We forget these nineteenth-century people in the council-chamber, wherein reign Guido, Rembrandt, Claude, and even Da Vinci. If Leonardo really executed all the canvases ascribed to him in English collections, the common impressions of his habits of painting but little, and not often finishing that, do him great injustice. Martin Luther is here, by Holbein, and the countess of Desmond, the merry old lady

Who lived to the age of twice threescore and ten, And died of a fall from a cherry tree then,

is embalmed in the bloom of one hundred and twenty and the gloom of Rembrandt. The two dozen pictures in this room form nearly as odd an association as any like number of portraits could do. Guercino's Sibyl figures with a cottage interior by Teniers, and Lely's Prince Rupert looks down with lordly scorn on Jonah pitched into the sea by the combined efforts of the two Poussins. The link between Berghem's cows and Del Sarto's Holy Family was doubtless supplied to the minds of the hanging committee by recollections of the manger. Our thrifty Pennsylvanian, West, is assigned the vestibule. Five of his "ten-acre" pictures illustrate the wars of Edward III. and the Black Prince. The king's closet and the queen's closet are filled mostly by the Flemings. Vandyck's room finally finishes the list. It has, besides a portrait of himself and several more of the first Charles and his family in every pose, some such queer, or worse than queer, commoners as Tom Killigrew and Sir Kenelm Digby and Venetia his hopeful spouse, so dear to novelists of a certain school.



Vast sums have been expended on the renovation and improvement of the castle during the past half century. With Victoria it has been more popular as a residence than with any of her predecessors since the fourteenth century. What, however, with its greater practical proximity to London, due to railways, and what with the queen's liking for solitude since the death of her consort, the more secluded homes of Osborne and Balmoral have measurably superseded it in her affections. Five hundred miles of distance to the Dee preclude the possibility of the dumping on her, by means of excursion trains, of loyal cockneydom. She is as thoroughly protected from that inundation in the Isle of Wight, the average Londoner having a fixed horror of sea-sickness. The running down, by her private steamer, of a few more inquisitive yachts in the Solent would be a hazardous experiment, if temporarily effective in keeping home invaders at bay. Holding as her right and left bowers those two sanctuaries at the opposite ends of her island realm, she can play a strong hand in the way of personal independence, and cease to feel that hers is a monarchy limited by the rights of the masses. It is well for the country that she should be left as far as possible to consult her own comfort, ease and health at least as freely as the humblest of her subjects. The continuance of her life is certainly a political desideratum. It largely aids in maintaining a wholesome balance between conservatism and reform. So long as she lives there will be no masculine will to exaggerate the former or obstruct the latter, as notably happened under George III. and William IV. Her personal bearing is also in her favor. Her popularity, temporarily obscured a few years ago, is becoming as great as ever. It has never been weakened by any misstep in politics, and so long as that can be said will be exposed to no serious danger.

We are far from being at the end of the upper Thames. Oxford, were there no other namable place, is beyond us. But we have explored the denser portion—the nucleus of the nebula of historic stars that stretches into the western sky as seen from the metropolis. We lay aside our little lorgnette. It has shown us as much as we can map in these pages, and that we have endeavored to do with at least the merit of accuracy.

EDWARD C. BRUCE.



THE POET'S PEN.

I am an idle reed; I rustle in the whispering air; I bear my stalk and seed Through spring-time's glow and summer's glare.

And in the fiercer strife Which winter brings to me amain, Sapless, I waste my life, And, murmuring at my fate, complain.

I am a worthless reed; No golden top have I for crown, No flower for beauty's meed, No wreath for poet's high renown.

Hollow and gaunt, my wand Shrill whistles, bending in the gale; Leafless and sad I stand, And, still neglected, still bewail.

O foolish reed! to wail! A poet came, with downcast eyes, And, wandering through the dale, Saw thee and claimed thee for his prize.

He plucked thee from the mire; He pruned and made of thee a pen, And wrote in words of fire His flaming song to listening men;

Till thou, so lowly bred, Now wedded to a nobler state, Utt'rest such paeans overhead That angels listen at their gate.

F.A. HILLARD.



SKETCHES OF INDIA.

II.

I had now learned to place myself unreservedly in the hands of Bhima Gandharva. When, therefore, on regaining the station at Khandallah, he said, "The route by which I intend to show you India will immediately take us quite away from this part of it; first, however, let us go and see Poona, the old Mahratta capital, which lies but a little more than thirty miles farther to the south-eastward by rail,"—I accepted the proposition as a matter of course, and we were soon steaming down the eastern declivity of the Ghats. As we moved smoothly down into the treeless plains which surround Poona I could not resist a certain feeling of depression.

"Yes," said Bhima Gandharva when I mentioned it to him, "I understand exactly what you mean. On reaching an unbroken expanse of level country, after leaving the tops of mountains, I always feel as if my soul had come bump against a solid wall of rock in the dark. I seem to hear a dull thud of discouragement somewhere back in my soul, as when a man's body falls dead on the earth. Nothing, indeed, could more heighten such a sensation than the contrast between this and the Bombay side of the Ghats. There we had the undulating waters, the lovely harbor with its wooded and hilly islands, the ascending terraces of the Ghats: everything was energetic, the whole invitation of Nature was toward air, light, freedom, heaven. But here one spot is like another spot; this level ground is just the same level ground there was a mile back; this corn stands like that corn; there is an oppressive sense of bread-and-butter about; one somehow finds one's self thinking of ventilation and economics. It is the sausage-grinding school of poetry—of which modern art, by the way, presents several examples—as compared with that general school represented by the geniuses who arise and fly their own flight and sing at a great distance above the heads of men and of wheat."

Having arrived and refreshed ourselves at our hotel, whose proprietor was, as usual, a Parsee, we sallied forth for a stroll about Poona. On one side of us lay the English quarter, consisting of the houses and gardens of the officers and government employes, and of the two or three hundred other Englishmen residing here. On the other was the town, extending itself along the banks of the little river Moota. We dreamed ourselves along in the lovely weather through such of the seven quarters of the town as happened to strike the fancy of my companion. Occasionally we were compelled to turn out of our way for the sacred cattle, which, in the enjoyment of their divine prerogatives, would remain serenely lying across our path; but we respected the antiquity, if not the reasonableness, of their privileges, and murmured not.

Each of the seven quarters of Poona is named after a day of the week. As we strolled from Monday to Tuesday, or passed with bold anachronism from Saturday back to Wednesday, I could not help observing how these interweavings and reversals of time appeared to take an actual embodiment in the scenes through which we slowly moved, particularly in respect of the houses and the costumes which went to make up our general view. From the modern-built European houses to the mediaeval-looking buildings of the Bhoodwar quarter, with their massive walls and loop-holes and crenellations, was a matter of four or five centuries back in a mere turn of the eye; and from these latter to the Hindu temples here and there, which, whether or not of actual age, always carry one straight into antiquity, was a further retrogression to the obscure depths of time. So, too, one's glance would often sweep in a twinkling from a European clothed in garments of the latest mode to a Hindu whose sole covering was his dhotee, or clout about the loins, taking in between these two extremes a number of distinct stages in the process of evolution through which our clothes have gone. In the evening we visited the Sangam, where the small streams of the Moola and the Moota come together. It is filled with cenotaphs, but, so far from being a place of weeping, the pleasant air was full of laughter and of gay conversation from the Hindus, who delight to repair here for the purpose of enjoying the cool breath of the evening as well as the pleasures of social intercourse.



But I did not care to linger in Poona. The atmosphere always had to me a certain tang of the assassinations, the intrigues, the treacheries which marked the reign of that singular line of usurping ministers whose capital was here. In the days when the Peishwas were in the height of their glory Poona was a city of a hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants, and great traffic was here carried on in jewelry and such luxuries among the Mahratta nobles. The Mahrattas once, indeed, possessed the whole of India practically; and their name is composed of Mahu, a word meaning "great," and often to be met with in the designations of this land, where so many things really are great, and Rachtra, "kingdom," the propriety of the appellation seeming to be justified by the bravery and military character of the people. They have been called the Cossacks of India from these qualities combined with their horsemanship. But the dynasty of the usurping ministers had its origin in iniquity; and the corruption of its birth quickly broke out again under the stimulus of excess and luxury, until it culminated in the destruction of the Mahratta empire in 1818. So, when we had seen the palace of the Peishwa, from one of whose balconies the young Peishwa Mahadeo committed suicide by leaping to the earth in the year 1797 through shame at having been reproved by his minister Nana Farnavese in presence of his court, and when we had visited the Hira-Bagh, or Garden of Diamonds, the summer retreat of the Peishwas, with its elegant pavilion, its balconies jutting into the masses of foliage, its cool tank of water, reposing under the protection of the temple-studded Hill of Pararati, we took train again for Bombay.

