We pass over the sad fate of Newport for years following the Revolution—the misery and dilapidation that succeeded its former prosperity. We turn from the picture which a later French traveller, Brissot de Warville, draws of its poverty and desolation in 1788 to look at the renaissance, the rejuvenation that rescued this historic spot from oblivion. To-day lines of villas and stately mansions have uplifted themselves on the avenues, and gay crowds throng the streets. The shadowy forms of a past generation may still haunt the scenes of their former triumphs, but must rejoice over the life and light that nineteenth-century revels have dowered them with. The world rolls on, and brings in its course new actors, new scenes, a new drop-curtain, but men and women are always men and women. The loves, hopes, fears, disappointments or triumphs of to-day,—these, if nothing else, link us to a past generation. The idler on the club piazza, if not a Lauzun or Fersen, may no doubt arouse himself as nobly in a grand question of right or wrong (have we not seen it in our own generation?), unsheathe his sword and become, like Lytton's hero, "now heard of, the first on the wall:" the pretty belle of the afternoon fete, may she not have the same heart of steel and a spirit as true as that of some eighteenth-century ancestress? There is room, then, even in this historic spot, for the gay modern cortege, for the life, the light, the prosperity and pleasure which embalm old memories and keep a centennial on the shrines where the youth and chivalry of a century ago lived, loved and have left the subtle odor of past adventure to add a mysterious but not unlovely fragrance to present experience.—FRANCES PIERREPONT NORTH.



STUDIES IN THE SLUMS



V.—DIET AND ITS DOINGS.

Later and more scientific investigations have tended to confirm the truth of the rather broad statement made by Buckle in his History of Civilization, that rice and potatoes have done more to establish pauperism than any and all causes besides. A food easily procured, sufficiently palatable to ensure no dissatisfaction, and demanding no ingenuity of preparation, would seem the ideal diet, the promised rest for weary housekeepers and anxious political economists; but the latter class at least have found their work made double and treble by the results of such diet, while social reformers—above all, the advocates of total abstinence—are discovering that till varied and savory food and drink are provided the mass of the people will and must crave the stimulant given by alcoholic drinks.

National dietaries and their results on character and life, fascinating as the investigation is, have no place in the present paper, the design of which is simply to show the existing state of the food-question among the poor. Of these, poor Irish form far the larger proportion, a German or French pauper being almost an anomaly. Thrift seems the birthright of both the French and German peasant, as well as of the middle class, and their careful habits, joined to the better rate of wages in America, soon make them prosperous and well-to-do citizens. It is in the tenement-houses that we must seek for the mass of the poor, and it is in the tenement-houses that we find the causes which, combined, are making of the generation now coming up a terror in the present and a promise of future evil beyond man's power to reckon. They are a class apart, retaining all the most brutal characteristics of the Irish peasant at home, but without the redeeming light-heartedness, the tender impulses and strong affections of that most perplexing people. Sullen, malicious, conscienceless, with no capacity for enjoyment save in drink and the lowest forms of debauchery, they are filling our prisons and reformatories, marching in an ever-increasing army through the quiet country, and making a reign of terror wherever their footsteps are heard. With a little added intelligence they become Socialists, doing their heartiest to ruin the institutions by which they live. The Socialistic leader knows well with what he deals, and can sound every chord of jealousy and suspicion and revenge lying open to his touch. On the rich lies the whole responsibility of want and disease and crime. Equalize property, and these three dark shadows flee fast before the sunshine of prosperity. Character, intelligence, common decencies and common virtues have nothing to do with present conditions, and the ardent leveller of class-distinctions counts as his enemy any one who seeks to give the poor a truer knowledge of how far their earnings may be made to go toward securing better food or less pestilent homes.

Yet foul air and overcrowding would be less fatal in their results were food understood. The well-filled stomach gives strange powers of resistance to the body, and nothing shows this more strongly than the myriad cases of children and infants who are taken from the tenement-houses to the sanitariums at Bath or Rockaway. A week or two of pure air and plenty of milk gives a look almost of health to children who have been brought there often with glazed eyes and pinched, ghastly little faces. Air has meant half, but many mothers have been persuaded to give milk or oatmeal porridge instead of weak tea and bread poisoned with alum, and have found the child's strength become a permanent and not temporary fact.

That these children are alive at all, that fatherhood and motherhood are allowed to be the right of drunkards and criminals of every grade, is a problem whose present solution passes any human power, but which all lovers of their kind must sooner or later face. In the mean time the children are with us, born to inheritances that tax every power good men and women can bring to bear. Hopeless as the outlook often seems, salvation for the future of the masses lies in these children. Not in a teaching which gives them merely the power to grasp at the mass of sensational reading, which fixes every wretched tendency and blights every seed of good, but in a practical training which shall give the boys trades and force their restless hands and mischievous minds to occupations that may ensure an honest living, while the girls find work from which, with few fortunate exceptions, they are still debarred.

The American distaste for domestic service seems to be shared in even greater degree by the children of foreigners born in this country and to a certain extent Americanized. The mothers have usually been servants, and still "go out to days' work," but, no matter how numerous the family, such life for any daughter is despised and discouraged from the beginning. Work in a bag-factory or any one of the thousand, but to the employes profitless, industries of a great city is eagerly sought, and hardships cheerfully endured which if enforced by a mistress would lead to a riot. To be a shop-girl seems the highest ambition. To have dress and hair and expression a frowsy and pitiful copy of the latest Fifth Avenue ridiculousness, to flirt with shop-boys as feeble-minded and brainless as themselves, and to marry as quickly as possible, are the aims of all. Then come more wretched, thriftless, ill-managed homes, and their natural results in drunken husbands and vicious children; and so the round goes on, the circle widening year by year till its circumference touches every class in society, and would make our great cities almost what sober country-folk believe them—"seas of iniquity."

Happily, to know an evil is to have taken the first step in its eradication. The work only recently begun—the past five years having seen its growth from a very humble and insignificant beginning to its present promising proportions—holds the solution of at least one equation of the problem. To have made cooking and industrial training the fashion is to have cleared away at a leap the thorny underbrush and tangled growth on that Debatable Ground, the best education for the poor, and to find one's feet firmly set in a way leading to a Promised Land to which every believer in the new system is an accredited guide. That cooking-schools and the knowledge of cheap and savory preparation of food must soon have their effect on the percentage of drunkards no one can question; but with them, save indirectly, this present paper does not deal, its object being rather to show what "daily bread" means to the lower classes of New York, the same showing applying with almost equal force to the working poor of any large town throughout the country. Knowledge of this sort must come from patient waiting and watching as one can, rather than from any systematized observation. The poor resent bitterly, and with justice, any apparent interference or spying, and only as one comes to know them well can anything but the most outside details of life be obtained. In the matter of food there is an especial touchiness and testiness, every woman being convinced that to cook well is the birthright of all women. I have found the same conviction as solidly implanted in far higher grades of society, and it may be classed as one of the most firmly-seated of popular delusions that every woman keeps house as instinctively and surely when her time comes as a duck takes to water.

Such was the faith of Norah Boylan, tenant of half the third floor in a tenement-house whose location need not be given a "model tenement-house," six stories high and swarming from basement to attic, forty children making it hideous with the screaming and wrangling of incessant fights, while in and over all rested the penetrating, sickening "tenement-house smell," not to be drowned by steam of washing or scent of food. Norah's tongue was ready with the complaint all tongues made in 1878—hard times; and she faced me now with hands on her hips and a generally belligerent expression: "An' shure, ma'am, you know yourself it's only a dollar a day he's been earnin' this many a day, an' thankful enough to get that, wid Mike overhead wearin' his tongue out wid askin' for work here an' there an' everywhere. An' how'll we live on that, an' the rint due reg'lar, an' the agent poppin' in his ugly face an' off wid the bit o' money, no matter how bare the dish is? Bad cess to him! but I'd like to have him hungered once an' know how it feels. If I hadn't the washin' we'd be on the street this day."

"What do you live on, Norah?"

"Is it 'live'? Thin I could hardly say. It's mate an' petatys an' tea, an' Pat will have his glass. He's sober enough—not like Mike, that's off on his sprees every month; but now we don't be gettin' the same as we used. Pat says there's that cravin' in him that only the whiskey 'll stop. It's tin dollars a month for the rooms, an' that's two an' a half a week steady; an' there's only seven an' a half left for the five mouths that must be fed, an' the fire an' all, for I can't get more'n the four dollars for me washin'. It's the mate you must have to put strength in ye, an' Pat would be havin' it three times a day, an' now it's but once he can; an' that's why he's after the whiskey. The children an' meself has tay, an' it's all that keeps us up."

"How do you cook your meat, Norah?"

Norah looked at me suspiciously: "Shure, the bit we get don't take long. I puts it in the pan an' lets it fry till we're ready. Poor folks can't have much roastin' nor fine doin's. An' by that token it's time it was on now, if you won't mind, ma'am. The children 'll be in from school, an' they must eat an' get back."

"I am going in a few moments, Norah. Go right on."

