"And what will they cost?"

"I am sure I can't tell you."

"Are they as good as the roe or the big deer?"

"I don't know that, either. I don't think I ever ate fallow-deer.

But you know they are not kept here for that purpose. A great many

gentlemen in this country keep a lot of them in their parks merely to

look pretty. They cost a great deal more than they produce."

"They must eat up a great deal of fine grass," said Sheila almost

sorrowfully. "It is a beautiful ground for sheep--no rushes, no

peat-moss, only fine, good grass and dry land. I should like my papa

to see all this beautiful ground."

"I fancy he has seen it."

"Was my papa here?"

"I think he said so."

"And did he see those deer?"

"Doubtless."

"He never told me of them."

By this time they had pretty nearly got down to the little lake, and

Bras had been alternately coaxed and threatened into a quiescent mood.

Sheila evidently expected to hear a flapping of seafowls' wings when

they got near the margin, and looked all around for the first sudden

dart from the banks. But a dead silence prevailed, and as there were

neither fish nor birds to watch, she went along to a wooden bench and

sat down there, one of her companions on each hand. It was a pretty

scene that lay before her--the small stretch of water ruffled with the

wind, but showing a dash of blue sky here and there, the trees in the

enclosure beyond clad in their summer foliage, the smooth green sward

shining in the afternoon sunlight. Here, at least, was absolute quiet

after the roar of London; and it was somewhat wistfully that she asked

her husband how far this place was from her home, and whether, when he

was at work, she could not come down here by herself.

"Certainly," he said, never dreaming that she would think of doing

such a thing.

By and by they returned to the hotel, and while they sat at dinner a

great fire of sunset spread over the west, and the far woods became of

a rich purple, streaked here and there with lines of pale white mist.

The river caught the glow of the crimson clouds above, and shone

duskily red amid the dark green of the trees. Deeper and deeper grew

the color of the sun as it sank to the horizon, until it disappeared

behind one low bar of purple cloud, and then the wild glow in the west

slowly faded away, the river became pallid and indistinct, the white

mists over the distant woods seemed to grow denser, and then, as here

and there a lamp was lit far down in the valley, one or two pale stars

appeared in the sky overhead, and the night came on apace.

"It is so strange," Sheila said, "to find the darkness coming on and

not to hear the sound of the waves. I wonder if it is a fine night at

Borva?"

Her husband went over to her and led her back to the table, where the

candles, shining over the white cloth and the colored glasses, offered

a more cheerful picture than the deepening landscape outside. They

were in a private room, so that, when dinner was over, Sheila was

allowed to amuse herself with the fruit, while her two companions lit

their cigars. Where was the quaint old piano now, and the glass of hot

whisky and water, and the "Lament of Monaltrie" or "Love in thine eyes

for ever plays"? It seemed, but for the greatness of the room, to be

a repetition of one of those evenings at Borva that now belonged to

a far-off past. Here was Sheila, not minding the smoke, listening

to Ingram as of old, and sometimes saying something in that sweetly

inflected speech of hers; here was Ingram, talking, as it were, out

of a brown study, and morosely objecting to pretty nearly everything

Lavender said, but always ready to prove Sheila right; and Lavender

himself, as unlike a married man as ever, talking impatiently,

impetuously and wildly, except at such times as he said something to

his young wife, and then some brief smile and look or some pat on the

hand said more than words. But where, Sheila may have thought, was the

one wanting to complete the group? Has he gone down to Borvabost to

see about the cargoes of fish to be sent off in the morning? Perhaps

he is talking to Duncan outside about the cleaning of the guns or

making up cartridges in the kitchen. When Sheila's attention wandered

away from the talk of her companions she could not help listening for

the sound of the waves; and as there was no such message coming to her

from the great wooded plain without, her fancy took her away across

that mighty country she had traveled through, and carried her up to

the island of Loch Roag, until she almost fancied she could smell

the peat-smoke in the night-air, and listen to the sea, and hear

her father pacing up and down the gravel outside the house, perhaps

thinking of her as she was thinking of him.

This little excursion to Richmond was long remembered by those three.

It was the last of their meetings before Sheila was ushered into the

big world to busy herself with new occupations and cares. It was a

pleasant little journey throughout, for as they got into the landau

to drive back to town the moon was shining high up in the southern

heavens, and the air was mild and fresh, so that they had the carriage

opened, and Sheila, well wrapped up, lay and looked around her with

a strange wonder and joy as they drove underneath the shadow of the

trees and out again into the clear sheen of the night. They saw the

river, too, flowing smoothly and palely down between its dark banks;

and somehow here the silence checked them, and they hummed no more

those duets they used to sing up at Borva. Of what were they thinking,

then, as they drove through the clear night along the lonely road?

Lavender, at least, was rejoicing at his great good fortune that he

had secured for ever to himself the true-hearted girl who now sat

opposite him, with the moonlight touching her face and hair; and

he was laughing to himself at the notion that he did not properly

appreciate her or understand her or perceive her real character. If

not he, who then? Had he not watched every turn of her disposition,

every expression of her wishes, every grace of her manner and look of

her eyes? and was he not overjoyed to find that the more he knew

of her the more he loved her? Marriage had increased rather than

diminished the mystery and wonder he had woven about her. He was more

her lover now than he had been before his marriage. Who could see in

her eyes what he saw? Elderly folks can look at a girl's eyes, and

see that they are brown or blue or green, as the case may be; but the

lover looks at them and sees in them the magic mirror of a hundred

possible worlds. How can he fathom the sea of dreams that lies there,

or tell what strange fancies and reminiscences may be involved in an

absent look? Is she thinking of starlit nights on some distant lake,

or of the old bygone days on the hills? All her former life is told

there, and yet but half told, and he longs to become possessed of all

the beautiful past that she has seen. Here is a constant mystery to

him, and there is a singular and wistful attraction for him in those

still deeps where the thoughts and dreams of an innocent soul lie but

half revealed. He does not see those things in the eyes of women he is

not in love with; but when in after years he is carelessly regarding

this or the other woman, some chance look, some brief and sudden turn

of expression, will recall to him, as with a stroke of lightning, all

the old wonder-time, and his heart will go nigh to breaking to think

that he has grown old, that he has forgotten so much, and that the

fair, wild days of romance and longing are passed away for ever.

"Ingram thinks I don't understand you yet, Sheila," he said to her

after they had got home and their friend had gone.

Sheila only laughed, and said, "I don't understand myself sometimes."

"Eh? What?" he cried. "Do you mean to say that I have married a

conundrum? If I have, I don't mean to give you up, any way; so you may

go and get me a biscuit and a drop of the whisky we brought from the

North with us."

CHAPTER XI.

THE FIRST PLUNGE.

Frank Lavender was a good deal more concerned than he chose to show

about the effect that Sheila was likely to produce on his aunt; and

when at length the day arrived on which the young folks were to go

down to Kensington Gore, he had inwardly to confess that Sheila seemed

a great deal less perturbed than himself. Her perfect calmness and

self-possession surprised him. The manner in which she had dressed

herself, with certain modifications which he could not help approving,

according to the fashion of the time, seemed to him a miracle of

dexterity; and how had she acquired the art of looking at ease in this

attire, which was much more cumbrous than that she had usually worn in

Borva?

If Lavender had but known the truth, he would have begun to believe

something of what Ingram had vaguely hinted. This poor girl was

looking toward her visit to Kensington Gore as the most painful trial

of her life. While she was outwardly calm and firm, and even cheerful,

her heart sank within her as she thought of the dreaded interview.

Those garments which she wore with such an appearance of ease and

comfort had been the result of many an hour of anxiety, for how was

she to tell, from her husband's railery, what colors the terrible old

lady in Kensington would probably like? He did not know that every

word he said in joke about his aunt's temper, her peevish ways, the

awful consequences of offending her, and so forth, were like so many

needles stuck into the girl's heart, until she was ready to cry out to

be released from this fearful ordeal. Moreover, as the day came near

what he could not see in her she saw in him. Was she likely to be

reassured when she perceived that her husband, in spite of all his

fun, was really anxious, and when she knew that some blunder on her

part might ruin him? In fact, if he had suspected for a moment that

she was really trembling to think of what might happen, he might have

made some effort to give her courage.

But apparently Sheila was as cool and collected as if she had been

going to see John the Piper. He believed she could have gone to be

presented to the queen without a single tremor of the heart.

Still, he was a man, and therefore bound to assume an air of

patronage. "She won't eat you, really," he said to Sheila as they were

driving in a hansom down Kensington Palace Gardens. "All you have

got to do is to believe in her theories of food. She won't make you

a martyr to them. She measures every half ounce of what she eats, but

she won't starve you; and I am glad to think, Sheila, that you have

brought a remarkably good and sensible appetite with you from the

Lewis. Oh, by the way, take care you say nothing against Marcus

Aurelius."

"I don't know who he was, dear," observed Sheila meekly.

"He was a Roman emperor and a philosopher. I suppose it was because he

was an emperor that he found it easy to be a philosopher. However, my

aunt is nuts on Marcus Aurelius: I beg your pardon, you don't know the

phrase. My aunt makes Marcus Aurelius her Bible, and she is sure to

read you bits from him, which you must believe, you know."

"I will try," said Sheila doubtfully, "but if--"

"Oh, it has nothing to do with religion. I don't think anybody knows

what Marcus Aurelius means, so you may as well believe it. Ingram

swears by him, but he is always full of odd crotchets."

"Does Mr. Ingram believe in Marcus Aurelius?" said Sheila with some

accession of interest.

"Why, he gave my aunt the book years ago--confound him!--and ever

since she has been a nuisance to her friends. For my own part, you

know, I don't believe that Marcus Aurelius was quite such an ass as

Plato. He talks the same sort of perpetual common-places, but it isn't

about the True and the Good and the Beautiful. Would you like me to

repeat to you one of the Dialogues of Plato--about the immortality of

Mr. Cole and the moral effect of the South Kensington Museum?"

"No, dear, I shouldn't," said Sheila.

"You deprive yourself of a treat, but never mind. Here we are at my

aunt's house."

Sheila timidly glanced at the place while her husband paid the cabman.

It was a tall, narrow, dingy-looking house of dark brick, with some

black green ivy at the foot of the walls, and with crimson curtains

formally arranged in every one of the windows. If Mrs. Lavender was a

rich old lady, why did she live in such a gloomy building? Sheila had

seen beautiful white houses in all parts of London: her own house, for

example, was ever so much more cheerful than this one; and yet she

had heard with awe of the value of this depressing little mansion in

Kensington Gore.