The Great Indian Peninsula Railway's main line leads out of Bombay over the Ghats to Jabalpur, six hundred miles; thence a railway of some two hundred and twenty miles runs to Allahabad, connecting them with the great line, known as the East Indian Railway, which extends for more than a thousand miles north-westward from Calcutta via Patna, Benares, Allahabad, Cawnpore, Lucknow, Agra and Delhi. Our journey, as marked out by Bhima Gandharva, was to be from Bombay to Jabalpur by rail; thence by some slow and easy conveyance across country to Bhopal, and from Bhopal northward through Jhansi to Delhi and the northern country, thence returning by rail to Calcutta.

As one ascends the Western Ghats shortly after leaving Bombay one has continual occasion to remark the extraordinary resources of modern railway engineering. Perhaps the mechanical skill of our time has not achieved any more brilliant illustrations of itself than here occur. For many miles one is literally going up a flight of steps by rail. The word Ghat indeed means the steps leading up from pools or rivers, whose frequent occurrence in India attests the need of easy access to water, arising from the important part which it plays both in the civil and religious economies of the Hindu. The Ghats are so called from their terraced ledges, rising one above another from the shores of the ocean like the stairs leading up from a pool. In achieving the ascent of these gigantic stairs all the expedients of road-makers have been resorted to: the zigzag, the trestle, the tunnel, the curve, have been pushed to their utmost applications; for five continuous miles on the Thull Ghat Incline there is a grade of one in thirty-seven, involving many trying curves, and on nineteen miles of the Bhore Ghat Incline there are thirty tunnels.

That which gives tone and character to a general view of the interior of a railway-car in traveling is, from the nature of things, the head-covering of the occupants, for it is this which mostly meets the eye; and no one who has traveled in the United States, for example, can have failed to observe the striking difference between the aspect of a car in the South, where the felt slouch prevails, and of one in the North, where the silk hat is more affected. But cars full of turbans! There were turbans of silk, of muslin, of woolen; white turbans, red, green and yellow turbans; turbans with knots, turbans with ends hanging; neat turbans, baggy turbans, preternatural turbans, and that curious spotted silk inexpressible mitre which the Parsee wears.



Bhima Gandharva was good enough to explain to me the turban; and really, when within bounds, it is not so nonsensical a headdress as one is apt at first to imagine. It is a strip of cloth from nine to twelve inches wide, and from fifteen to twenty-five yards long. They are known, however, of larger dimensions, reaching to a yard in width and sixty yards in length. The most common color is white; next, perhaps, red, and next yellow; though green, blue, purple and black are worn, as are also buff, shot colors and gray, these latter being usually of silk; but this does not exhaust the varieties, for there are many turbans made of cotton cloth printed in various devices to suit the fancies of the wearers.

"The puttee-dar (pugri, or turban)," continued my companion, "is a neat compact turban, in general use by Hindus and Mohammedans; the joore-dar is like the puttee-dar, except that it has the addition of a knot on the crown; the khirkee-dar is the full-dress turban of gentlemen attached to native courts; the nustalik is a small turban which fits closely to the head, and is worn for full dress at the Mohammedan durbars or royal receptions; the mundeel is the military turban, with stripes of gold and ends; the sethi is like the nustalik, and is worn by bankers; the shumla is a shawl-turban; and I fear you do not care to know the other varieties—the morassa, the umamu, the dustar, the—"

"Thank you," I said: "life is short, my dear Bhima, and I shall know nothing but turbans if this goes on, which will be inconvenient, particularly when I return to my home and my neighbor Smith asks me that ghastly question, 'What do I think of India?'"

"It is a more 'ghastly' question as to India than as to any other country in the world," said the Hindu. "Some years ago, when Mr. Dilke was traveling in this country, a witty officer of one of the hill-stations remarked to him that all general observations about India were absurd. This is quite true. How could it be otherwise? Only consider, for example, the languages of India—the Assamese, with its two branches of the Deccan-goel and the Uttar-goel; the Bengalee; the Maithilee, Tirhutiya or Tirabhucti, spoken between the Coosy and the Gunduck; the Orissan, of the regions around Cuttack; the Nepalese; the Kosalese, about Almora; the Dogusee, between Almora and Cashmere; the Cashmiran; the Panjabee; the Mooltanee, or Vuchee, on the middle Indus; the two dialects of Sindhi, or Tatto, on the lower Indus; the Cutche, on the west coast of the peninsula; the Guserate, spoken on the islands of Salsette and Bombay and the opposite coast of the Coucan, as well as by the Parsees in the cities, where it is corrupted with many words of other languages through the influence of commercial relations; the Coucane, from Bombay to Goa and along the parallel Ghats where it is called Ballagate; the Bikaneere, the Marvare, the Jeypore, the Udayapore, of Rajpootana; the Vraja-bhasha (the cow-pen language) of the Doab, between the Ganges and the Jumna, which is probably the parent of Hindi (or Oordu); the Malooe, of the tableland of Malwa; the Bundelakhande, of the Bundelkhand; the Mogadhe, of Behar; the Maharachtre, of the country south of the Vindhyas; the—"

"It gives me pain to interrupt you, Bhima Gandharva," I said (fervently hoping that this portion of my remark might escape the attention of the recording angel); "but I think we are at Jabalpur."

Apropos of Jubbulpoor, it is well enough to remark that by the rules of Indian orthography which are now to be considered authentic, the letter "a" without an accent has a sound equivalent to short "u," and a vowel with an acute accent has what is usually called its long sound in English. Accordingly, the word written "Jabalpur" should be pronounced as if retaining the "u" and the "oo" with which it was formerly written, "Jubbulpoor". The termination pur, so common in the designation of Indian places, is equivalent to that of ville in English, and means the same. The other common termination, abad, means "dwelling" or "residence": e.g., Ahmedabad, the residence of Ahmed. Jabalpur is but about a mile from the right bank of the Nerbada (Nerbudda) River; and as I wished to see the famous Marble Rocks of that stream, which are found a short distance from Jabalpur, my companion and I here left the railway, intending to see a little of the valley of the Nerbada, and then to strike across the Vindhyas, along the valley of the Tonsa, to Bhopal, making our journey by such slow, irregular and easy stages as should be compatible with that serene and philosophic disposition into which the Hindu's beautiful gravity had by this time quite converted my American tendencies toward rushing through life at the killing pace.



It was a little past midday when we made our first journey along the river between the Marble Rocks. Although the weather was as nearly perfect as weather could be, the mornings being deliciously cool and bracing and the nights cold enough to produce often a thin layer of ice over a pan of water left exposed till daybreak, yet the midday sun was warm enough, especially after a walk, to make one long for leaves and shade and the like. It would be difficult, therefore, to convey the sensations with which we reclined at our ease in a flat-bottomed punt while an attendant poled us up toward the "Fall of Smoke," where the Nerbada leaps out eagerly toward the low lands he is to fertilize, like a young poet anxious to begin his work of grace in the world. On each side of us rose walls of marble a hundred feet in height, whose pure white was here and there striped with dark green or black: all the colors which met the eye—the marmoreal whites, the bluish grays of the recesses among the ledges, the green and black seams, the limpid blue of the stream—were grateful, calm-toned, refreshing; we inhaled the coolness as if it had been a mild aroma out of a distant flower. This pleasant fragrance, which seemed to come up out of all things, was presently intensified by a sort of spiritual counterpart—a gentle breath that blew upon us from the mysterious regions of death; for on a ghat we saw a small company of Hindus just launching the body of a pious relative into the waters of Mother Nerbada in all that freedom from grief, and even pleasant contemplation, with which this singular people regard the transition from present to future existence. These corpses, however, which are thus committed to the wave, do not always chime so happily in with the reveries of boating-parties on the Nerbada. The Marble Rocks are often resorted to by pic-nic parties in the moonlit evenings; and one can easily fancy that to have a dusky dead body float against one's boat and sway slowly round alongside in the midst of a gay jest or of a light song of serenade, as is said to have happened not unfrequently here, is not an occurrence likely to heighten the spirits of revelers. Occasionally, also, the black, ugly double snout of the magar (or Nerbada crocodile) may pop up from the surface, which may here serve as a warning to the young lady who trails her hand in the water—and I have yet to be in a boating-party where the young lady did not trail her hand in the water—that on the Nerbada it is perhaps as well to resign an absent-minded hand to the young officer who sits by her in the boat lest Magar should snap it off.