Norah moved aside her boiler, drew a frying-pan from her closet, put in a lump of fat and laid in a piece of coarse beef some two pounds in weight. A loaf of bread came next, and was cut up, the peculiar white indicating plainly what share alum had had in making the lightness to which she called my attention. A handful of tea went into the tall tin teapot, which was filled from the kettle at the back of the stove.

"That isn't boiling water, is it?" I ventured.

"It'll boil fast enough," Norah answered indifferently as she pulled open the draughts, and soon had the top of the stove red hot. The steak lay in its bed of fat, scorching peacefully, while the tea boiled, giving off a rank and herby smell.

"Pat doesn't get home to dinner, then, Norah?"

"There's times he does, but mostly not. They'd like a hot bite an' sup, but it's too far off. There's five goes from here together, an' a pailful for each—bread an' coffee mostly, an' a bit o' bacon for some. It's a hot supper I used to be gettin' him, but the times is too hard, an' we're lucky if we can have our tea an' bread, an' molasses maybe for the children. Many's the day I wish myself back in old Ireland."

As she talked the children came rushing up the stairs, Norah the second, pale-faced and slender, leading the way; and I took my leave, burning to speak, yet knowing it useless. Fried boot-heel would have been as nourishing and as tooth-some as that steak, and boiled boot-heel as desirable and far less harmful a drink, yet any word of suggestion would have roused the quick Irish temper to fever-heat.

"It's Norah can cook equal to myself," Norah had said with pride as she emptied the black and smoking mass into a dish; and these methods certainly cannot be said to be difficult to follow.

There is no conservatism like the conservatism of ignorance, yet in this case want of knowledge there certainly was not. Norah had lived for two years before her marriage with a family the mistress of which had taught her patiently and indefatigably till she became able to set a fairly-cooked meal upon the table, but the knowledge acquired then seemed to have been laid aside as having no connection with her own life. I have seen the same thing—though, happily, only in exceptional cases—among educated Indians, girls who had spent years in the schools at Faribault or under the direct training of missionaries reverting on marriage to old wigwam habits, and content to eat the parched corn and boiled dog of their early experience. The same law holds in full force among many of the Irish, who, no matter how well trained or how exacting in their demand for varied food while servants, quickly lose the desire, and allow only a certain fixed order from which it is wellnigh impossible to move them.

In this case, tolerably well-to-do at first, hard times had brought them to this swarming tenement-house, from the various rooms of which, as I passed down the stairs, came the same odor of burning fat and the rank steam of long-boiled coffee or tea. My errand had been to find the address of a little shop-girl, a niece of Norah's, a child who had been educated at one of the ward schools, and whom no power could induce to take a place as waitress or chambermaid. To stand twelve or fourteen hours behind the counter of a Grand street store met her ideas of gentility and of personal freedom far better than yielding to the requirements of a mistress; and the six dollars a week went in cheap finery till the hard times forced her to make it part of the family fund. Then sore trouble came. The father had died, the mother was in hospital, from which she was never likely to come out, and Katy, thrown utterly on her own resources, had found her six dollars all inadequate to the demands her habits made, and, frightened and perplexed, went from one cheap boarding-house to another, four or five girls clubbing together to pay for the wretched room they called home, and still striving to keep up the appearance necessary for their position. Cheap jewelry, banged hair and a dress modelled after the latest extremity of fashion were the ambition of each and all, but neither jewelry nor puffs and ruffles had been sufficient to keep off the attack of pneumonia through which these same girls had nursed her, sitting up turn by turn at night, and taking her duty by day that the place might still be kept open for her.

Katy's cheeks were flushed and an ominous cough still lingered, but she spoke cheerfully: "It's my last day in: I can go to-morrow. It's the beef-tea has done it, I do believe. Did you know Maria brought it to me every day? I don't know what I'll do without it."

"Learn to make it yourself, Katy."

"Me?" and Katy laughed incredulously. "When would I get time? and what would I make it on? We don't have a fire but Sundays, and only a show of one then. And I don't want it, either: I ain't used to it."

"What do you live on, Katy?"

"Why, we did have breakfast and tea here—coffee and meat for breakfast, and bread and butter and tea for supper. I get a cream-cake or some drop-cakes for dinner, but for a good while I've just paid a dollar a week for my share of the room, and bought something for breakfast—'most always a pie. You can get a splendid pie for five cents, and a pretty good one for three; and it's plenty too. That's the way the girls in the bag-factory do. They don't get but three dollars a week, and it takes seventy-five cents for their room, so they haven't got anything for board. Mary Jones says she's settled on pie, because it stays by better'n anything, and once in a while she goes down to Fulton Market and has some coffee. I do too, but it spoils you for next day. You keep thinking how'd you'd like a cup when the chills go crawling all over you, but it's no use."

"Couldn't it be made in the store? The girls could club together, and it would cost much less than your pies and candy. The gas is always burning, and you could have a little water-boiler."

"You don't know much about stores to think that. Why, Mr. Levy watches like a cat to see we don't eat peanuts or candy: we're fined if he catches us. I've a good mind to take board at the 'Home,' only I should hate to be bossed 'round, and you can't get in very often, either, it's so crowded. But I don't mind so much now, for you see"—Katy's pale cheeks grew pink—"Jim and I don't mean to wait long. He has ten dollars a week, and we can manage on that. He says he's 'most poisoned with the stuff his boarding-house keeper gives him, and he wants me to keep house. I just laugh. That's a servant-girl's work: 'tain't mine."

The old story. I had seen "Jim," and knew him as rather a sensible-looking young fellow for an East Side clerk in a cheap store. What sort of future could lie before them? What help could come from this untrained child, herself helpless and with too limited intelligence to understand what demand the new life made upon her? and could any way be found to open her eyes and make her desire better knowledge?

Busy with this always fresh problem, I had come to a side street leading to the market from which two or three small groceries draw their supplies, and stopped for a moment to look at the flabby, half-decayed vegetables, the coarse beef and measly-looking pork from which comes the sickly, heavy smell preceding positive putrefaction.

"Look away! Get the sense of it all," said a brisk voice behind me—a voice I knew well as that of one who gave days, and often nights, to work in these very streets. "Did you see that tall woman with the big basket and a face like a chimney-swallow? She runs a boarding-house 'round on Madison street, and this is the stuff she feeds them on. Poor wretch! She has a drunken husband and three drinking sons. She means well, would like to do better by her boarders, but there is rent and gas and wear and tear of all sorts, and she buys bob veal and stale fish and rotten vegetables and alum bread, trying to make the ends meet. I've been there and tasted the messes that come to her table, and I would drink too if forced to live on them. She's got sense, a little—enough not to fly in a rage when I told her the food was enough to make a drunkard of every man in the house. 'I can't help it,' she said, crying. 'I've only just so much money, and the girl spoils most of what I do get.'—'Cook yourself,' I said.—'I can't,' she answered: 'I don't know any better than the girl. I'll do anything you say.' I am not a cook: I could not tell her anything. 'Go to cooking-school,' I said: 'it'll pay you.'—'I've neither time nor money,' she said; and there it ended. What's to be done? I've just come round the market. It is dinner-time, and I think every other man was eating pie. The same money might have bought him a bowl of strong soup or a plate of savory and nourishing stew, if there had been anybody with sense enough to provide it. Up and down, in and out, wherever I go, I see that cooks are the missionaries needed. Come in here a moment."

I followed up the steps of a "Home" for sailors, planned to give them a refuge from the traps known as "sailors' boarding-houses." The long dining-room we entered was spotlessly clean, and some thirty men were dining. I looked for a moment as my friend spoke with some one sitting at the head of the table, then passed out.

"You saw," he said, "plenty of food, and all clean as a whistle, but what sort? Steak fried to a crisp, soggy potatoes, underdone cabbage and pork, bread rank with alum, and coffee whose only merit is warmth. Those men are filled, but not fed. The bread alone is condensed dyspepsia. In an hour the weaker stomachs will have what they call 'a goneness.' They will crave something, and poor R—— will have half a dozen of them half drunk or wholly so on his hands by night. He will pray and exhort, and bundle them up to the Mission if he can, and cry as he tells me how they will give way and yield to the devil whether or no. And so it goes. Women must get hold of this thing. It's the first item in your temperance crusade, and till the people have better food there is no law or influence that can make them give up drinking. I wouldn't if I were they."

Here the talk ended. My impetuous friend disappeared around a corner, and I went my way, a little surer than before of the fact which was already so distinct a belief it needed no new foundations, that better food will and must mean better living. Hard times are passing, but none the less is there still the imperative demand for wider knowledge of what food those hard-earned dollars shall buy. Philanthropists may urge what reforms they will—less crowding, purer air, better sanitary regulations—but this question of food underlies all. The knowledge that is broad enough to ensure good food is broad enough to mean better living in all ways; and not till such knowledge is the property of all women can we look for the "emancipation" from some of the deepest evils that curse the life of woman in the slums and out. Toward that end all women who long to help, yet see no outlook, may work, and with its full recognition will come the day for which we wait—a day whose faint dawn even now flushes the east and gives promise, dim yet sure, of the slowly-nearing light, holding even when most clouded the certainty of

Purer manners, nobler laws. —HELEN CAMPBELL.



DELECTATIO PISCATORIA.

THE UPPER KENNEBEC.

