course, traverse comme une flèche le navire d'un bout à l'autre, pirouette, se dérobe, s'évade, se cabre, heurte, ébrèche, tue, extermine. C'est l'entrée en liberté de la matière. . . . On a affaire à un projectile qui se ravise, qui a l'air d'avoir des idées, et qui change chaque instant de direction. L'énorme pièce avait été laissé seule. Elle était sa maîtresse et la maîtresse du navire. - Such an incident, admirably described, is admirably invented. The drifting of the bruised and wounded Claymore into the sea-fight, and the part of the action we are allowed to assist at, is magnificent. Lantenac and Halmalo in the captain's dingy also would be a capital dramatic situation but for a phrase that haunts us. Halmalo, the Breton seaman, reveals himself startingly as the brother of the man -the faulty captain of the rampaging gunwhom Lantenac has decorated for his atoning heroism and executed for his guilty carelessness. Halmalo, not knowing Lantenac for his liege lord, means to kill him. He pulls out a pistol, and bids him prepare for his end. They are in the captain's dingy on a remarkably billowy and broken stretch of sea. Lantenac, we are informed, se dressa debout: and again he is debout. For this read he sat upright and the uneasy feeling one has about the whole business is overcome. Considerably too much description is given to the Paris of the period, and to the Hall of the members of the Convention, seeing that none of the action of the story is carried on in Paris, and that the Convention has only in the abstract anything to do with it. The meeting of Robespierre, Danton, and Marat (Minos, Eacus, and Rhadamanthus he calls them) in the cabaret of the Rue du Paon was sufficient. There is no historical painting. The three heads of the Revolution are touched firmly, but after the well-known outlines. All the energy of portraiture is bestowed on the creatures of fiction, and this is right. Hugo's redundancies are past complaining of; we must make the best of them, as we do of his audacious paradoxes and fiery showers of epigrams. Beautiful sayings, true and noble thoughts, inexpressibly tender sentiments, are just as abundant. We need not refer to them; they will be discovered and made much of, as they deserve to be. This work of a poet seventy-two years old is written with no abatement of the vigor of his manhood; it is full of invention, artistic cunning, and a wafting wind that is not to be resisted. Hugo has but to lay his finger on children to make them adorable, and such a voyage autour de la chambre as the three little ones perform in the library of the tower of the Tourgue when the storming cf the château is in preparation and the shadow of a terrible destiny hangs Over them, could only have been imagined by this poet of children and powerful disposer of extreme and vivid contrasts. Little Georgette, waking, and looking at her feet as she sits up in bed, holding her forefinger upright and whispering, Misique" (music) at the sound of the bugle summoning the garrison to surrender, and roused by the first roar of the besieging cannon, to raise her forefinger again, and breathe "Poum," as she lies down tired to resume her sleep, is among the sweetest of Hugo's creations in the infant world. To conclude, "Quatrevingt-treize' is a representation of the civil war in La Vendée, performed by a company of types that are superbly inflated by the breath of an eminent and humane poet, whose prose has the quality of song. 66 FOREIGN NOTES. A NOT uncommon trick in Paris is for a person with a bad cigar to stop a gentleman having a good one, to solicit permission to light, and in the handing back manage to substitute the inferior weed. The other day two ingenious gentlemen with equally vile cigars tried this trick on each other with no very satisfactory result. THE King of Bavaria has addressed an autograph letter to Professor Wilhelm Kaulbach, congratulating him on the celebration of the twenty-fifth year of his presidency over the Academy of Arts at Munich, and has presented him with the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of St. Michael, in recognition of his great services in the cause of art. THE new observatory at Strasbourg has inaugurated its career by the discovery of a minute comet, which was picked up by Professor Winnecke about five o'clock in the morning of February 21. This object is of course quite invisible to the naked eye, and is by far the smallest of the many similar bodies which Professor Winnecke has discovered. It is announced that the Cotta firm at Stuttgart will shortly bring out a work by Gregorovius, under the title of" The Story of Lucrezia Borgia," which it is believed will throw a wholly new light on that tragic episode of Italian life. The work is to consist of two volumes, one of which will contain the text, and the other the materials upon which it is founded. THE Academy remarks that the article in the Cornhill on Dr. Johnson (which we printed last week) contains the first articulate account yet given of the relation between Johnson's personality and his writings. The author's theory is that the age favored his expression of himself