruse and little-known weapon by means of which he might be more on an equality with his adversary. The names of thirty such arms were drawn up and submitted to the judges, who, however, to Jarnac's despair, laid them all aside and decided upon the sword. In his difficulty he sought the advice of a tried old Italian swordsman, who bade him be of good heart, and confided to him a secret trick of swordsmanship devised by himself and never before taught to mortal man. Armed with this horrid ruse, Jarnac repaired to the scene of the encounter, where, in the presence of the king, Henry II., and all the high officials of the kingdom, the two litigants were put face to face. Chasteneraye, confident in his skill, pressed hotly upon the less experienced Jarnac, when suddenly the latter, to the astonishment of the spectators, put in such a cut as had never before been seen and severed the tendon of his enemy's left leg. An instant later, by a repetition of the same stroke, he cut the sinew of the right one, and the unfortunate Chasteneraye fell hamstrung to the earth. In this sore plight he still continued upon his knees to make passes at his antagonist and to endeavor to carry on the combat. His sword, however, was quickly struck from his grasp, and he lay at the mercy of his conqueror. The wily Jarnac was disposed, very much against the customs of the time, to grant him his life, but the humiliation was too much for the beaten and crippled man, and, refusing all assistance, he allowed himself to bleed to death. The "coup de Jarnac" in sword-play still remains as a memorial of this encounter. - The Cornhill Magazine. WHERE GIRLS ARE UNPOPULAR. - A Hindu baby girl is an unwelcome addition to the family; her birth is supposed to be no blessing, but a curse and a sign of divine wrath. Rukhmabai says that when the new-born baby is a girl "the father gnashes his teeth and stamps his feet. The mother is sorely disappointed, and although her tenderness may bring its sure wealth of love, she curses both herself and the child. There is, moreover, a notion that women who bear only girls are sinful, and this intensifies the grief." Another Hindu woman gives the same testimony. Ramabai (high-caste Hindu widow) says that in no country in the world is a mother so laden with care and anxiety in anticipation of the birth of a child as in India. All her hope of happiness depends upon the sex of the unborn child. A wife who bears daughters and no sons is frequently put away by her husband; husbands sometimes threaten their wives that, if the coming child is a daughter, the offending mother will be henceforth banished from the society of her lord and master, a new wife will be installed in her place, and the offending wife will be made into the servant and drudge of the household, Ramabai does not merely make general statements to his effect, but gives several special instances that have come within her own knowledge, among her own friends and acquaintance, of this punishment having been meted out to mothers who gave birth to girls. Mothers try to avert the bad luck of having a daughter by superstitious ceremonies previous to the birth of the child. - The Contemporary Review. CURRENT NOTES. 419 PATTI AND DAVENPORT. THEIR OPINIONS UPON AN INTERESTING SUBJECT. Mme. Adelina Patti and Fanny Davenport can truly be said to occupy positions of undisputed eminence in their particular fields, and no one is better able to judge of matters which are directly connected with the profession - the first in the character of Marguerite and the latter in that of Cleopatra. In each case a special shade of hair was desirable, and both used the only preparation in the world that can produce these shades - the IMPERIAL HAIR REGENERATOR. Patti says, "So much has been said in the newspapers about the color of my hair, I deem it but just to say it is your Imperial Hair Regenerator which I have been and am now using. I found the Court Hairdresser in London was applying it to ladies in high social position, and I first had it applied by him, and now, during my stay in New York, I have had the application renewed by you. The result has been beyond my highest expectation. The color obtained is most beautiful, uniform, and, best of all, I find it harmless. Your preparation has my cordial recommendation. I believe there is nothing in the world for the hair like it." Fanny Davenport says, "In presenting Sardou's 'Cleopatra' I was anxious that it should be complete in every detail. It was necessary, therefore, to obtain the beautiful Titian shade of hair, and I found it possible to do this only by the aid of your Imperial Hair Regenerator. The result of the application of the Regenerator proved most satisfactory, the color obtained being perfectly natural and all that could be desired, besides leaving the hair beautiful and glossy. "My satisfaction with the Regenerator is enhanced because I know it is perfectly harmless, therefore I have no hesitation in cordially endorsing it. In the dramatic profession it is invaluable." The Imperial Regenerator restores gray hair to its natural color, or produces any desired shade. Send sample of hair to the Imperial Chemical Manufacturing Company, 54 West Twenty-Third Street, New York, and it will be regenerated to the Patti, Cleopatra, or any other shade, free of charge. Sold by all respectable Druggists and Hairdressers at $1.50 and $3.00 per bottle. No. 1, Black; No. 2, Dark Brown; No. 3, Medium Brown; No. 4, Chestnut; No. 5, Light Chestnut; No. 6, Gold Blond; No. 7, Ash Blond. VENUS TINT The most delicate and delightfully natural tint that has yet been discovered. It is practically impossible to detect it, and is guaranteed absolutely uninjurious. Easily applied, and unaffected by perspiration. No lady's toilet is complete without it. Sold by all Druggists at fifty cents per bottle, or direct from the Imperial Chemical Manufacturing Company, 54 West Twenty-Third Street, New York. 420 CURRENT NOTES. "DON'TS" FOR AMATEUR WRITERS.—Don't send your photograph to the editor with your manuscript. Don't send references as to character from your pastor or from any one else. Don't tell him what "competent critics" have said about your work. Don't try to see the editor personally. Don't roll your manuscripts, and don't tie them up with a blue ribbon, or with a ribbon of any kind. Don't give the editor an epitome of your private and domestic affairs, together with an account of the circumstances under which you happen to be writing. Don't ask the editor his opinion of your work. In most cases you wouldn't want to know it, even if he were willing to tell it to you. Don't send to the editor a saucy letter if he returns your manuscript. Let the matter end right there so far as that editor is concerned. Don't commit the awful folly of writing and accusing him of favoritism in the acceptance of manuscripts. Don't ask for the return of your manuscript without enclosing stamps for that purpose. Don't sew the pages of your manuscripts together. Few editors can forgive an offence of this kind. Don't write an almost unintelligible hand under the impression that writing of this sort is an indication of genius. Genius manifests itself in other ways. Don't quote too much. It indicates a good deal of a vacuum where your own ideas should be. Don't punctuate too painfully, particularly if you know nothing about this art; and be cautious and sparing in the use of quotation-marks and underscored words. Don't tell the editor that you are a subscriber to his "valuable magazine" or paper, thereby implying that you have a claim on him Don't tell him in one line that you have "long admired" his own work and in the next ask him to accept some of your own. In most cases, don't write at all. Learn a trade, or become a farmer, or go West, or do something more likely to secure you a livelihood.—The Writer CARDINAL NEWMAN'S SUCCESSOR.—Cardinal Newman's successor as superior of the Birmingham Oratory, the Very Rev. Ignatious Dudley Ryder, is a grandson of a former Bishop of Lichfield and a cousin of the Early of Harrowby. His features are unmistakably like those of his grandfather as preserved in the effigy over his tomb in Lichfield Cathedral. he was received into the Roman Catholic Church as a boy of ten years on the secession of his father, a clergy-man, from the Church of England about the year 1850, and most of his life since that date has been spent in the society of the late Cardinal. He is an able theologian and an effective writer, with some poetic talent. Under New-man's direction he published a dignified reply to Dr. Littledale's "Plain Reasons for Not Joining the Church of Rome," but apart from three or four magazine articles and a small volume of verse he has issued nothing else in recent years and his powers are hardly known outside the house at Edgbaston. Nevertheless, behind a somewhat cold exterior he conceals much intellectual vigor and a fund of quaint humor, and the community is to be congratulated on their choice.—Manchester Guardian. CURRENT NOTES. 421 A SPECIAL FOOD FOR THE BRAIN AND NERVES. CROSBY'S VITALIZED PHOSPHITES, prepared according to the formula by Prof. Percy. This preparation differs from all other Tonics. It is composed of the vital and nerve-giving principles of the Brain of the Ox, and the embryo of the Wheat and Oat. it is the only Vital Phosphite from animal and vegetable tissue, the principle that maintains man in the prime of life, prevents premature age, sustains all the functions in activity, and restores lost Vigor to Brain and Nerves. It strengthens the intellect, increases the capacity for mental labor, cures Neuralgia, Nervous Dyspepsia, Sleeplessness, and prevents Consumption. A Vital Nutrient Phosphite, not a laboratory nor acid Phosphate. "We have used, and highly recommend, Crosby's Vitalized Phosphites. It is not a secret remedy; the formula is on every bottle." Bishops POTTER, of New York; STEVENS, of Pennsylvania; President MARK HOPKINS, of Williams College; EMILY FAITHFULL, and many of the world's best Brain Workers. Physicians have prescribed over one million packages. Descriptive pamphlet free. Be sure you have Crosby's Vitalized Phosphites. F. Crosby Company, 56 West 25th Street, New York. Druggists, or sent by mail $1.00. AN authority on advertising says, "the whole art lies in telling acceptably what the reader wants to know." The truth, of course, all of it; less than that is unsatisfying, and in one phase insulting, for it assumed the reader to be content with a part of it. Who can tell in an advertisement all the truth about life insurance? and all the truth about his particular company> Truth, while absolute, is still relative. Facts are facts always, but they are big or little by contrast or comparison; weighty or the reverse according to circumstances. Many facts are interwoven or correlated with other facts. some-times it is the warp which fixes the character of the fabric, oftener the woof. If it were said that the PENN MUTUAL LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY has upon any just basis of calculation a larger ratio of assets to liabilities than any one of twenty legitimate companies competing for business, the statement would be unqualifiedly true. It is a fact. But if it was deduced that it was stronger than either of its competitors, the deduction, while probably true, is not necessarily so. Other conditions affect present and future security and safety; and what an institution is ought to be supplemented by a knowledge of what it is likely to be. So it comes about in life insurance, as elsewhere, that he who knows less than all the truth may reach incorrect conclusions and act unwisely. Where is he likely to be told all he should know? If a business-man, he will consult his partners, or others having an identity of interest. This he may do in life insurance by advising with those who will welcome him to a full partnership in the PENN MUTUAL LIFE, 921-3-5 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, Penna. Send for publications.422 Current Notes. Hunting dogs, and how to care for them.-Men seem to forget that from dogs kept for sporting purposes we exact an amount of violent exercise which tells upon them exactly as it does upon ourselves. A dog who comes home overtired, unless supplied with tempting food and a warm, clean, and comfortable bed, would break down as certainly as a man would. All hunting men know this about their horses, and all grooms and stablemen are obliged to act accordingly. But about their dogs men seem to reason as if they were gifted by nature with some special exemption from all the consequences of insalubrity. There are fools in the world who think they show their manliness and strength of mind by laughing at such as show any solicitude about the food or treatment of their dogs or not satisfied to leave them entirely in the hands of servants. We once very nearly lost an almost perfect spaniel through this misplaced confidence. We saw him put into a good bed after a long day's partridge-shooting, and consented to believe that he would be equally well cared for in all other respects. At the end of the first day's shooting, a very wet day, he could hardly crawl home, and we had to lift him over the stone walls. Still, we had no suspicion of the truth. He went to bed, and the next morning was evidently very ill. We tried with meat, milk, warm and cold, but he could touch nothing, and lay curled around in a corner shivering. We found, on inquiry, that, owing to some fued among the servants, the boy to whose care he had been specially instrusted had been unable to get him any dinner, and three nights running, after a hard day's work, he had nothing but a few scraps of bread. This, of course, so weakened him that he was quite unable to stand out against the cold and wet, caught a violent chill, and would certainly have died had we gone on leaving him to servants. We got him round again, with a good deal of care, but that was a lesson to us, and we hope it may be a lesson to all who are in habit of taking valuable dogs about with them to friends' houses. Another dangerous thing to do with delicate dogs is to drive them home any distance when they are wringing wet. It is difficult sometimes to avoid it, but it would always be possible to get them a good rubbing down before putting them in the dog-cat. -The Quarterly Review Pickling Olives. -Mr. L. Paparelli, who came last year from Italy to assist Professor Hilgard in the experiment station of Berkely, has prepared a statement for olive-growers in California concerning the methods of pickling the fruit employed in Italy. The olives must be picked by hand some six weeks before they reach maturity. The usual process is to step them in a solution of caustic soda at the rate of about five ounces to a gallon of water. After soaking a few hours, soft water is poured upon them several times until it flows away clear, when the fruit is placed in kegs of brine consisting of one ounce of salt and thirteen ounces of water for each pound of olives. When they are preserved without lye the olives are placed in a wooden vat and submerged in pure water covered with lemon leaves. The liquid is changed every hour for a month, after which the fruit is placed in vats, with first a layer of salt, then one of olives, then salt again, the proportion being twelve pounds of salt to a hundred pounds of olives. After remaining in the salt for two days, clean water is added, and another layer of an inch of salt is placed on top, and in a month after this treatment they are fit for use. The olives are improved by placing aromatic herbs like fennel among them after the first treatment. -Garden and Forest.424 CURRENT NOTES. DREAMS. - Ariel could put a girdle round about the world in forty minutes, but he was slow compared with the most ordinary dream. We survey mankind in China and Peru at the same instant of time, and in course of one revolving moon we may walk with Plato in the groves of Academe, applaud Luther at the Diet of Worms, set out for Holy Palestine with Coeur-de-Lion, assist Noah in building the ark, and call on the mountains to cover us at the day of judgment. Many stories are told showing the different count of time. Lord Brougham relates that he dreamed a dream of long-continued action during a short doze while a droning counsel was pleading before him. Lord Holland fell asleep while listening to some one reading, dreamed a long dream, and awoke in time to hear the conclusion of a sentence the first words of which were in his ears when he became unconscious. Dr. Abercrombie relates that a gentleman dreamed that he had enlisted for a solder, joined his regiment, deserted, had been apprehended, carried back, tried, condemned to be shot, and at last led out for execution. After all the usual preparations, he awoke with the report, and found that a noise in an adjoining room had both produced the dream and awakened him. Another dreamed that he had crossed the Atlantic and spent a fortnight in America. In embarking, on his return, he fell into the sea, and, having woke with the fright, he found that he had not been asleep ten minutes. -All the Year Round. JUST LIKE HIS RUSSIAN BROTHER. - The Sultan very rarely or never leaves the grounds of Yildiz Kiosk, except to go once a week to a mosque just outside, when the very striking ceremony known as the Selamlick takes place. Once a year, also, he pays a visit to Stamboul, but the route there and returning is never known in advance. He is in constant fear of assassination. Some grand duchess whom he received at his court, on his complaining that his health was indifferent, advised him to take more exercise and change of air and to drive about the country. On her departure he is reported to have said, "What harm have I done that this woman should desire my death? Why does she advise me to run into such dangers?" - The Nineteenth Century. ALUMINUM. - Although aluminum is plentiful, the existence of its oxide has been recognized only since 1754; and it was seventy years from that time before any of it was actually produced in separate form. For thirty years more it attracted but little attention, until in 1855 a French chemist mastered the secret of getting it into a compact shape. Since then inventors have been working at the problem of cheap production. The difficulty is the strong affinity of the metal for the elements with which it is combined, such as silicon and iron, the presence of which greatly diminishes its tensile strength, its malleability, and its flexibility. A good deal of progress has been made in this direction. For years the market price was about ten dollars a pound. English inventions have reduced this to three dollars, at which price it was coming into common use. A Chicago inventor claims that by means of some chemical process he can reduce the cost to fifteen cents a pound, an announcement which has caused a heavy fall in its price. The physical properties of this metal are too well known to be detailed here. Let it suffice to say that its cheapening would revolutionize many of our modern methods of production. CURRENT NOTES. 