Leaving the Nerbada we now struck off northward toward the Tonsa, intending to pass round by way of Dumoh, Sangor, Bhilsa and Sanchi to Bhopal. We might have pursued a route somewhat more direct by following directly down the valley of the Nerbada to Hoshangabad, and thence straight across to Bhopal, but my companion preferred the circuitous route indicated, as embracing a greater variety of interesting objects. He had procured for our conveyance a vehicle which was in all respects suitable to the placidity of his temper; and I make bold to confess that, American as I am—born on the railroad, so to speak—I have never enjoyed traveling as I did in this novel carriage. It was what is called a chapaya. It consisted of a body nearly ten feet in length by more than five in breadth, and was canopied by a top supported upon sculptured pillars of wood. The wheels were massive and low. There were no springs; but this deficiency was atoned for by the thick cushionment of the rear portion of the vehicle, which allowed us to lie at full length in luxurious ease as we rolled along. Four white bullocks, with humps and horns running nearly straight back on the prolongation of the forehead line, drew us along in a very stately manner at the rate of something like a mile and a half an hour.

We were now in the Gondwana, in some particulars one of the most interesting portions of the country. Here are the Highlands of Central India; here rise the Nerbada and the Tapti—which flow to the westward in a generally parallel direction, and empty into the Gulf of Cambaye, the one at Broode and the other at Surat—as well as the Son, the Keyn (or Cane) and the Tonsa, which flow northward into the Jumna. The valley of the Keyn and that of the Tonsa here run across the Vindhyas, which are known to the eastward of this as the Kyrmores, and afford communication between Northern and Southern India. It is along the depression of the latter stream that the railway has been built from Jabalpur to Allahabad.

The eight hundred thousand Gonds of the Gondwana are supposed to be members of the great autochthonal family of ancient India. These hills of the Gondwana country appear to have been considered by the incoming Aryans for a long time as a sort of uncanny land, whose savage recesses were filled with demons and snakes: indeed, in the epics of the Mahabharata and Ramayana this evil character is attributed to that portion of India lying south of the Vindhyas. The forest of Spenser's Fairy Queen, in which wandering knights meet with manifold beasts and maleficent giants, and do valorous battles against them in the rescue of damsels and the like—such seem to have been the Gondwana woods to the ancient Hindu imagination. It was not distressed damsels, however, whom they figured as being assisted by the arms of the errant protectors, but religious devotees, who dwelt in the seclusion of the forest, and who were protected from the pranks and machinations of the savage denizens by opportune heroes of the northern race. It appears, however, that the native demons of the Gondwana had fascinating daughters; for presently we find the rajahs from the north coming down and marrying them; and finally, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the keen urgency of the conquering Mohammedans sends great numbers of Rajputs down into the Gondwana, and a considerable mixture of the two bloods takes place. With this incursion of Hindu peoples come also the Hindu gods and tenets; and Mahadeo, the "great god," whose home had been the Kailas of the Himalayas, now finds himself domesticated in the mountains of Central India. In the Mahadeo mountain is still a shrine of Siva, which is much visited by pilgrims and worshipers.



The Gond—he who lives back in the hills, far off from the neighborhood of the extensive planting districts, which have attracted many of those living near them to become at least half-civilized laborers in harvest-time—is a primitive being enough.

"Only look," said Bhima Gandharva, "at that hut if you desire to see what is perhaps one of the most primitive houses since ever the banyan tree gave to man (as is fabled) the idea of sheltering himself from the elements artificially." It was simply made of stakes driven into the ground, between which were wattled branches. This structure was thatched with grass, and plastered with mud.

The Gond, like the American Indian, has his little patch of grain, which he cultivates, however, in a fashion wholly his own. His sole instrument of agriculture seems to be the axe. Selecting a piece of ground which presents a growth of small and easily-cut saplings—and perhaps, by the way, thus destroying in a few hours a whole cargo of teak trees worth more than all the crops of his agricultural lifetime—he hews down the growth, and in the dry season sets fire to the fallen timber. The result is a bed of ashes over a space of two or three acres. His soil is now ready. If the patch thus prepared happens to be level, he simply flings out a few handfuls of grain, coarse rice, kutki (ponicum) or kodon (paspalum), and the thing is done. The rest is in the hands of the god who sends the rains. If the patch be on a declivity, he places the grain at the upper part, where it will be washed down by the rains over the balance of the field. Next year he will burn some more wood—the first burning will have left many charred stumps and trunks, which he supplements with a little wood dragged from other parts of the forest—on the same spot, and so the next year, by which time it will become necessary to begin a new clearing, or dhya. The dhya thus abandoned does not renew the original growth which clothed it, like the pinelands of the Southern United States, which, if allowed to run waste after having been cleared and cultivated, clothe themselves either with oaks or with a wholly different species of pine from the original growth. The waste dhya, which may have perhaps nourished a splendid growth of teak, becomes now only a dense jungle.

The Gond also raises pumpkins and beans; and this vegetable diet he supplements with game ensnared in the dhyas, to which peafowl, partridges, hares and the like resort. Many of the villages, however, have a professional huntsman, who will display the most incredible patience in waiting with his matchlock for the game to appear.

Besides these articles of diet, the aborigines of the Gondwana have their mhowa tree, which stands them in much the same multifarious stead as the palm does to its beneficiaries. The flowers of the mhowa fall and are eaten, or are dried and pressed, being much like raisins: they also produce a wine by fermentation and the strong liquor of the hill-people by distillation. Of the seed cakes are made, and an oil is expressed from them which is an article of commerce.

In addition, the poor Gond appears to have a periodical godsend resulting from a singular habit of one of the great Indian plants. The bamboo is said to undergo a general seeding every thirty years: at this period, although, in the mean time, many individual bamboos may have passed through the process of reproduction, it is said that the whole bamboo growth of a section will simultaneously drop its leaves and put forth large panicles of flowers, after which come great quantities of seeds much like rice. These are gathered for food by the inhabitants with all the greater diligence in consequence of a tradition—which, however, does not seem to be at all supported by facts—that the general seeding of the bamboo portends a failure of the regular crops. The liberal forests of the Gondwana furnish still other edibles to their denizens. The ebony plums, the wild mango, the seeds of the sal tree, the beans of the giant banhinia creeper, a species of arrowroot, and a wild yam, are here found and eaten.



It is not long since the Gonds had arrived at a melancholy condition under the baleful influences of the kulars, or liquor-dealers, who resided among them and created an extraordinary demand for their intoxicating wares by paying for service and for produce in liquor. The kulars have, however, been thrown into the background by wise efforts toward their suppression, and matters have improved for the poor autoch-thones.

We spent our first night in our chapaya, my companion having so arranged matters that we were quite independent of the bungaloos which the Englishmen have erected at suitable distances along the great roads for the convenience of travelers. The night was clear; betwixt the corner pillars which upheld our canopy a thousand friendly salutations from the stars streamed in upon us; the tranquil countenance of my friend seemed, as he lay beside me, like the face of the Past purified of old errors and calm with great wisdom got through great tribulation, insomuch that betwixt the Hindu and the stars I felt myself to be at once in communication with antiquity and with eternity.

Thus we pursued our ambulatory meditations through the Gondwana. If we had been sportsmen, we should have found full as varied a field for the bagging of game as for that more spiritual hunt after new ideas and sensations in which we were engaged. Gray quail, gray partridges, painted partridges (Francolinus pictus), snipe and many varieties of water-fowl, the sambor, the black antelope, the Indian gazelle or ravine deer, the gaur or Indian bison, chewing the cud in the midday shade or drinking from a clear stream, troops of nilgae springing out from the long grass and dwarf growth of polas and jujube trees which covered the sites of abandoned villages and fields,—all these revealed themselves to us in the most tempting situations. But although I had been an ardent devotee of the double-barrel, the large and manly tenderness which Bhima Gandharva invariably displayed toward all animals, whether wild or tame, had wrought marvels upon me, and I had grown fairly ashamed—nay, horrified—at the idea that anything which a generous and brave man could call sport should consist wholly in the most keen and savage cruelties inflicted upon creatures whom we fight at the most unknightly odds, we armed, they unarmed. While I knew that our pleasures are by the divine order mostly distillations from pain, I could not now help recognizing at the same time that this circumstance was part of an enormous plan which the slaughter of innocent creatures in the way of "sport" did in nowise help to carry out.

The truth is, although I had been for some days wavering upon the brink of these conclusions in a quiet way, I found the old keen ardor of the sportsman still burning too strongly, and I had started out with a breech-loader, intent upon doing much of the Gondwana route gun in hand. It was not long before a thoughtless shot operated to bring my growing convictions sharply face to face with my decreasing practice, and thus to quite frown the latter out of existence. It happened in this wise: One day, not far from sunset, I was walking idly along behind the chapaya, in which Bhima Gandharva was dreamily reclining, when suddenly a pair of great saras cranes rose from the low banks of a small stream and sailed directly across the road. Quick as thought—indeed, quicker than thought; for if I had thought, I would not have done it—I fired, and brought down one of the monstrous birds. As I started to approach it, Bhima Gandharva said, in a tone just a trifle graver than usual, "Stop! wait a moment," and at the same time halted the chapaya. The mate of the bird I had shot, seeing him fall, alighted on the same spot, then flew up, then returned, flew up again, returned again, with an exhibition of sad and lingering affection of which I had not dreamed, and which penetrated me beyond expression; so I stood half stolid outwardly and wholly ashamed and grieved inwardly. "The saras," said my friend, "is the type of conjugal affection among the Hindus. The birds nearly always go in pairs; and when one is killed, the other invariably makes those demonstrations of tenderness which you have just seen."