in conversation, whereas in writing his tendency to the grandiose was an anachronism. DOUBLE-BODIED people are getting plentiful, and will create social difficulties. The latest we hear of is Blanche Dumas, a beautiful girl of fourteen years, who has been sent by Dr. Balle to the Paris Faculty of Medicine for examination. She has a double body from the waist downwards, having only one head and two arms. She is very well, but she is not a double-header. THE poet A. Barthet, who resided the last two years of his life in the lunatic asylum at Charenton, died last month at the age of fifty-four. He wrote three pieces: "Le Moineau de Lesbie," which was put on the stage of the Théâtre Français- Rachel taking the principal rôle -in 1847; "Le Veau d'Or," and "Le Chemin de Corinthe," which were not played, the author refusing to make the required alterations. The deceased leaves behind also a collection of poems, called "La Fleur du Panier." He was for some time secretary of the Théâtre Français. The remaining years of his life he passed in a state of melancholy, brought on by adversity. AN important discovery of archæological interest has been recently made in Norway. A tumulus, a few miles to the north of Frederikstadt, has been explored, and, embedded in a sort of stratum of firm clay at its base, has been found the hull of a vessel, made completely of oak, and evidently of great age. Both ends taper, so that it is difficult to tell the bows from the stern; the vessel, moreover, is rather "squat and low in the water. The length of the keel is about 44 feet and the breadth of beam about 13 feet. Various circumstances combine to prove that it must have been a war vessel for coast use; it was propelled by oars and sails, and there are traces of elaborate carving about the sides. In accordance with an ancient practice in Sweden and Norway, allusion to which is made in some of the Sagas, the vessel was brought hither to cover the remains of its captain, fragments of whose dress, horse accoutrements, and harness have been discovered. This vessel evidently dates from the time of the old Vikings, and the Society of Antiquaries at Christiania, with a due regard for its historical and archæological value, have caused the entire lot to be conveyed to Christiania with a view to its being set up within the precincts of the university. THE value of gymnastics as a means of strengthening the body has long been known; and a French professor of gymnastics, M. Paz, used to maintain, in the days before the war, that the French army, by reason of its gymnastic training, was "the only valid portion of the population." It was reserved, however, for a Japanese to discover that one particular kind of gymnastics is serviceable as a preservative against sea-sickness. In a Japanese account of European manners and customs, of which a translation was lately read by Professor Severini before a learned soci ety at Florence, the author states that swinging forms a regular part of a European boy's education, in order that having to seek his fortune in distant lands- he may not suffer from sea-sickness." The foreigners, "although good men of business and excellent horsemen," neglect, according to the Japanese writer, "that philosophical and literary culture so much esteemed by our own countrymen." Their habits of life, however, are eminently respectable; indeed, "they are as clean in their persons as the Japanese themselves." Finally, jealousy is an unknown passion among them; and "so much affection subsists between man and wife that it is quite a common thing to see a European married couple walking arm in arm in public." THE Court Journal tells the following story concerning a celebrated French actress. There was for sale, at the time she was in Rio Janeiro, a set of diamonds for which the owner wanted $15,000. The lady told a certain gentleman that she was enamored of the diamonds; consequently he inspected the jewels, found they were too dear, offered $12,000 which was refused, would not give a dollar more, and returned to tell his lady-love so. She thanked Mr. X– with her sweetest smiles, and got his promise that he would renew his offer the following day. That evening she called on the jeweler herself and tried to get a reduction of the price, but in vain. Eventually opening a well-garnished wallet, she said, "Well, Mr. Jeweler, here are $3,000; when my friend calls again, accept his $12,000 and the bargain will be complete; but not a word of my part of the transaction; lead my friend to believe that you take off $3,000 to effect the sale." The next day Mr. Xcalled, and after a great deal of talking, the jeweler, with seeming reluctance, took his check for $12,000 and handed over the gems. On his way to lay them at the lady's feet, he turned in to his club, and there met an old friend, to whom he showed the purchase. "My dear X——,” answered his friend, "is there no way to reason you out of this infatuation? You have the most charming wife in the world; you love her, but a coldness has wrongly sprung up between you, and you have become estranged, each too proud to own a fault and prone to wound the other. Be