I was in an unsociable mood one afternoon; so, taking a cigar and book,

I sauntered up the mountain. There is an arbor halfway to its top, and I

have a lounging-place near by, where the roots of an old tree make a

comfortable nest just above a steep precipice, and the place is hidden

from intruders by rocks and foliage. 'Tis a discovery of mine I pride

myself upon, and I go there when I want to collect my thoughts and enjoy

my own company.

Hardly had I made myself comfortable in my retreat when I heard voices

in the arbor below. It was Mrs. Fluffy and her sister, Mrs. J.K.B.

Stunner. I knew them in a moment, though they were not visible. Panting

for breath, Mrs. F. invited the other to take a seat: she was very stout

and soon tired. The sisters were examples of opposite schools of art.

Mrs. Stunner, dark, hard and sharp-faced, was a widow with all her

daughters "well settled" in life--_i.e._, married to wealthy

husbands--and was considered "fortunate" among the matrons. Mrs. Fluffy

was soft and florid, without an angular point, physically or mentally:

much younger and prettier than her sister, she was always spoken of as

"poor Mrs. Fluffy," though she was not badly off that I could see. She

had two daughters "out" this season, and a third casting longing looks

in the same direction.

Thinking they would move on shortly, as the arbor was only a

halting-place for people walking to the summit, I lay snug and waited.

Presently the widow, among other commonplaces, began to discuss the

young ladies at The Brook.

"By the by, Sarah," she said, "I don't see that your girls are doing

much this season: I really must say you do not seem to manage well at

all. You may be playing a very deep game, but I can discover no signs of

it, and there is little that escapes me in such matters."

"Oh, Jane!" panted Mrs. F., "if you only knew the trouble of having two

daughters 'out' at once!"

"As if I didn't know!" snuffed Mrs. Stunner.

"True, true," replied Sarah in a conciliatory tone. "But you seemed to

have so little anxiety."

"Seemed!" echoed the Stunner contemptuously. "Of course I _seemed_,

and the difficulty it required to _seem_! Do you think I was so

witless as to let my manoeuvres be seen? I wonder at you, Sarah!"

"Well, well," said the other, yielding the point, "I know you have a

talent for such things, and can manage well, but _I_ don't know

what to do."

"I--should--think--you--did--not," replied her sister, tapping the

ground slowly with her foot.

"What have I done that you should speak like that, Jane?" asked the meek

Sarah, bridling up.

"Tell me," answered Jane after an ominous silence that was quite

thrilling, "where is Eva at this moment?"

"Oh,", replied Sarah with a sigh of relief, "she is walking with Mr.

Hardcash. You introduced him at the last ball."

"I introduced him to dance with, not to walk with," said Jane severely.

"Goodness me, sister! what's the difference?"

"She asks me 'What's the difference?' Are you a child? Why, just the

difference between dancing and walking."

From the pause that followed I knew that Mrs. F. was looking with both

her round eyes, intent on seeing it. I suppose she did not succeed, as

her sister continued, emphasizing each word clearly, "Mr. Hardcash has

not a penny," as if that at once explained the knotty question.

"Why did you introduce him if you don't approve of him?" asked Mrs.

Fluffy, with a feeble attempt to throw the blame on her sister.

"Have I not told you? In a ball-room girls need plenty of

partners--plenty of men about them. It makes them look popular and

fascinating, and if the gentlemen are handsome and stylish-looking, so

much the better. Mr. Hardcash is just the size to waltz well with

Eva--he shows her off to advantage--but he is not a man to encourage

afterward. She should not be seen walking or talking intimately with a

gentleman who has less than ten thousand a year." Mrs. Stunner delivered

this ultimatum with the tone of a just judge who will hear of no appeal.

"How can I know how much the gentlemen are worth?" said Sarah pettishly.

"It is your duty as a mother to discover it," replied the virtuous

widow.

"But how?"

"The visitors' book will tell where a man is from; you can easily get

acquainted with some old lady or gentleman from the same place; and--"

"What! and ask about them!"

"Nonsense! Speak of them, praise them if you wish, and let the others

talk: you have only to be an interested listener" (here I could imagine

Mrs. S. smiling grimly), "and you can soon hear enough. For instance,

commence in this way: 'Fine fellow, Mr. T. from your part of the

country.' As a general rule the old gentleman will then give you his

whole history. Another time you may say, 'What a pleasant young man that

Mr. B. is! but rather inclined to be wild, eh?' If he is you will soon

know it. You can also cross-question the man himself. Speak of a little

girl he has at home: if he blushes he is netted already, and lures are

useless. See how he eats his dinner: that is a good test to judge his

position by; not that a few _gaucheries_ will matter if he is very

wealthy--for a judicious mother-in-law can soon correct them--but for

every impropriety he should have a thousand added to his income. Such

things are so intolerable in a poor man!"

"I don't think Eva would obey me if I did interfere in her affairs,"

objected Mrs. Fluffy.

"Her affairs, indeed! It is _your_ affair. Of course you want a

son-in-law who can keep a comfortable house for you to live in. You have

brought up Eva badly, Sarah, and there is one thing I must tell you

about her--she is entirely too familiar and sisterly with gentlemen."

"She has a great many beaux," interrupted Mrs. F.

"It is one of her worst faults," continued Jane, not listening to her.

"If a girl gets into those sisterly habits with a man, it will never

come into his head to marry her. She may be his chief confidante; he

will talk of his lady-love to her, and she may end by being first

bridesmaid at his wedding, but nothing nearer. I don't approve of it.

One of my maxims is, that a man ought not be well acquainted with the

girl he is to marry until the ceremony is performed."

"Well, you cannot disapprove of Laura," said Mrs. Fluffy, trying to turn

the conversation. "I left her in her room reading."

"'Disapprove' of her? The word is not strong enough for my feelings.

Neither of your girls has the least bit of common sense; but I don't

wonder, with such a mother! A girl who gets a reputation for being

learned and saying brilliant things might just as well give up matrimony

altogether. Men are either afraid of them or detest them: gentlemen

don't like to puzzle their brains over a witticism, nor do they admire

chaffing that is beyond their comprehension. Courtship should be made

easy. My Jane was clever, and vexed me a great deal in consequence,

daughters of that kind are so unmanageable: give me the most stupid in

preference. It is pleasant to a husband to feel his superiority, to look

down on his wife. The mediocre is the girl I take most delight in. There

are so many mediocre men that they are sure to get suited without giving

you much anxiety."

"Jane," exclaimed Mrs. Fluffy with a burst of admiration, "you are so

clever I wonder _you_ ever were married. Did Mr. Stunner appreciate

that kind of women?"

"La! no. I had the sense to conceal my talents. Take my word for it,

superior people as a class are never liked, unless they do as I

did--conceal it, conceal it."

"I am glad I was not born talented: I fear I could not succeed in hiding

it as you do." Mrs. F. was too stupid for sarcasm, else I should have

thought--

"Now be frank with me, Sarah," broke in Mrs. Stunner, scattering my

thoughts: "who is paying attention to Eva now?"

"Well," replied the other, appearing to recollect, "there is Mr. Rich:

he asked her to ride with him."

"More than once?"

"No, not more, but it was only day before yesterday."

"Ah! he may ask her again: once means nothing. A gentleman may ask her

for pastime, or to make some one else jealous, or out of good-nature,

but to a girl properly brought up once is a chance--it is a good start."

(Mrs. S.'s late husband was fond of racing.) "It rests entirely with her

to make the once twice, the twice thrice, and so on; for if she is

amusing and don't talk love, he will be sure to ask her again."

"'Don't talk love'? Why, Jane, you surprise me! I thought that was the

proper thing to do."

"Just where people mistake. The most stupid man can talk love if he

feels love. Let girls be agreeable, sweet and charming, but without

especial effort to appear so, and when gentlemen are captivated they

will do their own love-making."

"Dear me!" was the reply.

"Yes, I protest against young ladies throwing themselves at the head of

every marriageable gentleman they see. They should think of the effect

it will have."

"But they are so unworldly that they don't think of effect," said Mrs.

Fluffy.

"Humph!" ejaculated the widow in a tone of incredulity.

"You seem to have a very poor opinion of women, Jane."

"They want to marry, all of them: you admit that, don't you?" asked Mrs.

Stunner severely.

"I think not," objected Mrs. F. in a feeble voice. "There is Miss

Furnaval: they say she has refused--"

"Then," interrupted her sister, not heeding her, "if they want to marry,

why not take the proper means? It is inconceivable to me how women,

after thinking about it all their lives, blunder into it in the end,

just as if it was an entirely unforeseen event. A little good sense is

requisite in everything, I think."

"They are not all anxious to marry," reiterated Mrs. Fluffy, gaining

courage: "there's Miss Furnaval--"

"A great example to give one!" remarked her sister contemptuously. "She

is making a fool of herself as fast as she can. Among all the young

ladies who marry badly, the fascinating ones prosper the worst. No girl

can refuse a good offer with impunity: a day of reckoning will come.

Society has its laws, which must be obeyed: if not, _gare_! Mark my

words," continued Mrs. Stunner solemnly: "Miss Furnaval has some

outlandish un-society principles, and practically they will not work.

Why, she is quite as well contented talking to a poor man as to a rich

one, and she is always encouraging worthless, amusing, handsome

fellows--talented men, instead of men whose position dispenses with the

necessity of their having brains. Those fellows she has about her are

the pests of society. If you hear of a runaway match, you may be sure it

is with one of them; if a daughter is obstinate, you may be sure some

ineligible jackanapes has prompted her to it. Blanche will end badly.

She will fall in love with one of them some day, and finish by marrying

him."