The door was opened by a man, who showed them up stairs and announced

their names. Sheila's heart beat quickly. She entered the drawing-room

with a sort of mist before her eyes, and found herself going forward

to a lady who sat at the farther end. She had a strangely vivid

impression, amid all her alarm, that this old lady looked like the

withered kernel of a nut. Or was she not like a cockatoo? It

was through no anticipation of dislike to Mrs. Lavender that the

imagination of the girl got hold of that notion. But the little

old lady held her head like a cockatoo. She had the hard, staring,

observant and unimpressionable eyes of a cockatoo. What was there,

moreover, about the decorations of her head that reminded one of a

cockatoo when it puts up its crest and causes its feathers to look

like sticks of celery?

"Aunt Caroline, this is my wife."

"I am glad to see you, dear," said the old lady, giving her hand, but

not rising. "Sit down. When you are a little nervous you ought to sit

down. Frank, give me that ammonia from the mantelpiece."

It was a small glass phial, and labeled "Poison." She smelt the

stopper, and then handed it to Sheila, telling her to do the same.

"Why did your maid do your hair in such a way?" she asked suddenly.

"I haven't got a maid," said Sheila, "and I always do my hair so."

"Don't be offended. I like it. But you must not make a fool of

yourself. Your hair is too much that of a country beauty going to a

ball. Paterson will show you how to do your hair."

"Oh, I say, aunt," cried Lavender with a fine show of carelessness,

"you mustn't go and spoil her hair. I think it is very pretty as it

is, and that woman of yours would simply go and make a mop of it.

You'd think the girls now-a-days dressed their hair by shoving their

head into a furze bush and giving it a couple of turns."

She paid no heed to him, but turned to Sheila and said, "You are an

only child?"

"Yes."

"Why did you leave your father?"

The question was rather a cruel one, and it stung Sheila into

answering bravely, "Because my husband wished me."

"Oh. You think your husband is to be the first law of your life?"

"Yes, I do."

"Even when he is only silly Frank Lavender?"

Sheila rose. There was a quivering of her lips, but no weakness in the

proud, indignant look of her eyes: "What you may say of me, that I do

not care. But I will not remain to hear my husband insulted."

"Sheila," said Lavender, vexed and anxious, and yet pleased at the

same time by the courage of the girl--"Sheila, it is only a joke. You

must not mind: it is only a bit of fun."

"I do not understand such jests," she said calmly.

"Sit down, like a good girl," said the old lady with an air of

absolute indifference. "I did not mean to offend you. Sit down and be

quiet. You will destroy your nervous system if you give way to such

impulses. I think you are healthy. I like the look of you, but you

will never reach a good age, as I hope to do, except by moderating

your passions. That is well: now take the ammonia again, and give it

to me. You don't wish to die young, I suppose?"

"I am not afraid of dying," said Sheila.

"Ring the bell, Frank."

He did so, and a tall, spare, grave-faced woman appeared.

"Paterson, you must put luncheon on to two-ten. I ordered it at

one-fifty, did I not?"

"Yes, m'm."

"See that it is served at two-ten, and take this young lady and get

her hair properly done. You understand? My nephew and I will wait

luncheon for her."

"Yes, m'm."

Sheila rose with a great swelling in her throat. All her courage had

ebbed away. She had reflected how pained her husband would be if she

did not please this old lady; and she was now prepared to do anything

she was told, to receive meekly any remarks that might be made to her,

to be quite obedient and gentle and submissive. But what was this tall

and terrible woman going to do to her? Did she really mean to cut away

those great masses of hair to which Mrs. Lavender had objected? Sheila

would have let her hair be cut willingly for her husband's sake; but

as she went to the door some wild and despairing notions came into her

head of what her husband might think of her when once she was shorn

of this beautiful personal feature. Would he look at her with

surprise--perhaps even with disappointment?

"Mind you don't keep luncheon late," he said to her as she passed him.

She but indistinctly heard him, so great was the trembling within her.

Her father would scarcely know his altered Sheila when she went back

to Borva; and what would Mairi say--Mairi who had many a time helped

her to arrange those long tresses, and who was as proud of them as if

they were her own? She followed Mrs. Lavender's tall maid up stairs.

She entered a small dressing-room and glanced nervously round. Then

she suddenly turned, looked for a moment at the woman, and said, with

tears rushing up into her eyes, "Does Mrs. Lavender wish me to cut my

hair?"

The woman regarded her with astonishment: "Cut, miss?--ma'am. I

beg your pardon. No, ma'am, not at all. I suppose it is only some

difference in the arrangement, ma'am. Mrs. Lavender is very particular

about the hair, and she has asked me to show several ladies how to

dress their hair in the way she likes. But perhaps you would prefer

letting it remain as it is, ma'am?"

"Oh no, not at all!" said Sheila, "I should like to have it just as

Mrs. Lavender wishes--in every way just as she wishes. Only, it will

not be necessary to cut any?"

"Oh no, miss--ma'am; and it would be a great pity, if I may say so, to

cut _your_ hair."

Sheila was pleased to hear that. Here was a woman who had a large

experience in such matters among those very ladies of her husband's

social circle whom she had been a little afraid to meet. Mrs. Paterson

seemed to admire her hair as much as the simple Mairi had done; and

Sheila soon began to have less fear of this terrible tiring-woman, who

forthwith proceeded with her task.

The young wife went down stairs with a tower upon her head. She was

very uncomfortable. She had seen, it is true, that this method of

dressing the hair really became her--or rather would become her in

certain circumstances. It was grand, imposing, statuesque, but then

she did not feel statuesque just at this moment. She could have

dressed herself to suit this style of hair; she could have worn it

with confidence if she had got it up herself; but here she was the

victim of an experiment. She felt like a school-girl about for the

first time to appear in public in a long dress, and she was terribly

afraid her husband would laugh at her. If he had any such inclination,

he courteously suppressed it. He said the massive simplicity of this

dressing of the hair suited her admirably. Mrs. Lavender said that

Paterson was an invaluable woman; and then they went down to the

dining-room on the ground floor, where luncheon had been laid.

The man who had opened the door waited on the two strangers: the

invaluable Paterson acted as a sort of hench-woman to her mistress,

standing by her chair and supplying her wants. She also had the

management of a small pair of silver scales, in which pretty nearly

everything that Mrs. Lavender took in the way of solid food was

carefully and accurately weighed. The conversation was chiefly

alimentary, and Sheila listened with a growing wonder to the

description of the devices by which the ladies of Mrs. Lavender's

acquaintance were wont to cheat fatigue or win an appetite or preserve

their color. When by accident the girl herself was appealed to, she

had to confess to an astonishing ignorance of all such resources. She

knew nothing of the relative strengths and effects of wines, though

she was frankly ready to make any experiment her husband recommended.

She knew what camphor was, but had never heard of bismuth. On

cross-examination she had to admit that eau-de-cologne did not seem to

her likely to be a pleasant liquor before going to a ball. Did she not

know the effect on brown hair of washing it in soda-water every night?

She was equably confessing her ignorance on all such points, when she

was startled by a sudden question from Mrs. Lavender. Did she know

what she was doing?

She looked at her plate: there was on it a piece of cheese to

which she had thoughtlessly helped herself. Somebody had called it

Roquefort--that was all she knew.

"You have as much there, child, as would kill a ploughman; and I

suppose you would not have had the sense to leave it."

"Is it poison?" said Sheila, regarding her plate with horror.

"All cheese is. Paterson, my scales."

She had Sheila's plate brought to her, and the proper modicum of

cheese cut, weighed and sent back.

"Remember, whatever house you are at, never to have more Roquefort

than that."

"It would be simpler to do without it," said Sheila.

"It would be simple enough to do without a great many things," said

Mrs. Lavender severely. "But the wisdom of living is to enjoy as many

different things as possible, so long as you do so in moderation and

preserve your health. You are young--you don't think of such things.

You think, because you have good teeth and a clear complexion, you can

eat anything. But that won't last. A time will come. Do you not know

what the great emperor Marcus Antoninus says?--'In a little while thou

wilt be nobody and nowhere, like Hadrianus and Augustus.'"

"Yes," said Sheila.

She had not enjoyed her luncheon much--she would rather have had a ham

sandwich and a glass of spring water on the side of a Highland hill

than this varied and fastidious repast accompanied by a good deal of

physiology--but it was too bad that, having successfully got through

it, she should be threatened with annihilation immediately afterward.

It was no sort of consolation to her to know that she would be in the

same plight with two emperors.

"Frank, you can go and smoke a cigar in the conservatory if you

please. Your wife will come up stairs with me and have a talk."

Sheila would much rather have gone into the conservatory also, but she

obediently followed Mrs. Lavender up stairs and into the drawing-room.

It was rather a melancholy chamber, the curtains shutting out most of

the daylight, and leaving you in a semi-darkness that made the place

look big and vague and spectral. The little, shriveled woman, with

the hard and staring eyes and silver-gray hair, bade Sheila sit down

beside her. She herself sat by a small table, on which there were a

tiny pair of scales, a bottle of ammonia, a fan, and a book bound in

an old-fashioned binding of scarlet morocco and gold. Sheila wished

this old woman would not look at her so. She wished there was a window

open or a glint of sunlight coming in somewhere. But she was glad that

her husband was enjoying himself in the conservatory; and that for two

reasons. One of them was, that she did not like the tone of his talk

while he and his aunt had been conversing together about cosmetics

and such matters. Not only did he betray a marvelous acquaintance

with such things, but he seemed to take an odd sort of pleasure in

exhibiting his knowledge. He talked about the tricks of fashionable

women in a mocking way that Sheila did not quite like; and of course

she naturally threw the blame on Mrs. Lavender. It was only when this

old lady exerted a godless influence over him that her good boy talked

in such a fashion. There was nothing of that about him up in Lewis,

nor yet at home in a certain snug little smoking-room which these two

had come to consider the most comfortable corner in the house. Sheila

began to hate women who used lip-salve, and silently recorded a vow

that never, never, never would she wear anybody's hair but her own.

"Do you suffer from headaches?" said Mrs. Lavender abruptly.

"Sometimes," said Sheila.

"How often? What is an average? Two a week?"

"Oh, sometimes I have not a head-ache for three or four months at a

time."

"No toothache?"

"No."

"What did your mother die of?"

"It was a fever," said Sheila in a low voice, "and she caught it while

she was helping a family that was very bad with the fever."

"Does your father ever suffer from rheumatism?"