advised; give the diamonds to Mrs. X- -; follow up the peace-offering." The good advice was taken. X jumped into his carriage, drove home, and made himself and his wife happy. The actress sat waiting and wondering, until losing patience she went to the jeweler's, heard that the sale had been made, returned home, and waited again. Madame X-wears the diamonds to this day, and husband and wife are happy in the extreme. AIMÉE DESCLÉE, says a Paris correspondent, was buried on Tuesday (March 10), and it is needless to say that most of the dramatic authors in Paris and the first actors and actresses followed her remains to the grave. Alexander Dumas pronounced a touching oration over her tomb, taking on himself much of the guilt of her death. He had persuaded Aimée Desclée to renounce the provinces and to come to Paris. She expressed the fear that she would be unable to stand acting the same piece night after night in the presence of a critical audience. In the country she never played the same piece more than four or five consecutive nights, and the people put up with her eccentricities. She yielded, however, came to Paris, and played for a year; then she wrote to Alexander Dumas that she was worn out, and that she would only return if he declared she was indispensable. "She had just played FrouFrou, for a hundred nights that pretty little Parisian soul, born in a peal of laughter, evaporated in a tear." Alexander Dumas soon wrote to Aimée Desclée that she was indispensable, and she returned to the Gymnase and played in "La Visite de Noces" and "La Princesse Georges." The first comedy was only one act, and yet she threw so much of her being into it that on leaving the stage she had invariably to throw herself on a sofa and remain there for half an hour, just as Rachel used to do after a tragedy. Again she wished to make her escape. The manager came with a new engagement, and she wrote to Dumas, "I shall only sign it if you positively order me: in fact you must hold my hand. I shall finish by entering - a convent." And she went on to complain of her life as an actress. She seemed, as Dumas said, to cry to the public, "You wish to see how one struggles for life? Well, look at me. I am called sometimes one name, sometimes another, and yet it is always I, I the woman who hopes, who loves, who suffers, who complains, who cou bats, and who exhausts herself between the ideal she wishes to grasp and the reality which enlaces her." In alluding to the effort of creating a rôle, Alexander Dumas said this was not to be done without leaving behind a portion of one's self." "Do you remember Talma," he added, "uttering a piercing shriek on suddenly hearing the death of his father, and murmuring a few instants af terwards, Ah! if I could find that cry on the stage.' And when he found himself face to face with death, and looked in a glass, after examining his haggard features, he said, 'How unfortunate not to be able to play Tiberius with such a face as this!' It may be said that this was frightful, that it was monstrous, but it is thus. Genius is a fatality like anything else, and cannot be eluded." him THE story of Dickens's last years, as set down in the closing volume of Forster's biography, is, says the Saturday Review, as sad as it is simple. "We see a man of genius killing himself by inches in the effort to make money. The strong man breaks down by constantly straining his powers a little too far; the work which was once done spontaneously, without a conscious effort, has to be performed at high pressure, and with an ever-increasing sense of its painfulness; and, moreover, as Mr. Forster says self, the task under which Dickens ultimately broke down was one which, if not below his dignity, was at least not the highest to which he might have devoted himself. Should a man of genius show himself in public for money! Should a great novelist condescend to be an actor? These are questions which we need not answer; there is much te be said on both sides; but at least it is painful to see a man whose powers were in their way unrivalled, actually working himself to death in an employment which, to say the least of it, did not give scope for the worthiest emplo ment of his faculties. And what was the cause of this restless, unceasing, unsatisfactory labor? The answer is only too plain; but we preface it by one distinct statement. No man,' says Mr. Forster, could care essentially less for money' than Dickens. We fully and unreservedly accep the statement. We believe as fully as Mr. Forster ths Dickens was as generous a man as could be named, and was entirely above any sordid desire for money-making and yet he himself tells us in the plainest language that his primary motive for undertaking a task of this kind was the pecuniary reward. The pages of this book are pairfully full of the subject. He wanted, says Mr. Forster, to make a provision for his sons. It is impossible to avoid the reflection that he had apparently ample means for provid ing for a large family by the ordinary exercise of his pr fession. He was beyond all comparison the most popular author who ever wrote English. He twice received, 2a