From the great mere set round with sunbright mountains Full born the river leaps, Dashing the crystal of a thousand fountains Down its romantic steeps.

'Tis now a torrent whose untamed endeavor Is eager for the sea, Angry that rock or reef should hinder ever Its frantic liberty.

Then, for a space, a lake and river blended, It sleeps with tranquil breast, As if its haste and rage at last were ended, And all it sought was rest.

In spicy woodpaths by its rapids straying, I hear, with lingering feet, Its liquid organ and the treetops playing Te Deums strangely sweet.

I break the covert: pictured far emerges On the enraptured sight The arrowy flow, green isles, a cascade's surges, Foam-flaked in rosy light,

Still pools, and purples of the sleepy sedges, The skyward forest-wall, Old sorrowing pines and hazy mountain-ledges, And soft blue over all.

O golden hours of summer's precious leisure! From care and toil apart Fresh drawn, I taste the angler's gentle pleasure With friend of equal heart.

Trout leap and glitter, and the wild duck flutters Where beds of lilies blow: A loon his long, weird lamentation utters, And Echo feels his woe.

We see in hemlock shade the reedy shallow, Where, screened by dusky leaves, The guileless moose comes down to browse and wallow On still balsamic eves.

The great blue heron starts as if we sought her, On pinions of surprise, And to our lure the darlings of the water In pink and crimson rise.

Still gliding on, how throng the sweet romances Of Youth's enchanted land! A lordly eagle, as our bark advances, Glares on us, sad and grand.

Onward we float where mellow sunset glory Streams o'er the lakelet's breast, And every ripple tells a golden story Of the transfigured west.

Onward, into the evening's calm and beauty, To camp and sleep we go: Thrice bless'd are lives, in tasks of love and duty, That end in such a glow! —HORATIO NELSON POWERS.



THE RUIN OF ME.



(TOLD BY A YOUNG MARRIED MAN.)

I am Poverty scuffing about in old shoes and rubbers. I was one of those who, at a good salary, think up smart things to put around in the corners of the Chicago Times. When every newspaper, from the London Punch down, was making jokes about Elihu Burritt's Sanskrit for the Fireside, it was I who beat them all by saying in solid nonpareil, "The best way to learn Sanskrit is to board in a family of Sanskritters." It was I who said, "Let the Communists carry pistols: they may shoot each other;" and, "Sara Bernhardt's children are articles of virtu."

O quam me delectat Sara Bernhardt! I love such diversified, such picturesque gifts. Sculpture, painting, acting, writing! This is why I loved Lydia, who was an adept at numberless arts and accomplishments. She was a brunette with a clear, cream-tinged skin, red cheeks, rolling black eyes, ripe velvety lips, and hair of a beautiful hue and rich lustre—raven black, yet purple as the pigeon's wing in the sun. I believe it is true that dark people belong to the pre-historic races: centuries of sunlight are fused in their glowing complexion. Blondes are beautiful—both the rosy ones with pinkish eyelids and warm golden locks, and the pale ones with ash-colored hair, gray eyes and dark brows and lashes—but a florid brunette excels them all.

In seeing Lydia you would make the mistake that you usually make in judging girls: entering among them, you think their attitudes proclaim their traits. For instance, you take the most giggling one for a simpleton, but afterward learn that she is a good scholar and has accepted the Greek chair in a Western college, and looking again you see she has a strong frame, a capable head and large bright eyes. Lydia dressed in the mode, wore the high-heeled shoes that give such a dainty look to the foot and gait, and came into a room with a great effusion of fashionableness; yet she was not in the least what she seemed. She had a great deal of what is more pleasing than mere appearance, and that is character. She was ambitious and energetic. She did tatting when she did nothing else—said it concealed her lack of repose and liability to fidget. She was able to draw la quintessence de tout: she could make a mountain-spring of a mole-hill. She also had a touch of temper: those who are perfectly amiable are nothing else.

I was a youth blue-eyed and fair of face, tall, thin and having a complying spirit that has been—But let me not anticipate. The race after fashion ever wearied me—I shall stop early at some standing-collar or heavy-neckcloth period—and I never cared much for money—could live with it or without it, desiring "this man's art or that man's scope" rather than his cash. There is such a great majority of poor folks, I expected to be one of them; still, I had a taste for honesty, asked favors of nobody, considered the least debt a degradation, and thought myself better than most rich people. I was of the family and the religion of Plato, who peddled oil to pay his expenses while travelling in Egypt.

We discover in others what they most wish to hide: therefore I early discovered that Lydia's mother, who had a large girl-family, and who knew that the supply of some one to love greatly exceeds the demand, was anxious to secure me as a son-in-law. I was glad of it, for, let poets and novelists say what they will, the young fellow who marries with the approval of friends drifts happily on, while the rash boy who weds against the good sense of his elders is dragged bleeding along a rough way. So I married Lydia, and began life in gladness and content. I liked her family and they liked me. It puzzles me to see how the English mother-in-law, who is a grum-voiced, dogmatic and belligerent person with a jointure to bequeath, came to be engrafted on our literature. The inoffensive delicacy of an American elderly woman forbids her the role of her British sister. Our mother-in-law troubles are mostly confined to our low foreign population. Neither have we a character similar to the silly, spiteful, dried-up old maid of English literature and its American imitations, our spinsters being generally stout and jolly personages and rather over-fond of children. My mother-in-law was very nice, and we were the best of friends.

Rich relations, as a general thing, are abominable: the mere possession of one sometimes makes a person disagreeable. Show the person with a rich cousin the most secluded cot among mountains, and, "Oh, you should see my cousin's house on Michigan Avenue!" is the reply; or a beautiful room speaking the noble quality of its occupant, and, "Call that nice? You should see my cousin's house on Michigan Avenue!" is remarked. But Lydia's rich relations, the Stenes of Chicago, appeared to be exceptions. They were very clannish people, fond of their own kin to the last degree. They came from Michigan, and were of the old colony stock, regular Yankee-Doodle folks, the older ones and many of the younger ones still using New England idioms and quaint phrases that came long ago from the East—yes, from the holts of old England's Suffolk perhaps. You could not persuade one of them to call jelly anything but "jell" or a repast anything but a "meal of victuals," and they said "dooty" and "roomor" and "noos" and "clawg," and sometimes would pop out "his'n" and "her'n." Several of the Stenes had been in business thirty years in metropolitan Chicago, yet they spoke in the twang of a Yankee hill-country. The women of the family were famous housekeepers—too neat to keep a cat lest there might be a cat hair on the carpet, and never liking visitors unless there was a dreadful note of preparation, and then they received grandly. To show Lydia their good-will, they gave her profuse wedding-presents and a splendid trousseau. On my side I bought a neat cottage, paying cash down—all the money I had. It was one of a square of cottages principally occupied by young married people having plenty of children, and a joyous crew they were. Our street had a broad roadway and flagged sidewalks edged with neat turf in which fine trees were growing, and was lined with beautiful homes of varied architecture, suggesting charming interiors. A row of tall, "high-stoop" New York houses with dark stone trimmings stood next to a row of English basements of tuck-pointed brick, and next to them was a range of houses of light, cheerful Joliet stone, with awnings at the windows and carriage-steps as clean as gravestones. Then came an old cottage fixed up nobby, then a comfortable old wooden mansion, then a splendid dwelling in the style of the fifteenth century, and after that the palace of a railway grandee. Here and there on a corner stood a Gothic church. All day well-dressed people trod our pavements and beautiful carriages rolled by our windows. Our cottage was my ideal of perfection: it had few rooms, but those spacious. We had no sitting-room. Let me see: what does that word suggest to my mind? A table heaped with stale newspapers, a stand piled with sewing, a darned carpet, scratched furniture and fly-specked wall-paper.

Lydia's presents filled our house. All were Eastlake and in good taste, the colors sage-green, pumpkin-yellow and ginger-brown, dashed with splashes of peacock feathers and Japanese fans. The vases were straddle-legged and pot-bellied Asiatic shapes. Dragons in bronze and ivory, sticky-looking faience and glittering majolica, stood in the corners. Silk embroideries representing the stork—a scrawny bird with a scalp-lock at the back of its neck, looking like a mosquito when flying—and porcelain landscapes out of drawing, like a child's first attempts, peopled by individuals with the expression of having their hair pulled, hung 'twixt our dados and friezes. Lydia's young-lady friends gave her their works in oil or water-colors done in a fine, free-hand style that may one day form a school of its own. Our Chicago girls are people of nous. Their talk is "fluent as the flight of a swallow:" their manners are delightful—American manners must be excellent, so many Englishmen marry American girls. Their playing makes us glad the seven poor strings of the old musicians have been multiplied to seven times seven: no Chicago girl is a musician unless she has the masters at her finger-tips. And they are readers too. You would suppose, judging from the papers, that our Chicagoans are inordinately fond of reading about the indiscretions of rustic wives, and are given to a perusal of the news in startling headlines: but such is not the fact. We are great readers of the distinguished magazines and of first-rate books, and our taste for art is keen. When we go abroad we don't care so much for mountains and rivers—they are like potatoes and pork to a man who is visiting: we have them at home—but we are after art. Ruskin says no people can be great in art unless it lives among beautiful natural objects; which is hard on us Chicago folks. If we had any mountainous or rocky tracts we should not live in them. If we possessed a Mount Vesuvius we should use it for getting up bogus eruptions to draw tourists to our hotels, and we should tap the foot of the mountain to draw off the lava for our streets.