As we journeyed along in the dusk came notes from another pair of feathered lovers, "chukwa, chukwi," "chukwa, chukwi," in a sort of mournful alternation. They were the branning ducks, he on one side, she on the other side of the stream, as is their habit, whence they are fabled to be a pair of lovers who must yearn unavailingly through the long nights from opposite banks of the river.

That night, when Bhima Gandharva was asleep, I gently arose, took my double-barrel—thou dear Manton! how often has not Jonesville admired thee returning from the field at late evening slanting at a jaunty angle high above my bagful of snipe or of quail as the case might be!—yes, I took this love of a gun, together with the cartridges, accoutrements and all other rights, members and appurtenances thereunto belonging or in any wise appertaining, and slid the whole lot softly into a deep green pool of the very stream from which had flown my saras.

The taste of gypsy life which I was now enjoying contributed to add a sort of personal element to that general interest which hangs about the curious Banjaris, whom we met constantly, with their families and their bullocks, along our road. Banjara is literally "forest-wanderer." The women were especially notable for their tall stature, shapely figures and erect carriage; which circumstances are all the more wonderful from the life of hardship which they lead, attending as they do at once to the foraging of the cattle, the culinary preparations for the men and the cares of the children. From the profusion of ornaments which they wore, one may imagine, however, that they were well cared for by their lords in return for their affectionate labors; and the general bearing of the tall Banjara who bore a long two-handed sword gave evidence of a certain inward sense of protection over his belongings which probably found vent in many an affectionate gift of rings and bracelets to his graceful partner. It must be confessed that the gypsying of these Eastern Bohemians is not so free a life as is popularly supposed. The naik or sovereign of each tanda, or camp, seems to be possessed of absolute power, and in this connection the long two-handed sword suggested much less gentle reflections. The Banjara, however, though a nomad, is a serviceable one, for he is engaged in trade. With his bullocks he is the carrier of Central India, and is to be met with all over that section, bringing salt and other commodities and returning with interior produce.



FRA ALOYSIUS

Fra Aloysius, vexed with skeptic fears, Nigh crazed with thought to all the saints did pray For faith in those mysterious words that say, "One day is with the Lord a thousand years, A thousand years with Him are as a day."

An erudite and holy monk was he, And yet his brethren trembled lest his brain Should lose its poise, so long he dwelt in vain On that perplexing verse to find its key, And strove to make its hidden meaning plain.

Racked by a sleepless night, one fresh spring morn Forth from the cloister Aloysius strolled. The wood was dewy-bright, clear beams of gold Illumined it, and to his heart was borne A sense of freedom, peace and joy untold.

Beside a laughing brook he sat to rest, Above whose wave did long-haired willows weep; Midmost the dense green forest, still and deep, Lulled by the trickling waters and possessed By tranquil thoughts, the friar fell asleep.

And, overworn, he slept the livelong day, Nor waked until the twilight shadows fell, That flung a brown night o'er that leafy dell. Then up he rose refreshed and went his way, And, half ashamed, he heard the vesper-bell.

Back to the convent fared he; at the gate A stranger gave him entrance, but he passed Into the chapel with meek eyes downcast, In truant guise returning home thus late, And toward his wonted seat made seemly haste.

Too late! a stranger filled it. Looking round, Amazed, he could discern no face he knew. The abbot's self had changed; his wonder grew, When, after the familiar chant, he found These crazy monks held him for crazy too.

They gathered round with curious, eager eyes. "What cloister's this?" he asked. They named its name: The one he left that morning was the same. His name he gave; with many a wild surmise They guessed who he might be and whence he came.

He asked them where the abbot was at last, From whom he parted but the night before. "He hath been dead three hundred years and more!" They answered with a single voice, aghast. Then spake a friar versed in monkish lore:

"Brethren, a miracle! This man I know: 'Tis Aloysius, who, as I have read, Beset with doubts, forth from this convent fled, And vanished, some three hundred years ago, And all the world hath counted him as dead."

Then Aloysius felt the blessed tears Fulfill his eyes, whence dropped the scales away. Kneeling, he cried, "Oh, brethren, let us pray. One day is with the Lord a thousand years, A thousand years with Him are as a day."

EMMA LAZARUS.



A FEW HOURS IN BOHEMIA.

The beauty of this country is that no turbulent sea confines its borders, nor are martello-towers needed to guard its coast: no jealous neighbor threatens its frontier, no army oppresses its citizens, and no king can usurp its throne. Its locality is hard to define: like the Fata Morgana, it is here to-day and gone to-morrow, for its territory is the mind of men, and in extent it is as boundless as thought. Natives of every clime are enrolled among its freemen, and all lands contain its representatives, but it is in the picturesque streets of the older continental cities of Europe, where rambling lodgings and cheap apartments are many, that the invisible mother-country founds her colonies. I will tell you how I went and what I saw there.

Afra was a cosmopolite, and consequently knew Bohemia, its byways and thoroughfares. If any one could fill the office of guide thereto, Afra could, and when one evening she rushed into my room saying, "Come along if you want to go to Bohemia," I did not hesitate a moment, but made ready for the journey, with the simple precaution of putting on my bonnet and shawl.

"A cab?" I asked as we moved from the door.

"Who ever heard of entering Bohemia in a cab?" laughed Afra dryly. "People have been known to drive out in their own carriages, but they always make their first appearance there on foot, or at best in an omnibus."

"As you please," I replied, trying to keep pace with her rapid step, which showed constant practice.

"I wonder you did not propose a balloon," she continued pettishly. "The gods don't give everything to one person: now, they give us brains, and they give other people—money."

"If you would understand, I—"

"No, you wouldn't. I sha'n't ride in cabs until I can pay for them myself; meanwhile, I have gros sous enough in my pocket for an omnibus fare, and if you have the same we will stop here." At this she entered a bureau, and as I followed I saw her get some tickets from a man who sat behind a small counter, and then composedly sit down on a bench while she said, "We shall have some time to wait for our luxury:" then showing me the tickets, "Twelve and thirteen: it is a full night, and all these people ahead of us."

"Is it a lottery?" I asked ignorantly.

"Very much of a lottery," Afra replied grimly—"like all the ways of Bohemia, remarkably uncertain. You get a ticket for something in the giving of the Muses, and you wait until your number is called. The worst of it is, the most unlikely people are called before you, and some get disgusted and leave: there goes one out at the door at this moment. Well, he may be better or he may be worse off than those who finally win: who knows if any race is worth the running? Still, if you have courage to hold on, I believe there is no doubt that every one ultimately gets something." Seeing my perplexity, she twisted the round tickets between her fingers and added, "Do not be alarmed: these are only good for a seat in the first empty 'bus that comes up. The conductor will call out the numbers in rotation, and if ours is among them we shall go. It is frightful that you have never ridden in a 'bus before. I wonder where we should get ideas if we shut ourselves up in cabs and never walked or were hungry or tired, and thought only of our own comfort from morning till night? You don't know what you miss, you poor deluded, unfortunate rich people. I will tell you of something I saw the other evening; and, as it is worthy of a name, it shall be called 'The Romance of an Omnibus.' Listen! isn't that our numbers I heard? Yes: come quick or we shall lose our chance."

"Well," said I when we had successfully threaded the crowd and were seated—"the romance."

"You have no idea of the fitness of things. My story is pathetic: it will look badly to see you drowned in tears—people will stare."

"I promise not to cry."

"Oh, if you are one of those stolid, unemotional beings who are never moved, I sha'n't waste my tale upon you. Wait until to-morrow: we will get Monsieur C—— to recount, and you shall hear something worth listening to. He is a regular troubadour—has the same artless vanity they were known to possess, their charming simplicity, their gestures, and their power of investing everything with romance. One is transported to the Middle Ages while he speaks: no book written on the subject could so fully give you the flavor of the times. He recalls Froissart. If you are not affected by C——'s stories, you had better pretend to be. But that, I am sure, will not be necessary: a great tragedian was lost when he became a great painter."

"Might I ask how and when and where I am to meet this wonderful man?"

"At the garden-party."

"In what way am I to get there?"

"By strategy. There is a little reunion to-night of what may be called female Bohemians. They are going to settle the preliminaries of this party, and if you happen to be present they will invite you; not that they particularly care for your company, but because, as I said, you happen to be there. Only don't get yourself into a mess by tramping on any one's toes."

"Have they corns?"