425 QUINA-LAROCHE. - This preparation has for its basis a combination of all the principles of the best cinchonas with a rich special wine; not, like many mixtures, an ordinary compound of drugs, but a result of laborious researches, which has won for its inventor a National Prize of 16,6000 francs, and Gold Medals at the Expositions of Paris, Vienna, etc. Quina-Laroche is par excellence that tonic with which to combat stomach affections, loss of appetite, mental depression, anaemia, etc. Quina-Laroche is a powerful preservative against intermittent and continued fevers rebellious to sulphate of quinine, and of exceptional value in cases of tardy convalescence; in combination with iron, is especially recommended for poorness of blood, chlorosis, difficulties of assimilation, debility, &c. Prevents Influenza and La Grippe. E. Fougera & Co., Agents, No, 30 North William St., New York. 22 Rue Drouot, Paris. "TELLING A SECRET." - "Why, there is ammonia in that baking powder' and I thought it was 'absolutely pure.'" You can test it yourself in a moment. Housekeeper's Test. - Mix one heaping teaspoonful of baking powder with one teaspoonful of water in a tin cup; boil thoroughly for a few moments, stir to prevent burning, and if ammonia is present you can smell it in the rising steam. NOTE. - As baking powder, when first thrown into the water, will effervesce, care should be taken not to mistake bubbling for boiling. Cleveland's Baking Powder stands all tests. Mrs. S. T. Rorer, Principal of the Philadelphia Cooking School, says of Cleveland's Baking Powder, - "It is entirely free from Ammonia, Alum, or other adulterants. "I am convinced it is the purest powder made, and I have adopted it exclusively in my cooking-schools and for daily household use." VOL. XLVII. - 28 426 CURRENT NOTES. PROF. KOCK.—A foreign correspondent writes of Prof. Kick as follows: "Dr. Koch, whose fame during the last few weeks has gone forth to the ends of the civilized world as the discoverer of the cure for consumption and other tuberculous diseases, was until ten years ago an obscure country physician, whose reputation did not extend beyond the limits of the little town of Wollstein. Born forty-seven years ago at Clausthal, in the Harz Mountains, he was educated and graduated at the University of Göttingen. Shortly after taking his degree he established himself in a village near Hanover, and began to practise as a physician. Finding, however, that it was impossible to make both ends meet, he migrated to Rackwitz, a little malarious town in Prussian Poland, which he subsequently deserted for Wollstein. It was while there that his name came before the public in 1880 as an expert in connection with the famous Speichert poisoning case. The conviction of the prisoner n this cause célèbre was entirely owing to the remarkable analyses and medical testimony of Dr. Koch, which attracted such wide-spread attention by reason of their profound education that he was summoned to Berlin to take his ear as a member of the Sanitary Commission of the metropolis and as a professor in the Royal School of Medicine. It was two years later that he first made the great discovery that tuberculous diseases were due to the existence of bacilli, a discover that revolutionized the entire scientific world, and thenceforth he devoted his entire efforts to finding some rival microbe or chemical antidote powerful enough to neutralize the operations of the tuberculous bacilli. In 1883 his labors in this direction were interrupted by his being placed at the head of the medical commission despatched be the German government to Egypt and India for the purpose of making researches in the origin and the causes and prevention of cholera. It was while at Calcutta that he succeeded in discovering in the water of native cistern the comma-like germ microbes of the cholera, for which until now no one has succeeded in discovering an antidote. On his return to Germany he was rewarded by the government for his researches with an honorarium of one hundred thousand marks with the rank of Privy Councillor, and with the rectorship of the Imperial Institute of Hygiene. Dr. Koch is now, however, about to resign his professorships in order to take charge of an immense government established devoted to the cure of tuberculous disease by means of hypodermic injection of his lymph, and toward the establishment of which the State has just contributed one million marks. ENGLISH ACTORS IN FRANCE.—Notwithstanding the social amenities of representative actors like Edmund Kean and Talma, the artistic relationships of England and France sixty years ago and later were on anything but a stable basis. For instance, when a band of English players attempted at the Porte St.-Martin Theatre in July and August, 1822, to perform several of the plays of Shakespeare,—some four or five of whose works had previously been vilely adapted to the French stage by Ducis,—they met with violent opposition from an organized gang of turbulent spirits. Night after night they were hooted from the stage amid a storm of jeers, such as "Speak French!" and "Down with Shakespeare! he is one of Wellington's aids-de-camp!" English playgoers before and after that period were equally narrow-minded. This much in all fairness must be noted when we hark back to the storm of indignation which assailed Garrick for daring to present some French dancers in "The Chinese Festival," and when, coming to more recent times, we remember us of the famous "Monte-Christo" riots.—The Gentleman's Magazine. CURRENT NOTES. 427 State OF Ohio IMPERIUM IN IMPERIO City OF Toledo LUCAS COUNTY, S. S. FRANK J. CHENEY MAKES OATH THAT HE IS THE SENIOR PARTNER OF THE FIRM OF F. J. CHENEY & CO., DOING BUSINESS IN THE CITY OF TOLEDO, COUNTY AND STATE AFORESAID, AND THAT SAID FIRM WILL PAY THE SUM OF ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS FOR EACH AND EVERY CASE OF CATARRH THAT CANNOT BE CURED BY THE USE OF HALL'S CATARRH CURE. Frank J. Cheney SWORN TO BEFORE ME, AND SUBSCRIBED IN MY PRESENCE THIS 6TH DAY OF DECEMBER, A. D. 1889 NOTARIAL SEAL LUCAS CO. OHIO. [?] Notary public. Hall's Catarrh Cure is taken internally, and acts directly upon the Blood and mucous surfaces. DR. L. L. GORSUCH, Toledo, O., says: "I have practiced medicine for forty years, have never seen a preparation that I could prescribe with so much confidence of success as I can Hall's Catarrh Cure." E. B. WALTHALL & CO., Druggists, Horse Cave, Ky., say: "Hall's Catarrh Cure cures every one that takes it." J. A. JOHNSON, Medina, N. Y., says: "Hall's Catarrh Cure cured me." CONDUCTOR E. D. LOOMIS, Detroit, Mich., says "The effect of Hall's Catarrh Cure is wonderful." Write him about it. REV. H. P. CARSON, Scotland, Dak., says: "Two bottles of Hall's Catarrh Cure completely cured my little girl." J. C. SIMPSON, Marquess, W. Va., says: "Hall's Catarrh Cure cured me of a very bad case of catarrh.' HALL'S CATARRH CURE is sold by all Dealers in Patent Medicines. Price 75 Cents a Bottle. $8.00 a Dozen. The only Genuine HALL'S CATARRH CURE is Manufactured by F. J. CHENEY & CO., TOLEDO, O. BEWARE OF IMITATIONS. Testimonials sent free on application.428 Current Notes Lying as a fine art. -In one of Kant's books he says, "The highest violation of duty of man to himself, considered as a moral being, is a departure from truth, or lying. A lie is the abandonment and, as it were, the annihilation of the dignity of a man." "Liars are the cause of all the sins and crimes in the world," was the judgment of one of the most famous teachers of philosophy and morality among the ancient Stoics. To speak the truth is a boundless duty imposed on all mankind by all the doctrines and creeds of Christendom, and pagandom as well, whether represented by Confucius, Buddha, or Mohammed. But "Lord, Lord, how the world is given to lying!" Social lies, professional lies, political lies, and malicious lies. Every one condemns lying, and yet there come times in eberybody's life when it would take a most mighty struggle to tell the truth. Especially in society are what are called white lies common. Women err greatly in this resepct without intending to be deceitful. They are so given to bgush that they exaggerate far beyond the truth. They kiss some of their mere acquaintances with as great a show of affection as their best and most intimate friends. They make one whom they may cordially dislike as welcome as if their souls had been longing for her presence. Courtney is a pleasant thing, and good manners should never be lost sight of, but an exaggerated show of kissing and sympathy where neither love nor respect exists is assuredly a sort of deception. -Pittsburg Despatch. Hops. -Are we not told that hops "are employed to communicate to beer its aromatic bitter"? So, at least, it should be. It is rather a suggestive fact, however, that though the consumption of beer and ale is rather on the increase than otherwise, the area of land under hops and the annual yield are on the decrease. Products of the hope, however, and the hop as cured for brewing purposes, are rather largely employed in medicine as a tonic, a sudorific, and a sedative. As to its potency as a tonic, one need only ask any hop-picker, which, whether he be a Pharisee or not, he has little opportunity of washing before meat, are so begrimed with pollen, or farina, or lupulin of the hope, commonly called "gold dust" from its resemblance to that precious metal, that a good deal of it necessarily swallowed with the food for which the healthy employment gives an eager appetite. The medical effects of beer, and especially old ale, taken hot on going to bed, are well known. If ginger and sugar are added, a cold may in this way be "sweated" out of one. -All the Year Round. The "Telpherage" System of Parcel, Conveyance. -What is termed telpherage, or the conveyance of parcels by electricity along lines of wire placed overhead, is little known in this country beyond the stage of experiment. In South America a line has been constructed one hundred and eighty-six miles long, which will place Bueno Ayres and Montevideo in communication. Across the La Plata there is a swing for the wires of nineteen miles, and the initial start for the journey is afforded by two towers two hundred and seventy feet in height. It is intended to despatch letter-boxes between the two cities at intervals of two hours. This expedient of maintaining communication has great possibilities for cast districts is Africa, within which railways are yet very problematic for the capitalist. Current Notes 429 Son. "Mother do you never weary with all your correspondence?" Lydia Pinkham. "No, My son: These letter of confidence bring to me the joy that mother feels whose daughter throws her arms around her next and cries, 'Oh, mother, help me!' The women of the world are my daughters." Son. "Yes, mother, and they love you." Lydia Pinkham's private letters from ladies in all parts of the world average one hundred per day, and truly has she been a mother to the race. Suffering women ever seek her in their extremity, and find both a helper and a friend. Correspondents will receive prompt conscientious answers, and the sympathy of a mother. Lydia E. Pinkham's Vegetable Compound is the only positive Cure and Legitimate Remedy for the peculiar weaknesses and ailments of women. It cures the worse forms of Female Complaints, Weak Back. Subdues Faintness, Excitability, Nervous Prostration, Exhaustion, and strengthens and tones the Stomach. Cures Headache, General Debility, Indigestion, etc., and invigorates the whole system. For the cure of Kidney Complaints of either sex, the Compound has no rival. All Druggists sell it as a standard article, or sent by mail in form of Pills or Lozenges, on receipt of $1.00. Lydia E. Pinkham Med, Co., Lynn, Mass. Bird-Manna! -The great secret of the canary-breeders of the Hartz Mountains, Germany. Bird-Manna will restore the song of cage-birds, will prevent their ailments, and restore them to good condition. If given during the season of shedding feathers it will, in most cases, carry the little musician through this critical period without loss of song. Sent by mail on receipt of 15 cents in stamps. Sold by Druggists. Directions free. Bird Food Company, 400 North Third Street, Philadelphia, Pa. Music for the Masses. -Trifet's Monthly Galaxy of Music, published by F. Trifet, 408 Washington Street, Boston, gives each month a pleasing variety of popular selections, both vocal and instrumental. To subscribe to the "Galaxy" is the cheaper way of obtaining good popular music drawn from the best sources. Each number contains at least a dozen selections, and the charge is but ten cents per number, while the subscription price is one dollar per year.430 CURRENT NOTES. COLLEGE ALES. - At Oxford there is what is called "Chancellor ale," brewed out of sixteen bushels of malt to the barrel, and so strong that two wine- glassfuls will intoxicate most people. It is kept in oak bell-shaped casks, and is never tapped until it is two years old. Some of the casks have been in use for half a century, but "Chancellor ale" is only used at high table, when a man takes very high honors. On such or other extra special occasions the Dean will grant an order for a pint of this liquor, the largest quantity ever allowed at a time. All the colleges at Oxford at one time had their brew-houses, among the most famous of them being Brasenose and Magdalen. But of late years several have been abandoned, and indeed we believe that All Souls' and Queen's are the only two college breweries remaining. But not only did, in former times, the colleges prepare their own beers, they also imposed very stringent regulations on the public breweries of the city. The Brasenose College ale poems are famous. In one of them occurs this theory of evolution: A Grand Cross of "Malta" one night at a ball Fell in love with and married Hoppetta the Tall, Hoppetta, the bitterest, best of her sex, By whom he had issue - the first Double X. Three others were born by this marriage: a girl, Transparent as amber and precious as pearl; Then a son twice as strong as a porter or scout, And another as 'spruce' as his brother was 'stout.' Double X, like his sister, is brilliant and clear; Like his mother, though bitter, by no means severe; Like his father, not small, and, resembling each brother, Joins the spirit of one to the strength of the other. In the buttery of All Saints' are many quaint and curious drinking-vessels of the olden time, and among them the famous whistling tankard. This is of silver, and holds a quart, which must be drained to the bottom before the whistle can be sounded. It is said that from this remarkable tankard - more than four hundred years old - originated the colloquialism "to pay for your whistle." - All the Year Round. THE GUESTS. - Big dinner-parties of ill-assorted guests are failures from a conversationalist point of view. A fireside, or a table, round if possible, and, say, four or half a dozen guests, are sufficient. More will break up into separate knots, and fewer mean a tete-a-tete. "I had," says Thoreau, "at Walden three chairs in my house: one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society." The hermit Thoreau in his hut at Walden was wiser than the man who looks for society in a crush. An unhappy husband, living in Portland Place, whose wife inflicted huge parties upon him, was standing in a very forlorn condition leaning against the chimney- piece. A gentleman came up to him and said, "Sir, as neither of us are acquainted with any of the people here, I think we had best go home." Social crowds must not expect the great men among them to talk well. She must have been a most unreasonable person who was disappointed with Napoleon because when a lot of ladies were presented to him he only remarked to each of them how hot it was. - The Gentleman's Magazine. CURRENT NOTES. 