CHAPTER XV.

LEONHARD'S THIRD NIGHT IN THE HAPPY VALLEY.

Loretz invited Mr. Wenck to go home with him after the services: there

was something he wished to speak about, he said. Mr. Wenck needed no

urging: he wanted to see Elise one moment alone. But he did not find

that moment, for while Loretz was talking about the work which should be

done without delay in the cemetery, and saying that there could be no

better time to call attention to it than the present, when so many would

be going to visit Sister Benigna's grave, Spener came in. He had heard

already all that could be told him with regard to Benigna's death, but

his surprise had brought him straight to Loretz, and what he said was

creditable to him, although he had made certain statements to Leonhard

yesterday concerning Sister Benigna which neither of them would be

likely to forget. It was perhaps the recollection of them just now which

made him look at Leonhard and say, "I have been speaking to Mr. Marten

about a school-building, and he has promised to give me a design for

one. Shall we not call it Sister Benigna's monument?"

"Sister Benigna's monument should be erected by the people," said the

minister instantly. "She is in such regard among them all that it would

be a most beautiful memorial."

"We will consider that," said Spener. He was not very well pleased by

Wenck's remark, and perhaps there could be no better time than the

present to express his thought in regard to such assistance as he would

be likely to receive from Spenersberg in erecting a monument. "I dare

say the parents would be pleased to contribute their mite, and the

children also; but no doubt in the end it would be my lookout. And it

would be my pleasure, certainly, to see that there was no debt on the

building."

"Then, sir, pray do not call it her monument," said Mr. Wenck.

When Spener had spoken he felt a slight misgiving, as one who should

look pitifully on the moth which he had crushed. The minister's words

now amazed him, but he restrained his rising anger. Wenck must have

something else to say: let him say it then.

"I judged the people by myself," Wenck said. "And that is saying a great

deal more than I can express. It would be no pleasure, certainly, to see

that her friends bore the least share in such expenses."

"But, dear Brother Wenck, we are all Sister Benigna's friends," said

Spener with the expostulation of a master in his voice.

"Could we praise ourselves more highly, sir, than to say we are her

friends? For myself, I feel that the glory of Spenersberg has passed

away. I came here, Brother Loretz, to speak to you about her."

Loretz nodded: he was too much surprised by the minister's remarks to

speak. They all seemed to feel that the only thing asked of them was a

hearing.

"One week ago," Mr. Wenck continued, "I did not suppose that I could

speak to you with such freedom as I feel I may use now. If I had said

then what I now must, I might not have been able to convince anybody

except of one thing. Perhaps I could not have felt certain about my own

motives. But now I am above suspicion: I cannot suspect myself. _She_

will not doubt my secret thought, and you will all bear me witness." The

minister looked around him as he spoke, and Spener would never point him

out to man again as yesterday he had called Leonhard's attention to the

little minister. Leonhard sat uneasily on his chair, doubting whether to

go or stay, but nobody thought of him, and he felt himself to be in the

centre of a charmed circle, out of which he could not remove himself.

Every one was looking at Mr. Wenck, who, pausing a second as if to

assure himself again that all to whom he would speak were before him,

went on, his voice becoming more calm and strong, and his whole bearing

witnessing for him in his speech. "Before I heard of Spenersberg," he

said--"before it had existence even in the brain of its honored

founder--my acquaintance with Benigna began."

"Is it possible, Mr. Wenck?" exclaimed Dame Loretz, her voice breaking

under the weight of her sympathy.

"Yes, and I was hoping that she and I were to spend our lives together.

Dear Sister Loretz, you understand now why I could not take a wife."

"Why--why is that so, sir?" asked Loretz, doubting, and not very well

pleased: "that's news, I'm sure."

"It is, I know. And the story would never be told by me but for--for

your sake, my friends."

"Well, well, but--" said Loretz, afraid to hear what was coming; not

that he guessed, but because Spener sat there with a face so--so

inexplicable. Loretz could not make out its meaning when just now he

glanced that way; and the face was full of meaning. What was passing in

his mind?

"Let me tell the story, Mr. Loretz. I want you to know it. It will not

take long. May I not go on?"

"Go on, sir, by all means!" exclaimed Spener. "Say what you have to say,

and--" His voice sunk: he did not finish the sentence, audibly at least.

But Wenck still waited until Mrs. Loretz said, "Husband, surely you

would like to know about dear Sister Benigna?"

"Well," said Loretz, reluctant still because of his misgivings, "go on.

It will be a comfort to you, I dare say, Mr. Wenck, to talk about her

here."

"It is my duty, sir, to talk about her here, and my privilege. We were

both toiling in our way to reach the time when our love for each other

might be spoken and shown to be something short of unreasonable. When

that time did come we were led to ascertain whether our union would be

in accordance with the Divine will, in the manner of our fathers, which

had been adhered to for generations in the village where we lived. We

found that, according to the lot, our lives must be lived apart. It did

not appear to me then that we did right to give each other up. But I did

not attempt to persuade her--or--to assure myself that I had not made a

mistake when I loved her."

"I believe that," was the comment on this statement which appeared on

the scornful face of Spener.

"But I have often asked myself whether I should not have performed my

duty in a better way, a more enlightened way, if I had tried to persuade

Benigna to a step which has been taken by many of the most devout,

God-fearing brethren."

"What! what!" exclaimed Loretz, aghast. This was the very thing he had

feared from some quarter, and now he heard it whence he had least

expected it to come.

"I told you before you resorted to the lot--and my inmost hope was that

you would act upon it--that the lot is not now considered among the

brethren essential in the decision of questions of this kind. Surely you

have not forgotten."

"You mentioned it," said Spener reluctantly, in most ungenerous

acknowledgment. "I recollect wishing that you would make a point of it."

"It was impossible," replied the minister. "But now I can speak. If I

understand you, my friends, there is none of you that feels ready to

resign his own will in this matter. In your own secret hearts you

understand there is no submission. With such sacrifice God is not well

pleased. Do you think He can be? You have but followed a fashion. It is

a vain oblation. But"--he went on hurriedly, for he did not wish to

provoke discussion, at least until he had told the brief tale to the

end--"Benigna and I accepted the decision as final. When I came to

Spenersberg and found her here, it was a great, an overwhelming

surprise. Brother Loretz, you know by whose request I came."

"I have always felt proud of having brought you here, Brother Wenck: I

stand by it yet. You have done the right thing always, so far as I know.

Surely it was well to bring you here."

"When I found her here I thought I could not stay, but I finally

accepted that too as a dispensation of the Divine will, thankful, sir,

thankful that I might have the woman for my friend and co-worker. Has

she worked with me? Oh, Benigna, thou art still and for ever my

friend--for ever!--and the thought of thee will be an inspiration to my

work till my work too is done! But, Mr. Spener, I do not think that this

trial is set for you and Elise. Brother Loretz, I feel called upon to

testify that I do not believe that this trial is appointed to Brother

Spener and Elise. Think of it, and give me your consent, all of you, and

I will immediately, with devout thanksgiving, in the presence of God,

join together this man and this woman in holy matrimony."

Spener was first to break the silence which bound each amazed soul of

this little company when Mr. Wenck ceased to speak. His face shone, he

looked as if he could have embraced "our little minister" then and

there. He had been, in spite of his pride and prejudice, converted

wholly into faith in Wenck, but instead of manifesting his conversion at

once, he strode across the room to Elise's mother. "This is a house of

mourning," said he, "otherwise I would never consent that Elise's

marriage should be a private one. I would wish all Spenersberg to see my

bride: I would like all the people to see our happiness. But let it be

now, let it be now, Loretz. Elise, let it be now. Surely you see the

wisdom of it. Such a compliance as ours to a mere custom would be an

insult to our Father in heaven. Common sense is against it."

His voice was tremulous with emotion: he took Elise's hand. Who could

stand against him? Her eyes were lifted as to the hills whence help had

come to them.

Loretz was sadly disconcerted. Spener's instant acceptance of the

minister's proposal completed the overthrow occasioned by Mr. Wenck's

astonishing words. How true what he was always saying, that nobody could

stand against that man!

"Surely, father, surely," said Spener, approaching him, and drawing

Elise along with him--"surely you cannot fail to feel the force of what

our good brother has said."

Loretz looked at his wife: it was not merely Albert, the man he revered

most, but the child--yes, the child of his heart also was arrayed

against him. How was it with Anna?

"Listen to the minister," said she. "He knows what is right."

"I have spoken in the fear of God," said Mr. Wenck. "I call no man

master."

Spener looked down at these words: he understood their significance. The

interview he had returned home intending to ask of Wenck was of a

different character from this. "I think that no one could suspect you,

sir, of tampering with another man's destiny or his conscience," he

said. "I have never understood you till now, and for my misunderstanding

I humbly ask your pardon." And indeed who that looked at him could

suppose that this was a moment of proud rejoicing over a success won in

spite of Church and household?

The minister silently gave him his hand. Spener did himself justice when

he took the extended palm and held it a moment reverently in his.

"Father, we await your decision," he said to Loretz. He still held

Elise's hand, and she would not have flown away had he held it less

firmly.

Leonhard, quite forgotten, just here accidentally touched the piano with

his elbow, and the sound that came forth was the keynote to

Mendelssohn's "Wedding March." Forthwith he began to play it. Loretz

looked at him, and seemed to feel suddenly reassured. A wavering light

fell around him: he beckoned to the minister. "Do any of the folks

around here know?" he asked.

"About the lot? Who would have told them? I should say no one."

"Then 'twill do them no harm: I am my brother's keeper. Go on. We won't

make a balk of it this time."

"What, father!" exclaimed Dame Loretz. "How! Now?" It was her turn to

offer herself as a stumbling-block, but, dear soul! she must always make

poor work of such endeavor.

"If they are agreed, let it be. Albert Spener never gave his consent out

and out to the testing; and look at our girl here! The Lord have mercy

on us! If I can understand, though, it isn't Albert's doing."

"It is wholly Brother Wenck's," said Spener.

"It is Benigna's," said the minister. "Let us therefore celebrate this

day of sorrow by a concluding special service;" and he drew from his

pocket the manual from which he had read the burial service over Sister

Benigna. "We will rejoice together, as she will rejoice if it is given

her to know what the friends she loved do on the earth. Is it not as if

she had given her life for her friends?"

When Leonhard took up the interrupted strain of the "Wedding March,"

bridegroom had saluted bride, and Loretz, by the light of his daughter's

eyes, had taken one decided step toward conviction that he had consented

in that hour not to the furtherance of his own will, but the will of

Heaven.

Have we permitted Miss Elise to figure almost as a mute on this

momentous occasion? But does the reader think it likely that she had

much to say? She might perhaps have uttered one word that would have

proved insurmountable, but Mr. Wenck had spoken as it were with

Benigna's authority, and so to yield now was the most obvious duty.

The next morning saw Leonhard Marten on his way back to A----. He had

submitted to Spener his designs for the monument to be erected among the

living to the memory of Sister Benigna, and for the houses to be built

on those elected sites; and these all accepted, he had said to himself,

"I am an architect and a builder as long as I live," though Spener had

embraced him when he said, "I never heard such music, sir--never--as you

gave us last night!"

He went away, promising to come back and bring with him a young lady to

study music of the Spenersbergers, so soon as he should have despatched

a letter to a friend who was about to travel abroad.

He promised with a young man's audacity, but he performed it all. If

Marion was not to be abandoned at once and for ever to a false style of

music and a false way of living, she must be converted, as he had been,

out of all patience with the foolish falseness of their life. And then

everything seemed so easy to him, and really was so easy, after he had

decided that he could write his name down in that birthday book sacred

to friendship in which Loretz had offered him a place.