"If Miss Furnaval loves one of that kind of gentlemen, I don't see why

she might not be happy with him."

"You don't see anything, Sarah. You don't see the nose on your face,

though I see 'tis a very big one. I will make it evident to you. He will

be poor, Blanche is rich: if she gives him her money, he will spend it.

Never having had any of his own, he won't know how to take care of it.

If, on the other hand, she don't give it to him, he will think she does

not care for him--will get jealous, likely take to drink: your clever

man always does. They will quarrel; then her clever husband will use his

clever tongue to tease her, and his clever brain to thwart and provoke

her--which a stupid man would never think of doing--and, worse than all,

she will never get the least chance to have her own way in anything."

"Poor Blanche! I pity her," sighed Mrs. Fluffy.

"I don't, in the least," snapped the other. "Such an example will serve

to make other girls more sensible. Only you take it as a warning to your

own Eva."

After quite a long silence, in which I suppose Mrs. Fluffy was

considering, she said pathetically, "I wish you would tell me what to do

with Eva."

"Marry her as soon as possible," was the prompt and decided reply. "It

is her second summer 'out,' and she should at least be engaged."

"I can do nothing. What do you advise, Jane?"

"In the first place, stop her being with such gentlemen as Mr.

Hardcash."

"Eva is so high-spirited," groaned Mrs. Fluffy, "I fear she would not

listen to me."

"You mean _obstinate_, Sarah. Tell her seriously that she has had

two very gay seasons--that you can't afford another--that she must make

up her mind now. Then think over all the most eligible gentlemen you

know, and cultivate their acquaintance."

"Couldn't you help me, Jane?" asked the other timidly. "I shall not know

what to do."

"Let me see," continued Mrs. S. in a musing tone. "If you had a

country-house you could manage better. Elderly gentlemen are usually

pleased with domestic attractions, and there are many little attentions

that you and Eva could show them which in any other position would look

like courting them. Then there would be no danger of competition.

Indeed, if a pretty girl has a gentleman all to herself for a week or

two at a romantic country-house, a wedding is sure to follow. But there

must be no jarring, fretting, bad cooking or any household ill

whatever--no talk of poor servants or dishonest grooms: everything must

be _couleur de rose_."

"Jane, it appears to me you are talking very silly," said Mrs. Fluffy,

glad of a chance to attack her superior sister. "You know I have no

country-house, and I can't buy one just to marry Eva and Laura from."

"I merely said _if_ you had. I thought you might be pleased to hear

my theory," replied Mrs. Stunner stiffly, "The next best thing for you

is to have a parlor here, get up picnics and drives, make card-parties

with suppers--gentlemen so like to eat!--and do not spare expense when

you have a good investment in view. You can limit the invitations to two

or three gentlemen who are especially eligible: make these some little

compliment, such as '_You_ will come of course--our little party

would not be complete without you.' Contrive that they take care of the

girls, and you can entertain the others. Occasionally include some young

ladies in your evenings, so that the world may not say you are afraid of

them, but don't let them become intimate."--Here Mrs. Stunner paused for

breath.

"It sounds easy enough," said poor Mrs. F. dolefully.

"It is not easy at all," sharply replied her sister, "but if we manage

well we sha'n't have to go through with it more than one summer."

"Then you will help me?"

"I suppose I must sacrifice myself for the good of the family," said the

Stunner in an heroic tone, "but you must let me have my own way

entirely."

"Oh yes, Jane--certainly. I am so much obliged!" replied Mrs. Fluffy

with effusion.

"Then it is not necessary to explain my plans further: I shall be there

and will manage."

"But whom do you think we should invite, Jane dear?" asked Mrs. F.

anxiously.

"You spoke of Mr. Rich. I approve of him: I know he has twenty thousand

a year. Yes, he shall be one."

"I am afraid Eva won't like him," Mrs. Fluffy timidly remarked.

"Eva shall not interfere with my plans, and don't you commence with such

nonsense as liking and disliking; I won't have it," retorted Mrs. S. in

a louder voice than she would have used had she known I was so near.

"But there might be some nicer gentleman just as wealthy, might there

not?" suggested the weak sister.

"There is David Todd, with thirty thousand a year: I wonder if _he_

would suit the dainty Eva?" said Mrs. Jane, sneering.

"I think she would like Mr. Highrank to be invited," observed pink Mrs.

Fluffy, waiving the question.

I sat up and listened attentively when I heard my own name mentioned,

not forgetful of the adage that listeners hear no good of themselves,

but of course _I_ had nothing to fear.

"More sensible than I thought Eva could be," the Stunner rejoined.

"Forty thousand a year and entailed, so that he can't get through with

it. I have observed him a good deal for several seasons, and I find that

though he is such a fool, the sharpest girls can do nothing with him.

When so many are after him I suppose no single one can have a fair

chance. Yes, we will invite him, but I hope Eva will not think of

falling in love with him unless he should propose. Indeed, I think a

modest girl ought never to fall in love. It seems to me indecorous, at

least before marriage--after, they can do as they like about it. You

must warn Eva on the subject. If any other gentleman should ask for her,

she must not refuse, because we could not count on Highrank making up

his mind: I have an idea that he is too weak to form a resolution of any

kind."

I thought the old woman must be bilious. "Me a fool!"--a philosopher

rather. But I have always known that exalted worth is a fault in the

estimation of narrow-minded people, who can't appreciate it. Little Eva

has more sense--would like me to visit her: of course the poor child is

in love with me. I wish I could tease that ridiculous old lady in some

way. I have a confounded mind to run off with Eva. No, that, I fear,

would please Aunt Stunner. But I am missing all her trash: better

listen. It is really not worth getting heated over.

"The others I will see about," continued Aunt Jane. "It is very little

consequence who they are. Only one thing: I won't have that Hardcash

about: he and Eva have been entirely too much together."

"She is rough on Ned," thought I in ambush.

"I am afraid you won't be able to manage Eva, my dear Jane."

"Don't worry. When I have a duty to perform I go through with it. Let us

walk on to the summit."

"Just as you like: I am sufficiently rested, and we can talk as we go."

There was a rustling of silk and a crunching of gravel, and all was

quiet.

I lay there thinking for a long while: I wonder if my poor mother, were

she living, would take as much trouble to procure me a wife as Mrs.

Stunner is going to take to provide Eva with a husband. I wonder mothers

don't help their sons to marry, and let their daughters help themselves.

Girls are so much sharper about such things than men are. Everything is

against us. I suppose women think they deceive us for our good, but they

should continue to do so after marriage. 'Pon honor! I have seen the

sweetest, most amiable girl turn as sour as could be a few months after

the ceremony. The dressiest ones often get dowdy, the most musical can't

abide music, the most talkative have the dumps. A man has no chance of

judging how they are going to turn out. He is duped by the daughters,

inveigled by their mothers, and, what is worse still, as soon as he is

married they both undeceive him. It would not matter if a fellow was

cheated if he never knew it, but that's where it hurts.

I shouldn't wonder if that pair of old plotters would catch me yet if I

don't take care. I will tease them a bit, any way: I'll pay a deuced lot

of attention to Eva, and keep the other fellows away. No man would try

to win her if he thought I was serious.

Blanche Furnaval _is_ an odd girl, I went on musing. They said she

would end badly--hope she won't, though. Bewitching girl, but she don't

seem to care if people admire her or not. I never can quite understand

her. Once I wrote a few verses and gave them to her--compared her to an

ice-covered stream, quiet on the surface, but all motion and tumult

below. Well, she never even thanked me for them, though she said she

liked that simile, it was so new. There was another couplet about her

name--Blanche and snow and cold: when she read it she laughed and said,

"Though my name means white, it does not mean cold. You know there are

some white things that are very warm, Mr. Highrank--my ermine muff, for

instance." But I made a clever answer. I said, "The muff _looks_

cold, and so does Miss Blanche, but if I could be so fortunate as to

touch the heart of either I might find warmth." "My muff has no heart,"

she answered, looking at me as if she did not understand. "And is its

owner in the same condition?" I asked tenderly. (I make it a rule to

speak tenderly to all girls, it is so sad for them to love me when I

cannot return it.) "In a poetical sense I believe she is," she replied,

"but for all practical purposes she has one that serves very well."

Sometimes she would be invisible for two or three days together: no one

would see her, either at meals or at the evening ball. When asked what

she had been doing, she would smile that sweet smile of hers and say she

had been enjoying herself. She was very talented, but not a bit

ostentatious. To give you an example: It was rumored that she had a

wonderful voice, and though we had been begging her to sing for at least

a month, she steadily refused to gratify us. One day there was a queer

old Italian chap came to The Brook for his health. He looked like an

organ-grinder, and had been once actually on the stage. Well, do you

know she allowed him to be introduced to her, and talked to him with as

much deference as if he had been a prince, when she ought not have

spoken to him at all, you know; and in that gibberish, too, that no one

can understand. One evening, after entertaining him for about an hour,

she walked with him the whole length of the room, not noticing any one,

though every eye was upon her. He sat down at the piano which stood in a

corner, struck a few chords, and then, with no coaxing whatever, she

sang; and such a song! Her gray eyes grew dark, and her voice quivered,

deepened, expanded into a melody that made you think the heavens had

suddenly opened. Every other sound ceased; the doors and windows were

filled with eager faces; the dancers ended in the middle of a quadrille,

and the band came in a body to listen. I saw one fat Dutchman holding

his fiddle in one hand while he wiped the tears from his eyes with the

other. When the song was ended the old Italian took both her hands in

his and kissed them, talking at the same time with impossible rapidity;

and she smiled and looked as happy as if she had won a prize, turning

her back on every one else who wished to congratulate her. It showed how

very odd she was. The next evening _I_ asked her to sing, and she

flatly refused without the least excuse, saying, "No: a refusal will be

a pleasant novelty in your life, Mr. Highrank."