431 CARTER'S LITTLE LIVER PILLS TRADE MARK positively cure SICK HEADACHE. They also relieve distress from Dyspepsia, Dizziness, Nausea, Drowsiness, Bad Taste in the Mouth, Coated Tongue, Pain in the Side. Purely vegetable. Sugar-coated. Do not gripe or sicken. SMALL PRICE. SMALL PILL. SMALL DOSE. CARTER MEDICINE CO., New York City. 432 Current Notes. Strong Men. -On March 28, 1841, Thomas Thompson lifted three barrels of water, weighing together eighteen hundred and thirty-six pounds. He also put an iron bar on his next, seized hold of its two ends, and bent it until the latter met. On another occasion he raised with his teeth a table six feet long, supporting at its farthest end a weight of one hundred pounds. He also tore without serious effort a rope of a diameter of two inches, and lifted a horse over a bar. Some Years ago a negro appeared in London who, with one hand and his arm out straight, lifted from the ground a chair on which was seated a full-grown man having on his lap a child. It is on record that a german called Buchholz lifted with his teeth a cannon weighing about two hudnred pounds, and fired it off in that position. While performing at Epernay, France, the same feat, the barrel of the gun burst. Miracukously he was not killed, although several of the gragments were thrown over fifty yards away. There are some stories of strong men who did not appear in public. A butcher lived in South Holland who killed calves by strangling them. A Dutch count, in a a private entertainment, bent an iron bar by beating it with his right hand against his left arm, protected by a leather bandage, bending it afterwards straight again by beating it the other way. Charles Louvier, a carpenter of Paris, found iit child's play to roll a tin basin between his fingers into a cylinder. On one occasion he carried off a soldier on guard who had gone to sleep in the sentry-box, depositing both on a low church-yard wall close by. An equally amusing story is told of a Dane, Knut Knudson, a locksmith, who, while standing in a window on the ground0floor, lifted with one hand half a bullock from the shoulder of a butcher who was toiling past with his load. -Chamber's Journal. Hold old is Punch? -On landing at one of the sugar-factories we found that there was a fair going on under an avenue of tamarisks close by. The dealers sat under the trees with their wares before them, fruit and vegetables in one quarter, cotton and calicoes in another, native woollen stuffs, robes, rugs, cloth, etc, in a third there was also a cattle-fair, -sheep, buffaloes, camels, and donkeys. There was al fresco coffee-stalls, and a booth, within which the sounds of very noisy music could be heard, the drum predominating. We entered, and were much amused on finding that it was an Arab Punch and Judy show, but punch wore a turban and Judy a yashmak. The former perpetrated a series of enormities, and ended by tearing Judy's veil during a family squabble; after this he became a perfect desperado, and on the Mamour (chief magistrate of the districts), got up in the official tarboosh and blue frock-coat, arriving, attended by a retinue of cawasses armed with sticks, he knocked that redoubtable personage head over heels, amid the vociferous applause of the assembled fellaheen. Punch Pasha's popularity was now at its height, and much sympathy was felt for him when he career terminated by his being hanged on the pole of a shadoof. It was really a very clever and lively performance. I turned to the inspector of the factory, who was with me and said, "I suppose they had borrowed this from Europe." "Borrowed it from Europe!" he exclaimed. "Why, it was performed in the East before Europe was thought of." So, the, old Punch is, after all, but a degenerate version of Egyptian play. -Egypt After the War-Stuart. Current Notes. 433 Forty years ago almost every mother thought her child must have paregoric or laudanum to make it sleep. These drugs will produce sleep, and a few drops too many of them will produce the sleep from which there is no waking. Many are the children who have been killed or whose health has been ruined for life by paregoric, laudanum, and morphine, each of which is a narcotic product of opium. Druggists are prohibited from selling either of the narcotics named to children at all, or to anybody without telling them "poison." The definition of "narcotic" is "A medicine which relieves pain and produces sleep, but which, in poisonous doses, produces stupor, coma, convulsions, and death." The taste and smell of opium medicines are disquised, and sold under the names of "Bateman's Drops," "Godfrey's Cordial," "Soothing Syrupts," etc. You should not permit any medicine to be given to your children without you or your physician knows of what it composed. "Castoria is so well adapted to children that I recommend it as superior to any prescription known to me." -H. A. Archer, M.D., 111 South Oxford Sreet, Brooklyn, N.Y. "I use Castoria in my practice and find it specially adapted to affections of children." -Alex. Robertson, M.D., 1057 Second Avenue, New York. "From personal knowledge I can say that Castoria is a most excellent medicine for children." -Dr. G. C. Osgood, Lowell, Mass. Castoria promotes Digestion, assists Teething, and overcomes Flatulency, Constipation, Sour Stomach, Diarrhea, and Feverishness. thus the child is rendered healthy and its sleep natural. Castoria contains no morphine or other narcotic property. A Beautiful Catalogue. -L. L. May & Co.'s catalogue of Northern Grown Seeds for 1891 is never perfection than any ever issued. This firm located in North Star State, where their seeds are grown and tested, receive thousands of orders for seeds from farmers, declaring that they want nothing but Northern-grown seeds, claiming they are the best and hardiest. May's Catalogue contains over a thousand beautiful illustration and many suggestions which are both needful and useful to farmers and others ordering seeds or plants, also thirty-two pages of novelties never before issued by any seedsman. Adress L. L. May & Co., St. Paul, Minn. A Model Piano. -It is easily understood by those who are in a position to judge, why the firm of Decker Bros, have acquired and maintained since 1862 a national reputation of having piano-fortes of the highest class. That their instruments possess brilliance, purity, sympathy, quality, delicacy, elasticity, and rich volume of tone is admitted by all musicians. The beauty of design and excellence of finish make their instruments art work. It is the unvarying excellence of their instruments that has obtained for them such a high standard, and this is a natural sequence of the fact that the head of the firm is a skilled and trained piano-maker, devoting his entire attention to the manufacturing department. It is a marked feature of these instruments that the purchaser always obtains full value for his money and always commands a good price for his instruments if he wishes to sell it even after years of use. It is the reputation of such houses as Decker Bros. that has created for American manufacture the high position in the markets of the world.434 CURRENT NOTES. THE DRUSES.-Of all the various tribes and races which at present inhabit the Holy Land, there are none more distinctive and interesting than the Druses. The interest attaching to them is due to several causes. In the first place, they are one of the most exclusive races upon earth. They keep religiously and rigorously to themselves, never intermarrying with outsiders, were interfering with the religious opinions of others, and never allowing other to interfere with theirs. It would be equally impossible to convert a Druse to any other religion as it would be to become a Druse one's self. They have one great saying with reference to their religion : "The door is shut ; none can enter in and none can pass out." They would on no account admit a proselyte into the mysteries of their faith, nor accept a convert from any other religion. It is equally out of the question to attempt to pervert any of the Druses to another creed. It is true that in many parts of the Lebanon, and especially in the neighborhood of Beyrout, many Druse children may be found in the missionary schools of the Roman Catholics, Greeks, and Protestants. They are allowed to be instructed in the catechisms of the various schools where they may be placed, and not infrequently the teachers and pastors of the mission have fondly imagined that they have secured promising lambs for their folds from among the children of Druses. But as soon as ever they arrive at the age for leaving school, when the girls are marriageable and the boys ready to assist their fathers in the labor of the field, they are taken back to their Druse village and home and become as strict and exclusive in their religion as if they had never heard of any other. Once could fearlessly challenge any missionary to produce a genuine case of a convert from Drusedom who has arrived at years of maturity.-Blackwood's Magazine. L. L. MAY & CO., the well-known seedsmen of St. Paul, Minn., have issued a beautifully illustrated catalogue for 1891. It is entitled "May's Illustrated Catalogue of Northern-Grown Plants, Bulbs, and Seeds." May's Northern- grown seeds are famous for country over, and every one interested in the culture of flowers or the raising of vegetables will do well to send May's Illustrated Catalogue. A PICTURE OF SWINBURNE.-" Algernon Charles Swinburne is a small man, quite short of stature, with a very large head covered with a crown of hair that is dangerously near being red. He is sharp, quick, and alert in his movements, with a nervous look and an absent-minded air. He is a brilliant talker, who is fond of receiving visitors and entertaining them with dissertations upon all sorts of subjects. He can talk on one theme as well as on another, but is quite fond of doing all the talking himself. He is an old bachelor who boards with friends. As a word-painter, a combiner of sounding phrases put together in a peculiarly musical manner, he has never had a superior."-The Week. APPRECIATIVE OF HER SEX.-Mrs. Wynne Finch asked of Mme. Mohl (French in everything but birth) permission to bring a friend. " My dear," said Mme. Mohl, "if your friend is a man, bring him without thinking twice about it ; but if she is a woman, think well before your bring her, for of all the creatures God ever created none does spoil society like and English lady."-The Gentleman's Magazine. 436 CURRENT NOTES. THE DUELLO IN FRANCE. - Towards the end of the sixteenth century, during the reign of Henry III., the duello began to conform to established rules. The foolish custom of seconds engaging in the quarrels of their principals had been introduced from Italy, and the single challenge led occasionally to a small battle. The encounter between Caylus and D'Entragues, two well-known courtiers, has been narrated at some length by the chroniclers. Riberac and Schomberg were seconds to D'Entragues, Mugerin and Livaret to Caylus. "Hadn't we better reconcile these gentlemen, instead of allowing them to kill one another?" asks Riberac. "With you, to be sure." Instantly they flew at each other and ran each other through. Schomberg and Livaret in the mean time had come to blows, with the result that the former fell dead, while the latter was wounded in the face. Caylus meanwhile had been mortally wounded, and his opponent had received a sword-thrust. This single encounter ended, therefore, in the immediate death of four men, while the other two were badly crippled. Whatever charge might be levelled against the French duel of those days, it could not be said that the participants were not in earnest. In the reign of Henry IV. duelling reached its highest point. It has been estimated that during his reign no fewer than four thousand nobles fell victims to the fashion. Chevalier narrates that in Limousin alone, in the space of seven months, one hundred and twenty were actually killed. The smallest difference of opinion led to an appeal to arms. At no time would the remark of Montesquieu be more true, that if three Frenchmen had been set down in the Libyan Desert, two would instantly have paired off, and the third resolved himself into a second. - The Cornhill Magazine. DISCOVERIES NEAR SHAKESPEARE'S GRAVE. - In connection with the restoration work at the parish church, Stratford-on-Avon, in taking up some portions of the pavement within the altar rails, the old choir pavement was discovered, buried about six inches below the modern. Within a few feet of Shakespeare's tombstone has just been found a beautifully-inlaid marble tablet perpetuating the pious memory of Judith Combe, who died just prior to her intended marriage, in August, 1649, "in ye arms of him who most entirely loved, and was beloved of her, even to ye very death." Other old monumental slabs have also been discovered, and it is the intention of the committee to place them on a level with the pavement. A PRAYER FOR JOURNALISTS. - Some interest may attach to the following in these days of that new journalism which is not so very unlike the old. The original may be found in the Record Office (Domestic, Charles I., ccxxiv. 47): "One of Mr. Christopher fosters petitions in his prayer before his Sermon, Oct. : 24 : 1632 : at Oxford. Sweet Jesus wee desire thee, and humbly increase [sic] they divine Majesty to inspire the Curranto-makers with the Spirit of truth, that one may know when to praise thy blessed and glorious name for the King of Swedens victories, and afterwardes we heare that there is noe such thing, and we oftentimes pray vnto thee to relieue the same King in his distresses, and we Likewise heare that there is now such Cause." - Notes and Queries. SOME NOTES ON THE ADULTERATION OF FOOD. IN an interesting paper on the adulteration of food, read before the AMERICAN SOCIAL SCIENCE ASSOCIATION a few years ago, it was stated that the only way in which this great and growing evil could be effectually checked was by communicating to the people in every possible way "the most ample and exact information as to the manner in which foods are adulterated, the kinds of food usually tampered with, and the evil effects arising therefrom." The aim of those who use adulterations is to artfully conceal their dishonest work, and it requires in most instances the best expert skill to detect the foreign or deleterious substances. It is useless to pass laws on the subject unless the people are fully roused to the importance of having the laws executed. Adulterations may be roughly divided into two classes: - 1. Those which are simply fraudulent, but not necessarily injurious to health, - the use of some cheap but wholesome ingredient with the pure article for the purpose of underselling and increasing profits, as for instance the admixture of water with milk, of peas and carrots with coffee, meal with mustard, and wheat flour with pepper. 