And here is explanation ample of the fact that Wilberforce, about to

travel abroad and in sore need of money, found a thousand dollars

deposited to his credit when he expected five thousand, and in due time

received a letter which satisfied him, in spite of its surprise, that

Leonhard was the best friend he had and the most trustworthy man living,

and that whoever she might be whom he had taken in holy matrimony for

his life-companion, he was worthy of her.

CAROLINE CHESEBRO'.

UNSETTLED POINTS OF ETIQUETTE.

In England the higher the rank the more affable and kind I

found them. It is only the little people climbing up who are

disagreeable.--SULLY.

Not alone of English people can this be said. In "society" all over the

world it is the same; for everywhere men and women born and bred ladies

and gentlemen value their reputation as such too highly to risk it by

any rudeness or uncourteousness. They may upon occasion be frigidly

polite, but polite they will always be. But customs vary so much that

some things which would be considered polite in one country would be

looked upon in another as rude or intrusive. Take, for instance, one

illustration among many which might be cited. A foreigner sent on a

diplomatic mission to this country brought with him letters of

introduction to several members of a large family. Having affairs of

importance to attend to, he was remiss about delivering these letters on

this occasion, but on a second visit, having more leisure, he made it a

point to have himself presented at a ball to every member of the family

who was present. After the ball he told a lady of the trouble he had

given himself, and asked her congratulations upon having accomplished so

much in one evening. She, being upon intimate terms with him, assured

him that his politeness was not only unnecessary, but would in all

probability be misunderstood. "According to the customs of our country,"

said the lady, "you ought to have waited until they asked to be

presented to you." "How could I do that," he inquired indignantly, "when

it was my duty to make myself known to them, out of respect for the

writer of the letters as well as for those to whom she had written?

Besides, one can never be too civil to ladies and gentlemen." The lady

replied, "True; only you must first be sure that you are dealing with

ladies and gentlemen who understand all points of etiquette as you do."

Before his return to his own country he learned his error by the result,

for during a stay of some months he never received an invitation from

any of the family. By following the customs of his own country, instead

of adopting those of the country he was in, he had subjected himself to

being looked upon as "a pushing foreigner," who valued their

acquaintance so highly that he was determined to gain it, even at the

sacrifice of the customs of good society.

Americans when abroad, unless in an official position, have very little

opportunity of gaining a knowledge of such requirements of etiquette as

had influenced this gentleman in making the overtures he had thought

necessary; nor can we be expected to be acquainted with them. The rules

of social etiquette are all so well understood and practiced in Europe

that no opportunity presents itself for the miscomprehensions as to

one's duties in society which prevail with us. There every detail is

prescribed by the codes and usages of courts; and one might as well pass

an acquaintance in the street without the usual salutation as neglect

any one of these forms. Again to illustrate: A gentleman belonging at

one time to the English legation in Washington passed a summer at one of

our fashionable watering-places. His official position would have

secured him the consideration to which he was entitled, even had he not

been the general favorite that he was; but the men who left their cards

from time to time upon him were not always particular in having

themselves presented the first time they met him afterward at the club

or at dinners; and looking upon this omission as he had been trained to

do, it could not but seem to him an intentional rudeness on their part.

The consequence was, he avoided the watering-place thereafter, and

sought his summer recreation where there was less pretension at least,

and where he doubtless became less exacting or more accustomed to such

trifling breaches of etiquette.

For want of an exact code many points of etiquette are with us left

open to discussion, and this without reference to foreign ideas. Thus

the custom of inviting gentlemen to call when a married lady wishes to

give them the entree to her house seems to have become an obsolete one

with a great many. Quite recently a discussion took place as to its

propriety between several ladies of distinction in this city. One lady

said that it was the Philadelphia custom for gentlemen to call where

they wished, without waiting for an invitation, after they had made the

acquaintance of any lady in the family; and more than one married woman

asserted that they had never yet asked a gentleman to come to see them;

while another insisted that gentlemen generally would not venture to

make a call upon any married lady unless she had invited them, or they

had first asked her permission. As a difference of opinion exists on

this point, it would be well if it could be an understood thing that any

gentleman wishing to make the acquaintance of a lady could, after having

himself presented to her, leave his card at her house with his address

upon it. Of course this applies only to comparative strangers, for any

young man can commit his card to his mother or sister to leave for him

at a house where either visits, if he wishes to be included in

invitations. Unless his card is left in this way or in person, how can

he expect to be remembered? Some years ago, a lady who gave a ball

during the winter after her return from a residence abroad, omitted to

send invitations to the young men who, having previously visited at her

house, had not left their cards at her door since her arrival home,

preferring to substitute gentlemen who had never been entertained by her

to inviting those who were so remiss. For this reason she gave

permission to several young ladies to name gentlemen among their friends

whom they would like to have invited; and so agreeable to the hostess

was the selection thus made that she placed permanently upon her

inviting list the names of those who sufficiently appreciated her

courtesy to remember afterward the slight duties which their acceptance

of her hospitality imposed upon them.

Still another illustration will show what unsettled ideas many hold in

regard to points of etiquette which ought not to admit of any diversity

of opinion. Ladies sometimes say to each other, after having been in the

habit of meeting for years without exchanging visits, "I hope you will

come and see me," and almost as frequently the answer is made, "Oh, you

must come and see me first." One moment of reflection would prevent a

lady from making that answer, unless she were much the older of the two,

when she could with propriety give that as the reason. The lady who

extends the invitation makes the first advance, and the one who receives

it should at least say, "I thank you--you are very kind," even if she

has no intention of availing herself of it. A lady in the fashionable

circles of our largest metropolis once boasted that she had never made a

first visit. She was not aware, probably, that in the opinion of those

conversant with the duties of her position she stamped herself as being

just as underbred as if she had announced that she did not wait for any

one to call upon her. No lady surely is of so little importance in the

circle in which she moves as never to be placed in circumstances where a

first visit is requisite from her; nor does any one in our land so

nearly approach the position of a reigning monarch as to decree that

all, irrespective of age or priority of residence, should make the first

call upon her.

One of the most reasonable rules of etiquette is that which requires

prompt replies to invitations. The reason why an invitation to dine or

to an opera-box should be answered as soon as received is so evident

that it will not admit of questioning; but many who are punctilious in

these particulars are remiss in sending promptly their acceptances or

regrets for parties and balls. Most of those who neglect this duty do so

from thoughtlessness or carelessness, but there are some who have the

idea that it increases their importance to delay their reply, or that

promptness gives evidence of eagerness to accept or to refuse. Others,

again, are prevented from paying that direct attention to an invitation

which politeness requires by the inconvenience of sending a special

messenger with their notes. Where any doubt exists in reference to the

ability of the person invited to be present at a soiree or ball, an

acceptance should be sent at once; and if afterward prevented from going

a short note of explanation or regret should be despatched. It is well

known that a few words make all the difference between a polite and an

impolite regret. "Mrs. Gordon regrets that she cannot accept Mrs.

Sydney's invitation for Tuesday evening," is not only curt, but would be

considered by many positively rude. The mistake arises, however, more

frequently from ignorance than from intentional rudeness. "Mrs. Gordon

regrets extremely that she cannot accept Mrs. Sydney's kind invitation

for Tuesday evening," is all that is necessary. All answers to

invitations given in the name of the lady and gentleman of the house are

generally acknowledged to both in the answer, and the envelope addressed

to the lady alone.

Some persons are in the habit of sending acceptances to invitations for

balls even when they know that they are not going; but this is very

unfair to the hostess, not only because she orders her supper for all

who accept, but because she may wish to invite others in their places if

she knows in time that they are not to be present. No house is so large

but it has a limit to the number of people that can be comfortably

entertained; and some ladies are compelled by the length of their

visiting-list to give two or three entertainments in order to include

all whom they wish to invite. When the invitations are sent out ten days

in advance, if answered within three days the hostess is enabled to

select from her other lists such of her friends as she would like to pay

the compliment of inviting twice, in case the number of regrets which

she receives will permit her to do so; but delaying the answers or

accepting with no intention of going puts it out of her power to send

other invitations.

An invitation once given cannot be recalled, even from the best motives,

without subjecting the one who recalls it to the charge of being either

ignorant or regardless of all conventional rules of politeness. Some

years ago a lady who had been invited with her husband to a musical

entertainment given at the house of an acquaintance for a mutual friend

of the inviter and the invited, received, after having accepted the

invitation, a note requesting her not to come, on the ground that she

had spoken slanderously of the lady for whom the soiree was to be given.

Entirely innocent of the charge, she demanded an explanation, which

resulted in completely exonerating her. The invitation was then

repeated, but of course, as the withdrawal of it had been intended as a

punishment, the rudeness was of too flagrant a character to overlook,

and all visiting between the parties ceased from that day. The rule

would not apply to a more recent case, where a lady gave a ball, and, in

endeavoring to avoid a crush and make it agreeable for her guests, left

out all young men under twenty-one years of age; but finding that she

had received wrong information concerning the age of one whom she had

invited, and that this one exception was much commented upon, causing

her to appear inconsistent, she wrote a note asking permission to recall

the invitation (having received no answer to it), and expressing her

regret that she should be made to appear rude where no rudeness was

intended. In this case the gentleman could, without compromising his

dignity, have sent a courteous reply, assuring the lady that he

perfectly understood her motives, and begging her not to give herself

any uneasiness upon his account in having felt compelled to withdraw the

invitation. By doing so he would have made the lady his firm friend, and

had she appreciated his politeness as it would have deserved to be

appreciated, she would have lost no opportunity of showing her sense of

it.

There is no better test of ladies and gentlemen than the manner in

which they receive being left out of a general invitation. They may feel

ever so keenly the omission, but it should never betray itself in a

shadow of change either in look or in tone. If the invitation is not a

general one, why should any one feel hurt by being omitted? No one but

the entertainer can know all the motives that influence her in her

selections. And here might be mentioned several reasonable points of

etiquette which may control her. When a first invitation has not been

accepted, it is to be supposed that no other will be expected until the

recipient of the invitation has returned the courtesy in some way, be it

ever so simple. In cases where previous invitations have been accepted,

even those who are not in the habit of balancing the exchange of

hospitalities cannot continue to extend them year after year, however

much they may wish to do so, when not the slightest disposition is shown

to make any return. Then, too, many ladies are not willing to overlook

the omission of leaving cards after their entertainments, and they very

naturally feel that a distinction should be made between such young men

as have shown an appreciation of their past courtesies and those who

have not. And again, a lady may often be deterred from sending

invitations to those whom she heartily wishes to invite, from her

dislike of making any advance to persons who are older residents, or

from a fear of being considered pushing or patronizing. A lady who never

makes first calls upon those who have lived longer than herself in the

city where she resides (unless in cases where age or infirmities upon

the part of those inviting her makes it her province to do so), learned

just before giving an entertainment that the wife of a gentleman from

whom she had received assistance in the charitable labors which occupied

some of her leisure hours was a native of another city; and in writing a

note upon business to the gentleman she expressed her intention of

calling upon his wife, explaining why she had not sooner done so. She

received an immediate reply from the husband, in which, after the

business had been attended to, he informed her that he and his wife

selected their own circle of friends, which was quite as large as they

desired to make it. The lady as promptly sent back a note in answer, in

which she expressed her regret for the mistake she had made, and thanked

him for having corrected the impression which she had formed of him as a

gentleman in her acquaintance with him solely in business relations.

Such an experience would prevent a sensitive woman from ever placing

herself in a position to receive such a rudeness again from any one and

therefore no one whose duty it is to make a first call, and who has not

made it, should ever feel hurt or offended at not being invited by such

an acquaintance, no matter how general may have been the invitation.