"No," said Sheila. "My papa is the strongest man in the Lewis--I am

sure of that."

"But the strongest of us, you know," said Mrs. Lavender, looking

hardly at the girl--"the strongest of us will die and go into the

general order of the universe; and it is a good thing for you that, as

you say, you are not afraid. Why should you be afraid? Listen to this

passage." She opened the red book, and guided herself to a certain

page by one of a series of colored ribbons: "'He who fears death

either fears the loss of sensation or a different kind of sensation.

But if thou shalt have no sensation, neither wilt thou feel any harm;

and if thou shalt acquire another kind of sensation, thou wilt be a

different kind of living being, and thou wilt not cease to live.' Do

you perceive the wisdom of that?"

"Yes," said Sheila, and her own voice seemed hollow and strange to her

in this big and dimly-lit chamber.

Mrs. Lavender turned over a few more pages, and proceeded to read

again; and as she did so, in a slow, unsympathetic, monotonous voice,

a spell came over the girl, the weight at her heart grew more and more

intolerable, and the room seemed to grow darker: "'Short, then, is the

time which every man lives, and small the nook of the earth where he

lives; and short, too, the longest posthumous fame, and even this only

continued by a succession of poor human beings, who will very soon

die, and who know not even themselves, much less him who died long

ago.' You cannot do better than ask your husband to buy you a copy

of this book, and give it special study. It will comfort you in

affliction, and reconcile you to whatever may happen to you. Listen:

'Soon will the earth cover us all; then the earth, too, will change,

and the things also which result from change will continue to change

for ever, and these again for ever. For if a man reflects on the

changes and transformations which follow one another like wave

after wave, and their rapidity, he will despise everything which is

perishable.' Do you understand that?"

"Yes," said Sheila, and it seemed to her that she was being

suffocated. Would not the gray walls burst asunder and show her one

glimpse of the blue sky before she sank into unconsciousness? The

monotonous tones of this old woman's voice sounded like the repetition

of a psalm over a coffin. It was as if she was already shut out

from life, and could only hear in a vague way the dismal words being

chanted over her by the people in the other world. She rose, steadied

herself for a moment by placing her hand on the back of the chair, and

managed to say, "Mrs. Lavender, forgive me for one moment: I wish to

speak to my husband." She went to the door--Mrs. Lavender being too

surprised to follow her--and made her way down stairs. She had seen

the conservatory at the end of a certain passage. She reached it, and

then she scarcely knew any more, except that her husband caught her

in his arms as she cried, "Oh, Frank, Frank, take me away from this

house! I am afraid: it terrifies me!"

"Sheila, what on earth is the matter? Here, come out into the fresh

air. By Jove, how pale you are! Will you have some water?"

He could not get to understand thoroughly what had occurred. What he

clearly did learn from Sheila's disjointed and timid explanations was

that there had been another "scene," and he knew that of all things

in the world his aunt hated "scenes" the worst. As soon as he saw that

there was little the matter with Sheila beyond considerable mental

perturbation, he could not help addressing some little remonstrance to

her, and reminding her how necessary it was that she should not offend

the old lady up stairs.

"You should not be so excitable, Sheila," he said. "You take such

exaggerated notions about things. I am sure my aunt meant nothing

unkind. And what did you say when you came away?"

"I said I wanted to see you. Are you angry with me?"

"No, of course not. But then, you see, it is a little vexing just at

this moment. Well, let us go up stairs at once, and try and make up

some excuse, like a good girl. Say you felt faint--anything."

"And you will come with me?"

"Yes. Now do try, Sheila, to make friends with my aunt. She's not such

a bad sort of creature as you seem to think. She's been very kind to

me--she'll be very kind to you when she knows you more."

Fortunately, no excuse was necessary, for Mrs. Lavender, in Sheila's

absence, had arrived at the conclusion that the girl's temporary

faintness was due to that piece of Roquefort.

"You see you must be careful," she said when they entered the room.

"You are unaccustomed to a great many things you will like afterward."

"And the room is a little close," said Lavender.

"I don't think so," said his aunt, sharply: "look at the barometer."

"I didn't mean for you and me, Aunt Caroline," he said, "but for her.

Sheila has been accustomed to live almost wholly in the open air."

"The open air in moderation is an excellent thing. I go out myself

every afternoon, wet or dry. And I was going to propose, Frank, that

you should leave her here with me for the afternoon, and come back and

dine with us at seven. I am going out at four-thirty, and she could go

with me."

"It's very kind of you, Aunt Caroline, but we have promised to call on

some people close by here at four."

Sheila looked up frightened. The statement was an audacious perversion

of the truth. But then Frank Lavender knew very well what his aunt

meant by going into the open air every afternoon, wet or dry. At one

certain hour her brougham was brought round: she got into it, and

had both doors and windows hermetically sealed, and then, in a

semi-somnolent state, she was driven slowly and monotonously round the

Park. How would Sheila fare if she were shut up in this box? He told a

lie with great equanimity, and saved her.

Then Sheila was taken away to get on her things, and her husband

waited, with some little trepidation, to hear what his aunt would say

about her. He had not long to wait.

"She's got a bad temper, Frank."

"Oh, I don't think so, Aunt Caroline," he said, considerably startled.

"Mark my words, she's got a bad temper, and she is not nearly so soft

as she tries to make out. That girl has a great deal of firmness,

Frank."

"I find her as gentle and submissive as a girl could be--a little too

gentle, perhaps, and anxious to study the wishes of other folks."

"That is all very well with you. You are her master. She is not likely

to quarrel with her bread and butter. But you'll see if she does not

hold her own when she gets among your friends."

"I hope she will hold her own."

The old lady only shook her head.

"I am sorry you should have taken a prejudice against her, Aunt

Caroline," said the young man humbly.

"I take a prejudice! Don't let me hear the word again, Frank. You know

I have no prejudices. If I cannot give you a reason for anything I

believe, then I cease to believe it."

"You have not heard her sing," he said, suddenly remembering that this

means of conquering the old lady had been neglected.

"I have no doubt she has many accomplishments," said Aunt Caroline

coldly. "In time, I suppose, she will get over that extraordinary

accent she has."

"Many people like it."

"I dare say you do--at present. But you may tire of it. You married

her in a hurry, and you have not got rid of your romance yet. At the

same time, I dare say she is a very good sort of girl, and will not

disgrace you if you instruct her and manage her properly. But remember

my words--she has a temper, and you will find it out if you thwart

her."

How sweet and fresh the air was, even in Kensington, when Sheila,

having dressed and come down stairs, and after having dutifully kissed

Mrs. Lavender and bade her good-bye, went outside with her husband!

It was like coming back to the light of day from inside the imaginary

coffin in which she had fancied herself placed. A soft west wind was

blowing over the Park, and a fairly clear sunlight shining on the May

green of the trees. And then she hung on her husband's arm, and she

had him to speak to instead of the terrible old woman who talked about

dying.

And yet she hoped she had not offended Mrs. Lavender, for Frank's

sake. What he thought about the matter he prudently resolved to

conceal.

"Do you know that you have greatly pleased my aunt?" he said, without

the least compunction. He knew that if he breathed the least hint

about what had actually been said, any possible amity between the two

women would be rendered impossible for ever.

"Have I, really?" said Sheila, very much astonished, but never

thinking for a moment of doubting anything said by her husband.

"Oh, she likes you awfully," he said with an infinite coolness.

"I am so glad!" said Sheila, with her face brightening. "I was so

afraid, dear, I had offended her. She did not look pleased with me."

By this time they had got into a hansom, and were driving down to the

South Kensington Museum. Lavender would have preferred going into

the Park, but what if his aunt, in driving by, were to see them? He

explained to Sheila the absolute necessity of his having to tell that

fib about the four-o'clock engagement; and when she heard described

the drive in the closed brougham which she had escaped, perhaps she

was not so greatly inclined as she ought to have been to protest

against that piece of wickedness.

"Oh yes, she likes you awfully," he repeated, "and you must get to

like her. Don't be frightened by her harsh way of saying things: it

is only a mannerism. She is really a kind-hearted woman, and would

do anything for me. That's her best feature, looking at her character

from my point of view."

"How often must we go to see her?" asked Sheila.

"Oh, not very often. But she will get up dinner-parties, at which you

will be introduced to batches of her friends. And then the best thing

you can do is to put yourself under her instructions, and take her

advice about your dress and such matters, just as you did about your

hair. That was very good of you."

"I am glad you were pleased with me," said Sheila. "I will do what I

can to like her. But she must talk more respectfully of you."

Lavender laughed that little matter off as a joke, but it was no joke

to Sheila. She would try to like that old woman--yes: her duty to her

husband demanded that she should. But there are some things that a

wife--especially a girl who has been newly made a wife--will never

forget; which, on the contrary, she will remember with burning cheeks

and anger and indignation.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

SOME PASSAGES IN SHELLEY'S EARLY HISTORY.

Shelley's connection with Stockdale is one of the curiosities of

literary history. It is as if Miranda had attached herself to the

fortunes of Caliban. An inexplicable thing, except upon the assumption

of the young poet's inexperience of men and his ignorance of affairs.

It is, moreover, a new passage in his life which has hitherto eluded

the most sagacious of his biographers. Who was Stockdale, and what

was the relationship between these two personages, so opposite in

character, intellect and pursuits? Stockdale's name was altogether

unknown to honest folks before Shelley gave it currency and introduced

the owner of it to polite society--at all events on paper. He owes

his notoriety, therefore, entirely to the boy-poet, into whose way

the good man was thrown by one of those inexplicable freaks of chance

which often bring about such strange results both to subject and

object.

John Joseph Stockdale was, like his father, a bookseller, who did

a low sort of business in Pall Mall. For some forty years the

Stockdales, father and son, were jointly or separately the John

Murrays of the London Bohemians. Their house was the resort of

novelists, poets, and especially dramatic writers, for twenty years

before and twenty years after the close of the eighteenth century,

and they were purveyors-general of circulating libraries, tempting the

ambition of young authors with rosy promises of success and alluring

baits of immortality, if they could only find the base metals _in

quantum stiff_, to pay the cold-blooded paper-merchant and the vulgar

type-setter. Many a poetic pigeon did the Stockdales pluck, no doubt,

by these expedients. For in those days, as in these present, a young

suckling full of innocence and his mother's nourishment deemed it the

highest earthly honor to be admitted to the society of Bohemian bulls

and fire-breathing poets; and to be further allowed the privilege of

paying for dinner and wine, with dramatists and men of the Bohemian

kidney as guests, was a distinction for which no amount of pecuniary

disbursement could by any possibility be regarded as an equivalent.