2. Those which are injurious to health, - the use of drugs or chemicals for the purpose of changing the appearance or character of the pure article, as for instance the admixture of potash, ammonia, and acids with cocoa to give apparent smoothness and strength to imperfect and inferior preparations; the use of alum and other deleterious substances to raise and whiten bread. In his "Familiar Letters on Chemistry," Baron Leibig states that the bakers of Belgium discovered some years ago how to produce from damaged flour a bread which appeared to be made from the finest and best wheat flour; and they did it by adding to the dough sulphate of copper, a poison. It is a curious fact that in the country from which chemically treated cocoa is now being exported, namely, Holland, the adulteration of coffee with chicory was first practised. The adulteration took so well in England that subsequently a patent was taken out for a machine which moulded chicory in the shape of the coffee- berry. But that was a comparatively harmless adulteration. The late Dr. Edmund Parkes, professor of military hygiene, and one of the highest English authorities of the subject of the adulteration of food, stated that he found the cocoa sold in England very commonly mixed with cereal grains, starches, arrow- root, sago, or potato starch, and that even brick-dust and peroxide of iron were sometimes used. In Dr. Hassall's well-known work on "Food and its Adulteration," it is stated that our of sixty-eight sample of cocoa examined thirty-nine contained earthy coloring matter, such as reddle, Venetian red, and umber. 437 SOME NOTES ON THE ADULTERATION OF FOOD.A writer in the "Hospital Gazette" of London (August 23, 1890), says: "We do not regard all adulterations as equally heinous. When, however, potent chemicals are systematically added, what words can sufficiently convey our indignation! ... Cocoa of the most excellent quality and of absolute purity is now to be obtained at very reasonable prices; and no purchaser need be at any loss to get an article to which the severest tests can be applied, and which will come out triumphantly from the ordeal. We were, nevertheless, positively startled, not long since, to receive a pamphlet, bearing on its front page the names of some distinguished chemists, and addressed to the medical profession, vaunting some foreign manufactured cocoas which were distinctly stated to contain a conservable addition of alkaline salts. Surely even lay readers do not need to be reminded that soda and potash cannot be taken with impunity day after day." And an English physicians, in a communication to the October (1890) number of "Hygiene," states that of late years the country (England) has been "flooded with foreign cocoas contaminated with an admixture of alkali." The object of the contamination, he says, is this: "Cocoa does not give an infusion or decoction, but mixed with water is practically a soup; it is suspended, not dissolved. Now, the addition of an alkali gives rise to a soap, in plain English, much as when common soap, a compound of oil and alkalies, is mixed with water; but this alkalized cocoa has an appearance of strength which it does not possess, and the consumer hastily assumes that he is getting far more for his money, and being supplied with a much better article... The recent great improvements in the preparation of cocoa, by removing the superabundant oil, have so much increased the digestibility of this nutritious beverage that the last excuse for the addition of alkalies and starch is gone, and the presence of the former, besides being deleterious, cannot answer any purpose except giving an appearance of fictitious strength to the resulting infusion, or soup." In an article on "Cocoa and Chocolate," in the October number of the same magazine, Dr. Crespi says: "The attempt to prepare cocoa in a soluable form has tempted some foreign firms to add alkaline salts freely. These salts cannot be recommended to healthy subjects as regular articles of food." The Birmingham (England) "Medical Review" for October (1890), contains an article on "Food and its Adulterations," in which it is stated that "quite apart from any question as to the injury resulting to the human system from taking these salts its would be only right that the medical profession should resolutely discountenance the use of any and all secret preparations confessedly adulterations, and adulterations, too, of a sort not justified by any of the exigencies of the circumstances... Cocoa is only to be recommended as a beverage when it is as pure as possible." Quite recently a valuable little work on chocolate and cocoa was published in Germany. It describes, with characteristic German thoroughness the cocoa-tree, the properties of its fruit, and the various modern methods of preparing the food-product for the market. In treating of "the manufacture of cocoas deprived of a portion of their oil and rendered more soluble," the write says: "This branch of the manufacture has recently undergone a great development. Hygiene appears to demand a product which, with a diminution in the amount of oil, should be further distinguished from ordinary chocolate by its readily dissolving in water, milk, etc., thereby being much more easily appropriated by the humas system. The removal of a portion of the oil ought to make it more readily assimilated by the digestive system. Starch, cellulous, and the albuminoids are difficult solubility, and must be converted into such as form as to be readily soluble in water. This would render theme easy of absorption, and increase their efficiently. In practice this end has been sought in several ways." ... The alkaline or chemical process "depends on the fact that the roasted cocoa is treated with carbonate of soda, magnesia, potash 488 SOME NOTES ON THE ADULTERATION OF FOOD. or bi-carbonate of soda... The cocoa of those manufactures who employ the alkaline method is sometimes subjected to a perfectly barbarous treatment in order to secure solution by means of the alkali. For instance, the roasted cocoa-beans are boiled with an aqueous alkaline solution; the product is then dried, derived of its oil, and afterwards ground or the crushed cocoa is roasted, deprived of its oil, powdered, and boiled with water containing an alkali. Both methods of treatment are in the highest degree destructive to those bodies which are essential constituents of cocoa. It is especially the cacao-red which is attacked, and with it disappears also the aroma." It should be added that in the manufacture of large quantities by the alkaline or chemical method it is difficult, if not impossible, to so regular the heat in drying the cocoa after the chemicals are added (the material being then in a very sensitive state) as to prevent the oil from being scorched; and it is well known that burnt oil or fat is wholly indigestible. The deleterious effects of the chemicals used in such processes have been referred to in general terms; something more definite and precise on that point will be of interest. In reply to the inquiry, What is the effect on the system, especially on the gastric mucous membrane, of small quantities of dilute alkaline liquids taken frequently and regularly (for example, for breakfast), one of the leading physicians in Boston says: "I would say that while some persons and certain conditions of the system might bear without injury dilute alkaline liquids taken at not frequent intervals, yet the great majority of persons and those with a sensitive stomach could not bear the daily use of such liquids without serious injury. It would produce gastritis, or inflammation of the mucous membrane of the stomach, of varying degree, according to the frequency and amount taken and the susceptibility of the person. This would be accompanies with many of the symptoms of dyspepsia, and if carried to any considerable extent, with troublesome eruption of the skin, and not infrequently with serious disturbance of the functions of the kidneys. I certainly think its long continuance would be dangerous." Dr. Sidney Ringer, Professor of Medicine at University College, London, and Physician to the College Hospital, perhaps the greatest English authority on the action of drugs, states in his "Handbook of Therapeutics" that "the sustained administration of alkalies and their carbonates renders the blood, it is said, poorer in solids and in red corpuscles, and impairs the nutrition of the body." Of ammonia, carbonate of ammonia, and spirits of ammonia, he says: "These preparations have many properties in common with the alkaline, potash, and soda group. They possess a strong alkaline reaction, are freely soluble in water, have a high diffusion-power, and dissolve the animal textures... If administered too long, they excite catarrh of the stomach and intestines." All of WALTER BAKER & CO.'s Cocoa Preparations are guaranteed absolutely free from all chemicals. These preparations have stood the test of public approval for more than one hundred years, and are the acknowledged standard of purity and excellence. The house of WALTER BAKER & CO. has always taken a decided stand against any and all chemically treated cocoas, and they believe that the large and increasing demand for their goods has proved that the consumer appreciates this decision. 489 [Established 1780.] "LA BELLE CHOCOLATIERE": W. BAKER & CO.'S Registered Trade-Mark. NO CHEMICALS are used in any of WALTER BAKER & CO.'s CHOCOLATE AND COCOA PREPARATIONS. These preparations have stood the test of public approval for MORE THAN ONE HUNDRED YEARS, and are the acknowledged standard of purity nad excellence 440 441 AN ADVENTUROUS WOMAN. - That most adventurous of lady travellers, who is known to the reading public as Miss Isabelle Bird, and to her friends as Mrs. Bishop (says a London correspondent), has just returned to England after safely accomplishing a most difficult and dangerous journey, a record of which will shortly be published by Mr. John Murray. The immediate object of the journey was to carry out a bequest of her late husband, - an Edinburgh gentleman, - who left funds for the establishment of a hospital in one of the remote corners of the globe. The place was not specified, and, as Mr Bishop's object was to secure the establishment of a hospital in one of the outlying parts of civilization, where the need for such an institution would be most severely felt, Cashmere was the locality selected by his widow, and there Mrs. Bishop has succeeded in carrying out her husband's wishes. But, her mission accomplished, she was not content to return home by the prosaic way of India. Thibet lay too close at band for the temptation to be resisted. Lhassa is perhaps the one spot on the earth's surface which most excites the curiosity of the adventurous spirits who are ever on the search for some new realm to conquer. Russians and English have of late years made many unsuccessful attempts to penetrate the mystery of that strange town, which is so religiously guarded against foreign intrusion. The novelty and difficulty of the attempt fascinated Mrs. Bishop, and she set out for Thibet. But on the borders a great and insuperable difficulty presented itself. She was told that no obstacle would be placed in the way of her journey, but that the chief official of every village where she stayed would inevitably lose his head, and every district that received her would be heavily fined for doing so. The prospect was not inviting, and reluctantly Mrs. Bishop decided that she had no right to bring down such severe punishment on the heads of her hosts. She accordingly turned her steps southwestward, and passed through Beloochistan to Persia and Armenia. On her way she met with many adventures, and explored the source of the Karun River. Probably she is the first European in modern times who has visited the sources of this river, and the scenery she describes as magnificent in the extreme. THE ROSE OF SHARON NOT A ROSE. - The Anemone coronaria commonly grows wild about Smyrna and in Asia Minor, spreading far and wide as the most beautiful of spring blossoms, growing on chalk soil along the edges of shrubbery. We cannot wonder that it was already in ancient times a favorite of the inhabitants and excited in poetic minds sensations such as can only be excited by surprising beauty. "I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys," sings the first verse of the second chapter of Solomon's Song; and there can be no doubt to-day what is here meant by the Rose of Sharon. It was an American, Fiske P. Brewer, who decided this question, Narcissus Tazetta, which likewise grows in Palestine, having previously been considered the Biblical flower. This gentleman, according to the Edinburgh Review of 1886, while travelling in the year 1859 from Jaffa to Ramleh, came upon a place where a considerable expanse of ground was half covered with brilliant red flowers. At the sight of them some of his native companions immediately exclaimed, "Roses of Sharon," and when he inquired about the name he was told that the anemone was there universally so called. In truth, it would not be easy otherwise to speak of a rose in Palestine, for native roses do not exist there, - at least not where they would justify the association of the Plain of Sharon with their name. Wild roses are found in Palestine VOL. XLVII. - 29 442 tine only on Lebanon, or where, here and there, Rosa centifolia, is cultivated for the production of attar, as in the Wadi-el-Werd (Rose Valley), near Hebron. According to Ebers and Guthe, in their "Palestine" the translations of the Bible often use the word rose where there is no warrant for understanding by it a true rose. The roses of Persia and Media were not introduced into Palestine before the Grecian period. -Illustrirte Garten-Zeitung. RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES.-When Disraeli delivered his memorable maiden speech, Milnes, who was sitting next him, said, "Yes, old fellow, so it will," in response to the famous words, "The time will come when you will hear me." On the following night Milnes made his own first essay in Parliamentary oratory with distinct success. Of his aptitude for affairs we shall speak presently. Although Mr. Reid appears to regard him as a considerable states-man, it is not in this capacity that the personality of Richard Monckton Milnes so powerfully impressed the popular mind. He had already entered on that social career in London which gained for him a unique place in the history of his time. Immediately after their return the Milneses were giving dinner-parties in Sough Street to their son's friends, "some of them being very agreeable and literary,"- among them, Wordsworth and Samuel Rogers. Through Charles Buller, Milnes made the acquaintance of Carlyle, who had been living for some two years in Cheyne Row and was then writing "The French Revolution." Milnes's eccentricities and disregard of the conventional impressed Carlyle, who described him to Emerson as a "most bland-smiling, semi-quizzical, affectionate, high-bred, Italianized little man, who has long olive-brown hair, a dimple next to chin, and flings his arms round your neck when he addresses you in public society." Milnes soon became a familiar figure at Roger's breakfasts. At one of these Milnes and Carlyle met Macaulay for the first time, shortly after his return from India. The guests had hoped to hear Carlyle, the fame of whose utterances was then at its zenith, but Macaulay monopolized the conversation. When the party broke up, Milnes followed Carlyle into the street. "I am so sorry," he said to the philosopher, "that Macaulay would talk so much, and prevent our hearing a single word from you." Carlyle turned round and held up his hands in astonishment. "What!" he said, with the accent of Annandale, "was that the Right Honorable Tom? Ah, weel, I understand the Right Honorable Tom now!"- The Academy. MISCELLANEOUS The Little Ones HOW DO YOU AMUSE THEM? HOW DO YOU CARE FOR THEM? HOW DO YOU PROTECT THEM? There's a book beautifully illustrated, full of sound sense, and useful hints on these points. It will be sent ENTIRELY FREE OF CHARGE to any mother in the land who will write for it. ONE ARTICLE IN THIS BOOK, "ADIVCE TO MOTHERS," by the celebrated Dr. Hand, is worth hundreds of dollars to painstaking parents. THIS ADIVCE DOES NOT ALL POINT ONE WAY. IT SPEAKS OF DIET, CLOTHING, EXERCISE, INSTRUCTION, AMUSEMENT, WHAT TO DO IN EMERGENCIES, HOW TO TREAT SPECIFIC CASES; IT TELLS, TO SUM UP THE WHOLE MATTER, HOW TO DO YOUR PART IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF BABE TO CHILD, CHILD TO YOUTH, YOUTH TO MAN. SENT FREE. ADDRESS SMITH, KLINE & CO. 429 ARCH ST., PHILADELPHIA, PA. RUSSELL SAGE, the well-known financier, writes: "506 Fifth Avenue, "New York City, Dec 20, 1890. "For the last twenty years I have been using ALLCOCK'S PORUS PLASTERS. They have repeatedly cured me of rheumatic pains, and pains in my side and back. Whenever I have a cold, one on my chest and one on my back speedily relieve me. My family are never without them." Russel Sage Beware of imitations, and do not be deceived by misrepresentation. Ask for ALLCOCK'S, and let no solicitation or explanation induce you to accept a substitute. 