Lydia's finery had a subduing effect upon me, who had bounded my aspirations to what was distinctly within my grasp—namely, things

Plain, but not sordid—though not splendid, clean.

Lydia was an expert housekeeper. "I love a little house that I can clean all over," said she. She would have liked a Roman villa made of polished marble, that could be scrubbed from top to bottom, or a house of the melted and dyed cobble-stones that some genius has promised to give us. Her china-closet was a picture, with platters in rows and cups hanging on little brass hooks under the shelves. Our whole house was exquisite, and became quite renowned for its elegance and charm. Lydia's exuberant vitality was attractive: her relations and friends liked to come there. Some of our friends were of the high, haughty, tone-y sort, which would have been well enough if we had not incurred debts in our housekeeping.

What and how great the merit and the art To live on little with a thankful heart!

Lydia's rich uncle, Nathan Stene, gave us a bookcase that caused my heart to sink with an appalling premonition at its first appearance, it was so huge and high. How we got it into our parlor without cutting off the top and bottom words cannot explain. That bookcase was my first step toward ruin. I had a good many books—not of scientific but of delightful literature, the best works of the best authors—and my books were as shabby as Charles Lamb's library. There never were such dilapidated volumes as my De Quinceys. Lydia had Young Mrs. Jardine and lots of other

Stickjaw pudding that tires the chin, With the marmalade spread ever so thin;

and her books were new-looking. She said mine looked disgustingly dirty in our new bookcase, so I had them rebound; and this was my next step toward ruin. Lydia wanted a long peacock-feather duster to dust the top of the bookcase. I bought that. Our only long tablecloth was a damask, engarlanded and diapered and resplendent with a colored border warranted to wash. I had to buy napkins to go with it. I bought a butter-knife to match a solid silver butter-dish, and a set of individual salt-spoons to match salt-cellars, and nut-picks and crackers to match something else. Moreover, there was a magnificent opera-glass that required to be matched with theatre-going—not as I was wont to go, in an old overcoat having its pockets stuffed with old playbills. But why enumerate?

On the strength of her wedding-presents Lydia became a gladiatrix in the arena of society. She already belonged to three clubs: she joined four more—Private Theatrical, a History of Art, a Conversation and a Suffrage Club. I myself belong to but one, the Cremation Club—am an officer in that: I split kindlings. As the bordered tablecloth was suitable for lunch-parties, Lydia entertained her friends at an hour when I was about town looking up paragraphs, but I have no doubt she carried it off bravely, and their discussions were as important as those of a poultry convention on the question of feathers or no feathers on chickens' legs.

At this time I found that great feasts make small comforts scarce. Often, on coming home and finding Lydia out, I had Ionic hours alone, when I refreshed myself with the great shouting, cheering and laughter of the Greek armies and people that gladden our dull hearts even now, and for want of anything better I regaled myself on the feasts offered by Machaon (first Scotchman) in the Iliad, and by Nestor, on the table with azure feet and in the goblet with four handles and four feet, with gold turtles drinking at the brim from the handles. Or I supped with Achilles while Patroclus turned the meat on the bed of wide, glowing embers and the tent brightened in the blaze. Once, when I was seeking something for that newspaper bore, Woman's Sphere, I lunched with the Suffragists. Each character of the Suffrage Club was as clear as a figure cut on a sapphire. The president, a matron of sixty wearing waving gray hair and dressed in black, with plenty of white lace under her chin, had the air of a woman used to command a large family and accustomed to plenty of money and to good society. Her voice was the agreeable barytone of her years, its thin tones entirely gone, and her good English was like gentle music: nevertheless, an occasional strong tone or gesture revealed her determined will. The Suffragists were handsomely dressed, were self-possessed and appreciative of each other's company, and were of all ages, one being a plain young girl quietly looking on and enjoying the world more than a self-wrapped belle is capable of doing.

But to my tale, which is to me more absorbing than Rob Roy, Robinson Crusoe and Boots at the Swan combined. Of all our visitors I preferred Uncle Nathan Stene. Not that I liked him personally. He was the typical rich man: I should know he was rich wherever I met him. There are thousands like him: they despise me utterly. Uncle Nathan had a scorn for poor people. He disdained whole States that gave him a bad market, and regarded young fellows who smoke and go to the theatre as beggars' dogs. He was of middle height, with reddish complexion, sandy hair and eyebrows, quick, sharp gray eyes, and features of a short, clean, close aquiline cut, with thin, dry lips—a man of iron, pig iron. When young he might have been facetious, but he had concentrated his energies entirely on money, till there was nothing left to go in other directions, and his humor was now as sombre as the grin of a hanged man. He had self-conceit, which is a talent when combined with some other qualities. Doctor Johnson's observation, that to make money requires talents, is true: a dull man cannot do it. Uncle Nate had to remember thirty thousand articles in his business of wholesale druggist. He was a perfect devil-fish for sucking the goodness from every business he was concerned in—banking, railroading, and so on. He belonged to the Chicago Board of Trade, and was particularly useful in getting those fellows in Indianapolis on a string, sending the wheat up, up, until the Hoosiers had made a few hundred thousands, and then, when they thought they were going to make millions, letting it down and scooping them. My habit of listening intently to Uncle Nate's telegrammatic style of talk caused him to like me. I resembled King Lear: I talked with those who were wise, and said little, and Nathan's aphorisms about trade and politics made good paragraphs when boiled down to the crisp cracklins.

While I worked and Lydia entertained we were waltzing like the wind down to ruin. No use to cry, "Ho! great gods! Hilloa! you're wanted here!" On we went.

Worrying over pecuniary affairs gradually sapped my mind. To lose one's eyes or all one's relations, or to be bitten by a mad dog, will not unhinge the brain so completely as pecuniary anxiety. My paragraphs, spite of Nate's verbum saps., lost their originality. I resigned my post on the Times. I became the collector on commission of certain rents of Uncle Nathan's. Whoso collects rents in Chicago tenements should know how to box or else to run: I could do neither. I got little or nothing out of the devils and devillets, my respected uncle's tenants. He had a genius for the despatch of business: I had none; therefore he concluded I was an ass, and wondered how he came to be pleased with me. Oh, 'tis a good thing to know what you can do, and to do that, and know what you cannot do, and leave that alone. Dull as weeds of Lethe was my task. 'Twas terrible! I thought it would never end. No greater misery could be imagined than what I endured in Nathan's service.

One morning of those days I picked up a note in Lydia's writing hastily scrawled as follows: "I have discovered your retreat: I must see you. At seven o'clock wave the lamp three times across the window if all is well."

In my undecided way I pinned the note to the blue silk pincushion on Lydia's dressing-case. I had a sudden jealous suspicion of an acquaintance of ours, a furiously-striking English traveller—"Bone-Boiler to the Queen" or something—who had a long, silky, sweeping moustache blowing about in the wind, and parted his hair "sissy." But I went to work all the same.

That day Uncle Nate was a worse screw than ever. "How is it you never hit a clam?" asked he.

"Your tenants have nothing, so I get nothing," I replied.

"Nonsense! They must have something. Drunken loafers are driving about in livery-rigs everywhere—sure sign of prosperity."

"Your people are not out," I said.

"They sit around the house reading yesterday's newspapers."

"They can't get work," said I.

"Everybody that wants to work is in the ditch now-a-days: that I know" said the old man.

"Some are sick."

"They are well enough to walk three miles to a brewery after a free drink."

"Some are too young to work."

"Hah! what's the use of having a parcel of young ones to be poor relations to the rest of the world?" asked he.

"Some are positively starving," said I.

"What of that? You have to let them starve. Five hundred thousand starved in India last year, a country overrun with sacred snakes and animals of all sorts that they might have eaten. Three millions starved in China, and they tore up their English railway, the only thing that could save them. What are you going to do about it? Starving! Bet they are wallowing in the theatre every night," said Nathan.

"The theatre with Lawrence Barrett! I wish they might see anything so elevating. Perhaps Othello might make some impression on them, such a stupendous temperance lecture it is!" I groaned.

"If you would leave the theatre alone you wouldn't be quite so short as you are now," asserted Uncle Nate, almost popping open with contempt.

"'Short,' man! 'Short' in your throat!" shouted I, forgetting myself.

"Yes, short; and it's my opinion you've shorted me in this business."

I could not kick our uncle out of his premises, so I got out myself, not to return; and I left in debt to him as well as to the rest of the world. I went homeward. Though it was August, a cold wind blew from the lake, whipping the large, flapping leaves of the castor-bean plants in the front yards to rags. I quaffed the lake in the wet wind. "No wonder," I thought, "we're three parts water: our world is." A young fellow on the street-car platform smoked a cigar that smelled like pigweed, cabbage-stalks and other garden rubbish burning, and made me sick. He enjoyed it, though: in fact, all, including the street-car driver himself, were on that day more than usually engaged in the intense enjoyment of being Chicagoans. All but me, miserable. The very windows and pavements of our streets, being clean and cold, sent a chill to my bones.