ITA ANIOL PROKOP.

[TO BE CONTINUED]

THE STRANGER WITHIN THE GATES OF PARIS.

"Paris," once said Victor Hugo to me, "is the hostess of all the

nations. There all the world is at home. It is the second best place

with all foreigners--the fatherland first, and afterward Paris."

There was a great deal of truth in the observation, and especially is it

true as regards Americans. By our natural sociability and versatility of

temperament, by our love of all bright and pleasant surroundings, by our

taste for pleasure and amusement, we assimilate more closely in our

superficial characteristics to the French nation than we do to any

other. Our Britannic cousins are too cold, too unsociable, too heavy for

our fraternization, and mighty barriers of dissimilarity of language, of

tastes, of customs and manners divide us from the European nation which

of all others we most closely resemble in essential particulars--namely,

the Northern Germans. The Prussians have been called--and that, too,

with a good deal of truth--the Yankees of Europe; and if the term

"Yankees" means, as it usually does in European parlance, the entire

population of the United States, we citizens of the great republic have

every right to feel proud of the comparison. Yet, with all our genuine

respect and admiration for the Prussians, there are but few American

tourists who take kindly to that people or their country. The lack of

the external polish, the graceful manners and winning ways of the

Parisians is severely felt by the chance tarrier within the gates of

Berlin. We accord our fullest meed of honor to the great conquering

nation of Europe, to its wonderful system of education, its admirable

military discipline, and its sturdy opposition to superstition and

ignorance in their most aggressive form. And yet we do not like Prussia

or the Prussians. We scoff at Berlin, planted on a sandy plain and new

with the thriving, aggressive newness of some of our own cities. We long

for the soft shadows of antiquity, the dim twilight of past glories, to

overhang our daily path as we journey onward through the storied lands

of the ancient world. We have enough of bright progressive prosperity at

home. Something of the feeling of the artist, who turns from the trim,

elegant damsel arrayed in the latest fashion to paint the figure of a

beggar-girl draped in picturesque rags, hangs about us as we travel. It

is only to Paris--Paris beautiful in its strange blending of smoky ruins

and splendid, freshly-erected mansions--that we can pardon the white

glare of newly-opened streets, the Vandal desecration of antique

landmarks, the universal sacrifice of old memories, historic

associations and antique picturesqueness on that altar of modern

progress whose high priest was Baron Haussmann and whose divinity was

Napoleon III.

We love Paris, we Americans abroad, and we like the Parisians. One side

of our affection grows and strengthens and sends forth new shoots with

every passing day. The longer one lives in Paris the better one loves

it. Its beauty becomes part and parcel of one's daily life. The mighty

sweep of palace and arcade and museum and church, the plash of sunlit

fountains, the rustle and the shimmer of resplendent foliage, the grace

of statue, the grandeur of monument, the far-stretching splendor of

brilliant boulevard and bustling street,--all these make up a picture

whose lines are engraven on our heart of hearts. Often, passing along

the street, some far-off vista, some effect of light and color, some

single point of view, strikes on the sense with new and startling

beauty, and we pause to gaze and to admire, and to exclaim for the

thousandth time, How fair is Paris!

And she is so prodigal of her treasures, this goodly city! She lavishes

them on all comers without fee or favor. All day long her princely

art-galleries stand open to welcome the passing visitor. One comes and

goes unhindered and unquestioned in church or museum, and even the

service of guides and boats and cars to the sewers, and of official

guides to the Catacombs, is given without compensation--nay more, all

fees are strictly; forbidden. There is no city on earth that receives

its guests with such splendid and lavish hospitality. Apart from one's

board and lodging, it is possible for a stranger to come to Paris and to

visit all its principal sights without the expenditure of a single sou.

And for the persons who, prolonging their stay, wish in some sort to

take up their permanent residence in Paris, things are smoothed and

ironed and the knots picked out in the most wonderful way. Your board is

dainty and your bed soft. Velvet-footed and fairy-handed beings minister

to your wants. You are clothed as if by magic in garments of marvelous

beauty. The very rustle of your letter of credit is as an open sesame to

treasure-chambers to which Ali Baba's cavern was but a shabby cellar.

And if, on the contrary, your means are limited and your wants but few,

the science of living has been so exactly conned and is so perfectly

understood that your franc-piece will buy you as many necessaries as

ever your fifty-cent greenback did home, and that, too, in face of the

fact that all provisions are now, owing to the war and the taxes, as

dear, if not dearer than they are in Philadelphia. If a stranger comes

to Paris and wishes to live comfortably and economically, there are

plenty of respectable, well-situated establishments in the best section

of the city where he can obtain a comfortable, well-furnished room and

well-cooked, well-served meals, for eight to ten francs a day--such

accommodations as five dollars would scarcely avail to purchase in

Philadelphia or New York.

The whole secret of the matter is, that in France everybody understands

the art of making the most out of everything. No scrap of food is

wasted, no morsel cast aside, till every particle of nourishment it can

yield is carefully extracted. The portions given to the guests at the

minor hotels, where one lives _en pension_ at so much _per

diem_, are carefully measured for individual consumption. The slice

of steak, the tiny omelette, the minute moulded morsels of butter, even

the roll of bread and little _sucrier_ and cream-jug placed before

each person, have each been carefully gauged as to the usual dimensions

of an ordinary appetite. Nothing is squandered and nothing is wasted.

When one recalls the aspect of our hotel tables at home--the

bread-plates left with their piles of cold, uneatable corn-bread, and

heavy, chilled muffins and sodden toast uneaten, uncared-for and wasted;

the huge steak, with its scrap of tenderloin carefully scolloped out,

and the rest left to be thrown away; the broiled chicken--the legs

scorned in favor of the more toothsome breast; the half-emptied plates

of omelettes and fried potatoes,--one realizes how low prices for board

in Paris are still compatible with the increased price of provisions,

and why we must pay five dollars at home for accommodations for which we

expend two here. The same wastefulness creeps into all the details of

our hotel-life. If we want a glass of ice-water, for instance, we are

straight-way supplied with a pitcher brimming over with huge crystal

lumps of transparent ice. One-half the quantity would suffice for all

actual purposes: the rest is left to melt and run to waste.

The fact is, that we citizens of the United States live more luxuriously

than any other people on the face of the earth. On an average we dress

better, fare better, sleep softer, and combat the cold in winter and the

heat in summer with more scientific persistency, than do any of the

so-called luxurious nations of Europe. Take, for instance, the matter of

heating and lighting. A few of the leading hotels in Paris, and a small

minority among the most expensive suites of private apartments, have gas

introduced into all the rooms, but as a general thing it is confined to

the public rooms, and the unfortunate wight who longs to see beyond the

end of his nose is forced to wrestle with dripping candles and unclean

lamps, known only by tradition in our native land. The gaslight, which

is a common necessary in the simplest private dwelling in an American

city, is here a luxury scarcely attainable save by the very wealthiest.

And we do not know how precious our gaslight is till we have lost it. To

sit in a dim parlor where four lighted candles struggle vainly to

disperse the gloom, to dress for opera or ball by the uncertain glimmer

of those greasy delusions, is enough to make one forswear all the

luxuries of Paris, and flee homeward forthwith.

Then in winter comes the question of warmth. What is more delicious than

to plunge from the iced-champagne atmosphere of a sparkling winter's day

in America into the nest-like, all-pervading warmth of an American home?

Here such comfort is wholly unknown. The cold, though less severe than

with us, is damp, raw and insidious, and creeps under wraps with a

treacherous persistency that nothing can shut out. The ill-fitting

windows, opening in the old door-like fashion, let in every breath of

the chill outer air. A fire is a handful of sticks or half a dozen lumps

of coal. The _calorifère_, a poor substitute for our powerful

furnaces, is a luxury for the very rich--an innovation grudgingly

granted to the whims of the occupants of the most costly and fashionable

of private apartments. Warmth, our cosy, all-pervading warmth, is a

winter luxury that we leave behind us with the cheerful light of our

universal gas-burners.

In summer we sorely miss the cold, pure ice-water of our native land,

and we long for it with a thirst which _vin ordinaire_ and Bavarian

beer are powerless to assuage. The ill-tasting limestone-tainted water

of Paris is a poor substitute for our sparkling draughts of Schuylkill

or Croton. Ice-pitchers, water-coolers and refrigerators are unknown

quantities in the sum-total of Parisian luxuries. The "cup of cold

water," which the traveler in our country finds gratuitously supplied in

every waiting-room and railway-station, every steamboat, every car and

every hotel, is here something that must be specially sought for, and

paid for at an exorbitant price. Ice can be purchased only in small

quantities for immediate consumption. Ten cents for a few lumps swimming

in water on a tepid plate is the usual tariff for this our American

necessity, this rare Parisian luxury.

The scant supply of water for ablution is another annoyance to the

American traveler accustomed to the hot-and cold-water faucets

introduced into private bed-rooms and hotel apartments, and the capacious

bath-tubs and unlimited control of water in his native land. To be sure,

one can get a bath in Paris, as well as anywhere else, by ordering it

and waiting for it and paying for it; but the free use of water and its

gratuitous supply in hotels, so entirely a matter of course with us, is

here unheard of. As with ice-water, the bath is an American necessity, a

Parisian luxury. However, the latest erected dwelling-houses here have

had water-pipes and bath-tubs introduced. Wealth can command its bath

here as well as its gaslight and its supplies of ice, but wealth only.