Mr. Forster tells us, a thousand pounds for a story not half the length of one of the numbers of Copperfield" and Mr. Forster adds that there are no other such i stances in the history of literature.' The success of his writings was beyond all precedent. The Christmas nu ber of All the Year Round had a sale of 300,000. He was to receive £7500 for 25,000 copies of Edwin Drood and to have half the profit of all sales beyond that n ber; whilst during his life the sales reached 50,000 copies Scott in all his glory was not to be compared with Dickens in point of immediate popularity. Surely, one would think a man in such a position might be independent enough pecuniary cares to allow his mind due rest, and employ upon worthy tasks. The arguments, however, which i duced Dickens to lecture in America in spite of Mr. Forster's dissuasion, are carefully given in a paper up on the occasion; and simply come to this, that he cal culated upon making £15,500 by eighty readings. O his return from America he continued his readings England; and calculates that by both together he will have made £28,000 in a year and a half." draw: EVERY SATURDAY: A JOURNAL OF CHOICE READING, PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY H. O. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY, 219 WASHINGTON STREET, BOSTON: NEW YORK: HURD AND HOUGHTON; Single Numbers, 10 cts.: Monthly Par 3,50 cts.; Yearly Subscription, $5.00. N. B. THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY and EVERY SATURDAY sent to one address for $8.00 STATE BOOK-CLUBS. Ir is always an advantage, when one has a theory to maintain, to have some real and actual field for displaying its practical application; and if there is no such field, then by all means invent one. A new Atlantis must answer if the old one is unserviceable; Utopia must be discovered *if there really is no Topia. Carlyle has called America the paradise of political economists, because there they could make their doctrines take legislative shape in the most good-natured manner imaginable; and makers of paper republics find South America a virgin field. We wish to exercise a similar right in applying our theory of town libraries, and by right of eminent domain seize upon Rhode Island for that purpose and annex it to EVERY SATURDAY. We choose Rhode Island for very simple reasons: its people are intelligent, and the State is of a handy size. We suspect, and honestly tell the reader so at the outset, that our theory would break down if applied suddenly to a more extended piece of ground, and then the latest Report of the Board of Education and Commissioner of Public Schools is at hand with convenient statistics. We stop a bit at this point to notice the peculiar character of this forked-radish little commonwealth. The State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, it calls itself; it has its two capitals, and so by some analogous law we presume it has its doubleheaded Report of the Board of Education and the Commissioner of Public Schools. A more important reason for our selection of Rhode Island is in our entire ignorance of what the several towns have done in the way of the establishment of public libraries. Very likely, if we knew, we should have to annex some other State, and we know of no one so handy to our office, and so portable. The scheme, then, which we propose, as soon as we have received our commission as dictator, is the establishment of a system of lending libraries in connection with the public-school system. The statutes of Rhode Island provide that the sum of ninety thousand dollars annually shall be paid out of the public funds for the support of public schools, apportioned amongst the various towns according to the number of children and of school districts, but that no town shall receive its proportion until it has provided an equal sum by taxing its inhabitants. It will be necessary, in order to carry out a system of public libraries, to make an appropriation, based upon the same census, of say twenty thousand dollars annually; to be appropriated, however, in those towns only which maintain a high school, and with similar provision that such towns shall raise an equal amount before receiving the State appropriation. The money given by the town may be for books, but it must be first for the additional payment of some person, presumably the high-school master, who shall act as librarian, and for the proper shelter and care of the books. The town, when it has made these provisions, may proceed also to buy books with the money raised which remains unexpended, and these purchases and all expenditure of money must be by the librarian under the direction of a committee of three citizens, elected at the town meeting, without distinction of sex. The towns which have complied with the conditions imposed by the State are now ready to receive the State aid; they have fitted a room in each high-school building for the reception and delivery of books, and have provided for the proper care and superintendence; they have in some cases found money still remaining in their hands which they have ready for the purchase of books. The State