Ladies who are the most apt to give offence are those who divide their

lists, giving two parties in the course of the year, instead of the

grand crush which is more popular. Some feel aggrieved because they are

not invited to both, fancying that there are reasons why an exception

should be made in their favor; while others prefer the party for which

no invitation was sent. Those who send regrets for the first party

sometimes expect to be invited to the second, but this in no way changes

the relation between the inviter and the invited. It is the misfortune

and not the fault of the lady who invites that such regrets are sent;

and if she is able to repeat her invitations to any upon her first list,

it will surely be to those who gave such reasons for regretting as

illness or absence from the city. Certainly the entertainer must desire

to make both parties equally pleasant, and must select her guests to

this end; and yet there are those who, when left out, do not hesitate to

show her by the change in their manner that they consider themselves

more capable than she is of selecting her guests.

The question is frequently asked whether replies should be sent to

invitations to wedding and other receptions, and to "at-home" cards. If

one receives the great compliment of being invited to a marriage

ceremony (not at church), an acceptance or regret would of course be

immediately sent, for it is only in the case of the reception following

that any doubt seems to exist. It is generally understood that no

answers are expected; but as it is certainly very polite to send a

regret when one is unable to accept, why is it not equally polite to

send an acceptance? After receptions it is not considered necessary for

those who have been present to call, but those who are prevented from

going call in person as soon as is convenient. Sometimes, as in the case

of wedding receptions, many are invited for the occasion, friends either

of the bride or groom, whom the relative who gives the reception has

never visited, and does not wish to visit in the future. Of course the

visiting then ends with the call made after the reception; for if the

cards left at the reception or afterward are not returned by those of

the host or hostess, no matter how desirous the recipient of the

civility may be to extend her hospitality in return, she ought not to do

so unless under corresponding circumstances. Frequently those who are

prevented from attending wedding-receptions send their cards, and these

are returned by those of the bride and groom when they make their round

of visits, except in cases where, after the reception, their cards are

sent with a new address. Then, of course, those who receive them always

pay the first visit. The gentleman sends his card alone (when there has

been no reception) where he wishes to have his wife make the

acquaintance of his friends whom she has not previously visited; and the

sooner the call is made under such circumstances the more polite it is

considered.

The reason why an invitation to an opera-box, like an invitation to

dine, must be answered immediately is because the number of seats being

limited it is necessary, when regrets are received, to send out other

invitations at once, in order that all may be complimented alike by

receiving them upon the same day. Gentleman not receiving any special

invitation to a box, who chance to be in the opera-house in a

dress-suit, often pay visits of ten or fifteen minutes to the box of any

lady with whom they are well acquainted. If a gentleman wishes to enter

the box of some chaperone with whom he is not acquainted, he always

requests some mutual acquaintance in the box to present him to the

chaperone immediately upon entering. Unless invited by her to remain, he

is careful not to prolong his visit beyond the time allowed. Young

ladies are sometimes very thoughtless in urging young gentlemen to stay

during an entire act, or even longer; but when the party is made up by

the chaperone, she does not like to see the gentlemen whom she has

invited incommoded by one whom she has not asked to her box.

The diversity of opinion that exists with us in reference to many points

of etiquette is unfortunate; for where no fixed rules exist there must

always be misapprehensions and misunderstandings; rudenesses suspected

where none are intended, and sometimes resented, to the great perplexity

of the offender as to the cause of the offence. It is not every one who

knows how rude a thing people of the old school consider it to make use

of a lady's house in calling upon a guest staying with her, and leaving

no card for the hostess. This simple act of courtesy does not

necessitate a continuance of visiting, inasmuch as the lady only feels

obliged to return her card through her friend, leaving it to after

circumstances to decide whether it will be mutually agreeable to make

the acquaintance. To call upon strangers for whom dinners are given when

invited to meet them is very polite, but it should not be construed into

any intended impoliteness in this country if the call is not made; and

it may even happen that one is unable to be presented to such guests

where the dinner is large, though one should at least make the attempt.

Nor is it generally understood how great is the discourtesy of

permitting any person who has been shown into a house through the

mistake of a servant when the ladies are engaged, to be shown out again

without seeing any member of the family. The mistake having occurred,

if no member of the family is able to make her appearance without

considerable delay, a message should be sent down with an explanation,

inquiring if the visitor will wait until one of the ladies can come

down. The lady who finds herself admitted when out upon a round of calls

will be without doubt only too glad of the excuse for departure; and

even if calling upon matters that require an answer, her _savoir faire_

would prevent her from waiting under such circumstances. Any hesitation

upon the part of the servant who answers the bell, as to whether the

ladies are at home or engaged, authorizes the persons calling to leave

their cards without waiting to ascertain.

The etiquette in regard to bowing is so simple and reasonable that one

would scarcely suppose it possible that any differences of opinion could

exist, and yet there are some who think it a breach of politeness if one

neglect to bow, although meeting half a dozen times on a promenade or in

driving. Custom has made it necessary to bow only the first time in

passing: after that exchange of salutations it is very properly not

expected. The difference between a courteous and a familiar bow should

be remembered by gentlemen who wish to make a favorable impression. A

lady dislikes to receive from a man with whom she has but a slight

acquaintance a bow accompanied by a broad smile, as though he were on

the most familiar terms with her. It is far better to err on the other

side, and to give one of those stiff, ungracious bows which some men

indulge in. Those gentlemen who smile with their eyes instead of their

mouths give the most charming bows. As for men who bow charmingly at one

time, and with excessive hauteur at others, according as they feel in a

good or bad humor, they need never be surprised if the person thus

treated should cease speaking altogether; nor can any man who does not

lift, or at least touch, his hat in speaking to a lady expect that she

will continue her salutations.

The rules to which allusion has been made are all reasonable, but there

are others which, having only an imaginary foundation in the

requirements of true politeness, might be disregarded with advantage.

Such, for example, as that of sending answers to invitations by a

special messenger. It is equally convenient to employ a man to deliver

invitations or to send them by post. With the reply it is different.

Each family receiving an invitation has to send out a servant with the

answer. This not being always convenient, the reply is frequently

delayed--sometimes until it is forgotten. But if the foreign custom of

sending acceptances and regrets by post could be brought into general

use, how much more sensible it would be! It was the occasion of many

comments when a few years since some cards, not invitations, were thus

sent by mistake, the servant posting those which he had forgotten to

deliver before the wedding had taken place. But it only needs a few

resolute persons to set the example, and persist in it, to have it as

generally adopted as it is abroad.

THE HERMIT'S VIGIL.

Here is the ancient legend I was reading

From the black-letter vellum page last night:

Its yellow husk holds lessons worth the heeding,

If we unfold it right.

The tome is musty with dank superstition

From which we shrink recoiling, to th' extreme

Of an unfaith that with material vision,

Accounts as myth or dream

Problems too subtle for our clumsy fingers--

High truths that stretch beyond our reach as far

As o'er the fire-fly in the grass that lingers

Stretches yon quenchless star.

Give rather back the old hallucinations--

The visible spirits--the rapture, terror, grief

Of faith so human, than the drear negations

Of dumb, dead unbelief!

--But will you hear the story?

--In a forest,

Girt round by blacken'd tarns, a hermit dwelt:

And as one midnight, when the storm raged sorest,

Within his hut he knelt

In ghostly penance, sounds of fiendish laughter

Smote on the tempest's lull with sudden jar,

That sent the gibbering echoes shrilling after,

O'er weir and wold afar.

"Christ ban ye now!"--he cried, the door wide flinging,

"Fare ye some whither with perdition's dole?"

--"We go"--out from the wrack a shriek came ringing--

"To seize the emperor's soul,

"Who lies this hour death-smitten." Execration

Thereat still fouler filled the sulphurous air:

Before the rood the hermit sank:--"Salvation

Grant, Lord! in his despair!"

And agonizing thus, with lips all ashen,

He prayed--till back, with ghastlier rage and roar,

The demon rout rushed, strung to fiercer passion,

And crashed his osier door.

"Speak, fiend!--I do adjure thee!--Came repentance

Too late?"--With wrathful curse was answer made:

--"Heaped high within the Judgment Scales for sentence,

The emperor's sins were laid;

"And downward, downward, with a plunge descended

_Our_ scale, till we exulted!--when a moan,

--'_Save, Christ, O save me!_'--from his lips was rended

Out with his dying groan.

"Quick in the other scale did Mercy lay it,

_Lo! it outweighed his guilt_--"

--"Ha,--baffled! braved!"--

The hermit cried;--"Hence, fiends! nor dare gainsay it,

_The emperor's soul is saved!_"

MARGARET J. PRESTOX.

CHATEAUBRIAND'S DUCKS.

Francois-Auguste de Chateaubriand, the illustrious author of the _Genie

du Christianisme_, the poet, statesman, diplomatist, soldier, and

traveler in the Old World and the New, was one of the two or three human

beings who, at the commencement of the nineteenth century, disputed with

the emperor Napoleon the attention of Europe. Sprung from an old family

of the Breton nobility--a race preserving longer perhaps than any other

in France the traditions of the monarchy--he reluctantly gave in his

adhesion to the _de facto_ government of Napoleon; but the execution of

the duc d'Enghien outraged him profoundly, and sending back to Napoleon

his commission as foreign minister, he abjured him for ever. Napoleon

probably regretted the fact seriously. "Chateaubriand," said the

emperor, "has received from Nature the sacred fire: his works attest it.

His style is that of a prophet, and all that is grand and national

appertains to his genius."

It would be out of place in the brief sketch here given to trace his

long and adventurous career. By turns author, minister, ambassador,

soldier, he saw, like his famous contemporary and associate, Talleyrand,

revolution after revolution, dynasty after dynasty, Bonapartist,

Bourbon and Orleanist, pass before him; and having in this long career

enjoyed or suffered all the splendors and all the woes of life--now at

the height of wealth and power, now a penniless and homeless

wanderer--he came at the age of eighty, in 1848, to Paris to die, in

wellnigh abject poverty.

Among the personal delineations of this celebrated man, the most

characteristic and entertaining perhaps are those presented by Victor

Hugo and Alexander Dumas in their respective memoirs. Chateaubriand is

there shown in undress, and the portrait drawn of him is vivid and

interesting. Victor Hugo describes him as he appeared in 1819 at his

fine hotel in Paris, wealthy, influential and renowned. The author-to-be

of _Les Miserables_ was then a mere youth, and his budding glories as an

ultra-royalist poet conferred upon him the honor of an introduction to

the great man. Hugo was ushered in, and saw before him, leaning in a

stately attitude against the mantelpiece, the illustrious individual. M.

de Chateaubriand, says Hugo, affected the bearing of a soldier: the man

of the pen remembered the man of the sword. His neck was encircled by a

black cravat, which hid the collar of his shirt: a black frockcoat,

buttoned to the top, encased his small, bent body. The fine part about

him was his head--out of proportion with his figure, but grave and

noble. The nose was firm and imperious in outline, the eye proud, the

smile charming; but this smile was a sudden flash, the mouth quickly

resuming its severe and haughty expression.

"Monsieur Hugo," said Chateaubriand without moving, "I am delighted to

see you. I have read your verses on La Vendee and the death of the duc

de Berri; and there are things in the latter more especially which no

other poet of this age could have written. My years and experience give

me, unfortunately, the right to be frank, and I say candidly that there

are passages which I like less; but what is good in your poems is very

good."

In the attitude, inflections of voice and intonation of the speaker's

phrases there was something sovereign, which rather diminished than

exalted the young writer in his own eyes. Night came and lights were

brought. The master of the mansion permitted the conversation to

languish, and Hugo was much relieved when the friend who had introduced

him rose to go. Chateaubriand, seeing them about to take their leave,

invited Hugo to come and see him on any day between seven and nine in

the morning, and the youth gained the street, where he drew a long

breath.

"Well," said his friend, "I hope you are content?"

"Yes--to be out!"