It is hardly to be supposed, however, that Shelley--even if it could

be shown that he actually joined the mob of Stockdale's wits as

hale-fellow-well-met--ever participated in this loyalty to their

sovran virtues and superiorities. He was the god, not they; and

although he hid his divinity under a mask and knew the value of

silence in a court of fools, yet he could not fail to be conscious

that small and unimportant as he was held to be among those Titans of

imagination and song, yet it would be found upon trial that he alone

could bend the mighty bow of Ulysses, and had the right to wear the

garland and singing-robes of the poet.

But the prior question remains, how Shelley, of all men then living,

came to have any knowledge of such a person as Stockdale--still more,

any dealings with him.

And it is remarkable that the answer to this question comes from one

and the same source; and that is the private journal of Stockdale

himself, who, like the petty Boswells of the serial literature of the

present day, cozened, by flattery and other arts best known to

that class, a considerable number of scholars and authors into a

correspondence with him, and carefully preserving these their private

letters until time should have enhanced the value of the autographs,

and he could glorify himself in the fame of the writers, deliberately

ransacked his old archives for this purpose; and finding a number of

the boy Shelley's business-letters to him--curious, to be sure, and

interesting enough to a hero-worshiper--he audaciously published them

in an unclean magazine called _Stockdale's Budget_.

Personally, we know nothing of the _Budget_, but an English bookworm

sets it down as "a sort of appendix to the more celebrated _Memoirs

of Harriet Wilson"_, which Stockdale had himself published a few years

before. This was so boldly licentious, and so reckless in its attacks

upon the private characters of the Upper Ten, that the publisher was

prosecuted with merciless persistency until his business gave up the

ghost. To convince the public that he was a martyr he started the

_Budget_ in 1827, and still appears to have kept his poets and

dramatic satellites around him, and to have been a man of some repute

for good-nature to young authors. Indeed, it is but fair to say that

from the first moment of Shelley's introduction to him until we find

him betraying Shelley's confidence in him to his father, to save him,

if possible, from the publication of an atheistic theorem, he seems to

have been fascinated by the young poet's character, and has testified

under his own name that he had the highest confidence in his

integrity, although it seems he lost a round sum by him in the end;

and he adds that, in his belief, Shelley would "vegetate rather than

live, in order to pay any honest debt."

It was in 1810 that Shelley, impressed somehow or other with the

belief that Stockdale was the poet's friend, rushed pell-mell into

the publisher's _Pall Mall_ shop, and besought him to do the friendly

thing by him, and help him out of a scrape he had got into with his

printer by ordering him to print fourteen hundred and eighty copies of

a volume of poems, without having the money at hand to pay him. "Aldus

of Horsham, the mute and the inglorious," was finally, appeased,

although not by Stockdale's money, and the edition of the poems passed

into Stockdale's hands for sale. The book was entitled _Original

Poetry, by Victor and Cazire_, and we are informed that an

advertisement of the same appeared in the _Morning Chronicle_,

September 18, 1810.

Shelley had previously published a romance called _Zastrozzi_, and his

first kitten-love, Harriet Grove, is said to have helped both in

this performance and the poems. But Harriet was not mindful of the

commandment against stealing, and when Stockdale came to examine the

poems he found that she had taken one entire poem by Monk Lewis and

put it in among the "original" poetry. Shelley ordered the edition to

be "squelched," but nearly a hundred copies had already been issued;

and this fact, so maddening to the poet, may yet rejoice the collector

of rare books.

These poems, the _Wandering Jew_, an epic, the joint production of

himself and Captain Medwin, a school-boy production, _St. Irvyne,

or the Rosicrucian_, and his first story, _Zastrozzi_, are the first

books of the poet; and their history is detailed with more or less

interest in the letters which passed between Shelley and Stockdale

respecting them. The poet tells Stockdale, in offering him the

manuscript of the _Jew_ for publication, that he had previously to

knowing him sent it to John Ballantyne & Co., and encloses their

letter setting forth the reason that they did not publish it--namely,

that it contained "atheistical opinions." The canny Scots are sorry to

return it, and do so only "after the most mature deliberation." They

think that it is better suited, "perhaps," to the "character and

liberal feelings of the English than the bigoted spirit which yet

pervades many cultivated minds in this country;" adding, "Even Walter

Scott is assailed on all hands at present by our Scotch spiritual

and evangelical magazines and instructors for having promulgated

atheistical doctrines in the _Lady of the Lake_."

Shelley assures Stockdale he is unconscious of atheism in the _Few_,

and asks him "upon his honor as a gentleman to pay a fair price for

the copy-right."

Stockdale never received the manuscript of the _Jew_, and Shelley,

having submitted a copy in manuscript to Campbell and received an

adverse judgment, does not seem to have troubled himself further about

it. So it remained in must and dust until 1831, when somebody of the

Stockdale ilk discovered it, and printed parts of it in _Frazer's

Magazine_. Judging from these excerpts, the book was entirely

worthless, and as for the stories, they were neither better nor worse

than other school-boy pieces of those days.

The betrayal of confidence of which Shelley complained as proceeding

from Stockdale arose from a letter of the poet's, in which (November

12, 1810) he asks his friend the publisher to send him a "Hebrew essay

demonstrating the falsehood of the Christian religion," and which the

_Christian Observer_, he says, calls "an unanswerable but sophistical

argument." Have it he must, be it translated into "Greek, Latin or any

of the European languages."

Pendulous Stockdale--"long and lank and brown"--comes from the reek

and sin and filth of _Harriet Wilson's Memoirs_, his pet publication,

and actually trembles with godly fear for the safety of a human soul,

and that soul the interior, eternal esse of the son of a baronet;

which baronet he hopes to make a good money-friend of by betraying his

son's secrets to him. Love, of a sort, for Shelley may also have been

a constituent of his motive to this treachery, as the poet called it,

for there can be no doubt that he did love him in his way, as all the

rough fellows--his Comus crew of the _Budget_ office--loved him.

Old Sir Timothy is grateful to the bookseller for abusing the trust

put in him by his son, and he thanks him for what he calls the

"liberal and handsome manner" in which Stockdale has imparted to him

his sentiments toward Shelley, and says he shall ever esteem it and

hold it in remembrance.

The publication of the letters before us sets at rest the disputed

point as to the date of Shelley's first acquaintance with Harriet

Westbrook, whom he subsequently married. Writing to Stockdale December

18, 1810, he requests him to send copies of the new romance to Miss

Marshall, Horsham, Sussex, T. Medwin, Esq., Horsham, Sussex, T.J.

Hogg, Esq., Rev. Dayrells Lynnington, Dayrell, Bucks; and Jan. 11,

1811, writing to the same person, he asks him to send a copy of _St.

Irvyne_ to Miss Harriet Westbrook, 10 Chapel street, Grosvenor Square.

It is pretty certain, therefore, that the acquaintance began between

the dates of these two letters, for if he had known Harriet when he

ordered his book to be sent to Miss Marshall, he would certainly have

coupled the two names together and added them to the little list

of his friends already given. Our English friend suggests here that

Shelley may not have known Harriet personally at this time, but merely

through the reports of his sisters, who were always talking about her,

as reported in the _Shelley Memorials_. We think this is likely to

be the case, as during that period Shelley does not seem to have

journeyed to London. The aforesaid friend says also that he possessed

a manuscript (unpublished) in which somebody who knows states that

Shelley first saw her in January, 1811, and that whenever this

manuscript is published it will be seen how very slight was Shelley's

acquaintance with Harriet before their marriage, and "what advantage

was taken of his chivalry of sentiment and her complacent disposition,

and the inexperience of both, and how little entitled or disposed she

felt herself to complain of his behavior." "Shelley and his girl-wife

visited Windermere," we think are the words of De Quincey in alluding

to their sudden apparition in the Lake district just after their

union. And two more discordant natures could hardly have been bound

together till death.

The last friendly communication which passed between Shelley and his

publisher was dated January 11, 1811, as we have seen; and he must

immediately afterward have discovered the treachery of Stockdale, for

only three days later he writes a vituperative letter against him to

Hogg, in that he had been traducing Hogg's character; and informs

him that he will, while on his way to Oxford, compel the publisher to

explain not only why he "dared to make so free with the character of a

gentleman about whom he knew nothing," but why he had been treacherous

enough to inform Sir Timothy that he (Shelley) had sent him "a work"

which had been submitted to him in the strictest confidence and honor.

This performance was probably the pamphlet which caused Shelley's

expulsion from Oxford; and Stockdale hoped to be regarded as a friend

of the family by telling Sir T. all about it, and thus preventing a

young aristocrat of such high birth and pretensions from falling into

the slough of the blackguard Free-thinkers. No doubt he was influenced

to do this good turn to the family by the fact that the bill for the

last romance was unpaid, and he knew that if Sir Timothy would not,

and Shelley, being a minor, could not, liquidate it, he would, between

the two unreliable stools, come to the ground. In order to apologize

for Shelley, and make it appear to his father that he was not to blame

for writing such wickedness, but that another had indoctrinated him

with all bad notions, he pitched upon Hogg as the scapegoat. This is,

at all events, the English writer's explanation; but it was a futile

as well as a foolish thing for the cunning publisher to do, for he

made them all his enemies, and Sir Timothy refused to pay a farthing

of the printing account. So the publisher lost it. Shelley, it is

true, in a cool, polite business letter (April 11, 1811), asks for his

account, which is delayed, and does not reach the poet until some time

after it is sent, when it finds him in Radnorshire, Wales, too poor

to pay it. With an innocency worthy of the days of Adam and Eve,

he, after promising to pay as soon as he can, offers Stockdale the

manuscript of some metaphysical and moral essays--the result of "some

serious studies"--"in part payment of his debt."

JANUARY SEARLE.

* * * * *

CHANGES.

All things resume their wonted look and place,

Day unto day shows beauty, night to night:

No whit less fresh and fugitive a grace

Marks the transitions of the swift year's flight;

But, gradual, sure and strange,

Throughout our being hath been wrought a change.

Brief while ago the first soft day of spring

A personal, fair fortune seemed to be;

The soul awoke with earth's awakening,

With Nature bound in closest sympathy;

Sunshine or quiet rain

Could soothe life's pulse or make it leap again.

Now, stripped of all illusive veil or haze,

Each object looms remote, distinct, apart:

We know its worth, its limits, weight and ways;

It is no longer one with our own heart;

No answering ecstasy

Is roused in us by earth or sea or sky.