25MISCELLANEOUS North, East, South, West. That's where Pearline goes. Wherever there's hard work for women there it's needed. Easy washing goes with it. Easy washing - better washing. Washing that doesn't wear out the clothes, or hurt the hands or fabric, or tire the washer. Washing that saves money but costs no more than the washing that wastes it. When it does all this and more, is it any wonder that Pearline goes? And it does go. It goes to the help of millions of women every day. But there are some who won't be helped. And they're the ones who need it most. Blowing Peddlers and some grocers will tell you, "this is as good as" or "the same as Pearline," IT'S FALSE - but what a puff for Pearline. 198 JAMES PYLE, New York. STATIONARY WASH TUBS WASH BOARDS & SOAP CUPS MOULDED IN TUBS STEWART CERAMIC CO. 312 PEARL ST. COR PECK SLIP NEW YORK SOLID WHITE CROCKERY VERY STRONG CANNOT ABSORB LEAK OR DECAY NO SEAMS TO OPEN NO LABOR TO KEEP CLEAN THOUSANDS IN USE OVER 15 YEARS ON THE MARKET BUTLERS PANTRY, KITCHEN. SLOP & CORNER SINKS CARDS FREE LATEST STYLES, BEST PREMIUMS, COSTLY OUTFIT, YALE CARD CO., NEW HAVEN, CONN. PARABOLON MAGIC LANTERNS AND STEREOPTICONS. KEROSENE OIL OR LIME LIGHT. For Entertainment or Instruction at home or in large halls. DO YOU PHOTOGRAPH? We can make Lantern Slides from your Negatives. Special facilities on the premises for the production of the very finest Colored Slides, Apparatus, &c. CATALOGUES FREE. CORRESPONDENCE SOLICITED. J.B. COLT & CO., 16 Beekman Street, New York. OUTFITS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE. FAT FOLKS using “Anti-Corpulene Pills” lose 10 lbs. a month. They cause no sickness, contain no poison, and never fail. Sold by Druggists everywhere or sent by mail. Particulars (sealed) 4c. WILCOX SPECIFIC CO., Phila., Pa. PISO’S CURE FOR CONSUMPTION 25 CTS Best Cough Medicine. Recommended by Physicians. Cures where all else fails. Pleasant and agreeable to the taste. Children take it without objection. By druggists. 25 CTS 26 PIANOS UNITED by a strong chord which cannot become UNTIED. DON’T MAKE THAT COMMON MISTAKE “that anything with a keyboard will do for children.” Give your children the encouragement of the very best. If you would cultivate a really musical taste you must have a really musical instrument, and an old tin pan is not “good enough!” CHILDREN’S PRACTICE will not spoil our pianos, for our Soft Stop saves the wear as well as the din and bang of finger exercises, preserving the full, rich, voluminous tone which you want to draw upon in those occasional hours when the family crave not noise but music. WE SHIP ON APPROVAL, piano to be returned at our expense for railway freights both ways if unsatisfactory on trial in your home. Distance makes no difference, 1 mile or 2000 miles are no more than a block in Boston. Old pianos taken in exchange and terms of payment to suit your reasonable convenience. WRITE NOW FOR FREE CATALOGUE AND INFORMATION. IVERS & POND PIANO CO. MASONIC TEMPLE, 183-186 Tremont St., BOSTON, MASS. OUR LATEST STYLES CAN BE SEEN AT J. G. RAMSDELL’S, 1111 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia. W. J. DYER & BRO.’S, St. Paul and Minneapolis. F.H. CHANDLER’S, 300 Fulton Street, Brooklyn. PHILIP WERLEIN’S, 187 Canal Street, New Orleans. G.W. HERBERT’S, 18 East 17th Street, New York. SANDERS & STAYMAN’S, Baltimore, Washington, and Richmond. AYRES & WYGANT CO.’S, 182 Wabash Avenue, Chicago. KOHLER & CHASE’S, San Francisco, California. 27WITH THE WITS. A SAVING INSPIRATION. IN the days when nothing sweeter than a titillating metre lulled the yokel or the noble in the hovel or the hall, When a song was legal tender with the folk of either gender to provide the merry minstrel with the needed wherewithal, Lived the Count of Allegory (he's the villain of the story), and his one excuse for living was the mitigating fact That, by strangest of caprices in the origin of species, he was father of a daughter - or a sprite, to be exact. So, to hem this gaudy fiction with the usual restriction that you find upon a fabric of romantic warp and woof, Allegory called his daughter, and (per formula) besought her, with the mildness that tradition gives archaic sires behoof, To espouse with proper meekness mumbling Mammon in his weakness, - to be May to a December in the torpor of his years; But this James and Ainsworth beauty drew the line 'twixt love and duty, and besprinkled her refusal with the customary tears. But her weeping and her wailing were completely unavailing, since the symptoms of rebellion were reducible by force: "There was much persuasive power in an isolated tower," he declared, "to turn a maiden from a sentimental course." 28 FOOD PRODUCTS "We are advertised by our loving friends." King Henry VI. The Portraits of Healthy Infants Sent by Thankful Parents Offer Irrefutable Evidence Of the excellence of MELLIN'S FOOD For Infants and Invalids. THE DOLIBER-GOODALE CO., Boston, Mass., A BALTIMORE BELLE. Invites correspondence. [DRAWING] Shepard's "Lightning" Freezer [END of DRAWING] "JUST AS EASY AS ROLLING OFF A LOG." Delicious, Pure Ice-Cream made in from Five to Seven Minutes. Although Shepard's "Lightning" Freezer does the work in less time, and with only about half the power usually required, it costs no more than other makes. Heaviest and Strongest Castings, Largest and Best Cedar Tubs. Leading merchants everywhere sell the "Lightning" as their best Freezer. Write to the Manufacturers, mentioning this magazine, for a "Queen City" Receipt Book, the Celebrated Collection of Prize Receipts for Desserts, Ice-Creams, Fruit Ices, Sherbets, Jellies, Puddings, etc. Mailed free for the asking. SHEPARD HARDWARE CO., MAMMOTH FOUNDRY, BUFFALO, N.Y. Cowdrey's Soups Delicious, Appetizing, Nourishing. Tomato, Mock Turtle, Ox Tail, Consomme, Julienne, Chicken, Vegetable, Mutton, Printanier, Green Turtle, Terrapin, Macaroni, Beef, Pea, Okra, Vermicelli, Soup&Bouilli, Clam Broth, Mulligatawny, Puree of Game. [DRAWING] Cowdrey's TOMATO SOUP MANUFACTURED BY THE E. T. COWDREY CO. BOSTON, U.S.A. [END of DRAWING] Sample mailed on receipt of 15c. to pay postage. E. T. COWDREY CO., Boston, U.S.A. "WHAT I EAT, THAT I AM." GRANULA Perfect Health Food Discovered by JAMES C. JACKSON, M. D., Founder of the Famous DANSVILLE SANATORIUM, Being the Life-giving principle of WHEAT Easily digested ; readily assimilated by ALL. "A universal favorite wherever known." Trial Package 36 cents, by mail post-paid. Send for our Pamphlet (free). DANSVILLE, N. Y. GRANULA MFG. CO. 29WITH THE WITS. A SAVING INSPIRATION.--Continued. So, to give that best endorsement of opinion its enforcement, Allegory, for the purposes of synthesis and rhyme, Had the maid by bolts restricted, as the artist has depicted, which was punishment adjusted a la Gilbert to the crime. Then the Providence that hovers over legendary lovers brought her turi-luri-laddy to the treasure-hiding door, -- A chameleon of a fellow, dressed in bilious green and yellow, puffed and pleated in the fashion of those ruffled days of yore. "Ah!" he sighed, in tones dejected, "this is just as I expected!" Then, although by much guitaring he had snapped a leading string, In a voice whose dulcet shading told of frequent serenading and a miasmatic atmosphere, he straight began to sing: "Fly, oh, fly to bliss supernal, where necessities paternal cannot make a maid a chattel for exchange devoid of ruth; Where no mouldy mammon offers to replenish empty coffers for those dear considerations of your beauty and your youth; "Where we'll live in expectation of that change in situation which is ever in the vision of the prodigal and vain; Where we'll fl--" zip!!--"Malediction!!! was there ever such affliction? Can Apollo sing his lyrics with an E string snapped in twain?" "Fly?" she echoed him precisely. "That would answer very nicely, if I only had the pinions for the transit to and fro, For there's wonderful attraction where you stand for such an action," -- which was antedating Newton by a century or so. Then, with deft manipulation of his tin-tin-nabulation, -- for a weary couple only of his ravelled strings remained, -- He responded with a ditty that cracked the walls with pity, but his song, alas! was a refrain, and so the walls refrained: 30 PROPRIETARY ARTICLES Prof. Koch Recommends the Soden Mineral Pastilles Dr. Koch said "A cough for which I tried many other medicines which had not the slightest effect soon became better. and has now entirely disappeared by the use of the Soden Mineral Pastilles The genuine Soden Mineral Pastilles must have the testimonial and signature of Sir Morrel Mackenzie around each box Price 50 cts. Sir Morell Mackenzie said in the Journal of Laryngology, edited by him (November No., 1887) "The Soden Mineral Pastilles (Troches), produced from the Soden Springs by evaporation, are particularly serviceable in Catarrhal Inflammation. Sore Throat Coughs Bronchitis and Lung Troubles." Soden Mineral Springs Co. Ltd., Agents, 6 Barclay Street, New York 31WITH THE WITS A SAVING INSPIRATION. --Continued. "Ah, the gruesome limitations which attend the operations of the lover who would journey in a lubricated groove ! How the powers that be disparage love as basis of a marriage, save when sentiment has silver these objections to remove! "Why are lovers not provided with a nature many-sided, so they can, when parents callous interpose their cruel might, Shrivel them with burning hate, or, like the prestidigitator, with a nimble presto change whisk them bodily from sight? "Why, oh, why ---" but what the riddle was beshattered in the middle, and its answer for conjecture is a weary business still; For some graduates erratic, with a bias acrobatic, came in welcome interruption o'er the summit of the hill. 'Twas a band that once had yearning for the benefits of learning, and had sought an institution in the vim of salad years, But had found their brawn and muscle more adapted to the tussle that is needed for the prizes in this lowly vale of tears. All the geometric angles they described in tights and spangles, -- made a rhomboid by contortion for instruction or for mirth, -- And with very little trouble they could turn ellipses double, and could strike with every tumble dizzy tangents to the earth. Then the saving inspiration due in such a situation, where there's proper observation of emotional result, Where accessories are certain, such as foot-lights, stage, and curtain, came with vehemence dramatic in the manner of the "cult." "Oh," he shouted, "jubilation! I can use the occupation of these supple-jointed fellows with spectacular effect; But" (facetious ebullition) "'tis a private exhibition, --an arrangement which I fondly trust her parent may respect." 32 TOILET ARTICLES Spring Humors Spring Humors, whether itching, burning, bleeding, scaly, crusted, pimply, or blotchy, whether of the skin, scalp, or blood, whether simply, scrofulous, or hereditary, are now speedily, permanently, and economically cured by the Cuticura Remedies when the best physicians and all other remedies fail. The almost miraculous cures daily effected by them prove this. No statement is made regarding them not warranted by the strongest evidence. They are, in truth, the greatest skin cures, blood purifiers, and humor remedies of modern times. They are absolutely pure, and agreeable to the most sensitive, and may be used on the youngest infant and most delicate invalid with gratifying and unfailing success. CUTICURA, the great Skin Cure, instantly allays the most intense itching, burning, and inflammation, permits rest and sleep, soothes and heals raw and irritated surfaces, clears the skin and scalp of crusts and scales, and restores the hair. CUTICURA SOAP, the only Medicated Toilet Soap, is indispensable in cleaning diseases surfaces, and for purifying and beautifying the skin. CUTICURA RESOLVENT, the new Blood and Skin Purifier, and greatest of Humor Remedies, cleanses the blood of all impurities, and thus removes the cause. Entirely vegetable, safe, palatable, and unfailing, it appeals to mothers and children as incomparably the purest and best of all blood medicines. Hence, the Cuticura Remedies cure every humor of the Spring, from the simplest facial blemishes to the worst case of scrofula, and daily effect more great cures of skin, scalp, and blood humors than all other skin and blood remedies before the public. Are not these remedies worthy of at least a single trial? Sale greater than the combined sales of all other blood and skin remedies. "HOW TO CURE DISEASES OF THE SKIN AND BLOOD" mailed free to any address, 64 pages, 300 Diseases, 50 Illustrations. 100 Testimonials. A book of priceless value to every sufferer. CUTICURA REMEDIES are sold everywhere. Price: CUTICURA, 50 cts.; CUTICURA SOAP, 25 cts.; CUTICURA RESOLVENT $1.00. Prepared by POTTER DRUG AND CHEMICAL CORPORATION, BOSTON. Pimply, Blotchy Skin, Red rough and oily skin and hands, painful finger-ends, with shapeless nails, are prevented and cured by Cuticura Soap, incomparably the greatest of skin purifiers and beautifiers, while rivalling in delicacy and surpassing in purity the most expensive of toilet and nursery soaps. The only medicated toilet soap and the only preventive and cure of inflammation and clogging of the pores, the cause of pimples, blackheads, rough, red, and oily skin, and simple humors of infants and children. Sale greater than the combined sale of all other skin soaps. Sold everywhere. 33MISCELLANEOUS WE ARE DISPLAYING Large and Most Attractive Assortments of SEASONABLE DRY GOODS Of every description, all of which have been carefully selected for the Spring season abroad and at home, by experienced buyers. OUR PATRONS ARE ASSURED OF An Unlimited Variety, Most Moderate Prices, Unsurpassed Facilities, Promptness and Accuracy. Samples of every kind of material promptly forwarded without charge. STRAWBRIDGE & CLOTHIER, Market Street, Eighth Street, Filbert Street, PHILADELPHIA. McGILL'S PATENT, Fasteners &c. FOR FASTENING PAPERS, SAMPLING DRY GOODS, PRICE TICKETING CLOTHINGS &C. AND FOR LIGHT BINDING OF ALL KINDS OVER ONE HUNDRED VARIETIES AND SIZES MANUFACTURED BY HOLMES, BOOTH & HAYDENS. FACTORIES WATERBURY CONN. 25 Park Place and 22 Munay Street, New York. McGILL'S PATENT SUSPENDING RINGS AND BRACES FOR HANGING CARDS ETC. "National" Type Writer Awarded "MEDAL OF SUPERIORITY," American Institute, New York. The Best and most complete Standard Writing Machine made. Positively the BEST and the only PERFECT MANIFOLDER made. Will make, UNQUALIFIEDLY, more and better manifold copies that upon any machine extant. IRRESPECTIVE OF PRICE, THE BEST. "National." The LATEST and HIGHEST achievement in the art. embodies every good quality found in other writing Machines, and has many points of superiority, all its own. Smallest and most comprehensive double case finger key Typewriter. Send for illustrated pamphlet giving full detail and fac-simile of key-board. Factory and } NATIONAL TYPEWRITER CO., 715, 717 and 719 ARCH STREET, General Offices } Philadelphia, Pa., U. S. A. 34 MISCELLANEOUS ORNAMENTAL HARDWOOD FLOORS. Mahogany, Amaranth, Rosewood, Prima-Vera, Holly, etc., worked in beautiful design with Finest Quarter-Cut White Oak and all other native desirable hardwoods, so as to make floors suitable for the Finest Residence or Humble Home. BRUSHES and WAX. for Polishing, CHEAP. Full directions for laying and polishing. Satisfaction guaranteed. Send for catalogue to S. C. JOHNSON, RACINE, WISCONSIN. WAYNE'S Celebrated Cork-Filled, Self-Ventilating, American REFRIGERATORS GUARANTEED TO BE THE BEST IN THE WORLD! OVER 50 DIFFERENT STYLES AND SIZES, IN HARD AND SOFT WOOD, At LOWEST PRICES EVER KNOWN. If your dealer does not have them, Send for Illustrated Circular and Price-List, to JOS. W. WAYNE, MANUFACTURER, 124 MAIN STREET, CINCINNATI, O. A Good Thing, that the McKinley Tax does not affect—consumers. We have not raised the price of our Standard Galvanized Sheet Metal Shingles. Can we stand the Tax? Yes; by holding them at our old prices we expect to double our sales. We warrant them absolutely rain- and rust-proof, without the necessity of painting. This is our best quality of sheet metal roof covering. They are the perfection of metal roof covering. DESCRIPTIVE CIRCULARS AND PRICES FREE. The National Sheet Metal Roofing Co., 510 East 20th St., New York City. 35MISCELLANEOUS LIPPINCOTT'S 50 J B LIPPINCOTT COMPANY FALCON STEEL PENS LEADING STYLES. No. 50, Falcon; No. 51, Bank; No.52, Commercial; No. 59, Premium; No. 60, School; No. 62, Ladies' Falcon; No. 72, Carbon; No. 66, Universal; No. 67, Engrossing; No. 68, Lawyer's; No. 73, Falcon Stub. 75c. per Gross. Ask your Stationer for them or send to J.B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY, PHILADELPHIA. Two Standard Reference Books. Lippincott's Gazetteer of the World. A Complete Pronouncing Gazeteer or Geographical Dictionary of the World. Containing notices of over 125,000 places. I vol. Imperial octavo. Embracing 2680 pages. Price: Library sheep, $12.00; half Turkey, $15.00; half Russia, $15.00. Lippincott's Pronouncing Biographical Dictionary. Containing Complete and Concise Biographical Sketches of the Eminent Persons of all Ages and Countries. By J. THOMAS, M.D., LL.D. I vol. Imperial 8vo. 2550 pages. Sheep, $12.00; half morocco, $15.00; half Russia, $15.00. _________________ *** For sale by all Booksellers, or will be sent by the Publishers, free of expense, on receipt of the price. J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY, 715 and 717 Market Street, Philadelphia. 