"How! Why, M. de Chateaubriand was charming! He talked a great deal to

you. You don't know him: he passes four or five hours sometimes without

saying a word. If you are not satisfied, you are hard to please."

In response to Chateaubriand's general invitation, Hugo went soon

afterward, at an early hour of the morning, to repeat his visit. He was

shown into Chateaubriand's chamber, and found the illustrious personage

in his shirt-sleeves, with a handkerchief tied around his head, seated

at a table and looking over some papers. He turned round cordially, and

said, "Ah! good-day, Monsieur Victor Hugo. I expected you. Sit down.

Have you been working since I saw you? have you made many verses?"

Hugo replied that he wrote a few every day.

"You are right," said Chateaubriand. "Verses! make verses! 'Tis the

highest department of literature. You are on higher ground than mine:

the true writer is the poet. I have made verses, too, and am sorry I did

not continue to do so, as my verses were worth more than my prose. Do

you know that I have written a tragedy? I must read you a scene.

Pilorge! come here: I want you."

An individual with red face, hair and moustaches entered.

"Go and find the manuscript of _Moses_," said Chateaubriand.

Pilorge was Chateaubriand's secretary, and the place was no sinecure.

Besides manuscripts and letters which his master signed, Pilorge copied

everything. The illustrious author, attentive to the demands of

posterity, preserved with religious care copies of his most trifling

notes. The tragedy which Chateaubriand read from with pomp and emphasis

did not immensely impress Hugo, and the scene was interrupted by the

entrance of a servant with an enormous vessel full of water for the

bath. Chateaubriand proceeded to take off his head handkerchief and

green slippers, and seeing Hugo about to retire, motioned to him to

remain. He then continued to disrobe without ceremony, took off his gray

pantaloons, shirt and flannel undershirt, and went into the bath, where

his servant washed and rubbed him. He then resumed his clothes, brushed

his teeth, which were beautiful, and of which he evidently took great

care; and during this process talked with animation.

This morning seems to have been a fortunate exception, as Hugo declares

that he found Chateaubriand on other occasions a man of freezing

politeness, stiff, arousing rather respect than sympathy--a genius

rather than a man. The royal carelessness of his character was shown in

his financial affairs. He kept always on his mantelpiece piles of

five-franc pieces, and when his servant brought him begging letters--a

thing which took place constantly--he took a piece from the pile,

wrapped it in the letter and sent it out by the servant. Money ran

through his fingers. When he went to see Charles X. at Prague, and the

king questioned him in reference to his affairs, his response was, "I am

as poor as a rat."

"That will not do," said the king. "Come, Chateaubriand, how much would

make you rich?"

"Sire," was the reply, "you are throwing away your time. If you gave me

four millions this morning, I should not have a penny this evening."

It must be conceded that there was something imposing in this refusal of

royal generosity; but the poet seems to have passed through life thus,

with his head carried superbly aloft, and his "grand air" ready on all

occasions.

Hugo draws him at fifty, in his fine hotel at Paris--a celebrity in

politics and society. Dumas shows him in his old age, poor, self-exiled,

and wellnigh forgotten by the world in which he had played so great a

part. The brilliant and eccentric author of _Henry III._ was traveling

in Switzerland in 1834, and on reaching Lucerne was informed that the

hotel of The Eagle had the honor of sheltering no less a personage than

one of his own literary idols--the great, the famous, the imposing M. de

Chateaubriand. Dumas declares that genius in misfortune was always

dearer to him than in its hours of greatest splendor, and the statement

seems to have been honest. He determined to call and pay his respects to

the great poet. He accordingly repaired to the hotel of The Eagle, asked

for M. de Chateaubriand, and was informed by the waiter in a

matter-of-fact voice that M. de Chateaubriand was not then at the hotel,

as he had "gone to feed his ducks."

At this strange announcement Dumas stared. He suppressed his curiosity,

nevertheless, left his name and address, and duly received on the next

morning a polite note from Chateaubriand inviting him to come and

breakfast with him at ten.

The invitation was gladly accepted, not, however, without a tremor of

awe on the part of the youthful author. Even in old age, poverty, exile

and forgotten by the world, Chateaubriand was to him the impersonation

of grandeur. He trembled at the very thought of approaching this "mighty

rock upon which the waves of envy had in vain beaten for fifty

years"--this grand genius whose "immense superiority wellnigh crushed

him." His demeanor, therefore, he declares, when shown into

Chateaubriand's presence, must have appeared exceedingly awkward.

Nevertheless, the cordial courtesy of the exile speedily restored his

self-possession, and they proceeded to breakfast, conversing meanwhile

upon political affairs, the news from France, and other topics of

national interest to the old poet. Dumas represents him as simple,

cordial, grave, yet unreserved. He was gray, but preserved his imposing

carriage.

When breakfast was over, and they had conversed for some time upon

French affairs, Chateaubriand rose and said with great simplicity, "Now

let us go and feed my ducks."

At these words Dumas looked with surprise at his host, and after

hesitating an instant essayed to reach a solution of the mystery.

"The waiter informed me yesterday," he said, "that you had gone out for

that purpose. May I ask if you propose in your retirement to become a

farmer?"

In reply to this question Chateaubriand said in his tranquil voice, "Why

not? A man whose life has been, like mine, driven by caprice, adventure,

revolutions and exile toward the four quarters of the world, would be

happy, I think, to possess, not a chalet in these mountains--I do not

like the Alps--but a country-place in Normandy or Brittany. Really, I

think that this is the resource of my old age."

"Permit me to doubt it," returned Dumas. "You remember Charles V. at

Yuste. You do not belong to the class of emperors who abdicate or kings

who are dethroned, but to those princes who die under a canopy, and who

are buried, like Charlemagne, their feet in their bucklers, swords at

their sides, crowns on their heads and sceptres in their hands."

"Take care!" replied Chateaubriand. "It is long since I have been

flattered, and it may overcome me. Come and feed my ducks."

The impressible visitor declares that he felt disposed to fall upon his

knees before this grand and simple human being, but refrained. They went

to the middle of a bridge thrown across an arm of the lake, and

Chateaubriand drew from his pocket a piece of bread which he had placed

there after breakfast. This he began to throw into the lake, when a

dozen ducks darted forth from a sort of isle formed of reeds, and

hastened to dispute the repast prepared for them by the hand which had

written _Rene, The Genius of Christianity_ and _The Martyrs_. Whilst

thus engaged, Chateaubriand leaned upon the parapet of the bridge, his

lips contracted by a smile, but his eyes grave and sad. Gradually his

movements became mechanical, his face assumed an expression of profound

melancholy, the shadow of his thoughts passed across his large forehead

like clouds of heaven; and there were among them recollections of his

country, his family and his tender friendships, more sorrowful than all

others. He moved, sighed, and, recalling the presence of his visitor,

turned round.

"If you regret Paris," said Dumas, "why not return? Nothing exiles

you--all recalls you."

"What could I do?" said Chateaubriand. "I was at Cauterets when the

revolution of July took place. I returned to Paris. I saw one throne in

blood, and another in the mud--lawyers making a constitution--a king

shaking hands with rag-pickers: that was mortally sad; above all, when a

man is filled as I am with the great traditions of the monarchy."

"I thought you recognized popular sovereignty?"

"Well, kings should go back from time to time to the source of their

authority--election; but this time they have cut a branch from the tree,

a link from the chain. They should have elected Henry V., not Louis

Philippe."

"A sad wish for the poor child! The Henrys are unfortunate: they have

been poisoned or assassinated."

"Well," said Chateaubriand, "it is better to die by the poniard than

from exile: it is quicker, and you suffer less."

"You will not return to France?"

"Possibly, to defend the duchess de Berri if she is tried."

"And if not?"

"Then," said Chateaubriand, throwing bread into the water, "I shall

continue to feed my ducks."

JOHN ESTEN COOKE.

OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP.

BACONS AND BARONETS.

There died in November last a gentleman who, though not remarkable

himself, was the head and representative of so famous a family and order

that his death is an event deserving of some notice. This was Sir Henry

Hickman Bacon, premier baronet of England. This gentleman was not the

descendant of the great Francis Bacon, Baron Verulam, but head of the

family whence that eminent man, a cadet of the house, sprung.

The origin[M] of this family is lost in the obscurity of centuries. Sir

Nicholas, an eminent lawyer of England in the reign of Queen Mary,

succeeded, when Elizabeth ascended the throne, to the lord-keepership of

the great seal. He married twice, and had a numerous issue, and the

baronet lately deceased is the direct representative of the

lord-keeper's eldest son by his first marriage, who was the first person

created--by James I., on May 22, 1611--a baronet.

And it is not a little remarkable that whilst of the baronetcies since

created an immense percentage have become extinct, and only some half

dozen of those created in 1611 remain, the first ever created has

survived, and bids fair to do so for some time to come. The baronetcy of

Hobart (earl of Buckinghamshire)--whose ancestral seat of Blickling, in

Norfolk, passed some time since, with its magnificent collection of

books, by marriage, into the Scotch family of Ker, and now belongs to

the marquis of Lothian--and that of Shirley (held by Earl Ferrers), seem

to be the only baronetcies now extant whose patents bear date the same

day as that of Bacon.

The others left of the same year are Mordaunt, of which we heard so much

in a trial in 1870; Gerard, an ancient Lancashire Catholic house; Monson

(Lord Monson); Musgrave of Edenhall ("the luck of Edenhall" is the

subject of one of Longfellow's poems); Gresley, Twysden, Temple and

Houghton. The last became well known a few years ago in this country as

the largest holder of Confederate bonds.

Francis Bacon, familiarly known as Lord Bacon, though in fact he never

enjoyed that honor, his titles being Baron Verulam and Viscount St.

Alban's, was second son of his father's second marriage, his mother

being one of three sisters, the most eminent blue-stockings of the

period, daughters of Sir Anthony Cooke, of Gidea Hall, Essex.

Another of Sir Anthony Cooke's daughters was Lady Burleigh, who had been

governess to Edward VI., second wife of the famous lord-treasurer, and

direct ancestress of the present talented marquis of Salisbury,

vice-chancellor of the University of Oxford, whose sister, Lady Mildred

Beresford-Hope, wife of the well-known son of the author of

_Anastasius_, bears the same name (Mildred) as her ancestress. Indeed,

names are thus frequently transmitted for centuries in English families,

and often thus serve as links in genealogical research. The Cooke family

has long been extinct, and their stately seat was pulled down by a

London alderman in the eighteenth century.

Another sister, Lady Hobby--whose husband resided at Bisham Abbey, a

fine old place, maintained in admirable repair, near Windsor--was a

terrible disciplinarian, and there is an ugly story of her having

whipped a wretched son of hers into his grave, from exasperation at his

inability to make his "pothooks," when she was teaching him writing,

without blots. Curiously enough, when, some years ago, improvements were

being made at the Abbey, a number of copy-books of the style of writing

common at the period in which Lady Hobby lived were discovered behind

wainscoting, and all were blotted.

The manor of Gorhambury, the great Bacon's seat, was purchased by his

father, whose other seat was Redgrave in Suffolk. Gorhambury is near the

town of St. Alban's, renowned for its abbey, now in course of splendid

rehabilitation.

Not far from St. Alban's once stood the celebrated Roman city of

Verulam, called by Tacitus _Verulamium_, which Bacon, deeply imbued with

Latin learning, appropriately selected for his first title. The plough

has now for many centuries made furrows over it, and the only vestiges

remaining are a few detached masses of the wall. Verulam was bounded on

the south-west by the Roman Watling Street. Gorhambury was built by Sir

Nicholas, and in the archbishop of Canterbury's library at Lambeth may

be seen an interesting account of the expenses. It need scarcely be

added that Queen Elizabeth paid her lord-keeper a visit there. Sir

Nicholas Bacon left Gorhambury to Mr. Anthony Bacon, the eldest son of

his second marriage, and he, dying unmarried, left the estate to his

brother Francis.