When I reached home Lydia was pinning on her habergeon, her neck-armor of ribbons and lace, before the mirror. "What is this?" I asked, pointing to the suspicious note, still pinned to the cushion.

"That's the note that has to be found in my room in the play of Lost in London," she answered, turning the great lamps of her eyes on mine.

As I had nothing to say to this, I went and lay down on the sofa before the parlor-fire. Though a grate in January is a poor affair—I never knew any human being who really depended on one in winter to speak in praise of it—on a cool August day it is delicious. I fell into a warm doze before the fire, then into a series of agreeable naps. When Lydia said supper was ready I did not want any, and at bedtime I was too stiff to move easily.

After this, during several weeks, my bedchamber became to me a place full of sweet dreams and rest and quiet breathing. Luxurious indifference, a pleasure in hearing the crickets in the grass of the midsummer gardens, and voices talking afar—a satisfaction in seeing the polished walnut, marble and china and plenteous linen towels of my washstand, my altar to Hebe, and in seeing through a window,

While day sank or mounted higher, The light, aerial gallery, golden railed, Burn like a fringe of fire

on some remote palace of the city. These and other sensations of malarial fever occupied me for a while. In half dreams I then enjoyed the minutest details of life in an old farm-house that had been my home, or walked through a picture-gallery I had once frequented, seeing each picture strangely perfect and splendidly limned. Light diet and keeping quiet—which every Westerner knows to be the cure of this fever—cured me. I came forth looking like a swairth, one of those words marked "obs." in the dictionary—means phantom of a person about to die. It ought to be revived; so here goes—swairth.

Leaden before, my eyes were dross of lead.

I was pale and lank, but things had settled themselves in my mind: I had gone back to my old ideas of honor and freedom; my mind was made up.

"Well, Lydia," said I, "you wanted to manage: you were bound to wear the breeches. As you make your pants, so you must sit in them."

"You awful man!" said she.

"Now I will manage," said I.

"Indeed! Nothing would please me better," said she.

"I will sell our house and all that's in it, and get out of debt," said I.

"You mean to be one of the lower classes and wear old rags," she exclaimed.

"We have no class-distinctions but the Saving Class and the Wasting Class. I shall be of the first class. As to clothes, they are despicable," I replied.

"People who despise clothes can't get any."

"Well, I've done all I'm going to do toward developing the West, which consists in getting into debt, as far as I can see."

When an able woman submits she submits completely. Lydia put our house in order. I filled the streets with dodgers advertising our sale. I have not been a paragraphist for nothing: the sale was a success. I paid a part of my debts, and gave notes for the rest that will keep my future poor. I started in again on the Times' city force. To board I hate: it's a chicken's life—roosting on a perch, coming down to eat and then going back to roost. So I got a little domicile in "The Patch." When the teakettle has begun to spend the evening the new cheap wallpaper, the whitewash and the soapsuds with which the floor has been scrubbed emit peculiar odors.

"It smells poor-folksy here," says Lydia.

"All the better!" say I. —MARY DEAN.



SHORT STUDIES IN THE PICTURESQUE.

Although our American climate, with its fierce and pitiless extremes of temperature, will never give the lush meadows and lawns of moist England, yet in the splendid and fiery lustres of its autumn forests, in its gorgeous sunsets and sunrises and in the wild beauty of its hills and mountains there is that which makes an English Midland landscape seem tame in comparison. The rapid changes of temperature in summer and the sudden rising of vast masses of heated air produce cloud-structures of the most imposing description, especially huge, irregular cumulus clouds that float in equilibrium above us like colossal icebergs, airy mountain-ranges or tottering battlemented towers and "looming bastions fringed with fire."

Yon clouds are big with flame, and not with rain, Massed on the marvellous heaven in splendid pyres, Whereon ethereal genii, half in pain And half in triumph, light their mystic fires.

The brilliant deep-blue Italian skies of the Middle and Southern States are full of poetry, and will repay the most careful and prolonged study. I have seen, far up in the zenith, silvery fringes of cirrus clouds forming and melting away at the same moment and in the same place, ethereal and evanescent as a dream, easel-studies of Nature. Sometimes the clouds take the form of most airily-delicate brown crape, "hatchelled" on the sky in minute lines and limnings. Now the sky looks like a sweet silver-azure ceiling, the blue peeping here and there through tender masses of silver frosting. The skies of the New England coast States are filled, during a large part of spring, summer and autumn, with a white and dreamy haze, and do not produce cloud-phenomena on such an imposing scale as the more brilliant skies of the interior. I shall never forget a vast and glowing sunset-scene I once witnessed in the Ohio Valley. It lasted but a few moments, but what a spectacle! The setting sun was throwing his golden light over the intensely green earth, and suffusing the irregular masses of clouds now with a tender rosy light and now with delicate saffron. All along the eastern horizon extended a black-blue cloud-curtain of about twenty degrees in height, across which played the zigzag gold of the lightning. Overhead hung the gigantic ring of a complete rainbow (a rare phenomenon), looking like the iridescent rim of some vast sun that had shot from its orbit and was rapidly nearing our earth. In the north the while slept the sweet blue sky in peace. What a phantasmagoria of splendor, "the magic-lantern of Nature"! What a rich contrast of color!—the black and the gold, the green, saffron, rose and azure, and the whole crowned with a rainbow garland of glowing flowers. I felt assured that no sunset of Italy or Greece could fling upon the sky more costly pictures than these.

The delicacy and accuracy of touch exhibited in The Scarlet Letter and in Oldport Days can hardly be appreciated to the full by those who are unacquainted with certain mellow and crumbling towns and hamlets of the New England coast, especially of the warm south coast. Soft mists rise in summer like "rich distilled perfumes" from the warm Gulf Stream off Long Island Sound and drift landward in invisible airy volumes. Suddenly, as at a given signal, the sky becomes troubled, grows dun: trembling dew-specks glister upon the leaves, and in a few moments the gray fog starts out of the air on every side and clings to tree, crag and house like shroud to corpse. It is this warm moisture that gives to the south-coast hamlets their mellow tint. I have especially in mind at this moment one romantic village whose stout old yeoman elms hold their protecting foliage-shields over many a gray mansion as rich in tradition as the House of the Seven Gables, and only awaiting the touch of some wizard hand to become immortalized. The prevailing tint of these old houses, and of everything that a lichen can take hold of, is a sage-gray. There seems to be something in the sea-breezes unusually favorable to the growth of lichens, and they hold high carnival everywhere, growing in riotous exuberance on every tree and rock and fence. I saw whole board fences so thickly tufted and bearded with a rich, particolored mosaic of lichens that from base-board to cope-board there was scarcely a square foot of the original wood to be seen. On any hazy Indian-summer afternoon, if you look down the wide, irregular main street, lined with its mighty elms and gambrel-roofed houses, all seems wrapped in a dim gray atmosphere of antiquity, like that surrounding Poe's House of Usher, only not ghostly as that is. It is a strange je ne sais quoi that eludes description, as if houses and trees stood at the bottom of a sea of visible heat.

Whatever of picturesqueness an English hamlet has, this American one has. It has its wealthy hereditary aristocracy, its small farmers or squires and its peasants, its ruins and haunted houses, its traditions of savages and of the great men who have honored it with their presence. The town, moreover, is set off by a framework of the most enchanting and varied scenery—river, streamlet, ocean, lighthouse, hills with flower-and-grass-tufted crags, and forests, while on any summer's day one may see, far away and "sown in a wrinkle of the monstrous hill," some neighboring village with its graceful spire of purest white gleaming and flaming in the hot sunshine, like marble set in a foil of malachite.

A window of my room looked out upon a crystal stream that wound down through the salt-meadows to the sea, and twice a day, under the influence of the seemingly-mysterious systole and diastole of the tides, spread out into a wide-glittering lake and anon crept back again into its sinuous bed. This water was as fickle and wanton and many-mooded as a coquettish girl. Now its translucent glassy surface is unruffled by a single wrinkle, and in its brilliant depths every minutest feature of yonder drifting hay-barge is weirdly mirrored. I look out again, and the face of the water is working with rage under the lashing of the wind: at the same time its face seems white with fear, and its ghostly arms are tossing, now in defiance and now in piteous appeal. But now, as I gaze, the winds in their uncouth gambols tear a huge rent in the cloud-tent they had raised over the earth, and in the sweet blue beyond appears the calm and smiling face of the sun. Before its glance the wind-phantoms slink away in fear and the now quiet streamlet smiles through its tears.