36 STATIONERY Paul E. Wirt NOT A NOVELTY OR EXPERIMENT, BUT A STANDARD ARTICLE WITH A WORLD-WIDE REPUTATION. Bloomsburg, Pa. Fountain Pen THE PENS ARE 14-K GOLD, IRIDIUM POINTED. THE FOUNTAINS OR CASES ARE MADE FROM THE FINEST PARA RUBBER BY THE BEST WORKMEN, AND ALL ARE UNCONDITIONALLY GUARANTEED. Ask your dealer or send for catalogue. Mention LIPPINCOTT'S. A. W. FABER'S LEAD PENCILS, Pen-holders, Rubber Bands, and Pencil Sharpeners. If you cannot obtain these goods from your Stationer, send 30 cents for samples. EBERHARD FABER, CHICAGO. SOLE AGENT AND MANUFACTURER. NEW YORK. ARNOLD'S CHEMICAL WRITING FLUID WHICH WILL NOT MOULD The color at first is of a greenish blue afterwards changing to a deep black. THE GENUINE HAS THE SIGNATURE P & J Arnold CHEMISTS, 155, ALDERSGATE STREET WHITING. LONDON. PATENTEE FOR SALE EVERYWHERE. PAYSON'S INDELIBLE INK. No preparation and only a common pen needed. Established 50 years. Superior for marking personal and family linen. The Oldest. The Best. Sold by Druggists & Stationers. LADIES send 5 cents for copy of Dorcas Magazine of Woman's Handiwork. It is invaluable. Address DORCAS PUB'NG CO., 37 College Place, N. Y. THE LEAD PENCILS THAT MEET THE WANTS OF ALL PENCIL USERS ARE "DIXON'S AMERICAN GRAPHITE S. M." Or other grades of hardness of same make. If your stationer does not keep them, mention LIPPINCOTT'S, and sent 16 cts., in stamps, to Joseph Dixon Crucible Company, Jersey City, N. J., for samples worth double the money. STAMP COLLECTORS Send for stamp selections on approval Sure to please. 33 1-3 per c. commission. 10 var. Mexico, 10c; Mexico 1864,4 var. complete,20c. Price-lists and premium offers free. Address MOUND CITY STAMP CO., 1501 Washington Ave., St. Louis, Mo. Ripka & Co ARTISTS' MATERIALS 128 So. 11th St. PHILAD'A. ESTABLISHED 1846. FRANKLIN PRINTING INK WORKS, JOHN WOODRUFF'S SONS, 1217 and 1219 Cherry Street PHILADELPHIA, PA. This Magazine is printed with John Woodruff's Sons' Inks. BOOK HOLDERS. THE MOST PERFECT DICTIONARY HOLDER. The Progressive Euchre Table Send for Catalogue. R. M. LAMBIE, 39 E. 19th St., N. Y. 37Miscellaneous Hygeia Hotel, Old Point Comfort, Virginia. Situated with a few rods of Fortress Monroe, where daily inspections, drills, guard-mounting, and dress-parade take place; at the confluence of Chesapeake Bay and Hampton Roads, scenic attractions of old Point Comfort are unrivalled. The hotel is supplied with all the modern improvements, including Turkish, Russian, Electric, and Hot Sea Baths, the latter being justly celebrated for their efficacy in rheumatic troubles; is liberally managed, and provides better accommodations, more entertainment and amusements for guests, for the prices charged, than any resort on the Atlantic Coast. The close proximity of the Gulf-Stream, less than thirty miles distant, insures a mild and bracing climate, in which malaria is unknown. Music afternoon and evening, by the Artillery School Band ; frequent germans and balls. Nervousness and insomnia speedily and, in most cases, permanently relieved. All things considered, the most comfortable and delightful resort at which to spend the winter months in the United States. Average winter temperature 48°. Send for illustrated descriptive pamphlet. F. N. PIKE, Manager. Emerson 55000 Sold For over forty years have enjoyed a high reputation. Brilliant and musical ; tone of rare sympathetic quality ; beautiful for vocal accompaniment. Durably constructed of finest material by most skilful workmen. Exceptional in retaining original richness and fulness of tone. Require tuning less often than any other piano. Moderate Prices. Reasonable terms. Send for catalogue. Boston 174 Tremont St. New York 92 Fifth Ave. Pianos Boiling water or milk. Epps's Grateful-Comforting. Cocoa Labelled 1-2 Lb. Tins Only Oculine The great eye beautifier. Assures instant brilliancy, beauty, and strength to the eye. Positive cure for bloodshot and red and diseased eyelids. Eminent oculists' examination and samples free at Main Office, 45 E. 20th St., New York. Sold by leading druggists and Toilet Bazaars. Write for pamphlet. Guaranteed positively harmless. Price, $1.00. Money can be earned at our new line of work, rapidly and honorably, by those of either sex, young or old, and in their own localities, wherever they are. Anyone can do the work. Easy to learn. We furnish everything. We start you. No risk. You can devote your spare moments, or all your time to the work. This is an entirely new lead, and brings wonderful success to every worker. Beginners are earning from $25 to $50 per week and upwards, and more after a little experience. We can furnish you the employment and teach you FREE. No space to explain here. Full information FREE. True & Co., Augusta, Maine. Established in 1801 Barry's Tricopherous For the Hair & Skin. An elegant dressing exquisitely perfumed, removes all impurities from the scalp, prevents baldness and gray hair, and causes the hair to grow Thick, Soft, and Beautiful. Infallible for curing eruptions, diseases of the skin, glands and muscles, and quickly healing cuts, burns, bruises, sprains & c. All Druggists or by Mail, 50 cts. Barclay & Co., 44 Stone St. New York. THE NEW MODEL HALL TYPEWRITER GREAT OPPORTUNITY FOR SMART AGENTS AS WELL AS DIRECT PURCHASERS. Send for our catalogues and terms, the former full TO THE BRIM of good TESTIMONIALS. See our MANIFOLDING. Consider the PRICE. Compare WITH OTHERS. YOU'LL BUY OF us then. Address NATIONAL TYPEWRITER CO., 10 Temple Place, BOSTON. SHORTHAND Celebrated Pernin System ; no Shading, no Position. Trial Lesson and circulars free. Write PERNIN SHORTHAND INSTITUTE, Detroit, Mich. PATENTS FRANKLIN H. HOUGH, Washington, D.C. No att'y's fee until patent is obtained. Write for Inventor's Guide. AMERICAN VIEWS (Souvenir Albums). List free. A. Witteman, 67 Spring St., N. Y. WRITERS AND AUTHORS! We will purchase your manuscripts or aid you to sell them. We can secure you the best market and best price for your poems, stories, and articles. A prize of ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS is offered for the best short story sent us before May 30. For particulars and prospectus, address NATIONAL WRITERS' BUREAU Meadville, Pa. Miscellaneous Lovell Diamond Safety $85 Diamond Frame, Steel Drop Forgings, Steel Tubing, Adjustable Ball Bearings to all Running Parts, including Pedals. Suspension Saddle. Finest material money can buy. Finished in enamel and nickel. Strictly high grade in every particular. No better machine made at any price. Send six cents in stamps for our 100-page Illustrated Catalogue of GUNS, RIFLES, REVOLVERS, SPORTING GOODS OF ALL KINDS, etc. JOHN P. LOVELL ARMS CO., BOSTON, MASS. The Quadrant Suspension Spring Saddle overcomes vibration on rough roads where all other spring devices have failed. We are daily booking orders to fit this unequalled spring saddle to Victor, Rambler, and Columbia spring-fork safeties, as well as all rigid frame bicycles. But to get the full enjoyment from this saddle you should try it on our world-renowned Quadrant Safety Bicycles, which have many points of superiority over all others. Send for catalogue, giving full particulars. STRONG & GREEN CYCLE CO., Sole Importers, 707 Arch St., 1726 N. Broad St., Philadelphia. THE WONDERFUL LUBURG CHAIR. 100 STYLES BABY COACHES COMBINING 5 ARTICLES OF FURNITURE IN ONE INVALID SUPPLIES AND WHEEL CHAIRS Automatic Brake on all Coaches FREE WHEEL CHAIRS TO HIRE, SPECIAL FRESH DELIVERY. We retail at the lowest wholesale factory prices, and ship goods to be paid for on delivery. Send stamp for Catalogue. Name goods desired. LUBURG MFG. CO., 145 N. 8th St., Philadelphia, Pa. A HELP TO HEALTH (Exerciser Complete $5) IS BEST OF ALL. CIRCULAR FREE. BOOKS: For "An Ideal Complexion & Complete Physical Development," 39 Ills 50 cts. "Health & Strength in Physical Culture," 40 Ills 50 cts. Chart of 39 Ills for Dumb Bells & Pulleys, 25 cts. Ad JNO. E. DOWD'S Vocal & Physical Culture school, 116 Monroe St. Chicago CRIPPLES and invalids find FAIRY Tricycles the most practical. Best for ladies and girls. Satisfaction guaranteed. Athletic Goods and BICYCLES at retail, at owest prices. Address FAY MFG. CO., Elyria, O. $6000.00 a year is being made by John R. Goodwin, Troy, N.Y., at work for us. Reader, you may not make as much, but we can teach you quickly how to earn from $5 to $10 a day at the start, and more as you go on. Both sexes, all ages. In any part of America, you can commence at home, giving all your time, or spare moments only to the work. All is new. Great pay SURE for every worker. We start you, furnishing everything. EASILY, SPEEDILY learned. PARTICULARS FREE. Address at once, STINSON & CO., PORTLAND, MAINE. Difficult Repairing SAVE MONEY! BEFORE YOU BUY BICYCLE OR TYPEWRITER Send to A. W. GUMP & CO. DAYTON, OHIO, for prices. All grades New Cycles and over 400 second-hand ones. Typewriters, Guns, Revolvers, and Bicycles take in exchange. Typewriters Rented. A TOILET LUXURY. Handsomely put up in enamelled box with sprinkling top. 25c. by mail. Samples free. For sale by all dealers. J. H. HAMILTON, 443 W. 27th St., New York. WANTED! A LADY to address envelopes, mail circulars, do pleasant, steady homework. No peddling. Good pay. Send 10c. (silver) for terms and book of instructions in our New Art. Sylvan Co., Port Huron, Mich. CATARRH CURED. FREE SAMPLE MAILED. LAUDERBACH CO. Newark, N. J. 1850. 1889. Lane Carriages Elegant Traps, Quartered Oak, Four-Wheel Dog Carts, Light Four-Wheel Carts, Four-Seat Surreys. Also PITTSBURG ROCKAWAYS, WAGONETTES, BUGGIES, VICTORIAS, VIS-À-VIS, Broughams, Extension Broughams, and Rockaways. The Finest and Most Extensive Display of Harness. D. M. LANE'S SONS, 1708 Chestnut Street, Phila. 39WITH THE WITS. A SAVING INSPIRATION. -Continued. "Bolts and bars are no restriction to a lover (in a fiction)," was the silent observation of the bright orb overhead; Which is ample illustration, from her point of contemplation, that the thoughtful moon is given to reflection, - as is said. Then the lover briefly stated, if the maid was liberated by their calisthenic juggle or their geometric skill, He would give each nimble fellow store enough of shiners yellow all their purses with repletion to plethorically fill. Then the senior told the lover he was anxious to discover if plethorical repletion was a metaphor or cash; For the management mistrusted, save they got this point adjusted, a procedure in the business were too immaturely rash. When the meed of the transactin was explained to satisfaction, in a moment, ere the modus operandi was discerned, One upon the other fellow, in the melting moonlight yellow, with an aggravating quickness had incontinently turned. Quoth the senior, "Comrades, steady, Maiden merry, are you ready? we will whisk you in a jiffy to your lover safe and sound -" "Pause," the maiden said, "I pray you. I must transiently delay you, for I do not think that 'jiffy' in the lexicon is found. "Is it slang, or adaptation from some obsolete translation? though I judge from the connection 'tis an alien from the Greek. Will you have the condescension to repeat me the declension? for I fancy that its vocative must be somewhat unique. McGINTY BROS. GREAT COMBINATION SHOW 40 MISCELLANEOUS ESTABLISHED MARCH 13, 1889. THE SARA SARA. *TRADEMARK THE "BON SILENE" CIGARS PERFECTLY CLEAN AND PURE and QUALITY ALWAYS MAINTAINED. EIGHT SIZES: Infantas, 1-10..........$4.00 Regalias, 1-20..........$7.00 Operas, 1-10............ 4.50 Elegantes, 1-20........ 8.00 Conchas, 1-10......... 4.75 Favoritas, *1-40....... 9.00 Perfectos, 1-20....... 5.00 Imperials, ** 1 40..... 10.00 *Bands; **Foil and Bands; 1-10 means 100; 1-20 means 50; and 1-40 means 25 to the box. The Prices include delivery charges anywhere in the United States. Terms strictly cash and no discount for quantity. The "Bon Silene" Cigars will not be found on sale in any store. There is no margin for dealers' profits. I REFER TO ANY MERCANTILE AGENCY. SPECIAL. -The "Combination Box," holding 100 cigars, covering all sizes of the "Bon Silene," price, $6.50, has met with immense success. ISAAC D. SAILER, 1416 Chestnut St., Philadelphia, Pa. See page advertisement in May number of LIPPINCOTT'S. PRETTY OR NOT, WEAR A NIGHTCAP and extra covering, rather than sleep with the window shut. Fresh air, by all means, and the good "JUVEEN" pills, if you have headache or constipation. "JUVEEN" gives a delightful sense of vigor and elasticity, and besides, the charm of a clear, fresh look to the face. (25 cts., Druggists, or Hamilton Chemical Co., P. O. Box 1864, New York.) Korrect Shape TRADEMARK REGISTERED This is not designed to show a torn shoe, but how the toes and foot rest in a perfect fitting shoe. We are constantly receiving from those who have paid high prices for custom work, such as this: - "For the first time in my life I have in the 'BURT & PACKARD KORRECT SHAPE' a shoe that does not run over at the heel; and though it is really a smaller and more stylish shoe than I have been wearing, it required absolutely no breaking in; and except for the pressure around the ankle I should not know that I had a shoe on." The lasts for the "Korrect Shape" are made in our own factory, and are the result of 30 years' experience in supplying the best trade of the country. The trade mark above is on the sole, and the small stamp below is on the heel of every pair. These goods are made in all styles and in Four Grades. Write us if you are not perfectly satisfied with the kind of shoes you are now wearing. All delivery charges are prepaid on our orders. Send for illustrated catalogue. Our new line of TENNIS GOODS, for Ladies as well as Gents, are original in design and without doubt superior to any Tennis Goods ever before made. PACKARD & FIELD, (Successors to Burt & Packard), Brockton, Mass. BURT & PACKARD J.W. BURT & CO 41TOILET ARTICLES [*Mrs. Potter.*] WATT'S GLYCERINE JELLY OF VIOLETS. The most elegant preparation for keeping the skin velvety soft. Cures and prevents chapped skin, lips and all roughness caused by cold winds; used by Mrs. Langtry, Mrs. Potter, Miss Ellen Terry, etc. On sale by alldruggists or by mail, 25 cents. 10 N. Broad St., Philad'a. Watt's Peptonized Soda Mint Pellets, cure Dyspepsia. A Skin of Beauty is a Joy Forever. [*PURIFIES AS WELL AS Beautifies the Skin. No other cosmetic will do it. *] Dr. T. FELIX GOURAUD'S ORIENTAL CREAM, or Magical Beautifier, removes Tan, Pimples, Freckles, Moth-Patches, Rash, and Skin diseases, and every blemish on beauty, and defies detection. On its virtues it has stood the test of 40 years; no other has, and is so harmless we taste it to be sure it is properly made. Accept no counterfeit of similar name. the distinguished Dr. L. A. Sayer said to a lady of the haut ton (a patient), " As you ladies will use them, I recommend 'Gouraud's Cream' as the least harmful of all the Skin preparations." One bottle will last six months, using it every day. Also Poudre Subtile removes superfluous hair without injury to the skin. FERD. T. HOPKINS, Proprietor, 37 Great Jones Street, New York. For sale by all Druggists and Fancy Goods Dealers throughout the U. S., Canadas, and Europe. Beware of base imitations. $1000 Reward for arrest and proof of any one selling the same PERFUMES MADE FROM FLOWERS IN THE LAND OF FLOWERS. SEE THAT THIS TRADE-MARK IS ON THE BOTTLE. ALL DRUGGISTS. Send us 20 cents in stamps, and we will send you a sample of DOUSSAN VIOLET AND ELEVEN OTHER SPECIALTIES. ADDRESS DOUSSAN FRENCH PERFUMERY CO., 46 Chartres St., New Orleans, La. HAIR ON THE FACE, NECK, ARMS OR ANY PART OF THE PERSON QUICKLY DISSOLVED AND REMOVED WITH THE NEW SOLUTION MODENE AND THE GROWTH FOREVER DESTROYED WITHOUT THE SLIGHTEST INJURY OR DISCOLORATION OF THE MOST DELICATE SKIN. Discovered by Accident.—IN COMPOUNDING, an incomplete mixture was accidentally spilled on the back of the hand, and on washing afterward it was discovered that the hair was completely removed. We purchased the new discovery and named it MODENE. It is perfectly pure, free from all injurious substances, and so simple any one can use it. It acts mildly but surely, and you will be surprised and delighted with theresults. Apply for a few minutes and the hair disappears as if by magic. It has no resemblance whatever to any other preparation ever used for a like purpose, and no scientific discovery ever attained such wonderful results. IT CANNOT FAIL. If the growth be light, one application will remove it permanently- the heavy growth such as the beard or hair on moles may require two or more applications before all the roots are destroyed, although all hair will be removed at each application, and without the slightest injury or unpleasant feeling when applied or ever afterward.