Gorhambury now belongs to the earl of Verulam, whose family name is

Grimston. It was left by the great Bacon to his friend, Sir Thomas

Meautys, and thence, by a course of intricate successions, came to the

present proprietor.

Bacon, like so many other famous men, had no children. He died in Lord

Arundel's house at Highgate in 1626.

Sir Robert Bacon, fifth baronet, sold Redgrave, the family seat in

Suffolk, to Lord Chief-Justice Holt toward the end of the seventeenth

century. Holt, who died in London 5th of March, 1710, was buried there,

and a grand monument to his memory may be seen in the church. It was

erected by his brother and heir, for, like Bacon, he was childless.

Redgrave Hall, eighty-seven miles from London by the coach-road, is a

large square mansion. The male line of the Holt family has long been

extinct, but the present owner of the estate is descended from the great

lord chief-justice's niece, who married Mr. Wilson, a younger son of an

ancient Westmoreland family.

But to pass to the origin of the order of baronets. After one of the

almost chronic Irish insurrections against British rule, James I.

conceived in 1609 the idea of offering to English and Scotch settlers,

known to be possessed of capital, a large portion of the forfeited

estates in Ulster. The supposed necessity of a military force for the

protection of the colonists suggested to Sir Antony Shirley a project of

raising money for the king. He proposed the creation of a new honor,

between those of knight and baron, and that it be conferred by patent at

a fixed price for the support of the army in Ulster--that it should

descend to heirs male, and be confined to two hundred gentlemen of three

descents in actual possession of lands worth one thousand pounds a

year--a sum equal to five thousand now.[N]

James I. approved of the scheme, as he would have done of any which

seemed feasible for raising the wind, and the patents were offered at

the price of ten hundred and ninety-five pounds, the estimated amount of

the charge of thirty soldiers during three years. The purchasers did not

prove so numerous as had been expected. In the first six years

ninety-three patents were sold at L101,835. "It is unnecessary to add,"

says Doctor Lingard, "that the money never found its way to Ireland" in

the shape of forces paid for by this process.

There have been three or four creations of baronetesses in their own

right, but nearly two centuries have elapsed since such a creation.

James II. made a curious remainder clause in a patent, by creating a

Dutchman a baronet with remainder to his mother. It has been a mooted

question whether baronets are not entitled to a coronet, and a certain

Sir Charles Lamb, who died a few years ago, was so determined to uphold

their privileges on this score that he had this ensign worked into the

ornamentation of his entrance gates at Beaufort, near Battle Abbey,

Sussex; but he met with small encouragement in such notions from his

brother-baronets. An old English gentleman was wont to declare that more

of disagreeable eccentricity is to be found amongst members of the

baronetage than amongst those of any other order of men. He chanced to

be thrown early in life amongst several eccentric beings of the class,

and took his ideas accordingly; but it is a fact that a very large

number of stories about eccentric baronets are in circulation. A marked

man of the kind was early in the last century an individual who, in

consequence of his height, was called Long Sir Thomas Robinson. It was

in allusion to him that the lines were penned:

Unlike to Robinson shall be my song--

It shall be witty, and it sha'n't be long.

This was the man to whom a Russian nobleman displayed the greatest

anxiety to be introduced, under the impression that he was the real

identical and unadulterated Robinson Crusoe.

Sir Thomas was a bore of the first magnitude, and an inveterate

hanger-on about cabinet-ministers and other prominent persons. He was

constantly worrying Lord Burlington and Lord Burlington's servants by

his Paul-pry-like presence. On calling at Burlington House, and being

told that his lordship had gone out, he would desire to be let in to

look at the clock or to play with a monkey which was kept in the hall,

and so at length get into his lordship's room. The servants,

exasperated, preconcerted a scheme to be rid of the nuisance. So, one

day, as soon as the porter opened the gate and found Sir Thomas

outside, he said, "His lordship is gone out, the clock has stopped, the

monkey is dead."[O]

MISS NEILSON.

The story of _La Giulietta_ was told, in the beginning of the sixteenth

century, by Luigi da Porto, a gentleman of Vicenza who had served in the

army, and to whom it was narrated by one of his archers to beguile a

solitary night-march. After passing through various translations the

story was taken by Shakespeare as the groundwork of his wonderful

tragedy, _Romeo and Juliet_, one of his earliest plays, and one of the

most varied in passion and sentiment. Schlegel says of it: "It shines

with the colors of the dawn of morning, but a dawn whose purple clouds

already announce the thunder of a sultry day."

The stormy acting of the elder Kean in _Richard III._--that epitome of

ambition and bloodshed--was said to produce the effect of reading

Shakespeare by flashes of lightning: in _Romeo and Juliet_ the first two

acts are illumined only by the soft moonlight of love, and we are not

startled by the lightning of tragedy until it gleams upon the bloody

blade of Tybalt in the beginning of the third act: then Love and Death

join hands, and move for a time with equal step across the stage.

Finally come the poisoning and self-slaughters, and in the

representation the curtain falls upon a corse-strewn graveyard, where

Death reigns alone. Sad contrast to the lighted ball-room where the

lovers first looked into each other's eyes--to the fair garden that lay

at midnight "all Danae to the stars"--to the moon-silvered balcony from

which Juliet leaned in her loveliness as she exchanged with Romeo her

earliest vows!

Beneath Italian skies girls spring with sudden leap to womanhood, and

the seed of the tender passion hardly drops into the heart before it

buds and blooms, a perfect flower. Though the actual lapse of time

represented in the play occupies only a few days, Juliet in that brief

period must assume several distinct characters. We see her first the

coy, heart-whole maiden, the cherished heiress of a patrician house:

soon the blind bow-boy launches his shaft, and, quick as thought, she is

passionately, impulsively, enduringly in love; then we see her but a few

hours a bride, with black sorrow creeping already to darken her

happiness; her kinsman is slain, Romeo banished, and the coy maiden is

changed at once to the devoted wife, capable of any sacrifice that will

enable her to rejoin her husband, then follow the fearful drinking of

the philter, the miscarriage of the Friar's scheme, and the death of the

lovers, who seek in the grave that union denied them on earth. What

varied qualities and acts are clustered here!--simplicity, love, hope,

fear, courage, despair, suicide. In the whole range of Shakespeare's

female characters there is none so difficult to portray--none requiring

such a combination of beauty and talent; and we need not marvel that the

part of Juliet is rarely attempted, and still more rarely with success.

That Miss Neilson was successful during her recent short engagement at

the Walnut Street Theatre may be inferred, not alone from the great

audiences that thronged the theatre night after night--for people will

often throng to see a very unworthy performance--but from the

intellectual character of those audiences, and the manifest pleasure

they derived from seeing the fair English actress.

In every criticism it should be borne in mind that she played under

great disadvantage. She was unfortunately, with some few exceptions,

very badly supported. It seems ungracious, therefore, to search for any

flaw in the performance of such an admirable actress, who has left

behind her so many charming memories; yet it must be admitted that her

acting is not always as faultless as her face. In her Juliet there are

striking inequalities perceptible: sometimes she seems to have just

grasped perfection, then again she makes one wonder that she does no

better. In portraying love-scenes she is unsurpassed: she is graceful

and beautiful, has studied her parts thoroughly, has a sweet,

penetrating voice, and seems herself to feel the sentiments she would

convey to others. Her enunciation is remarkably distinct, and she has

the power of mingling more or less pathos with the tones to express

sorrow in greater or less degree: in one scene, where she thinks that

Romeo has been murdered, her cheeks are wet with actual tears. At the

close of the ball, when she learns that the fascinating young pilgrim is

a Montague, the hereditary enemy of her house, she gives her first touch

of pathos to the words--

My only love sprung from my only hate!

Too early seen unknown, and known too late!

But it is a pathos entirely different from that which later tinges her

sad good-night to her mother and nurse when she has determined to

counterfeit death:

Farewell!--God knows when we shall meet again.

Miss Neilson also possesses, in an eminent degree, the power to portray

that sly humor without malice known as _archness_. In the earlier phases

of Juliet's career, and throughout the whole impersonation of Rosalind

in _As You Like It_, this accomplishment stands the actress in good

stead: she undoubtedly owes to it much of her power to charm. It strikes

one when she first comes on the stage as Juliet and gently checks the

garrulous old Nurse, taking up the thread of the discourse--

And stint thou too, I pray thee, nurse, say I

again, in her witty word-fencing with the mock palmer at the ball--

For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,

And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss;

so too in the garden-scene, when she half rebukes herself, and all

encourages her lover--

O gentle Romeo,

If thou dost love, pronounce it faithfully;

Or if thou think'st I am too quickly won,

I'll frown, and be perverse, and say thee nay,

So thou wilt woo; but else, not for the world.

And she shows it wonderfully in her coaxing, half-pettish behavior to

the provoking old woman--talkative and reticent by fits and starts, now

whining and now laughing--who has been to seek out Romeo, and brought

back news of him. In _As You Like It_, Rosalind's bright humor ripples

and laughs like a silver brook through the glades of Ardennes, and

trickles gently even into the epilogue: in this lively comedy--so much

lighter and easier than the heavy tragedy we are discussing too--love

and despair never come to overlay and destroy the arch humor. If there

be any defect in the performance of the banished princess, it must still

remain, like Orlando's verses, tacked to some tree in the forest, but,

unlike those verses, still unseen.

To return to the tragedy--for in the discussion of two plays in which

the same faculties are exhibited by the same actress it is most

convenient to pass at times from one play to the other--who that has

seen Miss Neilson tread the stately _minuet de la cour_ at the ball

given in the palace of the Capulets will deny her the possession of

marvelous grace? The long floating robe and abundant train, the

high-heeled, pointed shoe of the period, instead of embarrassing her,

seem but to give additional opportunity for displaying elegance of pose

and gesture. In the garden-scene, when nightingales are whist, bright

moonlight falls upon the balcony, and lights up the face of Juliet who

leans there, certainly the fairest flower in that scenic paradise. As

yet the course of love runs smooth for her: she does not dream of the

dreadful gulf down which she is about to plunge, and her happy tones

fall musically upon the air, "smoothing the raven down of darkness till

it smiles." This happiness continues till her speedy and clandestine

marriage. Soon after the Nurse comes home, and by her incoherent

mutterings leads Juliet to suppose that Romeo is slain: then we have the

first display of grief, but it is a grief so sudden and so violent that

the blow stuns and almost silences the young wife. She is roused from

this by learning at last that it is Tybalt who is dead, and that Romeo

is exiled; which last causes her far greater grief than the loss of her

cousin. Her sorrow, however, is at once displaced by rage when the Nurse

speaks against her husband--

Shame come to Romeo!--

Blistered be thy tongue,

For such a wish! he was not born to shame.

The sorrow and anger here are well enacted, being neither overdone nor

forced. It is here at least shown that Miss Neilson can, when she

pleases, express great passions with that suppressed vehemence which

carries the cultivated spectator away far more than violence of voice

and gesture. Such suppression, with a view to producing greater effect

by leaving much to the excited imagination of the beholder, is not

practiced only by the tactful histrionic artist--it pervades all art. To

take a single brief example: the greatest sculptors, knowing that the

chisel could produce form, not color, have shrunk from indicating the

pupil of the eye in their statues, and left the eyeball smooth, because

the imagination was more pleased with entire absence of the organ than

with its imperfect representation. So with ultra-clamorous passion and

wild melodramatic action on the stage: both are better omitted than

expressed. These remarks are made here in connection with Miss Neilson's

first fair displays of passionate sorrow and sorrowful passion:

presently they may be applied again, less favorably, to her Juliet. In

her Rosalind, however--to refer to _As You Like It_ once more--she gives

another fine example of the power of suppressed, suggestive action

accompanying the expression of hot wrath. When the tyrant duke informs

her that she is banished from his court, she kneels before him in

supplication and begs to know the reason of his harsh decree. But the

instant he intimates that her father is a traitor, and she another as

his daughter, she springs to her feet, and in an attitude of intense

defiance, but without a motion of her folded arms, flings back her

scornful retort:

So was I when your highness took his dukedom;

So was I when your highness banished him:

Treason is not inherited, my lord;

Or, if we did derive it from our friends,

What's that to me? my father was no traitor.