Who will affirm this brave display is real,

When on a radiant morn the doom is sent

That rends our world asunder, and we feel

The dear, familiar earth, the firmament,

All forms that meet the eye,

An insubstantial, vacant mockery?

A cobweb world of thin, transparent shapes,

Though limp as silk, the magic woof proves wrought

Stronger than steel: no outlets, no escapes

Ope to the struggling spirit, trapped and caught.

Prisoned in walls of glass,

She sees beyond them, but she may not pass.

Though comfort grows thereafter, nevermore

The bond then snapped, the passionate young faith,

Can healing years with all their gifts restore.

From Psyche's wings life's rude and careless breath

Hath dashed the purple dust,

And with it died the rapture and the trust.

EMMA LAZARUS.

* * * * *

OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP.

A SLEEPING-CAR SERENADE.

Not long ago I had to travel by the night-express from Montreal to New

York, and feeling drowsy about eleven o'clock, presented my claim

for a lower berth in the car paradoxically designated "sleeping,"

and tantalizingly named "palace," with sanguine hopes of obtaining

a refreshing snooze. Knowing from experience the aberrations of mind

peculiar to travelers roused from sleep, by which they are impelled to

get off at way-stations, I secured my traps against the contingencies

liable to unchecked baggage, and creeping into the back of the

sepulchral shelf called a bed, I enveloped myself after the fashion of

Indian squaws and Egyptian mummies, and fell asleep.

I do not know whether the noise and concussion of the cars excite the

same sort of dreams in every one's cranium as they do in mine, but

they almost invariably produce in my brain mental phenomena of a

pugnacious character, which are nothing modified by palace cars and

steel rails. This particular night there was a perfect revelry of

dreams in my brain. I was on the frontier with our corps, engaged in

a glorious hand-to-hand conflict with men our equals in number and

valor. We were having the best of it, giving it to them hot and heavy,

crash! through the beggars' skulls, and plunge! into their abominable

abdominal regions. "No quarter!" It was a pity, but it seemed

splendid.

Bang! roared an Armstrong gun, as I thought, close to my ear: down

went a whole column of the enemy like a flash, as I awoke to find it a

dream, alas! and the supposed artillery nothing more or less than one

of those sharp, gurgling snorts produced during inspiration in the

larynx of a stout Jewish gentleman, who had in some mysterious way

got on the outer half of my shelf during my sleep, and whose ancient

descent was clearly defined in the side view I immediately obtained

of the contour and size of his nose. I had got one of my arms out

from under the covering, and found I had "cut left" directly upon the

prominent proboscis of my friend--a passage of arms that materially

accelerated his breathing, and awoke him to the fact that though

he had a nose sufficiently large to have entitled him to Napoleon's

consideration for a generalship had he lived in the days of that

potentate, yet there was something unusual on the end of it, which

was far too large for a pimple and rather heavy for a fly. Perhaps it

induced a nightmare, and deluded him into the belief that he had been

metamorphosed into an elephant, and hadn't become accustomed to his

trunk. It puzzled me to know how or why he had been billeted on my

palatial shelf, for the whole of which I had paid; but as it was

rather a cold night, and there was something respectable in the

outline of that Roman nose, I turned my back on him and determined to

accept the situation, soothing myself with the reflection that if I

repeated the assault upon his nose, such an accident must be excused

as a fortuitous result of his unauthorized intrusion.

I had just got freshly enveloped in the "honey-dew of slumber" when

my _compagnon de voyage_ began to snore, and in the most unendurable

manner, the effect of which was nothing improved by his proximity.

It seemed to penetrate every sense and sensation of my body, and to

intensify the extreme of misery which I had begun to endure in the

hard effort to sleep. His snore was a medley of snuffing and snorting,

with an abortive demi-semi aristocratic sort of a sneeze; while to

add to the effect of this three-stringed inspiration there was in each

aspiration a tremulous and swooning neigh. I had been reading _The

Origin of Species_ and _The Descent of Man_ for several previous days,

and began to think I had discovered some wandering Jewish lost link

between man and the monkey, and that I actually had him or it for a

bedfellow; but by the dim light of the car-lamps I managed to see his

hands, which had orthodox nails. I was now thoroughly awake, and found

myself the victim of a perfect bedlam of snorers from one end of the

car to the other, making a concatenation of hideous noises only to be

equaled by a menagerie; though, to give the devil his due, a earful of

wild animals would never make such an uproar when fast asleep.

It is a well-known fact that when one's ears prick up at night and

find the slightest noise an obstacle to slumber, after much tossing

and turning, and some imprecating, tired Nature will finally succumb

from sheer exhaustion: she even conquers the howling of dogs holding

converse with the moon and the cater-wauling of enamored cats. Cats,

and even cataracts, I have defied, but of all noises to keep a sober

man awake I know of none to take the palm from the snoring in that

car. There seemed to be a bond of sympathy, too, among the snorers,

for those who did not snore were the only ones who did not sleep.

The varieties of sound were so intensely ridiculous that at first I

found it amusing to listen to the performance. A musical ear

might have had novel practice by classifying the intonations. The

war-whooping snore of my bedfellow changed at times into a deep and

mellow bass. To the right of us, on the lower shelf, was a happy

individual indulging in all the variations of a nervous treble of

every possible pitch: his was an inconstant _falsetto_ in sound and

cadence. Above him snored one as if he had a metallic reed in his

larynx that opened with each inhalation: his snore struck me as a

brassy _alto_. The tenors were distributed at such distances as to

convey to my ears all the discord of an inebriated band of cracked

fifes and split bagpipes playing snatches of different tunes. There

were snores that beggar description, that seemed to express every

temperament and every passion of the human soul. I cannot forget one

a couple of berths off, which seemed to rise above the mediocrity of

snores, mellowing into a tenderness like the dying strains of an echo,

and renewing its regular periods with a highbred dignity which Nature

had clearly not assumed. Another broke away from the harsh notes

around in soft diapasons, and with a mellifluous _soprano_ which I

instinctively knew must belong to a throat that could sing. Was it

Nilsson? Just over my head was a jerky croak of a snore, sounding

at intervals of half a minute, as if it had retired on half-pay and

longed to get back into active service.

It occurred to me, when amid these paroxysms of turmoil I heard a

very fair harmony between the bass of my bedfellow and the tenor of a

sleeper in the next berth, that if a Gilmore could take snores, into

training, and by animal magnetism or mesmerism manage to make them

snore in concert and by note--

In perfect phalanx to the Dorian mood Of flutes and soft recorders--

we should have a diverting performance in sleeping-cars, and one

objection to their use would be actually utilized as an extra

inducement to patronize them.

Several times I was strongly impelled to shunt my bass snorer off the

bed or twig his Roman nose, but one experiment of a kick roused such

a vigorous snort, like that produced by dropping a brick on a sleeping

pig, that I abandoned such physical means of retaliation. I thought

of tickling his nose with a feather or a straw, but the bed contained

neither, and I had not even a pin. And supposing I should stop my

shelf-mate, what could I do to suppress the rest? Should I make some

horrible noise between a hoarse cough and a crow, and say, if any

one complained, that it was my way of snoring? But I thought that the

object to be attained, and the possibility of being voted insane and

consigned, in spite of protestation, to the baggage-car, would not

compensate me for the exertion required; so I determined to submit to

it like a Stoic. (_Query:_ Would a Stoic have submitted?)

The more one meditates upon the reason of wakefulness, the more his

chances of sleep diminish; and from this cause, conjoined with the

peculiarity of the situation and the mood in which I found myself,

I had surely "affrighted sleep" for that night. As I lay awake I

indulged in the following mental calculation of my misery to coax

a slumber: The average number of inspirations in a minute is

fifteen--remember, snoring is an act of the inspiration--the number of

hours I lay awake was six. Fifteen snores a minute make nine hundred

an hour. Multiply 900 by 6--the number of hours I lay awake--and you

have 5400, the number of notes struck by each snorer. There were at

least twelve distinct and regular snorers in the car. Multiply 5400

by 12, and you have 64,800 snores, not including the snuffling neighs,

perpetrated in that car from about eleven P. M. until five the next

morning!

The question follows: "Can snoring be prevented?" It is plainly a

nuisance, and ought to be indictable. I have heard of the use of local

stimulants, such as camphire and ammonia--how I longed for the

sweet revenge of holding a bottle of aqua ammonia under that Roman

nose!--and also of clipping the uvula, which may cause snoring by

resting on the base of the tongue. The question demands the grave

consideration of our railroad managers; for while the traveling public

do not object to a man snoring the roof off if he chooses to do it

under his own vine and fig tree, tired men and women have a right to

expect a sleep when they contract for it. Is there no lover of sleep

and litigation who will prosecute for damages?

There is a prospect, however, of a balm in Gilead. An ingenious

Yankee--a commercial traveler--has invented and patented an instrument

made of gutta percha, to be fitted to the nose, and pass from that

protuberance to the tympanum of the ear. As soon as the snorer begins

the sound is carried so perfectly to his own ear, and all other sounds

so well excluded, that he awakens in terror. The sanguine inventor

believes that after a few nights' trial the wearer will become so

disgusted with his own midnight serenading that his sleep will become

as sound and peaceable as that of a suckling baby.

And yet there is nothing vulgar in snoring. Chesterfield did it, and

so did Beau Brummell, and they were the two last men in the world to

do anything beyond the bounds of propriety, awake or asleep, if they

could help it. Plutarch tells us that the emperor Otho snored; so did

Cato; so did George II., and also George IV., who boasted that he was

"the first gentleman in Europe." Position has nothing to do with cause

and effect in snoring, as there are instances on record of soldiers

snoring while _standing_ asleep in sentry-boxes; and I have heard

policemen snore _sitting_ on doorsteps, waiting to be wakened by the

attentive "relief." We may be sure Alain Chartier did not snore when

Margaret of Scotland stooped down and kissed him while he was asleep,

or young John Milton when the highborn Italian won from him a pair

of gloves; though it did not lessen the ardor of philosophical Paddy,

when he coaxingly sang outside of his true love's window--

Shure, I know by the length of your snore you're awake.

But really, I don't know whether women _do_ snore. I'm not sure that

the mellifluous _soprano_ snore in the car was Nilsson's, and Paddy

may have been joking. I know that only male frogs croak.

W.G.B.

FABLES FOR THE YOUTH.