The stiff formality and the ridiculous solemnity of the old Puritan times still linger about these secluded New England hamlets. But each winter a huge Christmas tree is set up in the church of the village I have mentioned, and loaded with presents. The winter I was there I went to see the distribution. Recollecting the delightful Christmas days of my own childhood, I was anticipating great pleasure. Of course I was going to look in on a scene of childish joy, of shouting and laughing, and eating of candy and pop-corn in unlimited quantities. Memories of the stories of Hans Andersen and the Grimm brothers were floating through my mind as I crunched the crisp snow under my feet on my way to the church. I remembered the rapture of those Christmas mornings at home, when we children stole down stairs by candlelight to the warm room filled with the aromatic perfume of the Christmas tree, that stood there resplendent with presents from old Santa Claus—Noah's arks, mimic landscapes, dolls, sleds, colored cornucopias bursting with bonbons, and especially those books of fairy-tales from whose rich creamy pages exhaled a most divine and musty fragrance. Ah, the memory of our childhood's hours! what is it but that enchanted lake of the Arabian tale, from whose quiet depths we are ever and anon drawing up in our nets some magic colored fish? Well, I reached the church. The children, dressed in their Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes, were sitting in the high-backed pews in solemn silence, while a reverend gentleman was delivering a solemn exhortation to gratitude and goodness. Another followed. "Very well, gentlemen," thought I, "but now please to retire and give up the field to these children." But no. The superintendent of the Sunday-school now advanced: the children marched up one by one, as their names were called, and received their presents from him. Some of them came very near grinning (poor things!), but in general they looked as if they were going to their execution. When all was done the meeting was dismissed!

Sauntering through the streets of this village, and making note of the quaint idiosyncrasies and irregularities of character and manner displayed by its humbler folk, I thought of the sentiment which Thoreau so exquisitely expresses in his Week: "The forms of beauty fall naturally around him who is in the performance of his proper work, as the curled shavings drop from the plane and borings cluster round the auger." Picturesqueness characterizes the New England white laborer, as it does the Southern black laborer: especially is this true of those who have emigrated from Europe when of adult age, and have been unable to lay aside the picturesque features of their Old-World life.

One winter evening I discovered, a few miles from the village, one of this class: he was, on the whole, the strangest human being whom it has ever been my fortune to meet. About dusk I found myself some distance away from the village, near the great bridge that spans the river where it debouches into the sea. The water was heaving in long, slow swells. A deep silence had fallen over the earth. The evening red was reflected in the sea in rich blood dye, while the colored lights of the bridge and the lighthouse glowed and burned in the deep, here writhing along the waves like long golden and crimson sea-serpents, and there shooting down long streamers of light into the waves, to serve, I fancied, as hanging lamps for that vast black, star-bespangled abyss of the sky, that weird sunken dome, that inverted world, over which the water lay stretched out like thin, translucent red glass, and to look down into whose immeasurable and dizzy depths thrilled me both with pleasure and a kind of terror—that vague feeling of pain which the sublime always excites in the mind.

I crossed the bridge and wandered along the opposite side of the river by a lonely path. Suddenly I saw smoke curling up from a small recess of the beach. It was a full mile from any human habitation known to me, and I hesitated for a moment about advancing upon such a place at dusk, especially as the winter was one of the gloomiest in the period of our long financial depression. However, I decided to go on. Several overturned fishing-boats lay upon the beach, with a net drying upon one of them. A few clamshells were scattered about, and near the door of a small cabin lay a pile of split kindlings. The cabin was considerably smaller in size than an English railway-carriage, and nestled under the overhanging bank of the river. No human being was visible at first. But presently I detected by the red glow of his pipe a man in the interior of the cabin. I sat down on a boat, not venturing to approach nearer and beard the old lion in his lair. But on his inviting me to come in I went up to the door. It was, however, only a meaningless form of speech that led him to say "Come in," for it would hardly have been possible to get into a cabin only five feet wide, with the man himself sitting by a large rusty stove right over against the door. He placed a bootjack in the doorway for me to sit down upon. There was no window in the cabin. Firkins of fish were piled up along the sides of the interior, and in the dim background I saw a rude framework covered with straw which served as a bed.

And now for the human being there. The most noticeable peculiarity about the strange old hermit was an enormous wen which hung down from the front part of his neck. This wen was fully as large as a man's head. Long yellow hair hung over his shoulders, and a huge red beard reached to the middle of his breast—

His beard a foot before him, and his hair A yard behind.

His moustache alone showed signs of the scissors: he had there cleared a path through the russet jungle of his beard, that an entrance might be had to the inner man. The eyes that looked out from this thicket of hair had not that hard, dangerous, angry look that experience of such persons had taught me to expect, but they expressed loneliness. He told of the high tides of the month of January in a certain year, when the water rose so as to enter his cabin and ponderous cakes of ice were knocking and grinding against its sides in the night. We talked of fish. He spoke of fyke-nets and drag-nets and warp-lines, and of eel-spearing through the ice. He took especial delight in telling me how the snow in winter was swept away from his door in a clean circle by the broom of some friendly wind. "It is the wind that does it," said he with touching naivete. It almost seemed to the poor old man's lonely heart like a special favor on the part of the wind, like a tender feeling and relenting on the part of the icy-hearted winter wind for him in his solitude and sadness as he lay there cast out on the desolate shore of the world, deformed and shattered in health—

Gleich einer Leiche Die grollend ausgeworfen das Meer—

"Like a corpse which the bellowing sea has cast out."

Strange life! O utter barrenness of existence! A pipe, a fire, fish, rags and a bed of straw. God pity thee! God pity thee, thou poor stricken deer! Take heart, man, take heart! Be brave, and dash away the bitter tear. Look up from the lowly cabin-door into the solemn night with its golden-burning stars, and even the loosened harp-strings of thy shattered old frame will vibrate and tremble to the eternal melodies that thrill through the mystic All: "God is in his heaven."

Dickens and Hawthorne have each written of canal-life in America, the one in a satirico-humorous way, the other sympathetically. People side with one or the other according as their disposition is active and restless or indolent and epicurean. I fight under the banner of Hawthorne in defence of the canal. The following sketch of one of the old picturesque Pennsylvania canals may be called a vignette, for it is a fragment without definite border or setting. But admirers of Dickens are respectfully requested to note that it is no mere fancy sketch of a poetic mind, but was drawn from Nature, every bit of it.

The first and most novel sensation I experienced was that of the quiet and seemingly mysterious gliding movement of the boat. Ever and anon we passed through a lock. How strange and thrilling the feeling, to stand on the deck and see yourself slowly sinking into the great mossy box, and then to see the great valves of the lock slowly open, disclosing what seemed a new land and fresh vistas of green landscape! It was like the opening of the gates of the future (I pleased myself with fancying) to my triumphant progress. Gate after gate swung back its ponderous valves: I was Habib advancing from isle to isle of the enchanted sea. I uttered the word of power, and the huge unwieldy gates of opposition swung back with sullen and unwilling deference, compelled to respect the talisman I held. But hark! Hear the sweet notes of the supper-horn floating through the cool gloom of twilight as the tired reapers trudge home with their grain-cradles swung over their shoulders. Listen to the tinkling mule-bells on the tow-path, see the bright crimson tassels of the bridles, and the gayly-decorated boats, their cabin-roofs adorned with pots of herbs and flowers.

As we glide down the canal, ever and anon we see some empty returning boat (called "light boat" in the technical canal phrase) rounding a curve before us, It comes nearer: the horses walk the same tow-path: how are the boats to pass without confusion? Ah, the riddle is solved. Our captain (who holds the helm while the boy, his assistant, is down in the cabin preparing supper) calls out suddenly, at the last moment, "Whoa!" The well-trained horses instantly stop; the momentum of the boat carries it on; the rope slackens, disappears in the water, except at the two ends; the approaching horses step over it, and the approaching boat glides over it. When the approaching "light boat" has passed nearly or entirely over the rope our captain shouts to his horses to go on: the rope tightens, and all is as before.

The parts of the canal lying between the locks are called "levels." On long levels we could often see one or two boats far ahead of us and going in the same direction. Nothing could be prettier than the thin blue streamer of wood-smoke trailing out from the stovepipe of the cabin-roof against the bright green of the foliage along the banks. It told us the cheery news that the fragrant coffee or tea was a-making in the cozy little cabin below. And now, when supper is done, the captain brings up his guitar and plays sweet plaintive airs as we glide through the quiet evening shadows. Night deepens: the stars come out one by one, and are reflected in the smooth dark water below in dreamy, dusky splendor. We brush the dew from the heavy foliage as we pass along. Lithe alders and heavy vines trail in the cool flood, and the fresh evening air is filled with grateful harvest-scents and the perfume of unseen flowers. And now our pretty painted lamp-board is fixed in its place in the bow. The bright lamp throws its rich golden splendor before us. The lamp is hid from us by the board which holds it. We stand behind in the dark, and watch the overhanging sprays of foliage making strange, grotesque shadows that move fantastically and sport and clutch and writhe like wanton fiends, while the solid banks of foliage themselves, reflected in the water below, look, one fancies, like hanging gardens in the weird world to which the water is but a window, and far, far down upon whose dusky floor the flowers are golden stars.

The canal over which I am now conducting my readers is one of the oldest in the country. For many miles it is cut out of the solid rock, following the windings of the river and clinging close to the contours of the hills. The particolored rocks jut out in great square blocks, which, in summer, are usually tufted with grass or flowers. There is an indescribable air of coziness and safety about the amphibious life one leads on such a canal. You can here snap your fingers at the terrors of the cruel water. Here the mocking waves cannot "curl their monstrous heads" as on the sea, when with blind fury they dash against the helpless ship their ponderous and shapeless forms, while sailors and passengers alike are every moment expecting the final stroke that shall sink them beneath the waves. On the canal you cannot be drowned, on the canal you cannot be wrecked. The shore is so delightfully near! You exult in the friendly companionship of the rocky wall that towers above you, and in the assuring presence of the flowers and shrubs that cling there or reach out to you their thin elvish hands. You feel that here untamed Nature (that great wolf) cannot get her claws upon you. Upon this thread of water you are soothed by the thought that you are under the friendly and beneficent protection of man.