Here again is a display of power without distortion or over-acting, such

as must give the actress fair title to celebrity.

Let us return now to Juliet and her approaching doom. There is a sad

scene in her chamber at early daybreak, for banished Romeo must leave

her and haste to Mantua, lest sunrise betray him still lingering in

Verona. Juliet at first lovingly detains him, then fearfully urges him

to fly; then as he descends from the balcony would fain recall him, and

sinks in a swoon when she finds he is really gone. The parents come in

and announce their determination that she must marry Paris forthwith:

finding her unwilling to comply, they leave her with fierce threats in

case she continue disobedient, and even the time-serving, timid old

Nurse, though aware of her marriage with Romeo, urges her to comply with

their wishes. Thus left entirely to herself, Juliet determines to die

rather than prove false to her husband. She hastens to the Friar who

married them, and he gives her the philter, which she accepts joyfully

and carries home in her bosom. Up to this point her acting is good,

because it is natural. Love, grief, stern determination are here

successively and skillfully developed by Miss Neilson. But in the next

act, just before she drinks the philter alone in her chamber, she

oversteps the modesty of nature. In her attempt to express extreme

terror at the fearful visions that her excited imagination conjures up,

she loses herself in a wild whirlwind of vociferation, accompanied by

frantic looks and gestures. All the loud artillery of old melodrama

seems at once to be unlimbered and brought into action, with so much

noise and smoke that one can neither hear the signals of the bugle nor

see the manoeuvring of the guns. Of course, even to this part a

superior actress like Miss Neilson can impart a certain dignity and

interest which would be lacking in an inferior performer. She strikes a

certain horror to the spectator by the very hideousness of her terror

displayed. It is natural that a young girl about to be laid out alive in

a tomb should be tormented with fearful imaginings; but then that young

girl cherishes an all-pervading love for a living husband, whom she

hopes to rejoin by means of her entombment: she expects that the gates

of the mausoleum will open to admit her to life, not death, and she is

urged by fear of a hateful second marriage; therefore it is unlikely--no

matter what gloomy, blood-stained phantoms she may see--that she should

shriek out her fears with such appalling clamor as would arouse any

well-organized household, and thus defeat her prospects of success. As

Miss Neilson has shown in former instances, a less violent announcement

of her feelings would be far more forcible and far more natural.

Besides, the actress has not yet reached the time when she wishes to

depict her greatest misery: that climax is reached when she wakes in the

vault and finds not only Tybalt "festering in his shroud," but her

Romeo, her husband, a bloody corpse at her feet. If ever the

ungovernable shriek of dying despair be allowable on the stage, it must

be at such a time, when Juliet falls upon the still warm body. Even the

effect of such a wild performance at the very climax and end of a

tragedy may be questioned; but there can be little doubt that the great

violence exerted before in describing her horrible suspicions merely,

deprives the actress of power to throw increased stress into her

performance as the play moves to its close, and she is confronted with a

far more horrible reality.

As though she feels that her power of melodramatic declamation has been

weakened, Miss Neilson in the graveyard seems to rely more on

melodramatic action. And it is very melodramatic. She rises from Romeo's

body, where she has flung herself, where it would be natural she should

remain to kill herself, and standing at some distance from the corpse,

stabs herself openly with a stage dagger, then falling, drags herself

slowly, accompanied by soft music, back to the body, and there at last

expires. How much more effective would this part become if more were

left to the beholder's imagination! Great artists generally avoid open

stabbing on the stage, as it almost invariably produces the impression

of trickery. We may see the gleaming blade and the arm descending to

strike the blow, but it is best not to see the weapon pretending to

enter the victim's body; and this can always be avoided by proper

management. When Ristori as Medea murdered her children at the base of

Saturn's statue, the other actors grouped around and screened the act

from the view of the audience: when the crowd opened again, the bodies

were discovered lying on the steps of the pedestal. The death of Juliet,

instead of bringing tears to all eyes, as Miss Neilson undoubtedly could

make it do, is thus rendered ineffective by over-acting; and when she

drags herself six or eight feet along the stage, prostrate and stabbed,

Oh, 'tis dreadful there to see

A lady so richly clad as she,

Beautiful, exceedingly!

On the last evening of her engagement Miss Neilson appeared in the _Lady

of Lyons_, and after the performance recited the following epilogue,

suggested by Lord Lytton's recent death:

FAIR LADIES AND GOOD SIRS: Since last this play

Was acted on this stage, has passed away

Its noble author from the gaze of men,

No more, alas! to wield his facile pen.

In Knebworth's ancient park, across the sea,

Lord Lytton sleeps, but not his witchery.

The dramatist, romancer, poet, still

Can touch our hearts and captivate our will;

For laureled genius has the power to brave

Death's fell advance, and lives beyond the grave:

Bear witness, this grand audience clustered here.

Your plaudits cannot reach dead Lytton's ear,

But no more sweet libation can you pour

To Lytton's memory, on this distant shore,

Than your prolonged applause, which now proclaims,

Though the great author's gone, his fame remains.

M. M.

GENERAL LEE CONVULSED.

An old lady who knew General R. E. Lee almost from childhood declared

that when he was a young man he enjoyed fun and indulged in harmless

frolics as much as anybody. Later in life, and after his sons became

stout lads, it is said that he was fond of sleeping with them, in order

that he might in the morning engage in a regular old-fashioned romp and

pillow-fight with the boys. During the war, though habitually grave, as

befitted a commanding officer, he relished an occasional joke very

highly. When some of his staff mistook a jug of buttermilk that had been

sent him for "good old apple-jack," and made wry faces in gulping it

down, he did not attempt to conceal his merriment. So, too, when

inquiring into the nature of "this new game, 'chuck-a-buck,' I think

they call it," which had been introduced into his army, there was a sly

twinkle in his eye that showed how shrewdly he guessed its real purport

as a gambling game. So, again, it is reported that he appreciated fully

the "sell" which a wag on his staff palmed off upon a reporter, who

promptly inserted it in the papers. The reporter wanted to know General

Lee's hour for dining.

"Six o'clock--exactly at six," was the reply.

"I infer, then, that it is rather a formal meal?"

"Decidedly formal--in fact, I may say it is a rigidly military dinner."

"Military! how military?"

"Well, you see General Lee sits at the head of the table, and Colonel

Chilton at the foot, and everything is done in red-tape style."

"Red tape at table! I don't understand you. Please explain."

"Certainly. General Lee never carves and never helps--all that is left

to Colonel Chilton--but General Lee asks the guests what they will have:

they tell him, then he issues his orders, and Colonel Chilton executes

them. That's all."

"Go on, go on!" opening his notebook: "give me an example--tell me

exactly how it is done."

"Suppose, then, that we have beef--we generally have beef. Grace is said

by the chaplain, then General Lee raps on the table with the handle of

his knife and says, 'Attention!' Everybody is silent. Every eye is

turned toward General Lee. He looks at one of us--me, for example--and

I rise and make a military salute. 'Captain C----, what will you be

helped to?' says General Lee. I say 'Beef,' make another salute, and sit

down. General Lee, fixing his eye on Colonel Chilton, says, 'Beef, for

Captain C----.' My plate is passed, helped, and then Colonel Chilton,

handing it to the servant, says,

'Beef for Captain C----,

By order of General Lee.

R. H. CHILTON, A. A. G.'"

And this absurd story went the round of the Southern papers.

After the war, General Lee rarely smiled, and one may say never laughed

outright. Yet he was neither sad nor unsociable. But there was that

about him which made it wellnigh impossible to believe that he could

ever have given completely away to feelings of mirth and indulged in a

real fit of cachinnation. Such, however, was the fact, and it occurred

at a time when, of all others, one would have least expected it--in the

retreat to Appomattox--and General Henry A. Wise was the occasion of it.

On the second or third day of the retreat, General Wise, who had long

desired an interview with General Lee, discovered him at a distance, and

immediately hastened toward him. While he was yet a great way off,

General Lee, who happened at the time to be alone, turned and began to

stare in a way that was most unusual with him. As Wise drew nearer the

stare became intense and mixed with wonderment. A few steps more, and

still General Lee gazed and gazed wonderingly, as if he had never seen

Wise in his life. Amazed and puzzled at General Lee's unmistakable

ignorance of his identity, Wise advanced quite close to him and said

rather stiffly, "Good-morning, General Lee." It was very early and very

cool, too--a sharp spring morning.

As he said this, General Lee's intense gaze relaxed, a smile appeared in

its place, the smile deepened, broadened, and, spreading from feature to

feature, ended at last in a fit of the most immoderate and

uncontrollable laughter.

Astounded beyond words, and indignant beyond measure at such a

reception, it was some time before General Wise could demand an

explanation. During all this time General Lee laughed as a mature man

rarely ever laughs.

The explanation, given through tears of laughter not yet dried, was

simple enough. General Lee had mistaken the general for a Comanche

Indian. He had lost his hat or cap, a dirty blanket was thrown over his

shoulders to protect him from the keen morning air, and his face, washed

in a mud-puddle and hastily wiped, retained a ring of red mud around the

borders, which made the resemblance to an Indian as exact as well could

be--all the more so in consequence of Wise's strong features.

Barely sufficient at the time (so incensed was Wise), the explanation

eventually proved ample, for General Wise now laughs at this incident as

heartily as any one, and often relates it himself, while it may well be

doubted whether ever again in life General Lee found either the occasion

or the disposition to relax his wonted gravity.

FUNERALS vs. PARTIES.

A Southern correspondent sends the following incident from real life,

which illustrates the well-known negro fondness for so-called lugubrious

festivals:

A lady friend of mine was much beset a few days ago by her cook for

permission to attend the funeral of some relative. The _res angustae_

forbade her leaving just at that time, but, to compensate her for the

deprivation, her mistress said, "Rose, I really feel very sorry for you,

but you shall lose nothing by staying at home. I promise that you shall

go to the first party that is given by any of your friends, and stay all

night long."

Rose, tossing her head, replied, "Law! Miss Susan, how kin you talk like

dat? You know I don't set no vally on parties. _Forty parties couldn't

pay me for de sight of one corp!_" She saw the "corp."

FOOTNOTES:

[M] The origin of the name of Bacon is thus explained by Richard

Verstegan, famous for Saxon lore and historical research:

"Bacon, that is, 'of the beechen tree,' anciently called Bucon; and

whereas swines' flesh is now called by the name of bacon, it grew only

at the first unto such as were fatted with Bucon or beech-mast."

It is, as a writer in _Notes and Queries_ points out, a curious

authentication of this derivation that Collins, in his _Baronetage_,

mentions that the first man of the name of Bacon of whom there is record

in the Herald's College, bore for his arms "argent, a beech tree

proper." Additional confirmation seems afforded by the fact that in

certain places in England boys call beechen tops "bacons."

[N] "My father," says Thomas Shirley to the king, "being a man of

excellent and working wit, did find out the device of making baronets,

which brought to Your Majesty's coffers wellnigh one hundred thousand

pounds, for which he was promised by the late Lord Salisbury (son of

Miss Cooke, Bacon's aunt), lord-treasurer, a good recompense, which he

never had." Ninety-three patents were sold within six years. It was

promised in the patents that no new title of honor should be created

between barons and baronets, and that when the number of two hundred had

been filled up, no more should ever after be added. The first promise

has been kept.