"Yes, on every inch of surface: they are dreadfully thin-skinned. But they hate sham even more than a hard knock, and are quicker than a police-officer in detecting it; so be careful not to talk about anything you are ignorant of."

"Give me a few rules, and I promise to conduct myself properly."

"Well, don't be snobbish and patronize them, and don't look shocked at any strange opinions you hear, nor act as if you were at an animal show and were wondering what would happen next. Be sure not to assent when you see they wish to argue, and don't argue when they expect acquiescence. If any of them speak in broken English, and you can't for the life of you understand, don't ask them to repeat, but answer immediately, for you can imagine when one has taken pains to learn a foreign language one likes it to be appreciated, and don't—But here we are. In short, make yourself at home, as if you had been there all your life."

"Afra," I said, laying my hand on her arm as she took to her swift pace again, "perhaps I had better go home: I am afraid I can't—I think—that is—"

"Nonsense! as if you could not get on after all those hints! Anyway, you cannot return alone, and I am unable to go with you. Make up your mind to blunder, and do it. There was an amateur visited the studio about three months ago: her absurdities have lasted us for laughing material ever since. As she is getting rather stale, you can take her place. This is the house: come in."

With this doubtful prospect in view I followed my peremptory guide from the narrow street into what appeared to be a spacious court, but as the only light it received was from a blinking candle in the window of the conciergerie, I could not determine. After exchanging some cabalistic sentences with a toothless old woman, the proprietor of the candle, Afra turned to the right, and walking a few steps came to a door opening on a stairway, which we mounted. I can think of nothing black enough for comparison with the darkness surrounding us. At last a faint glimmer showed an old lamp standing in a corner of a hall bare and carpetless. A series of doors flanked the place, looking to my unaccustomed eyes all alike, but Afra without a moment's hesitation went to one of them and knocked. It was opened by a lady, who smiled and said, "Enter. You are just in time: school is over and the model about going."

I found myself in a high-ceiled room, at one end of which was suspended a row of perhaps a dozen lamps. Here, at least, there was-no lack of light: it required some moments to accustom our eyes to the sudden contrast. The yellow blaze was directed by reflectors into the space immediately beneath the lamps, which left the rest of the room pleasantly tempered. Some easels, a few chairs and screens, plaster casts on shelves, sketches in all stages of progress on the wall, a tea-kettle singing over a bright fire in a stove, and a curtain enclosing a corner used as a bedroom, completed the list of furniture. It was a night-school for lady artists. The class had finished for the evening, and a number of the students were moving about or seated near the fire, talking in an unlimited number of languages.

I was given several random introductions, and did my best to follow Afra's directions; but there was an indescribable quaintness about the appearance and manners of my new acquaintance that made it difficult not to stare. I found, however, that little notice was taken of me, as a lively discussion was being carried on over a study of an arm and hand which one of them was holding up for inspection.

"It is a style I should call the lantern," said she. "The redness of the flesh can only be accounted for on the supposition that a light is shining through it."

"I should call it raw beef," remarked another.

"It is a shame, mademoiselle!" began the model in an injured tone. She had been tying on her bonnet before a bit of looking-glass she had taken from her pocket. "Does my arm look like that?" Here she indignantly drew up her sleeve and held out that dimpled member, meanwhile gazing wrathfully at the sketch. "It ought not to be allowed. The silver tones of my flesh are entirely lost; and see how you have caricatured the elegance of my beautiful hand. Will not some one help mademoiselle to put it right before my reputation is ruined?"

"Jeanne, a model is not a critic," said the author of the drawing, coming forward and grasping the canvas with no gentle hand.—"Ladies, if you wish to find fault, turn to your own studies. That proportion is frightful"—she pointed to different sketches as she spoke—"that ear is too large; and, madame, if you take a crust of paint like yours for freedom of touch, I pity you."

This dispute was by no means the last during the evening. Opinions seemed to be plentiful in Bohemia, each individual being furnished with a set of her own on every subject broached; and as no diffidence was shown in putting them forth, the company quarreled with great good-nature and evident enjoyment. A pot of tea was then brewed by the owner of the studio, who had been English before she became Bohemian, and the beverage was handed round in tea-cups which, like the opinions of the guests, differed widely from each other. In the silence that attended this diversion Afra took the floor and said, "How about the garden-party to the country? Who is going?"

Several spoke, and one asked, "Shall we take lunch with us?"

"No, something will be provided for us there."

"So much the better. When are we to meet, and where?"

"Twelve o'clock, midday, at ——."

"What messieurs are going?"

"Quite a number—a tenor from the Grand Opera, and the leader of the orchestra, who is a magnificent violinist; that new Spanish painter who plays the guitar divinely; a poet—that is, he has written some pretty songs—besides plenty more."

"That promises well."

"You will bring your friend?" and the speaker nodded her head toward me.

"I shall be delighted: I am so curious to see those eccentric—" Here a warning glance from Afra stopped me.

But the lady only laughed and said, "You will see eccentricity enough to-morrow, if that is what you want. People who devote their minds to great objects have no time to think of little things. You had better see that Afra has on her bonnet or she will go without one."

"Nonsense!" replied Afra.—"Miss," this to the owner of the studio, who was so called in honor of her English birth, "are you ever troubled by the ghost of that young painter who hung himself up there?"

"Those who have occasion to commit suicide are not likely to come back: they have had enough of this world," said the Englishwoman.

"Did some one really die here?" I asked.

"Yes, really;" and Afra mimicked my tone of horror. "You know, a Bohemian is at home anywhere, so a change of country don't affect him much. If we find a place disagreeable, we travel."

"Was he insane?"

"Not more than the rest of us, but you can't understand the feeling that would induce a man to do such a thing. This young fellow painted a picture: he put his mind, his soul, himself, into it, and sent it to the Exhibition. It was rejected—that is, he was rejected—and he came here and died. They found him suspended from that beam where the lamps hang now."

"I thought your Bohemia was so gay?"

"So it is, but the brightest light makes the deepest shadows."

The conversation went on. These ladies discussed politics, literature, art and society with absolute confidence. One of the topics was Alfred de Musset. The Englishwoman was praising the English Alfred, when a pale-faced girl, who up to this moment had been intently reading, oblivious of all about her, closed her book with a snap (it was a much-worn edition of one of the classics, bought for a few sous on the quay) and broke out with—"Your Tennyson is childish. His King Arthur puts me in mind of our Louis Philippe and his umbrella. Did you know Louis carried an umbrella with him when he was obliged to fly from Paris? One would have looked well held over Arthur's dragon helmet that disagreeable night he left the queen to go and fight his nephew. But perhaps Guinevere had lent it to Launcelot, and even the best friends, alas! do not return umbrellas. Your poet writes in white kid gloves, and thinks in them too. Imagine the magnificent rush and struggle of those ancient days, the ecstasy of battle, the intensity of life, and then read your Tennyson's milk-and-water tales, with their modern English-menage feelings. Arthur would have been much more likely to give his wife a beating, as did the hero of the Nibelungen Lied, than that high-flown lecture; and it would have done the Guinevere of that time more good."

"And what is your Alfred, Anita?"

"He is divine."

"After the heathen pattern. He dipped his pen in mire."

"What is mire?—water and earth. What are we?—water and earth. Mire is humanity, and holds in itself not only the roots of the tree, but the germ of the flower. A poet who is too delicate to plant his thought in earth must be content to give it but the life of a parasite: it can have no separate existence of its own."

"But one need not be bad to be great."

"Nor need one be good to be great," returned Anita sarcastically. "Alfred de Musset was a peculiar type of a peculiar time. He did not imagine: he felt, he lived, he was himself, and was original, like a new variety of flower or a new species of insect. Tennyson has gleaned from everybody's fields: our Alfred gathered only from his own. The one is made, the other is born."

"Come away," said Afra impatiently: "no one can speak while Anita is on her hobby. Besides, I must get home early to trim a bonnet for to-morrow;" and without more leavetaking than a "Good-evening," which included every one, we found ourselves in the street.

"Who is Anita?" I asked.

"She is nobody just now: what she will be remains to be seen. Her family wish her to be an artist: she wishes to adopt the stage as a profession, and is studying for it sub rosa. Did you ever see a more tragic face?"

"Poor thing!" I involuntarily exclaimed.

"Don't pity her," said Afra, more seriously than she had yet spoken. "The best gift that can be bestowed upon a mortal is a strong natural inclination for any particular life and the opportunity of following it. The man or woman who has that can use the wheel of Fate for a spinning-wheel."

The next morning at the appointed time I met Afra at the station. "How do I look?" she asked, standing up for my inspection as soon as I appeared in sight, at the same time regarding as much of her dress as it was possible for her to see. But before I could reply the satisfied expression of her face changed: an unpleasant discovery had been made. "I have shoes on that are not mates," she exclaimed—"cloth and leather: that looks rather queer, doesn't it? Do you think it will be noticed? I could not decide which pair to wear, and put on one of each to see the effect: afterward I forgot them. Now, I suppose that would be thought eccentric, though any one might make the same mistake. It shows I have two pairs of shoes," she added more cheerfully, "and they are both black. How is my bonnet?"