—MODENE SUPERCEDES ELECTROLYSIS.— —RECOMMENDED BY ALL WHO HAVE TESTED ITS MERITS—USED BY PEOPLE OF REFINEMENT.— Gentlemen who do not appreciate nature's gift of a beard, will find a priceless boon in Modene which does away with shaving. It dissolves and destroys the life principle of the hair, thereby rendering its future growth an utter impossibility, and is guaranteed to be as harmless as water to the skin. Young persons who find an embarrassing growth of hair coming, should use Modene to destroy its growth. Modene sent by mail, in safety mailing cases, postage paid, (securely sealed from observation) on receipt of price, $1.00 per bottle. Send money by letter, with your full address written plainly. Correspondence sacredly private. Postage stamps received the same as cash. (ALWAYS MENTION YOUR COUNTY AND THIS PAPER.) LOCAL AND} GENERAL AGENTS} WANTED.} MODENE M'F'G CO., CINCINNATI, OHIO, U. S. A. Manufacturers of high grade hair preparations. Register your letter at any Post-office to insure its safe delivery {CUT THIS OUT {AS IT MAY NOT {APPEAR AGAIN We offer $1000 for failure or the slightest injury. EVERY BOTTLE GUARANTEED. FACIAL BLEMISHES The largest Establishment in the World for the treatment of Hair and Scalp, Eczema, Moles, Warts, Superflous Hair, Birthmarks, Moth, Freckles, Wrinkles, Red Nose, Red Veins, Oily Skin, Acne, Pimples, Blackheads, Barber's Itch, Scars, Pittings, Powder Marks, Bleaching, Facial Development, etc. Send 10 cts. for 128-page book on all skin imperfections and their treatment. JOHN H. WOODBURY. Dermatologist, 125 West 42d St., NEW YORK CITY, N.Y. P. S.—Use Woodbury's Facial Soap for the skin and scalp; for sale at all druggists, or by mail, 50 cents. HOLMAN'S LIVER PADS Cure Malaria, Indigestion, Biliousness, Sick-Headache, Wakefulness, etc. Promote Appetite, Assimilation and Ambition. Prevent Diphtheria, Seasickness, Smallpox and all Fevers Warranted as above stated, or money refunded. Price $2.00. Pamphlet sent free; address HOLMAN LIVER PAD CO. P O. Box 2112. 81 John St. New York. [*TRADE-MARK.*] [*42*] TOILET ARTICLES FREE TO LADIES A MODERN HYGIEAN. A BOOK CONTAINING ARTICLES ON SENSIBLE DRESSING. NOT RADICAL DRESS REFORM BY THE MOST EMINENT WRITERS UPON THIS IMPORTANT SUBJECT. A COLLECTION OF UNBIASED FACT AND OPINION OF GREAT VALUE TO EVERY WOMAN. A HANDSOME PAMPHLET BOOK ILLUSTRATED WITH FINE ENGRAVINGS OF BEAUTIFUL WOMEN SENT BY MAIL, POSTAGE PREPAID. ON RECEIPT OF POSTAL CARD REQUESTS. GEO. FROST & CO. 31 BEDFORD ST. BOSTON WHY SUFFER? When Relief and a Cure can be Assured You by use of THE ELECTROPOISE, an OXYGEN HOME TREATMENT, which cures disease by an unlimited increase of vitality? NO MEDICINE; no ELECTRICITY. Address for particulars, Electropoise (TRADE MARK.) 1425 New York Ave., Washington, D. C. Any Article that has outlived 22 years of competition and imitation, and sells more and more each year, must have merit. Dobbins' Electric Soap, first made in 1869, is just that article. Those who use it each week (and their name is legion) save clothes and strength, and let soap do the work. All that we can say as to its merits pales into nothingness before the story it will tell, itself, of its own perfect purity and quality, if you will give it one trial. Ask your grocer for it. He has it, or will get it. Try it next Monday. N. B. There are so many imitation Electric Soaps in which electricity plays no part. Dobbins' is the original one, all Magnetics, Electrics, and Electro-Magics are fraudulent imitations. Ask for Dobbins' Electric, see that our name is on every wrapper, and if any other is sent you by your grocer, when you order ours,— send it back to him. I. L. CRAGIN & CO., Philadelphia, Pa. ASTHMA CURED! Schiffmann's Asthma Cure never fails to give instant relief in the worst cases; insures comfortable sleep; effects cures where all others fail. A trial convinces the most skeptical. Price, 50 cts. and $1.00, of Druggists or by mail. Sample FREE for stamp. DR. R. SCHIFFMANN, St. Paul, Minn. LADIES, YOU WANT SOLD BY ALL DRUGGISTS. HELMBOLD'S JELLY OF GLYCERINE and ROSES. AN EXQUISITE TOILET ARTICLE. Making the Skin Soft and Velvety, cures Chapped Hands and Lips, and roughness resulting from cold winds and impure soap. Neither greasy nor sticky. Gentlemen use it after shaving. A. L. HELMBOLD, DRUGGIST, CONTINENTAL HOTEL, 25 c. PHILADELPHIA 25 c. BEWARE OF IMITATIONS! On receipt of 25 Cents and mention of this Magazine, sent by mail. [*43*]WITH THE WITS A SAVING INSPIRATION.--Continued. Then I have a rhythmic notion it will suit iambic motion, if the--" "Water!" cried the senior. "Heaven save us! what is this? Comrades." he could barely stammer, "do you tumble to the grammar?" And they caught the point, and tumbled with the needed emphasis. For, by skilful circumflexion in the waiting swain's direction (which was accent quite adapted to an exodus of love), With a flash of garments snowy and some ballet features showy, in her lover's arms the maiden was delivered from above. Then the silver moon, beguiling the responsive earth to smiling in a parting benediction, blessed the lovers as they fled. And grew dimmer, dimmer, dimmer, in her sheen of silver shimmer, till a downy couch came sailing, and she bolstered into bed. ENVOY. When Aurora "rosy-fingered" for a moment lightly lingered to appraise the herald twilight of the coming of the sun. And the dews that eve had sprinkled o'er the lawn in diamonds twinkled on the scintillant suspensions by the sprawling spider spun, Allegory (in conclusion), hugging still his vain delusions, to the empty casket hurried, and, with all the oaths he knew. Howled with vehemence unstinted thing 'twere ruinous if printed: so to save the reputation of the Magazine, adieu! 44 MISCELLANEOUS SYRUP OF FIGS ONE ENJOYS Both the method and results when Syrup of Figs is taken; it is pleasant and refreshing to the taste, and acts gently yet promptly on the Kidneys, Liver and Bwels, cleanses the system effectually, dispels colds, headaches and fevers, and cures habitual constipation. Syrup of Figs is the only remedy of its kind ever produced, pleasing to the taste and acceptable to the stomach, prompt in its action and truly beneficial in its effects. Prepared only from the most healthy and agreeable substances, its many excellent qualities commend it to all, and have made it the most popular remedy known. Syrup of Figs is for sale in 50c. and $1 bottles by all leading druggists. Any reliable druggist who may not have it on hand will procure it promptly for any one who wishes to try it. Do not accept any substitute. . . CALIFORNIA FIG SYRUP CO. SAN FRANCISCO CAL. LOUISVILLE, KY. NEW YORK, NY. THE AMERICAN CYCLES AMERICAN RAMBLER AMERICAN CHAMPION GORMULLY & JEFFERY 222 to 228 MFG. CO. N. FRANKLIN ST. CHICAGO NEW ENGLAND BRANCHOUSE 118 Columbus Ave. Boston Mass. ILLUSTRATED CATALOGUE FREE 45 $5.00 $4.00 $3.50 $2.50 $2.25 $2.00 FOR GENTLEMEN $3.00 $2.50 $2.00 FOR LADIES $2.00 & $1.75 FOR BOYS $1.75 FOR MISSES W. L. DOUGLAS $3 SHOE FOR GENTLEMEN $5.00 Genuine Hand-sewed, an elegant and stylish dress Shoe which commends itself. $4.00 Hand-sewed Welt. A fine calf Shoe unequalled for style and durability. $3.50 Goodyear Welt is the standard dress Shoe, at a popular price. $3.50 Policeman's Shoe is especially adapted for railroad men, farmers, etc. All made in Congress, Button and Lace. $3.00 for Ladies, is the only hand-sewed shoe sold at this popular price. $2.50 Dongola Shoe for Ladies, is a new departure and promises to become very popular. $2.00 Shoe for Ladies, and $1.75 for Misses still retain their excellence for style, etc. All goods warranted and stamped with name on bottom. If advertised local agent cannot supply you, send direct to factory enclosing advertised price or a postal for order blanks. W. L. DOUGLAS, Brockton, Mass.SEEDS AND PLANTS USE FERRY'S SEEDS BECAUSE THEY ARE THE BEST. D. M. FERRY & Co's Illustrated, Descriptive and Priced SEED ANNUAL For 1891 will be mailed FREE to all applicant, and to last season's customers. It is better than ever Every person using Garden, Flower or Field Seeds, should send for it. Address D. M. FERRY & CO. DETROIT, MICH. Largest Seedsmen in the world TREES For Spring Planting. The largest and most complete stock in the U.S. of FRUIT and ORNAMENTAL Trees, Shrubs, Peonies, ROSES, Hardy Plants, Grape Vines, SMALL FRUITS,&. Illustrated and descriptive priced Catalogue ; also wholesale price list for the trade FREE. ELLWANGER & BARRY MOUNT HOPE NURSERIES, ROCHESTER N.Y. Established over 50 Years. (Mention this paper.) ARE YOU A GOOD PENMAN? Write us for copying at home. Enclose stamp, Publisher, Galion, O. SEEDS 6 pkts. Flower Seeds, 10c. 5 pkts. Vegetable Seeds, 10c. Full size pkts. All different. 1000 agents wanted at $5 a day, either sex. Catalogue Free. BIG PRIZE F. B. MILLS, Rose Hill, Onon Co., N. Y. LADIES Send your name and address plainly written on a postal card for latest terms. VAN ORDEN CO., 22 Clinton Place, N.Y. FEW EQUAL! NONE BETTER! BURPEE'S SEEDS PHILADELPHIA. Elegant Illustrated Farm Annual for 1891, mailed Free. FAY GRAPES CURRANT HEADQUARTERS. BEST & CHEAPEST NEW GRAPES Esther, Rockwood, Eaton, Moyer and all others New and Old. SMALL FRUITS. Catalogue Free. GEO. S. JOSSELYN, FREDONIA, N.Y. GRAPE VINES NIACARA and all old and new varities. Extra Quality. Warranted true. Lowest rates. Introducers of the new Black Grape EATON Also other SMALL FRUITS. New Descriptive Catalogue Free. T. S. HUBBARD CO., FREDONIA, N.Y. Parsons&Sons Co. LIMITED. Kissena Nurseries, Flushing, N.Y. offer Rhododendrons of American-grown hardy sorts. Hardy Azaleas. For other rare and old plants see Catalogue. LADIES send 5 cents for copy of Dorcas Magazine of Woman's handiwork. It is invaluable. Address DORCAS PUB'NG Co., 37 College Place, N.Y. LANDRETHS' AMERICAN GARDEN SEEDS ARE THE BEST. NORTH, SOUTH, EAST OR WEST. The Oldest and Most Extensive Seed-Growers in the United States. FOUNDED 1784. Implements and Seeds in great variety. Send for Handsomely-Illustrated Catalogue and Price-List. D. LANDRETH & SONS. 21 and 23 South Sixth Street, Philadelphia. Branch Store, Delaware Ave. and Areh Street. HOUSEHOLD ARTICLES THE JACKSON VENTILATING GRATE AND FIREPLACE FURNACE. HEATING ON ONE OR MORE FLOORS. Greatest variety of rich and chaste designs in plain or oxidized Iron, Steel, Nickel Plate, Electro-Bronze, Solid Brass or Bronze. Largest rooms in coldest climates thoroughly heated. Out-door air warmed by the heat wasted in ordinary grates and introduced, producing perfect ventilation and equable temperature without drafts. In use everywhere. Illustrated catalogues. EDWIN A. JACKSON & BRO., 50 Beekman Street, New York. FLORIDA STEAM AND HOT WATER HEATERS FULLY GUARANTEED. REPUTATION ESTABLISHED. 19 Sizes for Steam. 14 Sizes for Hot Water. 15 Sizes for Soft Coal. POSITIVELY NON-EXPLOSIVE-ECONOMICAL-WILL NOT RUST OUT-WILL LAST A LIFETIME-IS SELF-FEEDING-WILL RUN FROM 10 TO 24 HOURS WITHOUT ATTENTION. THOUSANDS and THOUSANDS in use RELIABLE AGENTS IN ALL THE LEADING CITIES AND TOWNS IN THE UNITED STATES. SEND FOR NEW CATALOGUE. PIERCE, BUTLER & PIERCE MANUF'G CO. SOLE MANUFACTURERS. SYRACUSE, N. Y. Established 1850. WILLIAM WILER MANUFACTURER OF STAIR-RODS, STEP-PLATES, BRASS BEDSTEADS AND CRIBS, Fenders, Fire Sets, and Andirons, Hand and Foot Rails, Fire Screens, Footstools, etc. 223 AND 225 SOUTH FIFTH STREET, PHILADELPHIA. Send for Catalogue. HARTSHORN'S SELF-ACTING SHADE ROLLERS Beware of Imitations. NOTICE AUTOGRAPH OF Stewart Hartshorn on LABEL and get THE GENUINE HARTSHORN What is more aggravating than leaky valves, whether in house, office, or factory? If you wish to avoid annoyance, INSIST on having Jenkins Bros. Valves. Accept no valves as Jenkins Bros. unless stamped with our "Trade-Mark," like cut. JENKINS BROS. 71 John Street, New York. 105 Milk Street, Boston. 21 North 5th Street, Phila. 54 Dearborn St., Chicago. HARTMAN'S PATENT INSIDE SLIDING WINDOW BLIND Is the most popular Blind in America. Architects and builders prefer it to any other, for merit, style, convenience, and economy. Not complicated. The only Blind that is furnished with an automatic Burglar-Proof Lock, free of charge. This is an item of immense magnitude, and may save you many times the cost of blinds and perhaps life also, and the only blind that gives entire satisfaction. Thousands are in use. Agents wanted everywhere. Manufactured by HARTMAN & DURSTINE, No. 26 Beaver St., WOOSTER, O. THE Pinless Clothes Line is the only line ever invented that holds the clothes without pins ; a perfect success ; patent recently issued ; sold only by AGENTS, to whom the exclusive right is given ; on receipt of 50 cents we will send a sample line by mail ; also, circulars, price list and terms to agents ; secure your territory at once. Address THE PINLESS CLOTHES LINE COMPANY, 17 Hermon St., Worcester, Mass.WITH THE WITS. - A SAVING INSPIRATION. -Concluded. WEARING APPAREL A PERFECT HEALTH CORSET SUPERIOR to all OTHERS FERRIS' GOOD SENSE CORSET WAIST FERRIS BROS.' GOOD SENSE Corset Waists are sold by all LEADING RETAILERS in the United States, England, and Canada. Through their intrinsic merit these waists have gained the favor of SENSIBLE WOMEN who require beauty in a corset as well as comfort and durability. These Corset Waists are not made after "French patterns," but are made to conform to the natural beauty of the human form, permitting FULL EXPANSION OF THE LUNGS and freedom of motion, are superior to all others as a substitute for the ordinary corset. With buttons front instead of the injurious steel clasp. Buttons are fastened with tape. Button-holes have cord edge-won't wear out. Patent Ring Buckle at hip to secure the hose supporter. The shoulder-straps are adjustable, and, being curved and broad, are very comfortable, supporting the skirts and stockings directly from the shoulders. Can be washed without injury. Made in full or slim bust, long or short waist, fit all ages, infants to adults. The excellent material and superior workmanship make the "Good Sense" corset waists worthy of the name. Every Mother should buy "Good Sense" Corsets for herself and daughters. The large demand for "GOOD SENSE" Waists gives an opportunity to unprincipled dealers to offer inferior imitations under various names, upon which they can make a larger profit, saying they are "about as good as the 'Good Sense' Waist." THEY ARE NOT AS GOOD. The genuine "Good Sense" Waists are each stamped inside the the Trade-Mark "Good Sense." CHILDREN 50c., 60c., 70c., 75c. MISSES 70c., 75c., 80c., 85., $1.00. LADIES $1.00, 1.25, 1.50, 1.75, 2.00. Ask for them at the stores; if not found in the correct style, send for circular and we will mail them on receipt of price. FERRIS BROS., MANUFACTURERS AND PATENTEES 341 BROADWAY, NEW YORK. MARSHALL, FIELD & CO., CHICAGO, Wholesale Western Agents. 49RAILROADS SAFEST, FASTEST, and FINEST TRAINS IN AMERICA. -RUN VIA- BALTIMORE and OHIO RAILROAD -BETWEEN- NEW YORK, PHILADELPHIA, BALTIMORE, and WASHINGTON. ALL TRAINS VESTIBULED FROM END TO END, And protected by Pullman's Anti-Telescoping Appliance, including Baggage Cars, Day Coaches, Parlor Cars, and Sleepers. ALL CARS HEATED BY STEAM AND LIGHTED BY PINTSCH GAS. The BALTIMORE and OHIO RAILROAD Maintains a Complete Service of Vestibuled Express Trains between NEW YORK, CINCINNATI, ST. LOUIS, AND CHICAGO, EQUIPPED WITH PULLMAN Palace Sleeping Cars Running Through Without Change. ALL B. and O. TRAINS BETWEEN THE EAST and WEST, RUN VIA WASHINGTON. PRINCIPAL OFFICES. 211 Washington St., Boston, Mass. 415 Broadway, New York. N.E. Cor. 9th and Chestnut Sts., Phila., Pa. Cor. Baltimore and Calvert Sts., Baltimore, Md. 1851 Pennsylvania Ave., Washington, D.C. Cor. Wood St. and Fifth Ave., Pittsburg, Pa. Cor. 4th and Vine Sts., Cincinnati, O. 193 Clark St., Chicago, Ill. 105 N. Broadway, St. Louis, Mo. J. T. ODELL, General Manager. } BALTIMORE, MD. { CHAS. O. SCULL, General Passenger Agent. DURKEE'S GAUNTLET BRAND SELECT SPICES & MUSTARD. SOLD ONLY IN FULL WEIGHT SEALED PACKAGES. Guaranteed absolutely pure, and warranted to excel all others in strength, richness, flavor, and cleanliness. THE BEST GOODS MADE. DURKEE'S ORIGINAL SALAD DRESSING NEVER SPOILS. FOR SALADS, COLD MEATS ETC. Chubb the FISHING-ROD MANUFACTURER CHUBB'S COMPLETE CATALOGUE OF ANGLING GOODS FOR 1891 NOW READY. It contains a list of Chubb's specialties. New Rods, new Reels, new Tackle. Artificial Flies Lithographed; something every angler has long wanted. We show over one hundred varieties of Artificial Flies in twelve colors and exact sizes, all done in the highest style of the art. We have new Articles on Fishing, illustrated, written by Dr. J. A. Henshall, Rowland E. Robinson Samuel M. Baylis, Ompompanoosuc, M. Quad, Chas. Hallock, Rev. A. J. Hough, Alex. Starbuck, H. P. Ufford, Geo. P. Goff, S. M. Gilmor, W. H. H. Murray, and Walt. McDougall. Send 25 cts. for catalogue. This may be deducted from first order for goods amounting to one dollar or more, by enclosing coupon found in catalogue. Address THOS. H. CHUBB, THE FISHING-ROD MANUFACTURER, Post Mills, Vt. Mention LIPPINCOTT'S. GARFIELD TEA FOR CONSTIPATION AND SICK HEADACHE Sir Henry Thompson, the most noted physician of England, says that more than half of all diseases come from errors in diet. Garfield Tea overcomes results of bad eating; cures Sick Headache; restores the Complexion, cures Constipation. Get a free sample from any druggist, or send to 319 W. 45 St. New York. The EDISON MIMEOGRAPH. Patented by Thos. A. Edison. A simple, practical, and economical manifolding device for every-day use. It makes 3000 copies of one original Writing, Drawing, Music, etc. 1500 copies of one original Typewriter Letter. 