[O] This recalls a story of the Marquis of L----, Sydney Smith's friend,

grandfather of the present peer. His lordship's gallantries were

notorious, though most carefully concealed. On one occasion he went to

visit a lady with whom he maintained very intimate relations. Not

choosing to take a groom on such an occasion, he gave his horse to a boy

in the street to hold. On coming out he looked up and down the street,

but in vain, and at length had to go home steedless. On reaching L----

House, the groom, waiting at the door for his return, said, "Shall I go

for the horse, my lord?" "The horse is dead," was the brief response.

"Where shall I send for the saddle and bridle, my lord?" "Oh--a--a--h"

(and then with emphasis), "they're dead too!"

NOTES.

As a knowledge of the circumstances under which a work of art is

composed occasionally gives a clearer insight into certain of its

peculiarities, so perhaps an analysis of the individual elements which

go to make up the present Assembly of Versailles may give the reader a

clue to the reason of some of its legislative measures, as well as to

its possibilities for the future and its political tendencies. Such an

analysis is made by the _Rappel_ of Paris in an elaborate article, from

which we must only cite a few points. The Assembly, then, contains, it

appears, 2 princes (the princes d'Orleans), 7 dukes, 30 marquises, 52

counts, 17 viscounts, 18 barons and 97 untitled nobles, or those

"_n'ayant que la particule_;" which last phrase we may explain to mean

having the _de_ prefixed to their names, without other titular

distinction. Next, it contains 163 great landed proprietors, including

the richest in France; 155 advocates; 48 leading manufacturers; 45

officers or ex-officers of the army, chiefly of high rank; 35

magistrates or ex-magistrates; 25 engineers; 23 physicians; 21

professors; 19 notaries or ex-notaries; 16 wholesale merchants; 14

officers or ex-officers of the navy; 10 attorneys; 5 bankers; 2

druggists; 1 bishop; 1 curate; 1 Protestant minister; and 10 others of

sundry occupations. The difference in composition between this

republican Assembly and our own Congresses is in some respects

remarkable; for, independently of the very large and indeed altogether

disproportionate representation of the nobility or titled classes, we

observe a very great preponderance of rich land-owners, representing in

their own persons the agricultural and vine-growing interests. Very

singular, also, is the small proportion of lawyers, only 155 being

classed as advocates, and the magistrates and attorneys swelling the

number only to 200. In an ordinary American Congress at least one-half,

and usually two-thirds, of the members are or have been lawyers by

profession. The clerical representation seems to reach a total of three,

all told, Catholic and Protestant; and as trivial is that of the retail

traders and mechanics, of whom there are but two or three in all. We may

add that a full-blooded negro member, M. Pory-Papy, came as deputy from

Martinique. The standard of intelligence and political experience is

rather high: it is said, for example, that no less than 33 members have

been ministers. Altogether, the Assembly may be considered as rather

fortunately constituted.

* * * * *

During the session of the medical congress at Lyons one day was set

apart for the study of alcoholic stimulants. On that occasion the

physician of Sainte-Anne asylum, Dr. Magnan, comparing the chemical

action of alcohol and absinthe on man, drew the conclusion that the

former acts more slowly, gradually provoking delirium and digestive

derangement, while absinthe rapidly results in epilepsy. Then, producing

a couple of dogs, he treated one with alcohol and the other with essence

of absinthe, this latter being the active principle of the absinthe

liquor which is commonly drunk. The alcoholized brute could not stand

up, became sleepy and stupid, and, when set on his legs, trembled in an

inert mass: the other dog experienced at once frightful attacks of

epilepsy. Analogous effects are produced in mankind. Surely the

"absinthe duel" which is said to have taken place at Cannes, when both

the combatants perished after drinking an extraordinary quantity, may be

strictly denominated a duel with deadly weapons. In the south of France,

it is said, one person sometimes invites another to partake of absinthe

by the slang phrase, "Take a shovelful of earth;" as if an American

bar-room lounger, recognizing with grim humor the deadly quality of his

liquor, should say, "Come and get measured for your coffin." The French

expression has certainly, in view of Dr. Magnan's disclosures, a

melancholy picturesqueness. This subject has to France a national

importance, since, if the recent report of Dr. Bergeron does not

exaggerate, the _absintism_ introduced amongst the French army in

general by the Algerian officers did its part toward producing that

inertness and lack of vigor which generals often complained of in their

subordinates during the disastrous invasion of 1870.

* * * * *

Richard II., in the play of that name, disheartened by his calamities,

responds to all the encouraging words of his lords and followers with a

bitter satire on the wretchedness of royalty:

For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground,

And tell sad stories of the death of kings:

How some have been depos'd; some slain in war;

Some haunted by the ghosts they have depos'd;

Some poison'd by their wives; some sleeping kill'd;

All murther'd; for within the hollow crown

That rounds the mortal temples of a king

Keeps Death his court.

The unhappy monarch was destined to furnish in his own tragic fate one

more illustration of his homily. His words come vividly to mind in

reviewing the curious catalogue which a European statistician lately

furnished of the number of sovereigns who have perished by violent

deaths or been discrowned by disaster. The list, which must perforce be

incomplete, embraces 2540 emperors or kings, who have ruled over 64

nations. Of these, 299 were dethroned; 151 were assassinated; 123 died

in captivity; 108 were formally condemned and executed; 100 were killed

in battle; 64 abdicated; 62 were poisoned; 25 died the death of martyrs;

20 committed suicide; and 11 died insane. Even these lists do not

probably include all the unnatural deaths and dethronements that have

occurred among the 2540 rulers thus tabulated, for it was often deemed

politic to conceal the circumstances of a monarch's death, and history

mentions many such instances in which the cause of death is doubtful; so

that, for example, the 11 insane and the 20 suicides and the 62 poisoned

doubtless do not comprise the whole number of deaths which ought to be

included under those descriptions. Nevertheless, taking these figures as

they are, they furnish a striking comment on King Richard's melancholy

words; which, by the way, Richard's own conqueror and successor almost

paralleled in his lamentations over the anxieties and perils that

encompass the kingly state. We may add that the death of Napoleon III.

at Chiselhurst has now, by one more name, increased the number of

sovereigns dying in exile, while giving the whole subject a fresh

interest.

* * * * *

The authority of Professor Godebski of St. Petersburg is given for the

extraordinary statement that the Russian authorities in Poland have

prohibited the contemplated erection of a monument to Chopin in his

native Warsaw, on the ground that it might become an occasion for a

political manifestation. M. Godebski was to have executed the statue, a

plan had been submitted and accepted, musical admirers of Chopin had

favored the project, Prince Orloff, Princess Czartoryska and many ladies

of the Polish nobility had contributed the necessary funds, when the

whole scheme was vetoed by Count von Berg, on the pretext already

stated. Surely this was pushing caution to extremes, even in Poland. It

was Chopin's fate to be driven from his country in 1836 by revolutionary

disorders; but the very composition of the monumental committee, which

was under the direction of Madame Mouchanoff, an ardent admirer of the

master, indicated that the enterprise was an artistic, not a political

one. Chopin, reposing between Bellini and Cherubini in the Pere la

Chaise, his chosen burial-place, has long since passed from the narrow

confines of his Polish nationality to the worldwide and immortal realm

of art. In pretending, thirty years after his death, that the genius of

the artist is of less account than the accident of his birthplace, and

in reviving against this memorial project the entirely secondary facts

of the revolutionary epoch (when Chopin's career was not in politics,

but in art), the Russian authorities are wondrously sensitive, to say

the least. A chagrined friend of the sculptor has proposed that a piece

of ground should be bought, a temporary wooden house built on it, the

statue set up as if in a private courtyard or gallery, and the doors

then thrown open to the public, while, after some days or months, the

building could be taken down, leaving the statue substantially on a

public square. But the prohibition which vetoed the original project

would of course cover this stratagem also, and besides, it would be

rather too petty a device to engage in.

LITERATURE OF THE DAY.

Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial Life. By George Eliot. Vol. II. New

York: Harper & Brothers.

As a "study of provincial life" _Middlemarch_ appeals to a class of

readers who might have little taste for the psychological studies in

which the book abounds, and which give it a much deeper import. Its

variety, spirit and truth of local color are Hogarthian, while it shows

a figure, in the heroine, of far higher beauty and belonging to the

great circle of epic characters. Dorothea, with her loveliness and her

history of divine blunders, is fit to stand with any queen of song or

story. This volume begins with the closing scenes in her

scholar-husband's life. The character is a curious, and, after all, a

pathetic one. What Philadelphia reader, at least, can pursue the

narrative of poor Casaubon's misplaced study and ill-judged bequest

without being reminded of another career of futile scholarship near

home? Like him, as it will seem to the curious annalist, Richard Rush

was a student without an audience, and like him a mistaken testator.

Locking up his mind from the public amidst a company of ideas imbibed in

the day when his city was the great book-producing city of the country,

Rush prosecuted his barren researches in a moral prison, saw domestic

life only through a grating woven from his own prejudices, and died in

the confidence falsely sustaining him that the inefficiency of a

lifetime would be amended by the bequests of an impracticable will.

Rush, too, was wealthy, of influential family, studious, sterile, and

apt to put off present action in the hope that the grave would one day

co-operate with his motives; and Rush, like the imagined author of the

_Key to all Mythologies_, finds the grave a treacherous trustee. The

heroine of _Middlemarch_, in her action over her husband's testament,

behaves as every true and lovable woman, obeying the emotions, will

behave while the world lasts: a flippant, easy, youthful censor has told

her, in a boudoir in the Via Sistina at Rome, that her husband's labor

was thrown away because the Germans had taken the lead in historical

inquiries, and that they laughed at those who groped about in woods

where they had made good roads. The censor is agreeable, curly, and has

engaging ways of lying about on hearth-rugs and giving his arm to quaint

old maids: his criticism is therefore securely effective against all the

conclusions of a life of dry labor; and so it comes that Dorothea writes

on her husband's posthumous schedule: "_I could not use it. Do you not

see now that I could not submit my soul to yours by working hopelessly

at what I have no belief in?_" That is the way in which schemes of more

or less erudition will for ever be lost to the world when entrusted to

those who reason as Nature imperiously teaches them to do, through their

affinity with blooming cheeks, curled locks and versatile intellects. It

is inevitable that Dorothea must sink, from her dreams of emulating

Saint Theresa, to comradeship with the glossy occupant of the

hearth-rug. George Eliot, as a true artist, sees what is faulty in the

catastrophe, but she will not unsex her creation. Another of her

characters, Rosamond, she pursues with a minute, withering, one would

say vindictive, contempt. It is the beautiful, distinguished young

creature who marries Lydgate on account of his high connections, and who

trains him to do up her plaits of hair for her, and allows him to talk

the "little language" of affection, which Rosamond, though not returning

it, "accepted as if she had been a serene and lovely image, now and then

miraculously dimpling toward her votary." How such a creature can become

the cool blighting Nemesis of a hopeful home, ruining it by

extravagance, and taking credit to herself for every act of calm revolt,

until her wretched husband, who had meant to be another Vesalius,

compares her to Boccaccio's basil, that flourished upon the brains of a

massacred man, the author sees only too plainly, and shows forth in some

of the most cutting scenes she has ever written. Her "Study of

Provincial Life," while it reveals her warm poet's love for a lofty

nature defeated by its conditions, shows still plainer her intimate and

personal dread of the cold thin nature that kills by its commonplace.