The bonnet was black velvet, and we were in midsummer. The material, however, was skillfully draped with a veil, and a profusion of pink flowers gave it a seasonable air. A crimson bow was also tied at her neck; she complacently remarked that "pink and crimson harmonize beautifully;" and others of the party arriving at that moment, I was saved the trouble of making a polite answer.

The ride through ripening grain-fields and moss-thatched hamlets need not be described; suffice it to say, it was France and June. An omnibus was waiting at the station where we dismounted: it carried us near, but not to, our destination. After leaving it we walked through the streets of a low-roofed village, then followed a path bordered with wild mignonette and apple trees that wound up the side of a hill covered with vineyards. A couple of chattering magpies ran before us, an invisible cuckoo was heard between snatches of Italian melody warbled by the tenor sotto voce and the little company overflowed with gayety.

The house we arrived at looked as if it might be a castle in the air materialized—pointed windows hidden in ivy, through which you saw the chintz-covered walls of the interior; turrets on the roof and a stair-tower; odd nooks for pigeons and cattle; the color a weather-toned red, met by gray roofs, green trees and blue sky. We passed through it to the quaint garden: rows of dwarf pears bordered its paths, and trellises and walls supported nectarines and vines, with sunshine and shadow caressing the half-ripe fruit.

The shady spaces were occupied by guests who had arrived before us, and we saw with pleasure that ceremony had not been invited to attend. The host's kindly manner was sufficient to put the company at once at ease. We wandered at will from group to group, listening or conversing: introductions were sometimes given, but more often not.

At one table some ladies and gentlemen were playing the artistic game of "five points." A more difficult pastime was never invented. The materials necessary are simply a piece of paper and a pencil: it is their use that is extraordinary. A person puts five dots on the paper in whatever position fancy may dictate: on this slight foundation another is expected to design a figure, the puzzle being to include all the marks given. One that I saw had four of the dots placed unusually close together, and the fifth in a distant corner: this latter, in the opinion of the lookers-on, would surely prove refractory. After some moments of consideration, with pencil suspended and eye attentive, the artist commenced drawing. In ten minutes the sketch was finished. It was an angel: her upturned head took in the highest of the group of dots; one hand hanging by her side the next; a knee the third; and the flowing hem of her robe the fourth; but the fifth in the corner—what could reach it? With a touch of the pencil the angel's other hand appeared flinging up a censer attached to a long chain, which struck the solitary dot like a shot amid acclamations. To show that he did not consider the feat a tour de force, the artist turned the paper, and taking the same marks drew a devil in an entirely different attitude, the difficult point being reached by his pitchfork. This gave rise to a learned discussion as to whether the devil's emblematic pitchfork was not a descendant of Neptune's trident, which I did not stay to hear, as Afra whispered she wanted to present me to Monsieur C——, and I was taken to a gentleman of no great height, but of such wondrous width that Nature must have formed him in a most generous mood.

"You are American?" said this wide man to me as I was introduced, and without waiting for a reply went on: "I like your country-people: they admire frankly. Show them a picture, they exclaim, 'Beautiful! magnificent! lovely! exquisite! name your price;' and they buy it. Here the public look and look. 'Not bad,' they say, 'but the color is from Veronese, and that attitude is surely Raphael's. What a mine that man's genius has been to ambitious but less gifted artists!' and so they go on. I wish they would let the dead rest in peace. Are you acquainted with Mr. B—— of New York?"

I was obliged to say "No."

"I wish to send a message to him," he continued grandly: "tell him that I paint now for him alone."

"You are court-painter to Mr. B——," I remarked laughingly.

"Don't speak of courts," he exclaimed pettishly. "I was to have painted the baptism of the prince imperial for the state: it gave me no end of annoyance, and in the end was never finished."

"I understood that you insisted on painting the little prince nude, after the Rubens manner, and that was one ground of objection to the design," said Afra.

"The baby would have had on plenty of clothes: one of his dresses was sent from the Tuileries for Monsieur C—— to paint, and I sewed a rosette on it myself." This from the painter's wife.

"A countryman of yours sat for the head of a young priest at the ceremony. He had a fine countenance: he was studying art with me at the time, and has since been professor of drawing at your Naval Academy. Teaching is a sad trade—Pegasus dragging the plough."

"At least, your other great picture brought you nothing but praise."

"The public have since repented of being so good to me. Then, they could not say enough in my favor: now, if a person asks what I am doing, every one repeats like a parrot, 'C—— doesn't paint, C—— doesn't paint.' I have heard it so often that I begin to believe it myself, and when I am asked join the general cry, 'C—— doesn't paint.'"

I laughed, thinking this a joke, but I soon found that though C—— might be cynical, sarcastic or bitter, though he might excite unintentional laughter by his remarks, he was too sensitive a man to take any but a serious view of life. The imperfections of the world excited his disgust, his anger, never his mirth.

"Ah but, monsieur," said Afra, "you should be satisfied, and leave some little honor for the rest of us to gather. The stories one hears of your youth are like fairy-tales."

"And they are true," replied the artist with evident enjoyment. "In those days I was pointed out to people when I walked the street; which, by the way, gave rise to an odd incident. A gentleman thought he had seen me in a crowd, but he had taken an older and taller man for the great painter. He believed big pictures were painted by big men, and I had not then my present circumference. This gentleman sent me an invitation to dine with him. On the day appointed I arrived at the house, and was met at the door by my host, a look of surprise and annoyance on his face which he tried to conceal by a low bow, at the same time asking politely, 'How is your father?'—'Very well, thank you,' I returned, although I could not understand why my father's health should be a matter of interest to him.—'You have come to tell me of some catastrophe which prevents his attendance here to-day?'—'Not at all: I have come to dine with you, according to this invitation.' Here I pulled out the card, which I happened to have in my pocket.—'Are you the person here addressed?' he said, staring at me.—'I am'.—'I beg your pardon, there is a mistake: I meant it for your father, the painter of the "Decadence des Romains."'—'I am the painter of the "Decadence," but I am not my father.'—'You ought to be an older man.'—'I should have been, monsieur, had I been born sooner.'—At that moment a friend, overhearing the conversation and divining the cause, came and explained to my wonder-struck host that I was really the artist in question. With many apologies I was led into a hall adorned with floral arches in my honor, next to a beautiful salon, likewise decorated, and finally we reached the dining-room, which was arranged to represent my picture. Columns wreathed with flowers supported the roof; flowers festooned the white table-linen and adorned the antique vessels that covered it; couches of different colored silk were laid after the Roman fashion for the guests to recline upon; and lovely women dressed in costly Roman costumes, their heads crowned with flowers, were placed in the attitudes that you will see on my celebrated canvas. Was it not a graceful tribute to my genius?"

"If a Frenchman wants to pay a compliment, he never uses one that has done duty before, but invents something new," said Afra emphatically.

"What are you painting now, monsieur?" I asked.

"A series of pictures called 'Pierrot the Clown.' He succeeds in tricking the world in every station of life. I am just finishing his deathbed. All his friends are weeping about him: the doctor feels his pulse and gives some learned name to the disease—doctors know so much—while hidden everywhere around the room are empty bottles. The drunken clown plays with even death for a mask."

"I thought he painted such romantic pictures," said I to Afra as we turned from the master.

"So he does: there is one in his studio now. A girl clad in gray and shadow—open-air shade which in his hands is so clear and luminous. She walks along a garden-path, her head bent down, dreaming as she goes, and unconsciously nearing a half-open gateway, through which the sunshine is streaming. Above the rustic gate two doves are billing and cooing. You feel sure the girl is about to pass through this typical, sunshiny, invitingly half-open door; and—what is beyond?"

Just then we were called to lunch, a plentiful but not luxurious repast. There was no lack of lively repartees and anecdotes, and we had speeches and songs afterward. I wonder if I ever heard "'Tis better to laugh than be sighing" given with more zest than on that day? One could easily imagine that it was such an occasion as this that had inspired it.