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It had melody when Lincoln uttered it. It is a symphony when Science speaks it. But here are Science and Nature combined in that delightful harmony COMPOUND OXYGEN Compound Oxygen is a concentration of ozone. It is charged with electricity. You inhale it. At once a glow of revitalization pervades the entire system. Disused air-cells open up to receive it. Circulation is quickened. The chest expands. Strength returns and--best of all--IT REMAINS. The good and the gain of Compound Oxygen do not disappear when the use of the treatment is discontinued. In order to inhale Compound Oxygen, you put the simple apparatus that contains it in a tin-cup of warm water; the heat releases the oxygen; you breathe it, and the genial, penetrative warmth, that once diffuses itself throughout the system, is delightful, to say the least. But the pleasure of it is not to be considered. The good of it, is the point. When this warm, oxygenated vapor enters the lungs, there is a gradual relaxation of restricted breathing surface ; clots and obstructions actually melt away; accumulations of suffocating mucus are painlessly but surely removed; and (most essential of all results) vigor comes back. In this way it does not matter what the specific trouble may be--catarrh or neuralgia, rheumatism or dyspepsia--your vigor becomes your remedy. when the full measure of robust vitality is in the system, disease can find no lodgement there. The presence of one always means the absence of the other. "Drs. Starkey & Palen, "1529 Arch Street, Philadelphia, Pa.; "Since using your Compound Oxygen Treatment, I have enjoyed almost uninterrupted god health and almost youthful vigor. "Mary A. Livermore, "Melrose, Mass." "Inter-Ocean Office "Chicago, April 4, 1883. "Drs. Starkey & Palen: "Dear Sirs,--Several years ago, when laboring under very serious trouble with my throat and lungs, I began the use of the Oxygen. At the end of five months I found myself a well man; and ever since I h ave enjoyed better health and been more robust than ever before. "Yours truly, Wm. Penn Nixon" Drs. Starkey & Palen are also at liberty to refer to Rev. W. H. Benade, Bishop of General Church of Pennsylvania. Rev. Bishop Castle, Elkhart, Ind. Dr. O.A. Darby, President of Columbia Female College, Columbia, S.C. Rev. A. A. Johnson, President of Wesleyan College, Fort Worth, Tex. Rev. J. F. Spence, Pres't of Grant Memorial University, Athens, Tenn. Warren A. Chandler, D.D., President Emory College, Oxford, Geo. J. D. Logan, D.D., President of Central University, Richmond, Ky. A book of 200 pages will tell you who have been restored to health and strength by the use of Compound Oxygen. This book will be sent to any one who writes for it, entirely free of charge. It is worth reading. 200 pages of signed indorsements from men and women well known in this country. The patients themselves do the talking—not Drs. 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BURNETT'S PERFECTLY PURE Standard Flavoring HIGHLY CONCENTRATED EXTRACTS ABSOLUTELY PURE. FULL MEASURE. No cartoons to hide long-necked and panelled bottles. Testimony of Popular Hotels. "The best in the world." Fifth Avenue Hotel, N. Y. "We use only Burnett's." Young's Hotel, Boston. "Pre-eminently superior." Parker House, Boston. "The ne plus ultra." United States Hotel, Saratoga. "Far superior to any." Riggs House, Washington. "None compare with yours." Burnet House, Cincinnati. "We find them the best." Southern Hotel, St. Louis. "We use them exclusively." Auditorium, Chicago. "Far better than any other." Russell Hotel, Detroit. "Find them excellent." Occidental Hotel, San Francisco. EQUITABLE MORTGAGE COMPANY. CONDENSED STATEMENT, JUNE 30, 1890. 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Henry Hoe, Sole Agent.Creation. 375 zations, municipal, political, and philanthropic, that engage the profession and business men of our day. And our grandmothers, - how different were their lives! The fashions did not change so often, the tardy packet brought them to Philadelphia and New York full six months after they were started in Paris or London, and if brocades and satins were rich and costly they were purchased for a lifetime. Living was upon a much more simple basis, hospitality was more genuine and spontaneous, and, although superb balls were given in all our large cities, the sharp competition that now makes so many women strain their nerves and pockets to outdo one another in the magnificence, the variety, and above all the novelty of their entertainments, did not prevail so universally as now. It was understood that certain persons of means would give great balls or elaborate suppers, and the rest of the world seemed content to attend these festivities and enjoy them, without attempting anything of the sort themselves. People did not undertake as much then as in these days, when it seems that instead of writing on a woman's tombstone the old inscription, "She hath done what she could," a more truthful record would read, "She died of trying to do what she could not." The modern woman not only attends to her household and social duties, but reaches out her hand to a dozen charities besides. Few hospitals existed in old times; even in Philadelphia, that most philanthropic of cities, there was for a long time only one, and we find no record of its having enjoyed the patronage of a board of lady managers. The children of the poor, to say nothing of dogs, cats, and other unfortunate waifs, were not then tenderly cared for by charitable individuals; Dorcas societies and bazaars were of later introduction; the idea of educating the negro had not then come up, or rather it had come up in a different form and one that could be adjusted only by the fathers and brothers of the Republic, and with the sword rather than the spelling-book. Such a state of society made up in peacefulness what it lacked in progress, and gave our revered grandmothers leisure for elegant and lady-like accomplishments, for embroidery, correspondence, and conversation, which latter sometimes seems destined, like its sister art letter-writing, to become extinct in the rush and whirl or modern life, not because they have too much, and in some cases surfeit is as dangerous as starvation. Whatever else these excellent ladies our ancestresses did or did not do, they have enriched our age with charming pictures of the olden time, for the like of which the coming generations will sigh in vain. Anne H. Wharton. CREATION. A RAIN-DROP, made a diamond by the sun, Tells from a rose-leaf that the storm is done: Rain-drops seem instants, jewels ages, old, Yet both the self-same moment were begun. Charles Henry Lüders.OLD-AGE ECHOES. By Walt Whitman. SOUNDS OF THE WINTER. SOUNDS of the winter too, Sunshine upon the mountains -- many a distant strain From cheery railroad train -- from nearer field, barn, house, The whispering air -- even the mute crops, garner'd apples, corn, Children's and women's tones -- rhythm of many a farmer, and of flail, An old man's garrulous lips among the rest -- Think not we give out yet, Forth from these snowy hairs we too keep up the lilt. THE UNEXPRESS'D How dare one say it? After the cycles, poems, singers, plays, Vaunted Ionia's, India's -- Homer, Shakespeare -- the long, long times' thick dotted roads, areas, The shining clusters and the Milky Ways of stars -- Nature's pulses reap'd, All retrospective passions, heroes, war, love, adoration, All ages' plummets dropt to their utmost depths, All human lives, throats, wishes, brains -- all experiences' utterance; After the countless songs, or long or short, all tongues, all lands, Still something not yet told in poesy's voice or print -- something lacking, (Who knows? the best yet unexpress'd and lacking). SAIL OUT FOR GOOD, EIDÓLON YACHT! Heave the anchor short! Raise the main-sail and jib -- steer forth, O little white-hull'd sloop, now speech on really deep waters, (I will not call it our concluding voyage, But outset and sure entrance to the truest, best, maturest;) Depart, depart from solid earth -- no more returning to these shores, Now on for aye our infinite free venture wending, Spurning all yet tried ports, seas, hawsers, densities, gravitation, Sail out for good, eidólon yacht of me! AFTER THE ARGUMENT A group of little children with their ways and chatter flow in, Like welcome rippling water o'er my heated nerves and flesh. BOOK-TALK. 445 Good clothes carry more weight than a good conscience. "Our manners count for more than our morals," says Mr. Howells, the prophet of the Letter. See how the popular voice misnames things. Nice people are the people whom you always want to shun; good people are usually good for nothing; and the best people are the people least worth knowing. The respectable classes are the classes that do nothing to earn the respect of posterity. It is hard to steer one's way through the various cants that infest the world. It is hard to draw just conclusions from the prevalence of any way of speaking or writing. Here is Walt Whitman's "November Boughs" (David Mackay & Co.), a collection of pieces in prose and verse. To the people who live in the appearances of things, to the people who love shams and conventions, to the people who worship the isms which the past has bequeathed, Whitman has no message to convey. He does not live in the trim little parterre which human genius has reduced to order, he is a portion of the great unconquered chaos that surrounds us here, there, and everywhere. His voice comes far away from the distance. You have to pause to listen, and are not always sure you have heard aright, but somehow you feel that the very Distance is the truest part of yourself, and that the far-off voice reveals to you the deeps of you own soul. The things you have vaguely felt are here uttered, and then for the first time perhaps you recognize that you have felt them. Whitman himself tells us in his excellent preliminary essay "A Backward Glance o'er Travelled Roads" that the word he would put primarily for the description of his "Leaves of Grass" is the word Suggestiveness. "I round and finish little, if anything; and could not, consistently with my scheme. The reader will always have his or her part to do, just as much as I have had mine. I seek less to state or display any theme or thought, and more to bring you, reader, into the atmosphere of the theme or thought,-- there to pursue your own flight." But the most characteristic and illuminating passage in this essay is where Whitman tells us, "Ever since what might be call'd thought, or the budding of thought, fairly began in my youthful mind, I had had a desire to attempt some worthy record of that entire faith and acceptance ('to justify the ways of God to man' is Milton's well-known and ambitious phrase) which is the foundation of moral America. I felt it all as positively then in my young days as I do now in my old ones; to formulate a poem whose every thought or fact should directly or indirectly be or connive at an implicit belief is the wisdom, health, mystery, beauty of every process, every concrete object, every human or other existence, not only consider'd from the point of view of all, but of each. While I can not understand it or argue it out, I fully believe in a clue and purpose in Nature, entire and several; and that invisible spiritual results, just as real and definite as the visible, eventuate all concrete life and all materialism through Time. My book ought to emanate buoyancy and gladness legitimately enough, for it was grown out of those elements, and has been the comfort of my life since it was originally commenced." This is the age of rifacimentos, or condensations, or compilations, of royal roads to learning. It is the age, also, of wide-spread, though superficial, education. Now, in spite of Pope, a little knowledge is better than no knowledge at all. Indeed, when a man has mastered the whole sum and substance of human knowledge he has drunk only a drop of the Pierian spring. We are far too apt to consider that no books can be profitable save those which commend themselves 446 BOOK-TALK. to the scholarly taste. We forget that men and women cannot assimilate instruction that is uncongenial to their habits and constitution of mind. You couldn't recommend Kant to a clown, or even to a hard-headed, sensible business-man. But it is possible so to present his life and his philosophy that some faint ray shall illumine the inner life of the average man. What does the average man know about Kant? He has a dim notion that there was such a person, that he thought a good deal about some very hard things, and that other people admired him for thinking. But some careful student takes hold of Kant's philosophy, boils it down, as it were, to the level of his own understanding, flavors it, mayhap, to his own taste, losing a great deal, of course, in the process, and he may find others to whose capabilities the beverage shall be suited, comforting them for the present and educating their taste for the future. In a humble way he is a public benefactor. The English Men of Letters series and the various other series that followed in its wake have been educators of the public. Not every one has time to make a study of even English literature. Yet many intelligent men are glad to have the choicest masterpieces of that literature pointed out to them. Chambers's "Encyclopaedia of English Literature," Charles Knight's "Half-Hours with the Best Authors," and Charles Morris's "Half- Hours with the Best American Authors" supply a real need. And now the same Mr. Morris has added to the debt which the public owes him, by supplementing the latter work by his "Half-Hours with the Best Foreign Authors" (J. B. Lippincott Co.), four handsome volumes, in which good selections are made from the literature of Greece and Rome, of Germany and the North, of France, of Italy, Spain, Portugal and Russia. The translations are by many hands, as they ought to be, for the value of the work depends upon the fact that the compiler has utilized the best obtainable translations. Carlyle, Urquhart, Longfellow, Bayard Taylor, J. C. Mangan, Charles T. Brooks, and many others, have produced translations that are excellent English prose and English verse, and nobody need attempt to supersede them. The selections show a wide and catholic taste, and the biographical and critical notes are painstaking. "Leila Lee, and other Poems." By Rev. Stokely S. Fisher. (J. N. Amos & Sons, Cambridge, Ohio.) On its back this book is labelled "Fisher's Poems. Vol. III." Among its charms may be mentioned a frontispiece portrait of the author, which evidences a noble striving to look intellectual, several wood-cuts that have already done service elsewhere, been disabled, and retired, three hundred pages of bad "poetry," badly printed, and a preface by the publishers, in which they tell us that they "have enjoyed even the publishers' labor in preparing this work for the bookbinder" and volunteer the interesting information that "Rev. S. S. Fisher is yet quite a young man, and his poems are written, not as the literary hireling composes, but between hours of study and hard work, as they come to him in his busy life." Nor should we fail to take notice of the author's own preface, in which he forfeits the claim to intellectuality asserted by his portrait. With a charming candor, he says he cannot conscientiously make the usual apologies of young authors, "as no persuasion on the part of friends could cause me to print verses in my own opinion, altogether unworthy the attention of my readers; neither can I honestly express fears that I shall not be appreciated, at least as much as I merit, by a public by which all my poetic ventures have been so kindly received."