now prepares to do its promised share. The twenty thousand dollars which has been voted is not subject, in specified sums, to the order of the treasurers of the several towns that have complied with the conditions, but is expended in the purchase of a selected list of books, made by a special officer appointed for this purpose, under the advice of a small commission selected by the governor or dictator from the most worthy citizens of the State. These books are put into one uniform binding of sheep, stamped with the State seal, and contain the proper labels on the inside of the cover, showing to what town library they are sent and how long they are to remain. For here comes in the peculiar feature of our scheme. The State does not propose to give books to a town to form the nucleus of a growing library, but to lend from its own stock of books a certain number equivalent in value to the appropriation due, those books to remain say for one year, and then to be returned to the central library, whence they will be sent out to other towns, and their places filled with other books. By this method the State, selecting by the aid of its wisest counsellors books of permanent value, distributes them among its towns for the free use of the people, and every year provides a new collection, so that the same books may be lent in succession to the several towns until they are quite used up. The towns meanwhile may have their more permanent libraries, and may indeed, where certain books have proved very popular and desirable, obtain those very books of the State when the time of their loan has expired, or replace the copies with fresher ones. It is a misfortune in all our prevailing systems that permanence is sought, and not elasticity and variety, in the establishment of free town libraries. central office, by its records and by its communication with the several town libraries, could select the books every year with greater care, and could stimulate by its wise choice the taste for good reading. The Having reigned as long as we feel easy, we lay aside our sceptre with alacrity and leave Rhode Island to its own resources, free from the special legislation of EVERY SATURDAY. - NOTES. Hurd and Houghton, New York; The Riverside Press, Cambridge, have in press, for immediate publication, "First Steps in General History, a Suggestive Outline," by Arthur Gilman, M. A., author of "First Steps in English Literature," "Seven Historic Ages," etc. The plan of the history is to take up each country by itself and sketch it before attention is turned away, and in doing this the natural order is followed of the transmission of civilization. The book is furnished with maps and charts, a bibliography and very full index, and as a book prepared for students in this country, its treatment of the United States is fuller than that of any similar work. It is brought down to date. "Public Health" is the title of a volume soon to be issued by Hurd and Houghton, New York; The Riverside Press, Cambridge, for the American Public Health Association, containing the reports and papers presented at the meetings of the Association held in the year 1873. The contents cover a wide range of topics of great practical importance, by the president, Dr. Stephen Smith, Gen. Francis A. Walker, Dr. Nathan Allen, President Barnard of Columbia, Dr. Bacon of New Haven, President White of Cornell on "Sanitary Science in its Relations to Public Instruction," President Gilman of the University of California on "Californian Climates," Prof. Austin Flint, Dr. Ordronaux, Dr. Elisha Harris, and many others, closing with one by Dr. C. C. Cox, President of Board of Health, Washington, on the necessity of a National Sanitary Bureau. The volume will be freely illustrated by maps, charts, and drawings. The subjects generally have interest for organizations rather than for persons; that is, they relate to questions of health which must be settled by ordinance and combined action rather than by individuals in the conduct of their own private affairs, and the volume will have special interest for scientific sanitarians. -It is interesting to note the gradual assumption by volunteer associations of duties which press lightly upon individuals and are disregarded by political bodies. If we are not mistaken there is a general disposition upon the part of the best citizens to turn with a discouraged motion from Congress, State legislature, and city council, to that last resort in a republican country, public opinion, which, when enlightened and organized, has great power to restrain bad legislation. It will be noticed that public meetings increase in number and weight in every great emergency, and that they furnish the quickest and sharpest voice for expressing the sentiment of the community. It is said in a hopeless way that such meetings and organizations have no enacting but only advisory powers. Neither have the meetings of political parties of any other kind, yet political parties, so long as power they have vitality, wield an immense power; it is when they become corrupt that they are dangerous, and yet their corruption is a presage of death. - What