Lunch being over, Monsieur C—— was asked to relate one of his own stories. I cannot give it entire, but the plot was this: A pilgrim, whom he called poor Jacques, hearing much of heaven, set out to find his way to the blessed abode, with only a little dog to accompany him on the journey. As he went he met many of his contemporaries, who had made what a walker would style but poor time. The allusions to well-known peculiarities in the various people and their occupation in the other life caused much amusement. For instance, Ingres the painter was seated by the roadside playing Rossini's music on the violin, on which instrument he was a great proficient. But he was known to detest the Italian's music before he started heavenward: his taste must then have grown en route. (Critics might object to this supposition.) However, Jacques was anxious to push on, and spent little time listening. But he was a good-hearted man, and, though he would not delay for his own amusement, he could not refuse to stop when fellow-pilgrims asked him for assistance. Little children were continually straying from the path, and without Jacques and his little dog would inevitably have been lost. Feeble old people were standing looking with despair at some obstacle that without Jacques's friendly arm they would have found it impossible to pass. Young men who never looked where they were walking were continually calling on him for a hand to help them out of the ditch where they had fallen; and young girls—well, one would have supposed they had never been given feet of their own to walk with, from the trouble they were to poor Jacques. The worst of it was, that when all these good people were well over their troubles they called Jacques a simpleton for his pains, and refused to have any intercourse with him, giving him the worst side of the road and laughing at his old-fashioned staff and scrip, and even at his little dog, to which they gave many a sly kick. Nor was it any wonder, for there were many in the company robed in silk, wearing precious stones and with well-filled wallets by their sides. Jacques was but human, and often he wished he had never set out for heaven at all in such company; but even in their bitterest moods neither Jacques nor the little dog could ever hear a cry of distress without forgetting all unkindness and rushing at once to the rescue.

These labors exhausted Jacques's strength: the little dog, too, was worn to a shadow, and so timid from ill-treatment that it was only when some great occasion called out his mettle that you saw what a noble little dog-heart he had. He did his best to comfort his master, but when Jacques's sandals were worn out and his cloak in rags, and when he looked forward and saw nothing yet of the holy city in view, though he still tried to go forward, Nature gave way: he sank to the ground, and the little dog licked his hands in vain to awaken him.

There is a band of angels who each night descend the holy mount whereon is built the city, in search of such pilgrims as have failed through fatigue to reach the gate. They are clothed in robes woven of good deeds, which never lose their lustre, for they are renewed every day. It was this company which found Jacques in his swoon by the roadside. One gently touched his tired body, and more than the vigor of youth leapt through his veins. Another whispered "Come," and he rose and walked with them. As he moved on with eyes abashed, thinking of the rents in his garments and regretting their poverty, he noticed that they too were changed, and were as bright as those of his companions. "Who has done this?" he said, venturing to address the one that walked at his right hand. "You wore them always," he answered with an angelic smile, "but it is this light which shows their beauty;" and he pointed to that which streamed from the celestial walls.

There was much applause. I saw Afra wipe a tear from her eye; only, a thin-faced individual who sat near me whispered that it was too long. The delicacy and pathos of expression and language it is impossible to give, and, though old in form, the story was skillfully new in incident; nor must I forget that the little dog slipped through the eternal gate with his master. Some one asked the troubadour why he did not write it out. He shook his head and threw up his hands as he replied, "I wrote one book and gave it to a literary man for correction. You should have seen the manuscript when he sent it home: not a page but was scarred and cut. He called that 'style.' Now, what did I want with style? I wanted to write as I talked."

"Certainly," said one. "What did you do?"

"I quickly put Monsieur le Redacteur's style out of my book; then I published it. George Sand promised to write the preface, but some busybody told her that I was attacking the whole world, so she would have nothing to do with it. She was misled: I blamed nothing in my book but what deserved censure."

Having heard this excellent representation of the ancient minstrel, we were shortly given a touch of the modern usurper of the name. A gentleman was present who in the many turns of Fortune's wheel had once found himself a follower of the burnt-cork persuasion. He gave us a negro melody with a lively accompaniment on the guitar. A melancholy Spanish song followed. The company again dispersed into congenial groups, and in the long twilight you heard the murmur of voices broken by occasional snatches of melody or the nightingale's song.

* * * * *

"And what do you think of Bohemia?" asked Afra as we returned that night.

"It is different from what I expected. They are refined, and, though frank, never rude. I think—"

Afra laughed: "You had unconsciously thought them a set of sharpers; but there is a great difference between living by your brains and living by your wits. My dear, you have broken bread with giants to-day: such men live in another world that they may rule this one."

ITA ANIOL PROKOP.



PROFESSOR AND TEACHER.

The two words that recur most frequently perhaps in the discussion of matters of education are "teacher" and "professor;" yet there are no two that are used so carelessly and loosely. It seems as if the thought that they may not be synonymous seldom, if ever, occurs to those using them. If one of our writers or speakers upon education were suddenly called upon to state exactly what he meant by a "professor" in distinction from a "teacher," he would be at a loss for an answer. He might reply, after some hesitation, "Why, a teacher is a man who teaches at a school or an academy, and a professor is a man who teaches at a college." If he were pressed still more closely, and asked to give the precise difference between a "school or an academy" and a "college," it is safe to assume that he would find himself nonplussed. There are colleges in the country, some large and others small, some old and others young, some good and others poor; but aside from the fact that they provide a curriculum of four years and teach a certain amount of Latin, Greek and mathematics, they do not possess features enough in common to enable us to define with exactness "a college." It is not in the power of language to devise a formula so elastic as to embrace Harvard, Brown, Princeton, Trinity, Cornell and Michigan University, without at the same time ignoring the characteristic features of one or the other. Even if we admit that there is a vague ideal unity underlying the so-called college system, by virtue of which it is a system and not a mere aggregate, we shall not make much progress in our search after the proper definition of the term "professor." The utmost that can be said of our college system, as a system, is that it stands on a somewhat higher plane than the schools, that it is supposed to finish a young man's education, and consequently that the men whom it employs for such a purpose—its professors—are, or at least ought to be, abler men than the teachers proper. The difference, then, between professor and teacher is one of degree, and not of kind. Both teach, and both teach in great part the same subjects and in substantially the same way; that is, by means of textbook and recitation. Herein lies the explanation of the disposition evinced by some of our best schools to call their teachers "professors." An institution like Phillips Exeter or Andover can scarcely be said to assume more than it is entitled to in putting itself on an equality with Hobart College or Racine.

On turning to Germany, we observe no such laxity in the use of the term "professor." He, and he only, is professor who "professes" to have made himself eminent in his special branch, and whose claims have been allowed officially by a university or by the government. He is not even a teacher in the English or American sense. He is a scholar and investigator who has produced results worthy of distinction, and it is upon the strength of those results, and not because of his real or supposed ability to impart knowledge and stimulate industry among students, that he receives his call to a university chair.[1]

[Footnote 1: The circumstance that some of the gymnasium-teachers in Germany have the title of "professor" does not affect the above view. The title has been expressly conferred upon them by the government as a mark of special distinction, either for long services or for unusual scholarship—in most cases for the latter. Where schools of the highest order are so numerous as they are in Germany, it is not surprising that they should count among their teachers men of profound scholarship. The official recognition paid to such men is only an additional proof of the care with which the title is used. It is given to the teacher, not so much because he is a good teacher, as because he has done something over and above school-room work.]

The words of one who is himself a leading professor in one of the most renowned universities are so explicit upon this point that they deserve to be translated and carefully studied. Heinrich von Sybel, in his academic address delivered at Bonn in 1868, says: "The excellence of our universities is to be found in the fact that they are not mere institutions where instruction is given, but are workshops of science[2]—that their vital principle is unceasing scientific productivity. Hence it is that the state assembles the best men of all Germany as professors at its universities, so that the phenomenon, common enough in England and France, of a distinguished savant without a university chair is with us a very unusual exception. Hence it is that in appointing to such a chair the first and last demand is for published evidences of such activity. As for the so-called ability to teach (Lehrtalent im formellen Sinne), we are satisfied if it is not utterly and notoriously wanting. The question upon which everything turns is, Has the candidate given evidence of his capacity for original investigation and production? Whoever has this capacity is sufficiently qualified, according to our German notions, for fulfilling the essential function of university instruction."

[Footnote 2: Science is used here in the broad German sense to denote any study, whether in the direction of natural phenomena, history or philosophy, which is pursued systematically and with a view to eliciting truth.]

In other words, a German professor is a man who has devoted himself to special and original research—to "science" as Von Sybel uses the term—and whose discoveries and works give strength and increase of dignity to the university with which he is connected. He is appointed upon his merits as a discoverer or an author. The further consideration—namely, whether he is what we Americans style a "good teacher"—was not so much as an afterthought in the minds of those who gave him his call. The explanation of this disregard of the personal element in the professorial character is obvious. The professor is not called upon to teach. It does not constitute any part of his vocation to spur up the sluggish, to keep the idle busy, to give each student enough to do, and make first principles perfectly clear to all. So far from coming down to the level of the students, the professor expects that the students will make every possible exertion to rise to his level, while he himself can scarcely be said to lend a helping hand. To the sentimentalist, then, he might appear a very selfish mortal. But by going beneath the surface of the relation between professor and student, and examining into its essence, we shall find that it is an eminently healthful relation, because it is based upon the recognition of mutual rights and duties. The professor, as a man of science, has a right to the free direction of his talents. The student has the right to develop what there is in him without supervision or interference. He is to make a man of himself by seeking diligently after the truth in a manly, independent spirit. All that the professor can do for him is to point out the road to the truth.