The humblest abode of a Philadelphia mechanic contains comforts and

conveniences which are wellnigh unattainable luxuries in all but the

most splendid apartments of the most luxurious city of Europe.

Nor do all the delicate artifices of French cookery suffice wholly to

replace for an American palate the dainties of his native land. The

buckwheat cakes and waffles, the large, delicate-flavored, luscious

oysters, the canvas-back ducks, the Philadelphia croquettes and

terrapin, find no substitutes on this side of the water. The delicious

shad and Spanish mackerel have no gastronomic rivals in these waters,

and the sole must be accepted in their stead. We miss, too, our

profusion and variety of vegetables, our stewed and stuffed tomatoes,

green corn, oyster-plants and sweet potatoes. As for fruits, the smaller

varieties are far more abundant and much finer here than they are with

us. Strawberries, cherries, raspberries, gooseberries, apricots--all of

great size and exquisite flavor--tempt and enchant the palate. But our

rich profusion of tropical fruits, such as bananas and pineapples, is

wholly unknown. Peaches are poor in flavor and exorbitant in price. As

for meats, poultry is dearer in Paris than at home, a small chicken for

fricasseeing costing six francs ($1.20 in gold), and a large one for

roasting ten francs ($2). Beef and mutton are at about the same prices

as in Philadelphia and New York. Butter costs from sixty to seventy

cents a pound. One can easily see, therefore, that it takes all the

skill and experience in domestic economy of Parisian housekeepers to

maintain the prices of living at anything like its present standard in

_pensions_ and hotels. But, in truth, the general standard of

French cooking has been much lowered since the war. A really sumptuous

French dinner is no longer to be procured at any of the tables d'hôte or

the leading hotels, and if ordered at a first-class restaurant it will

cost twice as much as it used to do.

Rents, though somewhat lowered from their former proportions, are still

very high, a really elegant unfurnished suite of apartments costing from

five thousand to ten thousand francs a year, according to location; and

if furnished, nearly as much more. Two thousand francs is the lowest

rent which economy, desirous of two or three bed-rooms, in addition to

the parlor, kitchen and dining-room of an ordinary suite, can

accomplish. There are now in process of construction in the suburbs of

Paris several rows of houses built on the American plan, and it is

hardly possible to tell how comfortable and home-like the neat separate

abodes look to one who has been journeying round amid a series of

"floors," each so like the others. To the casual visitor there is a

despairing amount of sameness in the fitting-up of all French furnished

apartments. The scarlet coverings on the furniture, the red curtains,

the light moquette carpet with white ground and gay flowers, the white

and gold of the woodwork, the gilt bronze clock and candelabra, the

tables and cabinets in marquetry and buhl, are all precisely alike in

each, and all wear the same hotel-like look and lack of individuality.

Nobody here seems to care anything for home or home belongings. A suite

of apartments, even if occupied by the proprietor, is not the shrine for

any household gods or tender ideas: it is a place to rent out at so much

per month should the owner desire to go on a journey. No weak

sentimental ideas about keeping one's personal belongings from the touch

and the usage of strangers ever troubles anybody's mind. Tables and

chairs and carpets and curtains are just so many chattels that will

bring in, if rented, just so much more income: around them gleams no

vestige of the tender halo that surrounds the appurtenances of an

American home.

The servant question is one that is just now of special interest to the

American housekeeper in Paris. I have elsewhere spoken of some of the

trials inflicted by these accomplished but often unprincipled domestics

on their masters and mistresses, so will not expatiate further on the

subject. I will merely specify as a special grievance the law that

forces the employer who discharges a servant to inscribe on his or her

character-book a _good_ character: should the departing help have

been sent away for gross immorality, theft or drunkenness, and should

the master write down the real reason of the dismissal, he renders

himself liable to an action for defamation of character. The person,

therefore, who engages servants from their character-book has no real

guarantee as to their worth. It is a well-known fact also that the

intelligence offices in Paris are far more anxious to obtain places for

bad servants than for good ones, because the former class return to them

more frequently, and are consequently the better customers. As to the

percentage exacted from grocers and provision-dealers by cooks and

stewards--a percentage which of course comes indirectly out of the

pocket of the master--the evil has become a crying one, but it is

apparently irremediable. A provision-dealer opened not long since a shop

in one of the most fashionable quarters of Paris, and sent round

circulars to all the housekeepers in the neighborhood announcing his

determination of paying no percentage to servants. The consequence was,

that not one of the cooks would buy anything of him, and he has been

forced to break up his establishment and depart. It is an impossibility

to engage a first-class cook without according to her the privilege of

doing all the marketing--a privilege by which she is enabled to more

than double the amount of her wages at her employer's expense.

Among the other drawbacks of a residence abroad to an American woman is

an absence of the kindly deference to which, by virtue of her womanhood

alone, she is accustomed at home. The much-vaunted politeness of the

French nation is the thinnest possible varnish over real impertinence or

actual rudeness. None of the true, heartfelt, genuine courtesy that is

so freely accorded to our sex in our own favored land is to be met with

here. "A woman is weak and defenceless," argue, apparently, a large

class of Parisians, "therefore we will stare her out of countenance, we

will mutter impudent speeches in her ear, we will elbow her off the

sidewalk, we will thrust her aside if we want to enter a public

conveyance. Politeness is a thing of hat-lifting, of bowing and

scraping, of 'Pardon!' and 'Merci!' It is an article to be worn, like a

dress-coat and a white tie, in a drawing-room and among our

acquaintances. We have the right article for that occasion--very sweet,

very refined, very graceful, very charming indeed. But as for everyday

use--_nenni_!" That deep, true and chivalrous courtesy that

respects and protects a woman merely because she _is_ a woman, and

as such needs the guardianship of the stronger sex, is something of

which they have never heard and which they do not understand. They will

hand Madame la duchesse de la Haute Volée or Mademoiselle Trois-Étoiles

into her carriage with incomparable grace, but they will push Mrs. Brown

into the gutter, and will whisper in poor blushing Miss Brown's ear that

she is "une fillette charmante."

And when a Frenchman _is_ rude, his impoliteness is worse than that

of other nations, because he knows better: he is rude with malice

prepense. The lower classes have especially lost much of their courtesy

since the Commune. I have seen a French workingman thrust a lady

violently aside on a crowded sidewalk, with a scowl and a muttered curse

that lent significance to the act. And the graceful, suave courtesy of

the shopkeepers--how swiftly it flies out of the window when their hope

of profit in the shape of the departing shopper walks out of the door!

Shortly before quitting the United States I went into one of our large

public libraries to consult a voluminous work of reference. In the

remote recess where the books were kept sat a gentleman intent on the

perusal of a volume, his chair tipped back as far as it could be with

safety inclined, and his feet resting on the table. "Horrid fellow!" I

said to myself, glancing at the obtrusive members, and going forward to

the bookcase in search of the work I wanted. It proved to be of somewhat

ponderous dimensions, and higher than I could conveniently reach, so I

stood on tiptoe and tugged vainly at it for a moment. My friend of the

feet saw my dilemma, and down went his book, and he sprang to my

assistance in an instant, "Allow me," he said; and in a moment the heavy

tome was brought down, dusted by a few turns of his pocket-handkerchief

and laid on the table for my accommodation. If he had but known it,

there was mingled with my thanks a world of unuttered but heartfelt

apologies for my former hard thoughts respecting his attitude. And

therein lay the difference between the two nationalities. A Frenchman

would have died rather than have made a library-table a resting-place

for his feet, but he would have let a woman he did not know break a

blood-vessel by her exertions before he would have rendered her the

slightest assistance.

American women are too apt to accept all the courtesies offered them by

strangers at home as their right, even neglecting to render the poor

meed of thanks in return. But let them when in Paris try to get into an

omnibus on a wet day, and being thrust aside by a strong-armed Frenchman

they will remorsefully remember the seats accorded to them in crowded

cars, and accepted thanklessly and as a matter of course. And when the

lounger on the boulevards dogs their steps or whispers his insulting

compliments in their shuddering ear, they will remember how they were

guarded at home not by one protector, but by all right-minded mankind,

and will thank Heaven that their brothers, their sons, their husbands

"are not even as these are."

LUCY H. HOOPER.

OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP.

GYPSY MUSIC IN HUNGARY.

We have all, at some time or other, felt our curiosity and interest

excited by the bands of wandering gypsies whom we may sometimes have

come upon in their encampments pitched in some remote or sequestered

wood or dell--wild-looking men and women and dark, ragged children

grouped about fires over which hang kettles suspended from stakes

arranged in a triangle; mongrel curs which seem to share their masters'

instinctive distrust of strangers; and donkeys browsing near the tilted

carts which convey the tribe from one place to another. We feel a sort

of traditional repulsion for these people, almost amounting to dread,

for stories of children stolen by gypsies, and of their dark, mysterious

ways, have taken root in our infant minds along with those of ghosts and

goblins, robbers and Indians. There are, it is true, romantic

associations connected with them, and we try to fancy a Meg Merrilies in

the swarthy old woman who examines the lines of our hand and tells us

the past, present and future--sometimes with a startling consistency and

probability. But few of us would have supposed that this race of

vagabonds and outcasts had ever risen much above their traditional

occupation of tinkering, far less that any portion of it had displayed

original artistic genius. We have, however, from Robert Franz the

composer a most interesting account of the wonderful music of the

Hungarian gypsies or Tziganys, which he had several opportunities of

hearing during a visit to a friend in Hungary. He had been much

impressed in his youth by the wandering apparitions of these people in

the streets of Kiev, and by the strange, wild dances of their women,

whose outlandish garb was rendered still more effective by the pieces of

red stuff cut into hearts and sewed all over their skirts. "These

caravans of strange beings, who preserve under every sky their dreamy

laziness, their rebellion against the yoke, their love of solitude," had

always possessed an irresistible charm for him, and he had never

understood the scorn and disgust of which they were the object.