was in the mind of the legislator who secured the enactment of the law of Massachusetts by which the money secured from the dog tax might be appropriated by a vote of any town to the formation of a public library in that town? It reads like a piece of wit. Perhaps the tax being laid with reference to the tendency of dogs without responsible owners to go mad, it was thought proper to apply the money to keeping drinking places open where wandering children could quench their thirst for wisdom, and so be saved from the madness that ignorance gives birth to. People are sometimes misled by titles of books, and disposed to set them aside as nothing to them. Especially is this true of many books that are regarded as professional books. We instance one, a Dictionary of the Bible. Why should that be reckoned useful only to clergymen and theologians, when the Bible itself is so human that no other book meets the needs of so many? Thus a dictionary which aims to interpret it, not by commenting on it, but by describing and illustrating facts and names mentioned in the Bible, becomes at once a repository of information which the idlest may refer to with interest, and which gives an answer to numberless questions which spring up in the mind of the most casual reader. The paper by Dr. Cox of Washington, referred to above, suggests another political change which we suspect is in process. People are getting to distrust the ability of Congress to act wisely and in a spirit of public interest upon questions which require special knowledge. Listen to the nonsense talked in Congress on financial questions, observe the disposition of art commissions, and consider the apparent absence of any intelligent direction of these matters. The remedy may lie in the selection by the President of his cabinet from Congress, so that the secretaries could present their measures in person and not through the medium of committees that have their own notions, probably at variance with the notions of the secretaries. The committees are supposed to be organized with reference to their special knowledge, but they are constantly changing and are subject to an immense pressure from private interests outsi le. The commissions which are growing up in the various departments — as, in the Treasury Department, the Bureau of Statistics, Commissioner of Customs, Commissioner of Internal Revenue, Light-house Board, and Coast Survey; in the Interior Department, the Census Office, Patent Office, and Bureau of Education - indicate the direction which may be taken to centralize intelligence rather than power at the capital. That is, make these subordinate offices fixed in character, dependent upon the attainments and skill of the officers in charge, and they will furnish the cabinet with intelligent material for the development of a settled policy, which through its membership in Congress it can present to the country and enforce by all the moral power of the government. Then if Congress refuse to sustain the policy which an officer of the cabinet presents and urges, he can resign his place in the cabinet and leave the President free to summon the leader of the opposition; but the under officers of government, who do the statistical and clerical work, can pursue their labor irrespective of any political change, because their work has no political bearing. What an excellent practice is becoming common of using note paper with the owner's name and address stamped in blind in one corner, or printed neatly in red ink! Business houses, of course, have long done this, but if people generally knew, what we shall not tell any one of them, that they do not write their names plainly, they would spare their correspondents much painful work at deciphering. It is easy enough often to read the crabbedly written letter of a man whose name can only be guessed at, because there is an association of ideas that helps one in the letter; but a man's name, so precious to himself, is like an arbitrary symbol in many cases. -Mr. Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen in the April Galaxy tells us, by authority of the orthographic sufferer, how to spell the name Tourguéneff; now if some one, say Björnstjerne Björnson, would kindly tell us how to pronounce Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen's name, we should feel less tired when we saw it. We have a kindly feeling toward the old darkey who got over his difficulty with patriarchal names in his Bible reading, "I call them all Moses, and let them go." Ir any evidence were necessary to prove that Nitrous Oxide Gas, when properly made and administered, is a safe anæsthetic for the extraction of teeth, it is afforded by the fact that the Colton Dental Association, in the Cooper Institute, has administered it to seventy-two thousand patients without an accident. EVERY SATURDAY. A FOURNAL OF CHOICE READING. VOL. I.] HIS TWO WIVES.1 BY MARY CLEMMER AMES. SATURDAY, APRIL 18, 1874. CHAPTER V. THE FIRST QUARREL: TURNSTONE PINNACLE. DID Linda Kane feel no reproach of conscience as she turned from her door with the descending steps of Cyril still sounding in her ears? She was not