THE LION AND THE FOX. The Lion and the Fox once traveled in

company. Upon their coming to a public-house, it was agreed that the

former should go in and get a dinner, while Master Reynard kept watch

at the door. In stalked the Lion boldly, and ordered a haunch of

venison and a blood-pudding. The servant-maid, instead of fainting

away, bade him throw his mane over a chair and take his ease. Locking

the door as she withdrew, she sent for a policeman, and before night

King Lion was snugly back in the menagerie whence he and his companion

had that morning escaped.

Master Reynard, scenting what was in the wind, took to the woods and

was seen no more.

_Moral_: This fable teaches us to beware of that pretended friendship

which is specious and hollow.

THE JUDGEMENT OF PARIS. The Gorilla, the Hippopotamus and the

Snapping-Turtle were once upon a time partaking of a royal dinner at

the table of an opulent old Oyster, when the conversation turned upon

personal beauty. Each one of the guests present claimed for himself

that he alone was the favorite among the ladies for his handsome form

and features. As the wine had gone around freely, the discussion grew

heated, and upon the suggestion of the Gorilla it was left to their

host to decide between them.

In vain did Mr. Saddlerock (for that was the host's name) insist that

the point was too delicate for so humble an individual as himself to

presume to pass upon.

"Nay," said all three in concert, "tell us honestly what you think."

"But I may offend you," urged the bivalve.

"Oh, that were impossible," smiled the Turtle.

"Quite so," grunted the Hippopotamus.

"My dear friend," added the Gorilla with a leer, "as for myself, I am

so confident of being considered an Apollo that I wish for nothing so

much as your candid opinion."

"Well, gentlemen," replied Mr. Saddlerock, "since you all urge me

to disclose my real sentiments, I will do so. So far from being

good-looking, egad! it's hard telling which of you has the ugliest

countenance! In fact, you'd better draw lots for it."

No sooner had this remark fallen from his lips than he saw his

mistake. He ran to the window, jumped out and vainly attempted to

climb a tall sycamore in the garden. The Gorilla, seizing him with

a clutch like that of a vice, dragged him ignominiously back to the

dining-hall. Here the unhappy Mr. Saddlerock was opened, and the

wicked Gorilla swallowed his body in a twinkle, flinging thereafter a

shell to each of the other competitors.

_Moral_: When the powerful quarrel, don't let yourself become mixed up

with them or you may get hurt.

THE SANGUINARY DUEL. Two men fought a duel. Let us distinguish them

by the names of A and B respectively. It was a real, _bona-fide_,

powder-and-ball affair. A meant business: so did B.

It was a terrible encounter.

A had all the vocal part of his jaw shot off, and several useful

portions of his epiglottis carried away. Totally unfitted for his

business as auctioneer, he died some years after of dyspepsia of the

brain.

B parted company with his left arm, so he was compelled to pass

himself off as a disabled hero of the rebellion and accept a snug

little office in the United States custom-house, where there was

nothing whatever to do.

That is all.

The dispute grew out of something A had said about B. B said A said

that B said something, and B said he hadn't said it.

_Moral_: Don't duel.

THE DOG AND THE SPARE-RIB. A mastiff crossing a bridge, and bearing in

his mouth a piece of meat, suddenly swallowed the meat. He immediately

observed that the shadow of the aforesaid meat in the water had

disappeared.

Such is optics.

_Moral_: We learn from this fable that life is but a shadow.

THE ASS AND THE LOCOMOTIVE. A donkey one day was quietly munching

thistles when he heard the screaming whistle of a locomotive. Pricking

up his ears, he started into a gallop and raced across lots with his

tail high in the air.

_Moral_: This fable teaches what an ass he was.

THE MOUSE AND THE CAT. A mouse once peeped from his hole and saw a

cat. The cat was looking the other way, and happened not to see the

mouse.

Nobody killed.

_Moral_: This little fable doesn't teach anything.

SARSFIELD YOUNG.

A PICTURE WITH A HISTORY

In a number of _Punch_ for February, 1873, in the account of "Our

Representative Man's" visit to the Exhibition of Old Masters, occurs

the following sentence: "No 35. Oh, Miss Linley (afterward Mrs.

Sheridan), oh how lovely you are! Oh, Thomas Gainsborough, oh, Thomas

Gainsborough, oh! And if Baron Lionel de Rothschild, M.P., ever wishes

to offer a testimonial to one who knows nothing whatever about him,

and for no particular object, let him send this picture, carriage

paid, to the residence of your representative, who as his petitioner

will never cease to pray at convenient seasons, etc."

The picture thus apostrophized represents that "Saint Cecilia, the

beautiful mother of a beautiful race, [3] whose delicate features,

lighted up by love and music, art (Reynolds's and Gainsborough's) has

rescued from the common decay."

It is not unlikely that Sheridan or his wife may have presented this

picture to the Hon. Edward Bouverie.[4] A letter of Mrs. Sheridan in

1785 (she died in 1792) is dated from his seat, Delapre Abbey, and she

and Sheridan were _habitués_ of his house.

It was at the death of General Bouverie, grandson of Mrs. Sheridan's

friend, that her picture was sold, a few months ago, to Baron

Rothschild; and a romance might well be woven out of the circumstances

which caused this painting to be removed from the place which it had

so long occupied in the library of Delapre Abbey.

Delapre Abbey is a stately mansion occupying ground once covered by

a monastery, of which the only remains serve as offices of the more

modern edifice. Approaching the ancient borough of Northampton by the

old London road, you observe on your left, about a mile from the town,

a beautiful specimen--one of the only three remaining--of the crosses

which a king of England raised to commemorate the places where his

beloved wife's body rested on her last journey to Westminster. It lay

one night at the abbey, and, whilst that is almost obliterated, the

cross remains almost perfect after centuries have elapsed, and served

mainly as the model for that which has recently been erected close to

Charing Cross, where formerly another of these memorials marked the

last halt of the royal funereal cortege.

Mr. Edward Bouverie had several sons, and on the marriage of

the eldest Delapre Abbey and the estates attached to it were, in

conformity to common usage in England, settled upon the children of

this marriage, and, failing issue, on the general's younger brothers

and their sons in succession. The general's marriage proved childless,

his next brother also left no issue, and at length no son remained but

a certain somewhat ne'er-do-weel, Frank.

Frank was an officer in the army. Whilst quartered in the north of

Ireland he had fallen in love with a girl beneath him in station, and,

greatly to the disgust of his family, married her. His father, who was

deeply imbued with aristocratic prejudices, ceased to hold intercourse

with him, and except that occasional communications passed between

him and his mother, his relations with his family ceased. At length

he died, and as it became evident that his brothers would never

have children, Frank's son was obviously the heir. Under these

circumstances the family offered terms to the mother if she would

give up her son altogether and consent to his being bred a Protestant.

These overtures she declined. The advice of leading lawyers was then

sought, but they declared that the settlement of the property could

not by any possibility be set aside. Meanwhile the case suddenly

assumed a new aspect.

About twelve years ago a lady of prodigious energy and perseverance

made her appearance in the law courts of London, who was bent on

proving the legitimacy of her grandfather. By "much wearying" she

prevailed upon Lord Brougham to introduce a bill which became known as

the "Legitimacy Declaration Act." By the provisions of this measure

a person who believes himself heir to a property may cite all persons

interested to come in at once and show cause why he should not be

adjudged rightful heir and representative of a given person and

estate.

Frank Bouverie's son resolved, therefore, to take the bull by the

horns, and save all future trouble by obtaining a decree of court.

The family very unwisely resolved to oppose his claim. It seemed that

stories prejudicial to the character of the claimant's mother had been

in circulation, and the Bouveries grounded their opposition on the

allegation that the claimant [5] was not in truth a Bouverie at all.

On the other hand, ample testimony was adduced to show that Frank

Bouverie, notwithstanding his wife's irregularity of conduct, had

always regarded the boy as his son and heir; and one witness told how

the father had held the little fellow up to look at the picture of

his ancestral home, and said, "All that will one day be yours." So

the Bouveries' case broke down entirely, and the ex-private soldier,

ex-policeman, stepped into the fine old mansion of Delapre with sixty

thousand dollars a year. It is satisfactory to be able to add that he

has always borne an excellent character, and seems likely to duly

take his place as a country gentleman. Of course nothing but the bare

fabric and land came to him: the personalty was all left to his aunt,

the general's widow, an old lady near ninety, who yet survives; and it

was by her direction that the famous Linley picture once more changed

hands.

[Footnote 3: This lady's granddaughters, her son's daughters--the

duchess of Somerset, Queen of Beauty in the celebrated Eglinton

Tournament; the countess Gifford, mother, by her first husband, of

Lord Dufferin, viceroy of Canada; and the Honorable Mrs. Norton,

the well-known authoress--were famous in their day for beauty.

Gainsborough passed many years at Bath, where his intimacy with the

Linley family, then resident there, commenced. The following is from

Fulcher's _Life of Gainsborough_: "After returning from a concert at

Bath, where we had been charmed with Miss Linley's voice, I went home

to supper with my friend (Gainsborough), who sent his servant for a

bit of clay, with which he modeled, and then colored, her head--and

that too in a quarter of an hour--in such a manner that I protest it

appeared to me even superior to his paintings. The next day I took a

friend or two to his house to see it, but it was not to be seen:

the servant had thrown it down from the mantelpiece and broken it."

Gainsborough would now and then mould the faces of his friends in

miniature, finding the material in the wax candles burning before him:

the models were as perfect in their resemblance as his portraits.]

[Footnote 4: The history of the Bouverie family settling in England is

curious. The family had, prior to 1542, long been settled in Flanders.

In that year was born, near Lisle in that country, Laurence des

Bouveries, as the name was then written, founder of the English

branch. Laurence, from mixing with his father's Protestant tenants,

had imbibed some of their ideas, and his father, a stern Catholic,

told him that if he failed to appear at mass the following Sunday he

would have him examined by the Inquisition. In terror he ran away

to Frankfort-on-the-Main, and there had the luck to fall in with a

sympathetic silk manufacturer, who made him superintendent of his men.

Subsequently he married his patron's niece and heiress, and eventually

removed to England when Queen Elizabeth offered an asylum there to

those of the Reformed faith. His family made wealthy alliances and

prospered, and in 1747 his representative was created a peer. He

married, first, the heiress of Delapre, and her property went to her

second son, Edward. His eldest son by his second marriage took the

name of Pusey, and was, father of the celebrated Dr. Pusey.]

[Footnote 5: Lord Cairns, then Sir Hugh, opened the case for the

claimant, and received, it was said, two hundred and fifty guineas for

the work, which occupied about two hours. Sir Fitzroy Kelly appeared

as counsel for the family. He spoke for about fifteen minutes, and his

fee was the same.]