The last she rewards contemptuously with a carriage in the Park and a

rich second match: the first she punishes with exquisite Junonine

tenderness by giving her a little boy in the bride-chamber of the home

of the clever young politician whom the local editor has called a

"violent energumen."

* * * * *

In laying down the book the reader is conscious of a different feeling

from that with which he ordinarily parts with a work of fiction which

has gratified his artistic tastes and furnished him with a high

intellectual pleasure. Comparing the productions of George Eliot with

those of other novelists, we are tempted to think of these as trivial

fond records, which might well be blotted from the tablets of the

memory, leaving the inscription she has placed there to live alone in

ineffaceable characters. It is not that they show her to be endowed with

a larger measure of those gifts which constitute the artist. In each of

these she has perhaps been equaled or surpassed by one or another of her

predecessors. As a painter of manners, of all that belongs to the

surface of life, she is rivaled in fidelity, if not in breadth and

force, by Fielding, Thackeray and Miss Austen. Her observation is less

keen than theirs, her portraiture less vivid, her humor less cordial and

abundant. Her conceptions have not the intensity of Charlotte Bronte's,

nor her great scenes the dramatic fire of Scott's. In the minor matters

of invention and plot she sometimes has recourse to shifts that betray

the deficiencies they are intended to conceal. The quality in which she

is supreme is one that lies beyond the strict domain of art. It is the

power of penetrating to the roots of human character and action--a power

which seems to be something more than insight, but for which sympathy

would be a still less adequate term, indicating as it does a nature

harmonious and complete, one in which intellect and feeling are resolved

into an element that overflows and envelops its object without effort or

repulsion. In other novelists we admire a subtlety that winds through

the intricacies of motives, unmasking deceptions, revealing weaknesses

and flaws but half suspected, or delicacies and beauties but half

appreciated: George Eliot drops a plummet that sinks straight and

steadily, through turbid waves and calm under-current, reaching depths

before unexplored. We can claim no part in her discoveries, however our

faculties may be exercised in grasping or in testing them. They more

often correct than confirm our impressions; they make large additions to

our knowledge; they suggest the necessity of reconstructing our theories

and placing them on a new and wider base.

A Memorial of Alice and Phoebe Cary. By Mary Clemmer Ames. New York:

Hurd & Houghton.

Alice Cary was a poetess of feeling, tender, prolific, overworked,

unhealthy, and cooked to desiccation in a New York "elegant residence"

that was but one enormous stove. Phoebe, working less, was amusing,

plump, gay and original. Alice, obediently grinding out her sweet

morning poem for the _Ledger_ before she went to market, died at her

desk, and then Phoebe died of loneliness. It is a gentle and a

thoroughly American history. In the eyes of both these Ohio women, New

York was the market where they could easiest sell their wares, and their

poems were commodities from which they were determined to derive as

comfortable an existence as possible. Any strict idea of duty to their

art, as the responsibility committed to them above all things on earth,

seems never to have crossed the mind of either sister, though Alice, who

wrote a great many volumes, would occasionally complain--not, however,

more feelingly than all sincere authors do--that she knew her labors

were overtaxing her faculty. They arranged, at their handsome residence

on Twentieth street, a _salon_ of Sunday evenings, where Mr. Greeley,

Robert Bonner and Whitelaw Reid used to meet and converse kindly with

the minor literati, and which were believed to have much of the

pleasantness and life of French conversaziones. Alice Cary has left a

profusion of pensive poetry: the following is the most beautiful extract

she affords:

The fisher droppeth his net in the stream,

And a hundred streams are the same as one;

And the maiden dreameth her lovelit dream;

And what is it all when all is done?

The net of the fisher the burden breaks,

And always the dreaming the dreamer wakes.

Phoebe, who was reckoned less clever than Alice, excites a great deal

more sympathy, quietly accepting a position of admiring secondariness,

and yielding occasional good things in wit or poetry: she was famed

among her friends as a punster and parodist, and once answered at a

dinner to a question what wine they used, "Oh, we drink Heidsick, but we

keep mum." An irresistibly taking and womanly remark of hers, disposing

in its own way of whole schemes of Calvinistic theology, was her reply

to the argument for endless punishment: "Well, if God ever sends me into

such misery, I know He will give me a constitution to bear it." Again,

as the least laborious of the sisters, her talent had moments of greater

felicity than that of Alice, and she has left one hymn which has all the

promise of a lasting favorite. The sacred lyric, "One sweetly solemn

thought comes to me o'er and o'er," is sung, as it deserves to be,

wherever Christianity is known, and there is an attested story of its

having aroused a pair of gamblers in China to repentance and permanent

reform. It is imprudent to predict a permanent place for even the best

of Alice Carey's gentle songs; but Phoebe's utterance may very

possibly be quoted, from her unpretending station as adviser and

alleviator of every-day life, after her name shall be forgotten and her

religion shall have become impersonal.

How I Found Livingstone. By Henry M. Stanley. New York: Scribner,

Armstrong & Co.

This book, the circumstances of its writing considered, is a literary

curiosity. It contains seven hundred and twenty pages octavo, and it was

composed in an incredibly short time, while the stomach of its author

was digesting a series of stout English dinners, and his attention

dissipating among speech-makings and speech-listenings, feasts, meetings

and visits. Only a New York reporter could have achieved the feat. The

faculty acquired by men of Mr. Stanley's trade, of acting with the

intense decision and energy of great military captains, and then

relating the action with the voluble unction of bar-rooms or political

stumps, is a strange mixed faculty, and is found to perfection in the

reporters' rooms of the New York _Herald_. The tale has the _Herald's_

well-known style, and is a correspondent's letter in a state of

amplification. It is always energetic, often tinged with real heroism

and romance, and adorned sometimes with an ambition of classical

allusions that resemble Egyptian jewels worn by a Nubian savage. It has

not the least self-restraint or good taste, but it sounds fresh, genuine

and sincere. It brings out with fine distinctness the feudal fidelity of

a reporter-errant, whose whole soul is dyed with belief in the great

establishment whose behest he obeys--one of the last refuges in which

mediaeval humility is to be found. As a part of the same habit of mind,

Mr. Stanley shows a fine, literal, unquestioning championship of the

object of his quest, Dr. Livingstone; but he seems to admire the doctor,

after all, rather as an ornamental possession of the New York _Herald_.

The great traveler's good-nature to Mr. Bennett, as a voluntary

correspondent and coadjutor by brevet with the journal, disarms and

enchants him: beginning with a prejudice, he ends by saying, "I grant he

is not an angel, but he approaches to that being as near as the nature

of a living man will allow." In every trait Stanley shows himself

whole-souled, ignorant of half measures, unscrupulous, cruel on

occasion, driving, positive, and furnished with a sure instinct of

success. The book, from its hasty construction, admits many

inconsistencies, the worst of which is its long tirade against the

Geographical Society, nullified finally by gracious thanks for their

medal; but it has the energetic virtue of a book written while memory

was fresh, and is often truly dramatic and pictorial. It is the

garrulous appendage of a strange and solid achievement, the feather-end

of the arrow, which advertises the hit of the steel.

The Minnesinger of Germany. By A. E. Kroeger. New York: Hurd & Houghton.

Mr. Kroeger appears to have an antiquarian's thoroughness in his

subject, and he has made it an interesting one to Western readers. But

he has not succeeded in his translations, partly because he does not

respect the usage and associations of the English words he rivets

incompatibly together, and partly because success, even for a more

poetical translator, is impossible in the premises. The authors of the

Minnelay, in their elaborate rhyme-caprice, must have remained

harmonious and lyrical, which is not the case with a version like this:

I look so Esau-like, perdu,

My hair hangs rough and unkempt. Hu!

Gentle Summer, where are you?

Ah, were the world no more so dhu!

Rather than bide in this purlieu,

Longer to stay I'll say, Adieu!

And go as monk to Toberlu.

Or like this, which Mr. Kroeger, without the fear of _Maud's_ author

before his eyes, compares to Tennyson:

Rosy-colored meadows

To shadows we see vanish everywhere,

Wood-birds' warbling dieth,

Sore-trieth them the snow of wintry year.

Woe, woe! what red mouth's glow

Hovers now o'er the valley?

Ah, ah, the hours of woe!

Lovers it doth rally

No more; yet its caress seems cosy.

These studies of intricate rhymes concealed in and terminating the lines

are at least as hard for the reader as for the writer; yet we hope Mr.

Kroeger will not lose his readers before they arrive at the historical

and critical parts of the work, which are really valuable. The narrative

of Ulrich von Lichtenstein of the thirteenth century, who sent one of

his fingers to an exacting lady-love, and paraded through Europe on her

quests disguised variously as King Arthur, Queen Venus or as a leper, is

one which makes the maddest deeds of Quixote seem sane, although he was

a true singer and an admired chevalier of his period. Gottfried von

Strassburg, whose excellent poem of _Tristan and Isolde_ inspires the

writer with his least unhappy translation, leads the subject away from

the mere love-carolers toward the authors of the metrical romances, the

bards of Germany. It is at this point that he introduces some forcible

criticisms on Tennyson's poetry of that character, and makes it evident

that the Laureate might have improved his Idyls by extending his

readings among the German chanters of Arthurian legend. The following

seems practical and just: "If Tennyson was determined to make the

love-passion the chief theme of his work, rather than the religious

element of the St. Graal, he had at hand in one of his legends that very

same relation between the sexes which existed between Queen Guinevere

and Launcelot, and yet deprived in the essential point of all disgusting

characteristics. It seems strange that the impropriety of making this

adulterous connection between the king and queen the chief theme of his

song should not have struck Tennyson when he dedicated his legends to

the husband of Queen Victoria, even in that dedication drawing

comparisons: strange that he should have taken no means to hide it, by

at least bringing the king into some position of interest, whereas he is

made so little of that he seems a mild, inoffensive, gentle soul, who is

ready even to shake hands with the seducer of his wife." In this

connection it will repay the reader to peruse, even if the version has

not much charm, the long extract from Gottfried's _Tristan_, with an eye

to the noble and knightly way in which the legend is conceived and taken

up. Mr. Kroeger, who can give it no grace in translation, is a warm

partisan in matters of melody and rhythm, appreciating Coleridge and

Swinburne. Altogether, he is a sincere and useful interpreter between

our public--rather careless of musty poetry--and the fine old German

singers.

_Books Received._

History of English Literature. By H. A. Taine. Abridged from the

translation of H. van Laun, by John Fiske, Assistant Librarian of

Harvard University. New York: Holt & Williams.

The Polytechnic: A Collection of Music for Schools, Classes and Clubs.

Arranged and Written by U. C. Burnap and Dr. W. J. Wetmore. New York: J.

W. Schermerhorn.

The Athenaeum: A Collection of Part Songs. Arranged and Written by U. C.

Burnap and Dr. W. J. Wetmore. New York: J. W. Schermerhorn & Co.

Joseph Noirel's Revenge. By Victor Cherbuliez. Translated from the

French by William F. West, A. M. New York: Holt & Williams.

A New Theory of the Origin of Species. By B. G. Ferris. New Haven,

Connecticut: C. C. Chatfield & Co.

Johnson's Natural Philosophy. By Frank G. Johnson, A.M., M.D. New York:

J. W. Schermerhorn & Co.

The Ordeal for Wives. By the author of "Ought We to Visit Her?" New

York: Sheldon & Co.

The Higher Ministry of Nature. By John Leifchild, A.M. New York: G. P.

Putnam & Sons.

A Manual of Pottery and Porcelain. By John H. Treadwell. New York: G. P.

Putnam & Sons.

The Outcast, and Other Poems. By J. W. Watson. Philadelphia: T. B.

Peterson & Brothers.

The Catholic Family Almanac for 1873. New York: The Catholic Publication

Society.

Off the Skelligs. By Jean Ingelow. Boston: Roberts Brothers.