Being informed of the arrival of a gypsy band within eight or ten miles

of his friend's château, he took his immediate departure for the forest

where they had made their temporary home. The sun was going down when he

reached the camp. It was in an open glade, where the ground was trampled

down, in some places blackened by fire, and covered with fragments of

coarse pottery, wooden bowls, bones, parings, etc. The gypsies were

there pell-mell--men, women and children, horses, dogs and wagons. The

men, lounging about in various attitudes, were smoking: all had a look

of careless nobility about them, an air of melancholy, and eyes which

burned with slumbering passion. Old women were cowering about the fires,

surrounded by children whose meagre limbs were frankly displayed to

view. Tall girls, with Oriental eyes, firm and polished cheeks, and

vigorous forms, stood facing the horizon, and were distinctly defined

against the blue of the sky. Some wore scarlet gowns, bodices covered

with metallic ornaments, embroidered chemisettes and a profusion of

glass trinkets. In the centre was one, taller by a head than her

companions, her face of a fine and delicate oval unknown amongst us,

with magnetic, disquieting eyes which suggested splendid vices; a black

turban confined her black locks; a chemisette of dazzling whiteness half

opened on her breast; she wore, as a necklace, twisted five or six times

about her neck, a long chaplet of yellow flowers, clusters of which she

held in her hands. The red rays of the setting sun flashed with

fantastic effect upon the scene: then night fell, and in the flickering

glare of the fires gleaming eyes, white teeth and mobile hands emerged

from the gloom.

Franz had expressed his wish to hear their music, but for a while all

was silent. Suddenly a strange, prolonged note vibrated through the air

like a sigh from the supernatural world; another followed; then after a

pause a majestic but sombre melody was developed. The sounds swelled

like an immense choral, with incomparable purity and nobleness, fraught

with memories of ruins and tombs, of lost liberty and love. Another

pause, and some strophes of unbridled gayety burst forth; then again the

principal phrase, detaching itself like a flower from its stem, among

myriads of winged notes, clusters of vaporous sounds, long spirals of

transparent _fioritures_. Still the violins grew bolder and more

impetuous. Franz rose from his seat while watching these men standing

with their violins pressed against their breasts, as if they were

pouring their life's blood into them: he felt oppressed with anguish,

when, by an ingenious inversion, the gloomy theme was transformed into a

graceful, poetic melody. The sounds passed away rapidily like sparks,

then were extinguished for a moment. A ferocious violence animated the

last measures, and the gypsies laid down their bows. But, divining a

sympathetic listener, they recommenced and played on till the night was

far advanced. At length they ceased, and Franz left the camp, carrying

with him the revelation of a hitherto unknown art.

Three principal features (he tells us) determine the character of

Tzigany music--its intervals, not used in European harmony, its peculiar

rhythms, and its Oriental fioritures or grace-notes. In the minor scale

the Tziganys take the fourth augmented, the sixth diminished and the

seventh augmented. It is by the frequent augmentation of the fourth that

the harmony acquires a wonderfully audacious and disquieting character.

The educated musician at first thinks he hears false notes, but the law

of their harmonies is to have no law. Their abundance is incalculable,

and the solemn and intoxicating effects resulting from the rapid and

beautiful transitions cannot be imagined. As for the grace-notes, they

give to the ear a pleasure like that which Moorish architecture gives to

the eye: the architects of the Alhambra painted on each of their bricks

a graceful little poem; the gypsies adorn each note with melodious

designs and luxuriant embroideries. But (we quote M. Franz throughout)

who shall describe the impalpable flame of Tzigany sentiment, the

strange, subjugating charm of which is a vital animation almost adequate

to life itself? or the mysterious equilibrium which reigns in this

undisciplined art between the sentiment and the form? Mystery of genius,

which bears in itself its inexplicable power of emotion, and which

science and taste in vain deny!

When Franz again heard Tzigany music it was under very different

circumstances. A fete was given by a Hungarian gentleman, of which this

music was to be one of the attractions, the most distinguished

performers being Farkas Miska and Remenyi Ede. The arrival of the latter

on the morning after the first evening concert (the fete seems to have

lasted some days) was announced to M. Franz by a great noise, a banging

of doors and windows and moving of furniture in the room next his own.

It at length ceased, and he was just getting to sleep again when some

one knocked at his door, and a pretty, fair-haired boy entered, who

announced himself as Ptolemyi Nandor, the fervent disciple of Remenyi

Ede, who, he said, had just arrived and was about to take possession of

the adjoining apartment.

"Well, sir, is it to inform me of your name and your fervor that you

have come to prevent me from sleeping?"

"No," said the boy decidedly: "it is to ask you to dress yourself and go

out for a walk."

To the astonished exclamation of M. Franz he replied that his master

wished to practice, beginning early, and that it annoyed him to have any

one hear him.

"Go to the devil, you and your master!" naturally shouted our composer.

The boy became purple. "What!" he said, "send him to the devil?--him,

the great violinist, the successor of Czemak, of Bihary!"

"Is your master a gypsy?"

"No, but he is the only living violinist who possesses the authentic

tradition of gypsy music."

"I love this music; therefore I will get up and go down to the garden."

"Oh no, sir: go into the fields. See!" and he opened the window, "every

one has left the castle." And actually the master of the house and his

guests were all defiling through the garden-gate, having had only three

hours' sleep. M. Franz soon joined them, and heard from them the story

of Remenyi.

At the age of seventeen he had been attached to the person of Görgey

during the Hungarian war. Leaving his country with the emigration, he

had shared the exile of Count Teleki, Sandor and others; then passed

some time at Guernsey, where he knew Victor Hugo. He had afterward

performed with brilliant success in London, Hamburg, etc., and his

renown, after his return to Hungary, went on increasing. He traveled

about the country in every direction, astonishing nobles and peasants,

and playing with the same enthusiasm and poetry in barns as in palaces.

On hearing this our author slipped back to the garden, where he hid

himself to listen to Remenyi, who, to his great disgust, was playing a

concerto of Bach's.

At breakfast, Remenyi appeared, a very commonplace-looking man, full of

his own praises, and always speaking himself in the third person.

"Remenyi practiced well this morning," said he.

"Yes, a concerto of Bach's!" Franz.

Thereupon Remenyi asked for his violin, and they heard a marvelous

specimen of real Tzigany inspiration. Vanity disappeared--passion, nerve

and sentiment took its place. He had all the qualities demanded by

science, together with those of imagination. It was the passionate

inspiration of genius. After his performance was over, he went gravely

to the mantelpiece, stopped the clock, and said to the master of the

house, "Let this hand mark for ever the hour when Remenyi played at your

house."

M. Franz taking no pains to disguise; his admiration, Remenyi, gratified

by it, invited him to accompany him home. Wherever he went he received a

perfect ovation. At one place he ordered a pair of boots, which were

sent home, paid for by the municipality. Art is a national glory in

Hungary, especially that of the gypsies, which has taken root in the

very heart of the soil.

Remenyi's house at Rakos-Palota, near Pesth, is a long, rambling

building, the courtyard of which is given up to chickens, ducks and

pigs. M. Franz says the poplars before the door look like

exclamation-marks, and he thinks they are planted there to serve as

such. There are heaps of rare and precious objects of every imaginable

description--all gifts--but the ones which the owner shows with most

pride are his Hungarian sabre and a pair of boots which Liszt wore when

a child.

The question is often discussed in Hungary whether the national

Hungarian music is the production of Tzigany genius, or whether the

gypsies are only the exponents of what properly belongs to Hungary

itself. The gypsies are proved to have been in Hungary as early as the

thirteenth century, and their musicians were celebrated in the

sixteenth, some of their names still living in the memory of the people.

What has been preserved of genuine old Hungarian music (some melodies of

Timody Stephens) has no charm save its antiquity. These and other

facts--but, above all, the impression produced on him by the music

itself--have convinced M. Franz that the gypsy faculty is one not only

of execution, but creation. Gypsy art proceeds from the sentiment, the

genius, of the Tzigany race. It is too strange, its elements are too

wild, to be the exclusive product of a thoughtful, wise, believing,

practical and civilized people; but the Hungarians have understood this

art--they have surrounded it with love and respect. Gaining new life,

warmth and vigor from the welcoming applause of Hungary, it belongs to

her by virtue of her admiration and sympathetic tears.

E.C.R.

THE "GIORNO DEI MORTI."

We all know that the second of November is All Souls' Day, and that it

is the day dedicated in the Roman calendar to the commemoration of all

those who have departed "in the faith." And few who have traveled on the

continent of Europe are not aware that the day is observed in all

Southern countries with a degree of devotion which the greater part of

the communities in question are not in the habit of according to any

other of the ordinances of the Church. But to observe the manifestation

of this devotion in its most striking forms, to seize all the more

picturesque developments and presentations of it, the "Giorno dei Morti"

must be passed at Rome.