This view of the functions of a professor may appear obscure and exaggerated to one who has not studied at a German university. But it gives the clew to the entire German system of university education, and accounts in great part for the high standard of scholarship. Only in part, for the innate proneness of the German mind to research must be credited with some share in the result. It is safe to say that Germany, under any system, would be a land of erudition.

However pleasant it might be to go into the details of the professional position and character in Germany, it will be more profitable, and certainly more practical, to compare this fundamental German idea, as already given, with the salient features of professional life in America. The American professor, then, is a teacher. Unless he is the fortunate occupant of an exceptionally favored chair, his chief, and even his sole, function in the college body is to teach, in the strictest sense of the term. He has to prescribe textbooks, assign and hear lessons, grade recitations, mark examination-papers, submit carefully prepared term and annual reports to the faculty. When the question of conditioning or dismissing a student on the ground of defective scholarship comes up for decision, his opinion must be given and weighed in connection with that of others, in order that the faculty may strike a fair general average. The number of hours that he is compelled, by the college curriculum, to pass per week in the recitation-room is seldom less than fifteen, and may be as high as twenty. The classes themselves are ill-sorted and often troublesome, and are usually unwieldy by reason of their size. The professor's mind must be continually on the watch to prevent disorder and enforce attention. Besides, as every one knows full well who has tried it, there is nothing so exhausting as to supply "brains" to those who either have not received their portion from Nature or else have squandered it for a mess of pottage. Every professor-teacher can bear witness to the truism that one hour in the recitation-room is fully equal, in its drain upon the vital energy, to two passed in private study or authorship. The sense of responsibility, we might say, is omnipresent. It does not cease with the recitation: it follows him to his study, and haunts him with the recollection of absurd blunders made by young men who should have done better—the dispiriting reflection that despite his best efforts the stupid and indifferent will not learn. If to this normal wear and tear and these every-day annoyances we add the participation in what is pleasingly styled enforcement of discipline—that is, protracted faculty-meetings, interviews with anxious or irate parents, exhortations to the vicious to mend their ways—we shall probably come to the conclusion that the professor's burden is anything but light. We all have heavy burdens. But while admitting the universality of the adage, we are nevertheless at liberty to ascertain if we cannot make the burden of a particular man or class easier to bear by fitting it to the back.

Editors, essayists, college presidents and reformers assure us that we are on the verge of a change, and perhaps a great change, in our system of higher education. They dilate upon the indisputable fact that most of our older colleges have made rapid strides within the past ten years, augmenting their endowments, erecting handsome buildings, establishing new departments of study and increasing the number of students. Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth, Amherst, Princeton, Columbia, the University of Pennsylvania, were never so well off, in point of money and men, as they are at this day. The inference is, of course, if so much has been done in ten years, what may we not expect by the end of the century? The University of Virginia holds its own, notwithstanding the desolation wrought by the late civil war, and Ann Arbor and Cornell have shot up with extraordinary vigor. There can be no doubt that our institutions of learning are full of robust life. And it is no less certain that this growth of resources is due to private enterprise. Our colleges have grown because graduates, and even non-graduates, have taken an interest in them, and endowed them with a munificence which seems incredible to a Frenchman or a German. But in studying the aspect of higher education it behooves us not to lose sight of the fundamental principle that education is something spiritual in its nature, and that it cannot be gauged by buildings, by endowments, by the trappings of wealth—in short, by anything material. Endowments and buildings are only the means; unless the end to which these means are subservient be clearly perceived and persistently followed, the means themselves may prove a hindrance rather than a help. Of this Oxford is a notable proof.

Have, then, the end and aim, the method and agencies, of college instruction changed essentially within the past fifteen years, or are they likely to change essentially within the coming twenty-five? In the year 1770 the greatest genius of Germany entered the walls of the old university-town of Strasburg, there to complete his education. He has bequeathed to us a faithful record of his studies, his amusements, his daily life. Connecting this Strasburg experience with the previous experience at Leipsic, we know what it meant in the eighteenth century to be a German student. We know that the professors in those days were pedagogues in the Anglo-American sense, and that university-life stood little if at all higher than our own present college-life. But when Goethe died, in 1832, the universities of Germany had reached their prime. Since then they have made no gain. It may be doubted if the professors, on the whole, rank quite so high to-day for originality and vigor of research as did their predecessors forty years ago. Wherein lies the secret, then, of this wonderful change wrought in the brief span of two generations, between 1770 and 1830, and amid the dire confusion of the great Revolution and the Napoleonic era? The change was twofold. It consisted, first, in allowing to the professor the free play of his individuality; second, in providing him with a properly trained body of students. From the practical recognition of these two principles, which have nothing to do with wealth and buildings, proceed the power and glory of the German universities. Viewed from the English, or even the American point, some of these universities might be pronounced poor, not to say starvelings. The buildings are old and out of repair, the professors are scantily paid, the students are needy, there is a general atmosphere of want and discomfort. But the work they do is noble, and its nobility consists in its freedom, its heartiness, its strict devotion to truth.

We are not concerned in this place with the study of the growth of the German school system that prepares the German student. We have to do with the professor. Although the gymnasium and the university are not to be dissevered in actual practice, the one being the necessary prelude to the other, still we can discuss either one of them separately with a view to ascertaining its salient features.

The German university allows to the professor the free play of his individuality. By this is meant that each professor has his specialty, which he teaches as a specialty and after his own fashion. He has been appointed because of his specialty, and to the end that he may teach it. His salary is paid to him, not so much for what he does as for what he is. It is in a measure the reward for having made for himself a name. His standing in the university is based, not so much upon the number of students that he may attract to his lectures as upon the quality of scholarship that he exhibits and his general repute in the world of letters. He has the satisfaction of feeling that his researches, even the most abstruse, can be brought to bear directly upon his official intercourse with his students. A discovery that he makes is usually communicated to them in the first instance, before it finds its way into print. The neglect to take account of this element of originality in the lectures of a German professor has led to an unfair estimate of the lecture-system. Americans and English are apt to regard it as merely the oral inculcation of established truths. Were that the case, we might be right in questioning its superiority over our method of teaching by textbook. But it is not the case. The lecture is the vehicle for conveying the latest discoveries made either by the professor himself or gleaned by him from the labors of his colleagues. So far from merely repeating established truths, it rather promulgates truths in process of establishment. German university lectures, taken all in all, represent the most advanced stage of thought. The instances are not infrequent where a professor refrains from publishing his lectures, lest he should lose his hearers, who are attracted to him by reports of his originality and thoroughness.

The evident tendency of such a system is to encourage productivity and the highest degree of accuracy. A man who has to teach only one subject, and teach it to such students only as are ready and anxious to receive it, can afford to take the time for being thorough. The tendency of the American system, on the other hand, is to beget a spirit of routine and to check productivity. The professor falls into a way of contenting himself with meeting the requirements of the college curriculum. The effects of this curriculum upon the professors are deeper and farther-reaching than is usually perceived. It is in accordance with facts to call American professors, as a class, unproductive. But it would be unjust and inconsiderate to ascribe this want of productivity to the disposition called laziness. Laziness is not a national fault of Americans. On the contrary, we are pushing, active, restless: we yearn, Alexander-like, for something new to overcome. Our professors are of the same stock as our business-men, our lawyers, our doctors, our politicians. But the spirit of progress, if we choose to call it by that name, has been repressed in them. The spirit of emulation, of aggressive competition, which marks our trade, our banking, our manufacturing interests, our railroads, and even our professions, stops at the threshold of our colleges. There is rivalry, true, between Harvard and Yale, for instance. If the former erects a handsome dormitory, the latter must have one larger and finer. If the former establishes a new professorship, the latter must do likewise. The colleges compete among themselves. But we see no signs of competition among the professors of a college, or between the professors of different colleges—competition, be it observed, in the sense that the individual professor regards his attainments and views as a proper subject for comparison with the attainments and views of another professor in the same branch. Once established in his chair, his individuality is merged in the general character of the college. His time, his knowledge and his energy are subordinated to the curriculum. He can teach only so much as may be fitted into his share of the time and may be suited to the capacities of a mixed audience. It matters little whether the curriculum be good or bad, whether it take in a wide or a narrow range of subjects, whether it be behind or up to the times: so long as it is a real curriculum it tends to prevent the full assertion of his individual excellence. He may study for himself, but he cannot teach more than the regulations permit. However advanced he may be in his specialty, however sincere and earnest his wish to impart the choicest fruits of his research, he must admit to himself that there is a point beyond which he is unable to carry his students. They are borne off to something else; they have no more time for him; they slip from his hold, perhaps at the very moment when he flatters himself that he has acquired some formative influence over them.