HINTS FOR NOVEL-WRITERS.

"Constance," said Philip to his sister, "I have got on very well with

my novel. I have written fifty pages, described my hero and heroine,

made them thoroughly in love with each other; and now I intend to part

them for a season, without letting them be certain of the state of

each other's heart. I think narrative my forte, but it will not do to

have no conversations, and my dialogues seem so short and trite. Do

look over this:

"'_Helena_. Your letter has arrived, I see.'

"'_Bertram_. Yes, I have just read it.'

"'_H_. Well?'

"'_B_. It says I must delay no longer.'

"'_H_. When shall you start?'

"'_B_. Tomorrow, at the latest.'

"'_H_. Have you told my aunt?'

"'_B_. Not yet: I must do it now.'

"'_H_. Shall you go direct to London?'

"'_B_. No: I stop one night at the Grange.'

"'_H_. Oh, then I will ask you to be the bearer of my letter.'

"'_B_. Is that _all_ you will permit me to do for you?'

"'_H_. I am careful not to burden my friends.'

"'_B_. Then you have no belief in true friendship.'"

"Well, Philip, let me try whilst you are at the office, and see what I

can suggest:

"'_Your letter has arrived, I see_,' said Helena, turning as Bertram

entered, letter in hand.

"'_Yes, I have just read it_,' he replied, advancing and leaning his

arm on the mantelpiece.

"'_Well_?' said Helena, stooping as if to warm her hands, but really

endeavoring to shade her face.

"'_It says I must delay no longer_,' he answered, trying to assume an

air of indifference.

"'_When shall you start_?' she said, resuming her work and fixing her

eyes on her pattern.

"'_To-morrow, at the latest_,' he replied, transferring the letter to

his pocket.

"'_Have you told my aunt_?' she said, searching her work-basket for

her scissors.

"'_Not yet: I must do it now_,' he said, putting back the little

ornament his elbow had displaced.

"'_Shall you go direct to London_?' she said, trying to disentangle a

skein of colored yarn.

"'_No: I stop one night at the Grange_,' he said quietly, but with an

air of decision.

"'_Then I will ask you to be the bearer of my letter_,' she added,

laying down her work as she spoke.

"'_Is that all you will permit me to do for you_?' he asked anxiously.

"'_Oh, I never burden my friends_,' she said, raising her head and

tossing back her curls.

"'_Then you have no belief in true friendship_,' he answered in a tone

of bitterness."

"That is pretty good," said Constance to herself, "but I will take

these two young people out of doors: perhaps Philip may be better

pleased:

"'_Your letter has arrived, I see_,' said Helena, advancing as Bertram

opened the garden gate.

"'_Yes, I have just read it_,' he replied as he secured the fastening.

"'_Well_?' said Helena, taking the path to the house.

"'_It says I must delay no longer_,' he replied, proffering her a

bunch of wild-flowers he had gathered in his walk.

"'_When shall you start_?' said Helena, turning away to pluck some

rosebuds, which she added to her bouquet.

"'_Tomorrow, at the latest_,' he answered, flinging aside roughly a

branch that crossed his path.

"'_Have you told my aunt_?' said Helena, tying the strings of her hat.

"'_No: I must do it now_,' he said, holding out his hand to relieve

her of her parasol as they entered the shady avenue.

"'_Shall you go direct to London_?' she asked hurriedly.

"'_No: I stop one night at the Grange_,' he said, inviting her by a

gesture to take a seat upon a rustic bench.

"'_Oh, then I will ask you to be the bearer of my letter_,' she said,

quickening her steps lest he should perceive her emotion.

"'_Is that all you will permit me to do for you_?' he said, with more

feeling than he had yet permitted himself to show.

"'_Yes: I am careful not to burden my friends_,' she added, drawing

her mantle round her and speaking in a tone of irony.

"'_Then you do not believe in true friendship_,' he replied as they

reached the house, and with a heightened color he threw back the hall

door and made way for her to enter."

NOTES.

Since the publication of the article on "Salmon Fishing in Canada,"

in the May Number of this Magazine, the writer has had access to the

_Report of the Department of Fisheries of the Dominion of Canada_,

for 1872. By this document it appears that an establishment for the

artificial hatching of salmon, whitefish and trout is in operation at

Newcastle on Lake Ontario, and that two millions of fish eggs were put

in the hatching-troughs the last season. Adult salmon, the produce of

this establishment, are now found in nearly all the streams between

the Bay of Quinté and Niagara River. A salmon-breeding establishment

is about going into operation on the Restigouché, and another is

contemplated for the Matapedia, both rivers of the Bay of Chaleur.

The reports from the river overseers indicate that under the system

of protection all the rivers are improving in the number and size of

their salmon. There were taken with the rod in 1872--from Grand River,

70 fish, average weight 14 pounds; Cascapedia, 139 fish, average

weight 22 pounds; Restigouche, 500 fish; Upsalquitch, 70 fish; St.

Marguerite, 165 fish; Moisie, 219 fish, average weight 18 pounds; St.

John, 147 fish, average weight 13 pounds; Mingan, 130 fish; and in

most of the rivers the young salmon are very numerous.

* * * * *

It is a familiar observation that great inventions are commonly

foreshadowed in theory or speculation, and very often are approached

gradually in a long series of tentative experiments before the

perfected result is reached. Exceptions occur to this rule, but they

are exceedingly few, since usually it is a general sense of the need

of any new device which directs mechanical skill toward supplying

it. Nevertheless, it is with no little surprise that one reads how

thoroughly a century ago the entire theory of the modern electric

telegraph was comprehended; for a most remarkable premonition, so to

speak, of this great device is contained in a letter recently brought

to public notice, written by the abbé Barthélemy (the once famous

author of the _Voyage of Anacharsis_) to the marchioness du Deffand.

"I often think," says the abbé, writing under date of Chanteloup, 8th

August, 1772, "of an experiment which would be a very happy one for

us. They say that if two clocks have their hands equally magnetized,

you need only to move the hands of one to make those of the other

revolve in the same direction; so that, for example, when one strikes

twelve, the other will denote the same hour. Now, suppose that

artificial magnets can some day be so improved as to communicate their

power from here to Paris: you shall procure one of these clocks, and

we will have another. Instead of the hours, we will mark on the two

dials the letters of the alphabet. Every day at a certain hour we will

turn the hands. M. Wiart will put the letters together, and will read

them thus: 'Good-morning, dear little girl! I love you more tenderly

than ever.' That will be grandmother's turn at the clock. When my turn

comes, I shall say about the same thing. Besides, we could arrange to

have the first motion of the hand strike a bell, to give warning that

the oracle is about to speak. The fancy pleases me wonderfully. It

would soon become corrupted, to be sure, by being applied to spying

in war and in politics; but it would still be very pleasant in

the intercourse of friendship." In 1774--that is, two years after

Barthélemy's letter--Lesage, a Genevese professor of physics,

guardedly intimated that an apparatus could be constructed to

fulfill these vague suggestions. There were a few experiments in

electro-magnetism during the succeeding half century. It was reserved

for our own Morse to put into practical application the grand system

which the abbé Barthélemy had so curiously foreshadowed in a freak of

fancy.

* * * * *

Endless are the blandishments and the seductive devices of trade. A

famous dry-goods store lately startled the shopping community of Paris

by opening a free restaurant, a billiard-hall and a reading-room for

the use and behoof of its customers. When ladies go to purchase at

this place, while preparing their lists a polite clerk escorts them to

the _buffet_, which is set out with ices, cakes, madeira wine, and so

forth; and, having ended their repast, they are again escorted to the

counter at which they desire to buy. But sometimes ladies bring their

escorts--husbands, brothers or other useful bankers and purveyors of

lucre--and the question arises, therefore, how to provide for them.

The device of the reading-room and the billiard-table is interposed

for this purpose, and a servant in livery informs them when the

buying is completed, and when their own duties--namely, of footing

the bills--are to begin. The care and ingenuity with which the French

guard against having any annoying moments in life are well exemplified

in this device. The free reading-room as an adjunct of the dry-goods

store is not wholly unknown in New York, but the free _buffet_ has not

yet, we believe, been transplanted there. A very much cheaper and a

far less praiseworthy mercantile trap for catching custom in the same

branch of trade also originates at Paris. One popular store has a

superb clerk, whose _spécialité_ is to place himself near the door,

and to murmur whenever a new customer enters, "Hum! la jolie femme!"

The storekeeper is said to have observed that the effect was immediate

and lasting, the new-comer remaining a faithful and habitual customer;

but this device is not to be ranked for breadth of enterprise with the

one already mentioned.

* * * * *

The project to turn the famous palace of Madrid into a museum like

that of Versailles inspires Angel de Miranda to recall the strange

vicissitudes of government which the vast, majestic edifice has

witnessed--it and its predecessor on the same site--during seven

centuries. Situated in the western quarter of the city, its principal

face dominates a grand esplanade called the "Field of the Moor," after

the Moorish camp there established in the twelfth century. A fortress

first, the original structure was turned by Peter the Cruel, a lover

of fine architecture, into a royal castle, or _alcazar_, as it was

then called, the word being borrowed from the Arabic. It became

thenceforth an historic spot of Spain. It was the prison of Francis I.

after Pavia. It was the dwelling of Philip II., who first made it the

official royal residence; and there died his son, Don Carlos,

whose tragic career has inspired so much dramatic literature, from

Schiller's fierce handling of Philip II. to the widely different

treatment of the subject by Don Gaspar Nuñez de l'Arce in his drama

played for the first time the past year. In the same palace, continues

Miranda, died Elizabeth of Valois. There Philip IV. had farces played

by ordinary comedians while the tragedy of his own downfall was

enacting without. A fire reduced to ashes the haughty Alcazar at the

moment when the Austrian dynasty disappeared from the realm, and

on its ruins Philip V., first of the Spanish Bourbons, built the

sumptuous palace that exists today. Stranger tenants even than its

predecessor's it was fated to see--Riperda, Farinelli, Godoy, who

began his political rise by his skill with the guitar; and Joseph

Bonaparte, to whom his fraternal patron said, "Brother, you will have

better lodgings now than mine." There Ferdinand VII. passed his life

in breaking his word, and there reigned Isabella II., first adored,

then execrated. Marshal Serrano established there his modest

headquarters as regent of a provisory kingdom, and there lived Amadeo,

who had the spirit to quit a throne which he could not occupy with

dignity. What a story of changed times and manners does it tell, when,

in a detached wing of this royal edifice, we find installed Don Emilio

Castelar, foreign minister of the Spanish republic!