About nine or ten o'clock each evening the boats tie up at some lock. At all of these locks there are refreshment-stands and neat taverns of which the traveller must avail himself, since there are no accommodations for visitors on the boats. On the fourth day, wishing to vary my experience, I boarded another boat. Her deck was the very model of neatness. Verily the spirit of either a Yankee housewife or a Dutch vrow must have presided over that boat and tyrannized over the poor wretches who managed it. Black Care seemed to sit continually upon their brows. They were living scrubbing-brushes. They were scrub-mad. From morn to dewy eve they scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed, and doubtless in their dreams they still scrubbed on. The crew consisted of a man and his wife, their boy and an old uncle of the boy. I found, to my delight, that the boy was a very communicative young gentleman, flowing freely in talk without any pumping on my part. The various quaint technical phrases which I learned from him shall now be imparted to the reader. The berme, or heel-path, is the side of the canal opposite the tow-path; basins are small coves in the canal where boats may lie over; stop-lock, a sort of quay; the bit, a timber-head at the bow of the boat. Snub her! is a phrase of command, meaning, "Tie the boat to a post on the bank." Pipe-poles are steering-poles. The stern pile (of coal on this canal) is in a large crib near the stern and just in front of the cabin, and is placed in this particular part of the long and unwieldy boat in order to make her obey the helm better. Timber-heads project above the deck to "snub" lines on. Tow-posts are short upright posts near the bow, to which the tow-line is fastened. The combings are the pieces the hatches rest on and surround the hold in an oval form. The wale-plank is the edge of the deck, projecting out over the water like a welt around the entire circumference of the boat.

It may surprise many persons to learn that on the tablelands of the Alleghany Mountains there are still thousands of square miles of virgin forests of hemlock and pine through which roam bears and deer in considerable numbers. The hemlock trees are rapidly succumbing, however, to the axe of the lumberman and the bark-peeler. Bark-peeling is the great industry there, almost every mountain-hollow along the lines of the few railways that have penetrated the region in Pennsylvania having its tannery in active operation. This tanning business, by the way, is in a very prosperous condition, owing to the foreign demand for the liquor extracted from the bark as well as to the steadiness of the leather market. There is a primitive freshness in the life of the mountaineers and lumbermen of the Alleghanies like that of the mining regions of the far West. There is a sprinkling of Canadians among the lumbermen, and as a whole they are the most honest, good-natured, childlike set of men in existence. They are the true priests of those high and dim-green temple-aisles—priests of Nature one might call them. The cabins of the bark-peelers are made of rough, sweet-smelling hemlock planks. The smell of the hemlock bark is fresh and tonical, and appetizing in the highest degree. The men eat fabulous quantities of food: some require five meals a day. I well remember my first meal in a mountain hemlock shanty. Imagine a long table of unpainted boards with X-shaped legs, and along each side of the table benches for seats. Let there be upon the table three large bowls of black sugar, here and there towering stacks of white bread (the slices an inch thick at least), and beside each cover a teacup and saucer, a huge bowl filled to the brim with steaming-hot apple-sauce, together with a bowl of the same dimensions containing beans. Now blow the supper-horn, and hearken to the far halloo from the mountain-side. Twenty blowzed and bearded men, ravenous and wild-eyed with hunger, presently file into the room. They sit down: there is an awful and solemn silence—they are evidently impressed with the momentous importance of the occasion. You find your face growing long; you think of funerals; make a timid and humble remark which you hope will be acceptable and within the range of their comprehension. No answer: you evidently have their pity. No word breaks the sullen silence, except an occasional request to pass something, uttered with an effort as if the speaker had the lockjaw. The meal is bolted with frightful rapidity, generally in five or six minutes. I remember that I was considerably scared and dazed, on my first acquaintance with these mountain-fauns, at seeing such a systematic snatching and grabbing, such a ferocious plying of knives and forks and rattling of cups, by those huge-limbed, brawny, whiskered fellows.

It is difficult to describe the perennial beauty of the hemlock trees, with their dark, rich foliage-masses and aromatic odor. It seems a sacrilege to destroy them so ruthlessly. When stripped of their bark and stained with the dark-red sap, they look like fallen giants spoiled of their armor, lying there prone and white-naked, as if there had been a battle of the giants and the gods. These giants were perfumed, it seems. Their huge green plumes are now withered and torn, and their red blood oozes slowly from their bodies in thin and trickling streams. You think of Ossian's heroes, of Thor and his hammer, of the Anakim or of the steeple-high Brobdignagian cavalry, and almost expect to hear groans issuing from the colossal trunks that cumber the ground on every side.

Everything is on a large scale in these mighty forests. The horizon of your life noiselessly widens, rolls gradually back into immeasurable distances, and "deepens on and up." There is elasticity and stretch in your thoughts. If you have read Richter, his towering, godlike dreams of time and eternity here find their fit interpretation. He had his Fichtelgebirge, and you have your hemlock mountains. Life seems heroic once more: you exult in existence, and fondly think that here you could be happy for ever. To live far away from the cruel, hurrying world in a sweet little hamlet you wot of, sunk in the heart of the mountains at the bottom of a deep, mossy mountain-chalice—a chalice of richest chasing and filled with the pure wine of God, the mountain-air; to live there during the long summer days; to stand in the flush of dawn with bared head and inhale the fragrance of the dew-drenched grass and the scarlet balsams; to walk with hushed step through the wide forests, communing with the powerful sylvan spirits that labor there, watching with what miraculous delicacy of touch their unseen fingers weave the rich fantastic shrouds of fern and moss that deck the dead and fallen trees or anon give to the living their faint and mottled tints of green and gray;—to live thus through the summer hours, and through autumn, winter, spring watch the unrolling of the gorgeous scroll of Time,—this, you think, were living to some purpose!—WILLIAM SLOANE KENNEDY.



OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP.



THE PARIS SALON OF 1880.

The Salon (official) catalogue contains this year 696 pages. There are 3957 paintings exhibited; 2085 designs, sketches in charcoal and watercolors; 30 engravings on stone, etc.; 111 designs for architecture; 46 specimens of lithography; 701 pieces of sculpture; 305 eaux-fortes; and 54 specimens of monumental art—in all 7280 objects. Though we all thought last year that the number of paintings exhibited was immense, this year the number is 917 more. Alas for the poor critics! How many an additional ache that implies for them! Still, as we have a cozy reading-room at the Palais de l'Industrie—an innovation of this season for the benefit of those who get tired of looking at the pictures and wish to "take a rest"—the weary critic may enter and take a seat (if he can find one unoccupied, which is highly improbable), and there write out his "notes," as I am doing at this moment.

While standing in front of a charming picture by Dagnan-Bouveret (Un Accident), I felt a soft arm brush gently against mine, and glancing down recognized the capricious Sara Bernhardt. Yes, Sara was there, leaning on the arm of Mr. Stevens, the Belgian painter who is credited with finishing Sara's paintings, and followed by her son Maurice and a little retinue of admirers, mostly young men—artists and actors—and stared at with persistency by all who saw her pass. "There goes Bernhardt!" "Did you see Bernhardt?" were the remarks on all sides. Her head, which bore itself as if quite unaware that a suit for three hundred and fifty thousand francs damages was suspended over it like the sword of Damocles, was covered with a mass of rich auburn-colored hair. She is as changeable as a chameleon in the matter of her hair: I never see her twice with the same colored chevelure.

The Salon this year contains at least four good—one might almost say great—pictures. Of these four, the one to which popular opinion seems to award the grande medaille d'honneur, is Bastien-Lepage's Jeanne d'Arc. This large painting (3-15/100 metres by 3-45/100 metres) represents the Maid at the moment when, seeing the vision of the Virgin, she is inspired to go forth and save her country. A peasant-girl, strong and muscular, she leans against a tree, her face uplifted to heaven and aglow with a noble inspiration. The cottage in the background, the trees and weeds in the middle distance, the distribution of light and the subdued tones of this impressive picture, are all excellent. Some critics object to the artist's perspective, but I fancy that is a bit of hypercriticism.

Then comes Fernand Cormon's Flight of Cain, suggested by Victor Hugo's lines:

Lorsqu' avec ses enfants couverts de peaux de betes, Echevele, livide au milieu des tempetes, Cain se fut enfui de devant Jehovah.

This canvas is one of the largest in the Salon—4 by 7 metres. The chief figures are grandly painted and the whole picture is very impressive.

Alphonse Alexis Morot's Good Samaritan is an exceedingly strong picture. The Samaritan is represented holding upon his own beast the poor maltreated Jew and walking by his side. The figure-painting is wonderful in its vigor and verve.