wholly bad; no one is. She must have felt some inward remonstrance, for she said aloud, "I can't help it, she took all I had. There was enough else that would have done for her, and made her happy; but she took my all, - all! and for me there is nothing left. Shall she have him in peace? Never! She shall pay my price for what she took from me. If she had not taken it, I would never have harmed her. Why should I live alone, - childless, homeless, while she has all! I must, but I will have my revenge. What right has she to be happy while I am wretched? Thus she dismissed the thought of Agnes, and weary from her journey and her lavish expenditure of vitality after it, she soon fell asleep, and into happiness; for she dreamed that she and Cyril were living together at Lotusmere, that little Cyril was her boy, and that it was only a dream that there had ever been an Agnes. Cyril strode into his library feeling that he was an injured individual. That Agnes should make a scene and reproach him for sitting with Linda to hear the news from Ulm, was indeed preposterous. "Outrageous!" he exclaimed with deep emphasis of bass, as he plunged into his study chair before his desk, and began rapidly to write. He resumed his task where he left it off, as he supposed for the night, and soon discovered himself pursuing it with a fluency and eloquence which had not touched it before. It was a class oration which he had been invited to deliver within the walls of his Alma Mater. He was proud, when he received the letter of invitation, to think that he had been chosen from all his class to deliver it. But in the state of his household it had been no easy task to write, and until to-night he had been tempted to depend upon whatever of impromptu inspiration the occasion might bring to him. Not so now. He was one who produced his finest brain-work under the deepest excitements. Linda's praises, with the thought of the journals of Ulm, of what they would say for and of him if this oration proved to be an intellectual and oratorical success, with the nerve excitement occasioned by his brief word collision with Agnes-all together quickened thought, expression, and pen, to astonishing celerity. It was morning, when turning from his desk 1 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by H. O. HOUGHTOX & Co., in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. [No. 16. in sheer exhaustion, he threw himself on the lounge near by, and fell at once into deep sleep. When Cyril shut the door and left her, Agnes felt as if she had received a heavy physical blow. She sat stunned and dumb. Cyril would come back, of course he would. He could not be angry with her! When he came back she would tell him that if she seemed querulous, it was only because she loved him so much - because she was so lonely without him, that she complained. She would tell him that she was sorry, and ask him to forgive her and love her as if nothing had happened. Long she sat waiting, listening, but he did not come. cold at last, and creeping into bed, drew her baby close to her, and her silent tears fell upon his wasted little face. They wakened him, and he sent out his accustomed wail. But Agnes did not think of calling his nurse, or Linda, or Cyril. She grew "You are all mine, baby, all I have," she said, with the exaggeration of sorrow, her low, choking sobs mingling with his faint cries. "Nobody will love mamma but baby-poor little baby! Will you live baby! Will you live to love her? And who loves baby like mamma? Baby, we are all alone." This thought was too dreadful to take on another word, and for moments no other divided the low sobbing and wailing of mother and child. "Where is papa, baby? Has he forgotten little Cyril and mamma! We must go to him." Again the tears fell in silence upon the baby's face. He slept at last. Then Agnes, rising softly, lest she might waken him, wrapped a shawl about her and with noiseless steps crept out of the room. She would go to him; she could not live the night through, she thought, he down there and she here, words, anger, desolation between them. He was Cyril, her husband, her idol. Earth held nothing for her, nothing, if he was estranged. She would tell him so. She would beg him, yes, beg him to forgive her. She creeps out to the upper landing softly-how softly! down the carpeted stairs, till midway she is confronted by a blaze of light from the open library door. In the same instant she hears Cyril's voice. "Is it possible!" says jealousy, the demon just born for her; "is it possible that she has followed him here!' No; listen! "What is it men love in genius, but its infinite hope, which degrades all that it has done? Genius counts all its miracles poor and short. Its own idea is never executed. The Iliad, the Hamlet, the Doric column, the Roman arch, the Gothic minster, the German anthem, when they are ended, the master casts behind him. Before that gracious Infinite out of which he drew these few strokes, how mean they look, though the praises of the world attend them. From the triumphs of his art he turns with desire to this greater defeat. Let those admire who will. With silent joy |