* * * * *

"I must be cruel, only to be kind," says Hamlet. In a different sense

the kindness of some people is pretty sure to be cruel, their very

charity ferocious. There is a story of an old maiden lady whose

affection was centred on an ugly little cur, which one morning bounded

into her room with a biscuit in his chops. "Here, Jane," cries the

good lady, twisting the tidbit out of his mouth and giving it to her

maid, "throw away the bread--it may be poisoned; or stop, put it in

your pocket, and give it to the first poor little beggar you find

in the street!" The story is hardly overdrawn, for if "all mankind's

concern is charity," as Pope says, yet at least some of mankind's

methods of exhibiting generosity are questionable. An English paper

recounts that a Croydon pork-butcher was lately arrested for selling

diseased pork, and the man from whom he bought the pig, being summoned

as a witness, admitted that the animal had been killed "because it was

not very well"--that he was just about to bury the carcass when the

butcher opportunely came and bought it; but the strange point is that,

in a burst of munificence, "the head had already been given to a poor

woman who lived near." Evidently, the worthy pair thought this to be

the sort of charity that covers a multitude of sins; and to a question

whether their intents, as a whole, were wicked or charitable, they

might properly have answered "Both." The "charities that soothe and

heal and bless" are not the only ones that pass current under the

general form of almsgiving.

LITERATURE OF THE DAY.

Literature and Dogma: An Essay toward a Better Apprehension of the

Bible. By Matthew Arnold. Boston: James R. Osgood & Co.

This is a tract issued in the author's apprehension that our popular

view of Christianity is false, our conception of the Hebrew and Greek

Bible altogether hidebound and deadening, our notion of the Deity a

picture that is doomed to destruction in the face of science. As it

is a sincere scheme of individual opinion (though not of original

opinion, being largely made up of graftings from a certain

recognizable class of modern scholars), it could only be finally

disposed of by following it up root and branch in nearly all its

details, at the cost of writing a much larger book. No opponent will

be likely to give it so much importance. For our part, we are quite

content to exhibit a little tableau of the main theory advanced, and

let this tableau speak for itself.

We should perhaps begin with Mr. Arnold's matter, but it is hard to

represent him at all without doing some preliminary justice to

his manner--his attitude toward the Christian public, his dogma of

urbanity, and the value of his way of putting things as a likelihood

of making converts. This is the more appropriate as he thinks the

Founder of Christianity, and its chief promulgators, such as Peter

and Paul, gained most of their successes through manner. "Mildness and

sweet reasonableness" he believes to be the characteristic of Christ's

teaching--a presentment of truths long afloat in the Jewish mind

so winningly and persuasively that they became new and profound

convictions in all minds; and he believes that when these

characteristics were withdrawn or veiled the teaching was so far

ineffectual; that when Christ, addressing the Pharisees, abandoned

"the mild, uncontentious, winning, inward mode of working," there was

no chance at all of His gaining the persons at whom His sayings were

launched; and that Saint Paul certainly had no chance of convincing

those whom he calls "dogs." Now, it is inevitable for us to ask

ourselves what chance Mr. Arnold, undertaking the most delicate and

critical crusade that can possibly be imagined against the dearest

opinions of almost everybody, will have with _his_ method. The hard

hits which the Pharisees got, and which the early churches sometimes

received from Paul, were direct, terrible blows, adapted to a

primitive age: Mr. Arnold's hits, full of grace and sting, are adapted

to our own age, and are rather worse. When he calls Pius IX. the

amiable old pessimist in Saint Peter's chair, or when he calls Dr.

Marsh, an Anglican divine who had hung in the railway stations some

sets of biblical questions and answers which he does not approve, a

"venerable and amiable Coryphaeus of our evangelical party," he uses

expressions that will lash the ordinary Catholic and Churchman of his

audience harder than the fisherwoman was lashed in being called an

isosceles and a parallelopipedon. Not much more "sweetly reasonable"

will he seem to the ordinary Cantab. when he says that the Cambridge

addiction to muscularity would have sent the college, but for the

Hebrew religion, "in procession, vice-chancellor, bedels, masters,

scholars, and all, in spite of the professor of modern philosophy,

to the temple of Aphrodite;" nor anymore "sweetly reasonable" will

he seem to the ordinary innocent, conventional Churchman in asserting

that the God of righteousness is displeased and disserved by men

uttering such doggerel hymns as "Out of my stony griefs Bethel

I'll raise," and "My Jesus to know, and feel His blood flow;" or in

asserting that the modern preacher, who calls people infidels for

false views of the Bible, should have the epithet returned upon him

for his own false views; and that it would be just for us to say, "The

bishop of So-and-so, the dean of So-and-so, and other infidel laborers

of the present day;" or "That rampant infidel, the archdeacon of

So-and-so, in his recent letter on the Athanasian creed;" or "_The

Rock_, the _Church Times_, and the rest of the infidel press;" or "The

torrent of infidelity which pours every Sunday from our pulpits!

Just it would be," pursues the author, "and by no means inurbane; but

hardly, perhaps, Christian." The question is not so much whether such

allocutions are Christian--which they possibly may be in Mr. Arnold's

clearer aether--as whether they are adapted to his purpose of winning.

He manages here and there, indeed, in trying on his new conceptions of

old truths, to be exquisitely offensive. It will seem like trifling,

and it will keenly wound, for instance, the person of ordinary piety,

to have his "Holy Ghost," his promised "Comforter," called "the

Paraclete that Jesus promised, the Muse of righteousness, the Muse of

humanity," and to have this solemn Mystery lightly offset against the

literary Muse, "the same who no doubt visits the bishop of Gloucester

when he sits in his palace meditating on Personality." But he becomes

most elaborately and carefully outrageous when, combating this same

idea of Personality in the Holy Trinity, he calls it "the fairy-tale

of the three Lord Shaftesburys," in allusion to a parable which he is

at the pains of constructing about a first Lord Shaftesbury, who is a

judge with a crowd of vile offenders, and a second Lord Shaftesbury,

who takes their punishment, and a third Lord Shaftesbury, "who keeps

very much in the background and works in a very occult manner." This

seems like the talk not of a man who wishes to convince, but who

wishes to wound: it appears to be completely parallel with the method

of those dissenters, whom Mr. Arnold is never tired of inveighing

against, who use invective because Christ used it, and who hurl

epithets at a state church or titles. As for the new light which Mr.

Arnold has to shed on the Bible and religion, it is a recasting in

his own way of the old interpretation. He deals with miracles as Renan

deals with them, believing that credence in "thaumaturgy" will drop

off from the human mind as credence in witchcraft has done--that

Lazarus underwent resurrection, since, having found the Life, he had

passed through the state of death. The Hebrew God he believes to have

been a conception, not positive and pictorial as ours is apt to

be (influenced, perhaps, though Mr. Arnold does not say so, by the

efforts of Christian art), but a tendency to righteousness, a current

of superior virtue, plain enough to the Oriental mind without mere

personality; yet it may be objected to this that the Oriental mind

made for a personal God, when Jesus came, as delightedly as our Aryan

race could do. It is not, however, our purpose to expose much of Mr.

Arnold's theory. It will be accepted by some as the last effectual

mingling of literary grace and spiritual insight; but others,

especially when they find him saying that conduct cannot be perfected

except by culture, will think this work the sheep's head and shoulders

covering the bust of a Voltaire.

* * * * *

Rhymes Atween Times. By Thomas MacKellar. Philadelphia: J.B.

Lippincott &Co.

When we find actually embalmed in a book the simple and touching song,

"Let me kiss him for his mother," our first inclination is to take all

its merit for granted and hurry by, capping the matter as we pass with

the inevitable quotation which also begins with a _let me_, and refers

to making the songs of a people, with infinitive contempt for the

adjustment of their laws. The people for whom Mr. MacKellar's ballad

was made, being young women in ringlets who press the suburban piano,

have, we may reasonably hope, small need of the law any how, and

we may be pretty sure that the verses which have touched the great

popular heart are made in a spirit which is better than any law, even

the law of metre. On reading attentively the poem in question we

find a touching theme handled with simplicity, and in a certain sense

earning its popular place, though no poem could possibly be so good

as the simple fact--an ancient woman in a hospital at New Orleans

arresting the coffin-lid they were placing over a young fever-patient

from the North with the natural impulse, "Stop! let me kiss him for

his mother!" That little sunbeam of pure feeling, sent straight from

the affections of the people, is the real poet in the affair, though

Mr. MacKellar has succeeded in investing himself with its simplicity,

supporting his subject with tenderness and directness. When a writer

happens, with luck in his theme and luck in his mood, to strike such

a keynote, he is astonished in a moment by a mighty and impressive

diapason, a whole nation breaking into song at the bid of his whisper.

Mr. MacKellar doubtless would think it strange, and a little hard to

be told, that this trifle outweighs the whole bulk, body and sum of

his collection. He is a writer of old acceptance and experience, who

began to rhyme long ago in _Neal's Gazette_, with "occasional verses"

about "no poetry in a hat"--a question which was bandied, in the

fashion of the times, through half a dozen assertions and replies,

assisted by voluntaries from the public. A stage-ride from New York

to Singsing at that day was something of an adventure, affording a

subject for six cantos, which Neal was doubtless very glad to get for

his journal. Neal's death, and the parting with Henry Reed and Dr.

Kane, with some other local changes, extracted short laments from the

author, whose tone is nevertheless usually cheerful and canny; but his

ballad is his best.

* * * * *

_Books Received_.

The Philosophy of Art. By H. Taine, Professor of Aesthetics and of

History of Art in the École des Beaux-Arts, Paris. Translated by John

Durand. Second edition. Thoroughly revised by the translator. New

York: Holt & Williams.

Fleurange: A Novel. From the French of Madame Augustus Craven, author

of "A Sister's Story," "Anne Severin," etc. Translated by M.M.R. New

York: Holt & Williams.

Love is Enough; or, The Freeing of Pharamond. By William Morris.

Boston: Roberts Brothers.

Ralph Harding's Success. By the author of "Robert Joy's Victory."

Boston: Henry Hoyt.

The Mysterious Guest. By Miss Eliza A. Dupuy. Philadelphia: T.B.

Peterson & Brothers.

Madame de Chamblay. By Alexander Dumas. Philadelphia: T.B. Peterson &

Brothers.

Not Forsaken. By Agnes Giberne. Illustrated. Boston: Henry Hoyt.