It is a curious fact--one of the many of a similar order which

illustrate the moral specialties of the Latin populations--that hundreds

of thousands of people of both sexes, who neither believe, nor affect to

believe, the doctrines of the orthodox Church, and who are in the habit

of utterly disregarding all her prescriptions and teaching, should

nevertheless, as often as this sad anniversary comes round, behave as if

they were to all intents and purposes good Catholics. It will be said,

perhaps, that the feelings to which the special character of the

commemoration appeals are so common to all human hearts that the

manifestation of them on any customary occasion is in no degree to be

wondered at. But I do not think that this will suffice to explain the

phenomenon--at least as it may be witnessed here in Italy. Other church

ordinances might be pointed out of which the same thing might be said,

but which are not similarly observed. The real cause of the phenomenon I

take to be that this population is--as it was of old, and as it always

has been through all outward changes--pagan. I put it crudely for the

sake of putting it shortly, for this is not the place to trouble the

readers of a few paragraphs of "Gossip" with a dissertation in support

of the assertion. The innate paganism of these people, born of the

beauty of the climate and of all external Nature, and of the sensuous

proclivity to live and breathe and have their being in the present and

the visible which results therefrom, first forcibly shaped their early

Christianity into moulds which assimilated it to pagan observances and

modes of thought, and still remains ready to resume more and more of its

old empire as the authority of Church beliefs waxes feeble. The very

striking and singular scene which was to be witnessed in the great Roman

cemetery outside the Porta di San Lorenzo on the second day of November

was to all intents and purposes pagan in its spirit and meaning. And it

is curious to observe in this, as in so many other instances, how the

use of words supplies illustrations of national peculiarities and

specialties of character. The Church has dedicated the day in question

to the commemoration "_omnium animarum"_--of all _souls_. And we others,

people of a Teutonic race, have taken and used the phrase in its proper

Christian sense: we talk of "All _Souls_' Day." But with the peoples of

the Latin stock all thought or question of "souls" is very speedily lost

sight of. With them the day is simply the "Giorno dei _Morti_"--the day

of _the dead_. And their observance of it is to all intents and purposes

what it might have been two thousand years ago.

The very ancient church of San Lorenzo, one of the four extramural

basilicas, is situated some ten minutes' walk outside the gate of the

same name on the road to Tivoli; and around and behind this church is

the vast cemetery to which all the Roman dead are carried. It was first

used as an extramural cemetery at the time of the first French

occupation, but has been very greatly extended since that time. Clergy,

nobles and monks were at first, and as long as Papal rule lasted,

exempted from the decree which forbade interment within the city. Now

all must be taken to San Lorenzo, and the greatly increased population

of the city has already very thickly filled an immense area. The first

thing that strikes the visitor to this huge necropolis is the very

marked division between the poor and the rich quarters of this city of

the dead. The _fashionable_ districts are quite as unmistakably divided

and separated from those occupied by "the lower classes" as they are in

any city of the living; as is perhaps but right and natural in the case

of a population among which it is held that the condition and prospects

of the dead may be very materially influenced by a _quantum sufficit_ of

masses said for them, and where these can be purchased in any quantity

for cash. A very large parallelogram, for the most part surrounded by

cloisters, is first entered from the gates which open on the road. But

this has been but little used as yet. Beyond it, to the right, is the

vast space occupied by the graves of the multitude. Let the reader

picture to himself a huge flat space extending as far as the eye can

see, thickly planted with little black wooden crosses, with inscriptions

on them in white letters. The sameness of all these fragile memorials

produces a strange and depressing effect. The undistinguished thousands

of them make all the space seem black spotted with white. They are ugly;

and the poverty of these bits of painted stick, incapable of resisting

the effects of the weather, seems sordid in the extreme. In the graves

of this part of the cemetery all are in truth equal. To the left of the

vast cloister-surrounded square which has been mentioned the scene is a

very different one. There, immediately behind the eastern end of the

basilica, the soil rises in a very steep bank to a height greater than

that of the church. To the space on the top of this bank a handsome and

garden-decorated flight of step leads; and there the "Upper Ten" take

their dignified rest, and their dust is perfectly safe from all danger

of being mingled with that of less distinguished mortality. This higher

ground is called the _Pincetto_--as who should say the "Little

Pincian"--a name adapted from that of the celebrated promenade of the

gay and fortunate in life, with a suggestion of meaning so satirical

that it might seem to have been given to the "fashionable" quarter of

the dead city by the united sneers of all the ghosts who haunt the

undistinguished graves below. In this aristocratic quarter there is of

course no monotonous uniformity. The monuments, some of freestone and

some of marble, are of every conceivable form and degree of splendor,

and death is made to look pretty and coquettish by the introduction of

numerous weeping willows and other such botanical helps to sentiment.

The great majority of the inscriptions are in Latin, for Pius IX., so

long as his power lasted, absolutely forbade the use of any other

language; which was a measure of very questionable judiciousness, seeing

that a large crop of Latinity by no means creditable to Italian

scholarship has been the result. It would have been better to stick to

good Della-Cruscan Italian, or to have employed some English

school-usher to come here as resident reviser of Roman Latinity.

Inelegant and even ungrammatical inscriptions, however, do not interfere

with the general picturesqueness of the spot, or with its singular

adaptation to show to advantage the remarkable scene enacted there on

the last "Giorno dei Morti."

The cemetery had been visited by great numbers of persons, bringing

chaplets and flowers, during the day, both in the aristocratic and the

plebeian quarters, but it was at night that the crowd was greatest and

the scene most striking. The night, as it so chanced, was a dark one,

which did not make the scene by any means less strange and

weird-looking. The greater number of visitors, especially in the poor

quarter of the dead city, were women. Such is always the case, whether

it be that the female mind is more generally accessible to gentle

thoughts of and yearnings over their lost ones, or whether the

explanation be simply that, as is especially the case here, women,

having less to occupy their leisure either in the way of business or

amusement, are more eager to seek any emotion or occasion which may

serve to break the flat monotony of their lives.

Certainly the scene in the cemetery on the evening of the "Day of the

Dead" was one calculated to make an impression not to be readily

forgotten by any mere looker-on who witnessed it. Nor was that presented

by the road from the gate to the cemetery less remarkable in its way. It

is an ugly, disagreeable bit of road, between high walls, deep with mud

in wet, and with dust in dry weather, as was the case on the present

occasion, and without the smallest vestige of a pathway for

foot-passengers; so that the motley crowd, with their lights and

chaplets and flowers, had to make their way amid a cloud of dust and

among the carriages of those bound for the "Pincetto" as best they

might. But it was the general apparent mood and temper of mind in which

these pilgrims, bound on so sad an errand, seemed to be performing their

self-imposed task that was especially noteworthy. It might be supposed

that a certain degree of reverential self-concentration, or at least of

quietude, would have been the characteristic of a crowd bound on such an

errand. There was not the smallest symptom of anything of the sort. It

is true that many visit the cemetery on the evening in question who have

not recently lost any relative or friend, going thither merely as

performing an act of devotion or of amusement, or, as is usually the

case with all devotion in this country, of both combined. But the

greater number of the pilgrims is composed of those who have buried

their dead within the preceding year. Yet, as I have said, there was

observable in the bearing of the crowd not only no reverential feeling,

but not even that amount of quietude which the most careless body of

people of our race would have deemed it but decent to assume on such an

occasion. Laughter might have been heard, though not perhaps very much.

But the noise was astonishing--noise of incessant chatter in tones which

bespoke anything but the tone of mind which might have been expected.

The truth is, that he who expects to find in the people of this race the

sentiment of awe or reverence under any circumstances whatever does not

know them. It is not in them. The capacity for it is not in them. It is

not a question of more or less education, or of this or that condition

of life. The higher and the lower classes, the clergy and the laity, are

equally destitute of the capacity for feeling or comprehending the

sentiment which makes so large a part of the lives of the people of a

different race. To me the observation, far from being suggested by what

met my eye on the occasion in question, is the outcome of more than a

quarter of a century's experience of Italian ways and thoughts. But the

exhibition of the peculiarity on that occasion was very striking.

Doubtless there was many a mother among that throng whose heart had been

wrung, whose very soul had been struck chill within her, by the loss of

the child on whose grave she was about to place the humble tribute of

common flowers which she carried in her hand. No doubt many a

truly-sorrowing husband and yet more deeply-stricken wife were on the

way to visit the sod beneath which their hopes of happiness had been

buried with their lost ones. But whatever might have been in their

hearts was not manifested by any token of _reverential_ feeling. There

were tears, there were even sobs occasionally to be heard, but there was

neither reverence nor what we should deem decency of behavior.

Within the cemetery "distance lent enchantment to the view." As seen

from the cloister which surrounds the great square, as has been

mentioned, the outlook over the "poor quarter" of the vast burial-ground

was very striking. Amid the wilderness of black crosses, which extends

farther than eye could see, numerous figures were flitting hither and

thither, many of them with lights in their hands. In the farther

distance, where the figures were invisible, the lights could still be

seen mysteriously, as it seemed, moving over the closely-ranged graves

like corpse-candles, as the old superstition termed the phosphoric

lights which may in certain states of the atmosphere be seen in crowded

graveyards. In the foreground, where the figures could be distinguished,

many were seen on their knees in the damp and malarious evening air at

the graves of their lost relatives. But not even in the bearing these

could anything of real earnestness be traced. They were performing a

routine duty, of which no doubt their own consciences and their friends

and neighbors would have disapproved the omission; and that was all.

Nevertheless, the _picturesqueness_ of the general effect was perfect,

and it appealed to the imagination of a looker-on in a manner which to

many minds, more intent on sensational emotions than on discrimination

of social characteristics, would have caused the above remarks to appear

sadly ill-timed and out of place.

The scene which was meantime being enacted on the Pincetto, where the

wholly separated resting-places of the "Upper Ten" protest so

successfully against the leveling notion that in death all are equal, I

might have suggested many a mordant epigram to the cynically-minded

visitor. I fear that there is often something provocative of cynicism in

sundry of the aspects of fashionable devotion, but on such an occasion

as the present it could hardly be otherwise. Rachels in Parisian bonnets

and sweeping silk skirts, muttering over their rosaries for their

children on splendid cushions borne in due state by attendant

plush-clothed ministers, were contrasted in these realms of the

universal Leveler somewhat too strongly with the scene one had just left

in the (physically and socially) lower regions of the cemetery. Of

course hearts that beat beneath silken bodices may be wrung as bitterly

as those that serge covers. I am speaking only of those outward

manifestations which contributed to complete the strangeness of the

general spectacle which I had come out to see. The better tending of the

aristocratic portion of the cemetery, and the greater space between the

graves and their monuments, made it of course easier and less

disagreeable to pass among them and to note the bearing of individual

mourners. If the former scene had presented much that was indecorously

formal, here all was decorously formal. The routine, cut-and-dry nature

of the duty being performed exercised in either case its property of

numbing natural feeling, or at least the appearance of it.

On the whole, the experience offered by a visit to the great Roman

cemetery on the evening of the "Giorno dei Morti" is a singular and

curious one, as will be admitted, I think, by any one who may be tempted

by my example to go and see it.

T.A.T.

MR. MILL'S MOTHER.

The publication of the late Mr. John Mill's _Theism_ (writes a

correspondent from England) has again brought forward its author and his

peculiarities as subjects of general conversation. Not content with

having talked these matters pretty well over some months ago, people are

at this moment discussing them with not a whit less of interest than if

they were brand-new. But it is what Mr. Mill has omitted to tell us in

his _Autobiography_, quite as much as what he has there told us, that

excites popular curiosity about him. How came it that a man whose

admiration of his wife was hardly distinguishable from idolatry should

never once mention his mother? Thousands have asked, and have asked in

vain, who she was, and whether she could have been so entirely

insignificant as to deserve being passed over, without even so much as

an allusion to her, by her very philosophic son. These questions, and

others connected with them, I might answer at length. However, the few

facts I shall here state will perhaps be no less welcome than a long

detail. The wife of James Mill, and mother of John Mill, was a Miss

Burrows, daughter of a Dr. Burrows who superintended an asylum for the

insane at Islington. She died in London about twenty years ago, having

outlived her husband not quite that period. Her children were nine in

number, of whom four daughters are still living--two in England and two

in France. She was not what would be reckoned a conspicuously

intellectual woman, and yet she by no means deserved the heartless

slight which was put on her memory by her son. Indeed, such a slight

could have its justification in little short of utter worthlessness;

and Mrs. James Mill was not only esteemed, but beloved, by a large

circle of friends. On the appearance of the _Autobiography_ her

daughters were, naturally enough, not a little indignant at finding

their mother as much ignored in it as if she had never existed, and were

inclined, at first, to supplement, publicly, their brother's account of

himself by certain disclosures not exactly of a character to exalt him

in the estimation of the world. Suffice it to say here that for many

years before his death he had been estranged from his family; and this

estrangement was attributed, by those who had the best opportunities of

judging, to the sinister influence of his wife. This is all that I am

disposed to communicate at present, but I should not be at all surprised

if we were to know, by and by, much more of the private life of John

Mill than we as yet know.

NOTES.

There has recently emerged into notice, from her hiding-place in one of

the outskirts of London, an ancient woman whose surroundings forcibly

illustrate the persevering vitality of even the insanest forms of

religious belief. Joanna Southcott and her fanaticisms we are apt to

associate with Dr. Faustus, alchemy, and persons and things of that

kind, as belonging to an age with which we have no personal concern. Yet

this is a mistake. The followers of the fatidical Joanna may still be

counted by thousands in Great Britain, particularly in its metropolis;

and their acknowledged head, in strict accordance with the fitness of

things, is a woman. She is a very old woman, too, her age symbolizing,

perhaps, the longevity to which her crazy superstition is destined.

Elizabeth Peacock is the name of this relic of the past. For many years

she itinerated as a preacher, and at the great age of one hundred and

three her health is still vigorous. Modern priestesses, however, not

unlike the prophets of antiquity, are subject to be scanted of due

honor, or, at all events, of what is more essential than this as

contributing to keep soul and body from parting company prematurely. The

fact of her being in a state of destitution was notified not long ago to

the magistrate of the Lambeth police-court, and that unappreciative

functionary, while consenting to subscribe, with others, for her relief,

openly expressed his conviction that she would be best off in the

workhouse. Altogether, the old creature is a bit of a curiosity. She has

had three husbands, and the last of them, whom she married in 1852,

killed himself only the other day, possibly from finding the twofold

burden of domestic predication and a helpmeet of five score too much for

his nerves. If sane, the ungrateful fellow ought, in all reason, to have

had the grace to survive her; for when he undertook matrimony, as he had

nothing to turn his hand to, she instructed him herself in the art and

mystery of cooperage. At that time, so robust a specimen of anility was

she, she could pitch an empty cask across the street, and her credulity

is as strong at this moment as her arm was of yore. We conclude, from

her story, that the proper stuff for making prophetesses of the baser

sort has, even in our day, only to be looked for to be discovered.

* * * * *

Our countrymen have lately learned to admire, in its Western

transformation, the extremely clever _Rubáiyát_ of Omer Khayyám. And

they are certainly much in the right in so doing. The sterling merits of

the Persian original are preserved with striking fidelity in the English

version of the poem, which, for the rest, has gone far to prove that the

acceptableness among us of Oriental poetry may depend very largely on

the skill with which it is transplanted into our language. The

translator of the _Rubáiyát_ is Mr. Edward FitzGerald, of Woodbridge in

Suffolk. Mr. FitzGerald's ancient family one may learn all about from

Burke's _Landed Gentry_, and that he was born in 1809, and that he

married Lucy, daughter of Bernard Barton, the Quaker poet. He was

educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, where among his contemporaries

and friends were the present poet-laureate and Mr. Spedding, the editor

of Bacon. The _London Catalogue_ names three works as by Mr. FitzGerald.

These, as we find from inspection of the works themselves, are as

follows: 1. _Euphranor, a Dialogue on Youth,_ 1851 (it reached a second

edition, increased by an _Appendix_, in 1855); 2. _Polonius: A

Collection of Wise Saws and Modern Instances_, 1852; 3. _Six Dramas of

Calderon_, 1853. These dramas are translations, in prose and verse, of

_The Painter of his Own Dishonor, Keep your Own Secret, Gil Perez the

Gallician, Three Judgments at a Blow, The Mayor of Zalamea_, and _Beware

of Smooth Water_. In none of these volumes, however, except the last is

there any indication of its authorship but there Mr. FitzGerald's name

is given in full. The date of his metrical translation of _Salámán and

Absál_, from the Persian, we are not at this moment, able to specify.

Add, as printed by him, but not published, two other small volumes of

translations--one, of the _Agamemnon_ of Æschylus; and the other, of two

of Calderon's plays, _Life is a Dream_ and _The Wonderful Magician_.

Finally, we have to mention an unprinted verse-translation, _The Bird

Parliament_, from the Persian _Mantiq-ut-tair_ by Attár. Mr. Allibone

knows nothing of Mr. FitzGerald, and he is similarly passed over in

silence by the compiler of _Men of the Time._ Everything that he has

produced is uniformly distinguished by marked ability; and, such being

the case, his indifference to fame, in this age of ambition for literary

celebrity, is a phenomenon which deserves to be emphasized.

LITERATURE OF THE DAY.

The French Humorists from the Twelfth to the Nineteenth Century.

By Walter Besant, M.A.

Boston: Roberts Brothers.

Had Mr. Besant given us definitions of "humor" and "humorist," we might

possibly not have been satisfied with them, but they would at least have

enabled us to understand what sense he attaches to the words, and what

principle determined him in selecting the writers embraced in his

category. In the first page of his book he speaks of humor as "a branch"

of satire; in the second he identifies French satire as the "esprit

gaulois;" in the third he tells us that "the French type for satire and

humor has preserved one uniform character from generation to

generation;" and in his last page he claims superiority for the French

over the English humorists, on the ground that "Rabelais has a finer wit

than Swift," that "we have no political satire so good as the _Satyre

Mènipée_," "no English humor comparable for a moment with that of the

fabliaux," "no letter-writer like Voiture," "no teller of tales like La

Fontaine," and "no _chansonnier_ like Béranger." Now, it is evident that

this is a comparison not of French and English humorists, but of certain

classes of writers in the two languages in reference to their

manifestation of humor. We have no fabulist like La Fontaine, no

song-writer equal to Béranger; but then we do not think of citing our

fables and songs as the highest examples of English humor. It would be

easy to array a list of names as a set-off against that of Mr. Besant.

But this is needless. Humor, in the sense in which the word is commonly

understood, may almost be said to be a distinctive quality of English

literature, which is pervaded by it in a far greater degree than that of

any other people. It is a leading trait in all the great English

novelists, from Fielding to Thackeray and George Eliot, without

excepting Richardson, in whom it is least conspicuous; it is the chief

attribute of our finest essayists, from Addison to Charles Lamb; it is

harmoniously blended with the fresh and simple pathos of Chaucer and

with the passionate moodiness of Carlyle: it holds equal sway with the

tragic element in the world created by Shakespeare. When Mr. Besant says

that "there is no English humor comparable for a moment with that of the

fabliaux," we are forced to suppose either that he uses the word "humor"

in some unexplained and inexplicable sense, or that he leaves out of the

account what would generally be considered the greatest of humorous

productions. The puzzle increases when we find him omitting all mention

of Le Sage, while excusing himself for the omission, from lack of space,

of Rousseau! A list of humorous works which should exclude _Gil Blas_ to

make room for _Émile_ or _Le Contrat Social_, might itself, one would

think, act as a provocative on the _esprit gaulois_.

These mysteries are not the only ones in Mr. Besant's volume to which we

have to confess our inability to discover a key. In closing his remarks

on Montaigne he touches with undissembled irony the question whether he

was a Christian, and, after contrasting the tone and sentiments of the

_Essais_ with those of the Gospels, bids us "remember that we are not in

the nineteenth century, but in the sixteenth, that Montaigne died in the

act of adoration, and cease to ask whether the man was a Christian;"

adding, "Christian? There was no better Christian than Montaigne in all

his century." It appears, therefore, that the sixteenth century, instead

of being, as we had supposed, one in which the Reformation had brought

with it a revival of religious earnestness and a reaction against

religious formalism, and in which on the battle-field, in the dungeon

and at the stake, as well as through voluntary exile and the

relinquishment of property, thousands in every country testified to the

fervor and sincerity of their religious convictions, was in truth, like

the eighteenth century, one in which a prevailing skepticism or

indifference paid to dead but not yet dethroned creeds its light homage

of affected "adoration." Mr. Besant informs us that "to the men of

culture the rival parties were but two political sides." How many men of

culture could be cited in support of this assertion? We grant him

Montaigne, but it was precisely because the case of Montaigne was an

exceptional one in the age of Erasmus and More, of Calvin and Coligny,

that the question in regard to him has not seemed altogether idle.

It appears from another passage that Mr. Besant has an easy method of

arriving at a judgment in regard to the character or general aspect of

an historical epoch. From the details in regard to food, dress and

furniture which he finds in the works of Eustache Deschamps, a satirical

poet of the fourteenth century, he infers that the bourgeois life of

that period was "comfortable, abundant and cheery." "History," he says,

"paints this as the worst and most disastrous period that Europe had

ever seen; yet here, in the most real poet of the century, we see how

life, as a whole, went on in the usual way. For when a great pestilence

strikes a country, it slays its thousands and goes away. Time quickly

heals the wounds of grief, and the world goes on as before. Then come

the English to sack and destroy. Nature heals their wounds, too, by the

recurring seasons, and the world goes on as before. I am inclined to

think that life, on the whole, was generally pleasant for a well-to-do

Frenchman of the period." Mr. Besant, it will be seen, concedes that

evils are evils while they last, that war and pestilence are not

pleasant things to the victims, and that the comfortable and cheery life

of the fourteenth century suffered some interruptions from these causes.

But then it was still, he insists, an agreeable life "on the whole,"

since "the recurring seasons" healed the wounds and the grief, and left

the survivors to enjoy existence "in the usual way." This, it must be

owned, is a very comfortable and cheery philosophy--for those who preach

it. We do not see that they need ever complain of "bad times," since

they can always be sure that the recurring seasons will bring

alleviation to the survivors. It may also be admitted that, as there is

no age in which the recurring seasons do not bring relief, so there has

been none when war and pestilence and similar evils did not interrupt

the usual course of life. There is, however, this difference, that in

some ages these evils last longer than in others, the wounds are deeper,

the victims more numerous, the intermissions less frequent, the relief

tardier, the survivors fewer. Such an age in France was the period of

the English invasions, comprising a great portion of the fourteenth and

fifteenth centuries. That life was then, "on the whole," anything but

comfortable and cheery is attested by records and evidence of all kinds,

against which the mention of weddings and christenings, of

gold-embroidered mantles and robes of silk, in the pages of a court poet

will, we apprehend, count for very little, especially as the sufferers

do not appear to have solaced themselves with reflections on the sure

effects of the recurring seasons. Deschamps himself was unable, it

seems, to get his pension paid; and if he died, as Mr. Besant tells us,

about 1409, the chances, we think, are that however he may have

denounced luxury as the "crying evil" of his time, his death was the

result of starvation.

Mr. Besant, it will be perceived, is one of those writers who indulge in

haphazard assertions without troubling their heads with the facts that

conflict with them. A glaring instance of his tendency to exaggeration

and wild speculation will be found in his estimate of Rabelais, whom he

first vaunts as "a great moral teacher," "a teacher the like of whom

Europe had not yet seen," and then denounces as having "destroyed

effectually, perhaps for centuries yet to come, earnestness in France,"

declaring that "no writer who ever lived has inflicted such lasting

injury on his country," and that "it would have been better for France

if his book, tied to a millstone, had been hurled into the sea." These

opinions are contradictory of each other, since it is impossible that a

writer who so perverted men's minds should also have been, in any proper

sense of the term, a great moral teacher; they are inconsistent with Mr.

Besant's account of the "unbroken lines of writers," of whom Rabelais

was one, but not the first, all having the same characteristics, all

"irreverent," having "no strong convictions," "like children for

mockery, mischief and lightness of heart;" and finally, they are so

improbable in themselves, and so unsusceptible of proof, that, uttered

as they are with the solemnity of communications from an unseen world,

they produce much the same impression on us as the disclosures with

which Mr. Robert Dale Owen is favored by his "materialized" visitants.

We might cite other examples to prove that Mr. Besant is not a safe

guide either in his general speculations or in his critical judgments.

He is an agreeable narrator, showing a close familiarity with the topics

he handles, and an enthusiasm which, if it sometimes degenerates into

mere fume, adds on the whole to the liveliness of his writing. His

translations in verse are remarkable for their ease and finish. The book

may be read with pleasure, but not, we fear, with equal profit. The

chapters that deal with the least known works and writers are the most

satisfactory. On Montaigne and Molière Mr. Besant has nothing to say

which is likely to incite the reader to a fresh study of their works,

which ought to be the effect of every fresh discourse on a great author.

* * * * *

Recollections of a Tour made in Scotland A.D. 1803.

By Dorothy Wordsworth.

Edited by J.C. Shairp, LL.D.

New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons.

The special charm of this book lies in the fact that it is not a

book--that there was no thought in the writer's mind of printer's ink,

no vision of publicity or fame, no solicitude to propitiate critics or

win the sympathy of the "gentle reader." Or one might say it was a book

of the primitive kind, written on the bark of trees by some shy dryad,

unconcious translator into speech of the rustlings and whisperings of

the woodland. It is, as the editor observes, an "effortless narrative,"

with "no attempt at fine or sensational writing, ... at that modern

artifice which they call word-painting," but recording with "vivid

exactness" what was seen and felt by the writer and her companions on a

journey through regions then little frequented by tourists and

unsmirched by the eloquence of guide-books. That the travelers were

William and Dorothy Wordsworth and (for a part of the way) S.T.

Coleridge, that scenes and incidents here first sketched in the sister's

sober prose were afterward memorialized and moralized in the brother's

verse, and that many of the spots described were about to become famous

with and through Scott--a meeting with whom formed the fitting close to

the tour,--these are circumstances that of course invest the journal

with a deeper interest and have called wider attention to its

unobtrusive beauty. But its chief attractiveness lies in the Doric

simplicity not only of the style but of the matter. An outlandish Irish

car was the conveyance; the appearance of the party was not such as to

attract notice unless by the quaintness of their garb or their awkward

management of the horse, "now gibbing and backing over a bank, now

reduced to a walk, with one of the poets leading him by the head;" and

they themselves were in search of nothing more notable than such wayside

objects as might serve to feed contemplation. On one occasion, having

turned aside to visit the duke of Hamilton's picture-gallery, they were

told by the porter, after he had scanned them over, that they ought not

to have come to the front door, and were directed to an obscure entrance

at the corner of the house, where they seated themselves humbly on a

bench while waiting for admittance, which was finally refused. They were

mortified, but had a deeper pang in the grounds around Bothwell Castle,

for here they were "_hurt_ to see that flower-borders had taken place of

the natural overgrowings of the ruins, the scattered stones and wild

plants." Sometimes at an inn they were made to perceive how little

consideration they were entitled to by being lodged in inferior rooms

while better ones were vacant; but to compensate for this, in the wilder

parts of the country they were greeted with the hospitality which their

mere condition as strangers was still sufficient to call forth. The

descriptions given of the people have at least an equal interest with

those of the scenery. We have a succession of pictures in which, as

Principal Shairp remarks, "man is seen against a great background of

Nature and solitude." The book is one not to be read and laid away, but

to be kept near at hand, and made a frequent companion and familiar

friend.

_Books Received_.

Sophisms of Protection.

By the late M. Frédéric Bastiat.

Translated from the Paris edition of 1863,

with Preface by Horace White.

New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons.

Select Notes on the International Sabbath School Lessons for 1875.

By a New England Pastor.

Boston: Henry Hoyt.

Notes in England and Italy.

By Mrs. Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Illustrated Edition.

New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons.

William Prince of Orange; or, The King and his Hostage.

By Rev. T.M. Merriman, A.M.

Boston: Henry Hoyt.

Report of the Commissioner of Education for the year 1873.

Washington: Government Printing Office.

Among the Trees.

By William Cullen Bryant.

Illustrated.

New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons.

Early English History.

By John P. Yeatman.

London: Longmans, Green & Co.

Poems.

By Stuart Sterne.

(Published for the Author.)

New York: F.B. Patterson.

The Frozen Deep.

By Wilkie Collins.

Boston: William F. Gill & Co.

A Lecture on the Protestant Faith.

By Dwight H. Olmstead.

New York.

FOOTNOTES.

[1] _Travel and Art-Study in Italy_, by C.E. NORTON.

[2] December, 1874, art. "Physical Effects of Emotion on the Heart."

[3] I have several times performed this experiment, and by a method,

the explanation of which would require a separate article, have proved

that the vaso-motor centre, as well as the respiratory centre, is

situated in the medulla oblongata, and that paralysis of neither

respiration nor of the vaso-motor nerves follows the operation.