The fourth picture is Alexandre Cabanel's Phedre. The source of the artist's inspiration was the well-known passage from Euripides: "Consumed upon a bed of grief, Phedre shuts herself up in her palace, and with a thin veil envelops her blonde head. It is now the third day that her body has partaken of no nourishment: attacked by a concealed ill, she longs to put an end to her sad fate." Phedre, as she lies wishing only for death as a surcease of sorrow, gazed upon with solicitude by her pitying attendants, is a vivid picture of all-consuming grief. The decorative work of the bed and the wall is chaste and classic.

Of the minor pictures, that of Dagnan-Bouveret, Un Accident, is one of the best. It is indeed a rare picture in the excellence of its execution in every detail. A boy has been badly wounded in the wrist by some accident, and the surgeon is engaged in dressing the injured part. The dirty foot of the boy as it peeps out beneath the chair, shod in a rough sabot which fails to conceal its grime, the bowl standing on the table half full of blood and water while the wrist is now being skilfully bandaged by the surgeon, whose operations are watched with great solicitude by the group of sympathetic relatives,—all these features give a living interest to this painting which is unusual. The red, grimy hands of the old mother of the boy are very faithfully painted. The expression on the lad's face of heroic endurance and a determination not to cry in any case is touching.

As for Mademoiselle Sara Bernhardt's La Jeune Fille et la Mort—a veiled skeleton coming up behind a young girl and touching her on the shoulder—it would attract little attention if it had not been signed by the flighty (and lately fleeing) actress. The verses underneath the picture are the best part of it:

La Mort glisse en son reve, et tout bas: "Viens," dit elle, "L'Amour c'est l'ephemere, et je suis l'immortelle."

The great names—Meissonier, Gerome, Munkacsy, Madrazo, Berne-Bellecour, Detaille, De Neuville, Rosa Bonheur, Flameng, etc.—are conspicuous this year by their absence from the catalogue of the Salon. It is whispered that the reason Munkacsy does not exhibit is because the administration of the Beaux-Arts saw fit to place the pictures by foreign artists separately in the Galerie des Etrangers. An "impressionist" artist-friend of mine—Miss Cassatt, the sister of Vice-President Cassatt of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company—says that the reason these distinguished artists do not exhibit any more is that they are disgusted with the way in which the Salon is conducted by Edmond Turquet, the present sous-secretaire aux Beaux-Arts, and the very unfair acts committed in the awarding of medals, admission of pictures, etc.

M. Jean Jacques Henner's La Fontaine is a true Correggio in delicacy and clearness of tone. His treatment of the flesh is peculiar, and much envied by many a Paris artist. In this picture the nymph, leaning over the fountain, is dressed in a very inexpensive costume—in fact, the same fashion that Mother Eve introduced into Eden. There in the placid water the beautiful creature contemplates the reflection of her face, and seems to breathe, with all her being, those charming lines of Lafenestre:

Heure silencieuse, ou la nymphe se penche Sur la source des bois qui lui sert de miroir, Et reve en regardant mourir sa forme blanche Dans l'eau pale ou descend le mystere du soir.

Gustave Jacquet's Le Minuet is one of those pictures which fascinate and draw us back again and again. A rarely-beautiful girl is dancing the minuet, surrounded by a group of her friends, beautiful blonde girls and a fair-haired young man. The costumes are perfectly exquisite, yet there is not too much chiffonnerie in the picture. There is a remarkable effect of depth in the painting of the figure of the dancing girl, especially at the feet and at the bottom of her skirt. Perhaps the only criticism that could fairly be passed upon M. Jacquet's picture is that there is too much of mere "prettiness" about his principal figures.

A curious feature in this year's exhibition is that there are three pictures of the assassination of Marat by Charlotte Corday, two of which are hung in the same room. There are also three paintings representing a scene from Victor Hugo's Histoire d'un Crime, "L'enfant avait recu deux balles dans la tete." The child is represented in Henry Gervex's picture as being lifted up by his friends, who are examining the poor little wounded, bleeding head. It is powerful in composition and a very thrilling, realistic picture. The other two representations of this subject are by Paul Langlois and Paul Robert.

Gustave Courtois's Dante and Virgil in Hell: The Circle of the Traitors to their Country, is a picture very much studied by all the artists who visit the Salon because of its strange landscape, its wonderful effect of the glacial formations and its marvellous effects of color. Benjamin Constant's Les Derniers Rebelles is one of the best efforts of this artist, so fruitful in scenes drawn from Morocco and Egyptian life. He has depicted the sultan going forth in great splendor from the gates of the city of Morocco, surrounded by his army and courtiers, and before him are brought, either dead or alive, all the principal chiefs of the revolted tribes. There is much that is noble in the composition, and the coloring is perfect.

The arrangement of the pictures this year is not altogether satisfactory to the artists. A radical change has been made—grouping all the hors-concours men by themselves, and all the foreigners by themselves, and crowding about one thousand pictures out of doors into the corridors which run around the garden of the Palais de l'Industrie. A friend of mine saw a French artist mount a stepladder and deliberately cut out of the frame his picture and carry it away with him, because it was so badly hung.

The Illustrated Catalogue of the Salon is a somewhat remarkable work. It is specially noticeable for the very curious English translations of the titles of some of the paintings. For instance, the title of Gabriel Boutel's picture, Bonne a tout faire—a soldier seated with a baby in his arms—is rendered, Maid for anything(!). Priere a Saint Janvier is rendered Prayer AT Saint Januarious. Le Cabaret du Pot d'Etain is translated The Tavern of the Brass POT (instead of Pewter Mug). Ed. Morin's Promenade en Marne is A Frip on the Marne! Our friend from Boston, Edwin Lord Weeks, is mentioned as "LORD" Edwin Weeks! But the best of all is La Cruche cassee, translated The Broken PIG! The title of another picture is (in the catalogue) Good-bye, SweeL hart!

Out of the 3957 oil paintings exhibited, our country is represented by 113 pictures, the productions of 83 Americans. Then we claim 13 of the aquarelle painters, and there are in addition 11 natives of the United States who exhibit designs in charcoal, sanguine, gouache, and paintings on either porcelain or faience; also 7 sculptors—in all, 114 of our compatriots whose works are in the present Salon. New York claims the lion's share of these artists, 40 being accredited to that State. Of the remainder, 18 are from Boston, 13 from Philadelphia, 6 from New Orleans, 3 from Chicago, 2 from Toledo, 2 from San Francisco, etc. etc.

I think it will be generally admitted that the only really strong pictures exhibited by the American artists are John S. Sargent's portrait of Madame Pailleron (wife of the author of L'Etincelle) and his Fumee d'Ambre Gris; Henry Mosler's Toilette de Noce; D.R. Knight's Une Halte; Miss Gardner's Priscilla the Puritan; F.A. Bridgman's Habitation Arabe a Biskra; Charles E. DuBois's Autumn Evening on Lake Neuchatel; and Edwin L. Weeks's Embarkment of the Camels and Gateway of an Old Fondak in the Holy City of Sallee (Morocco)—both of which were sold immediately after the opening. Of course there are several other good pictures by our compatriots, and some that possess great merit. But the ones indicated above are the only ones which (excepting Picknell's two landscapes, Sur le Bord du Marais and La Route de Concarneau) have called forth any special notice from French critics or in any way attracted much of the public attention thus far. Mr. Sargent is a surprise and a wonder to even his master, Carolus Duran, whose portrait, painted by Sargent, attracted great attention in the Salon of last year and received an "honorable mention." He has painted this year a full-length in the open air, producing a very sunny, strong out-door effect. The hands attract much praise, but opinions vary as to the face. His Fumee d'Ambre Gris represents a woman of Tangiers engaged in perfuming her clothing with the fumes from a lamp in which ambergris is burning. The white robes of the woman set off against a pearly-gray background, the rising smoke, the curiously-tinted finger-nails of the woman, and the rich rug on which the lamp stands, combine to make a very notable and curious picture.

Miss Elizabeth J. Gardner of New Hampshire has two excellent pictures in the Salon—Priscilla the Puritan and The Water's Edge. They are both well hung, as indeed are most of our American artists' contributions to this exhibition. Out of the 111 pictures in oils sent in by the Americans, I can recall 46 which are hung "on the line," and there may be even more. This is certainly treating our countrymen very fairly. Miss Gardner's Au Bord de l'Eau represents two young girls standing at the edge of a pond, the one reaching down to pluck a water-lily, and the other supporting her by clasping her waist. There is great purity in the tones of this picture, and, though lacking somewhat in action, the coloring and drawing are both admirable.

The most notable piece of statuary in the Salon, the work of an American, is Saint-Gaudens's statue of Admiral Farragut. Mr. Saint-Gaudens, who is a native of New York, received about two years ago from one hundred gentlemen of that city, who had subscribed the necessary funds, a commission to make a statue of the great sailor. It is to be placed in Madison Square, New York. The pedestal is to be of granite, having at its base a large seat, on the back of which will be an inscription mentioning the important events in the life of the hero. The statue, of bronze, represents Farragut in a standing posture, a little larger than life-size. It is now being cast, and will be ready to be placed in position within two months. Mr. Saint-Gaudens is now at work on a statue of Richard Robert Randall, the founder of the Sailors' Snug Harbor on Staten Island, in front of which institution this statue is to be placed. This sculptor has also nearly completed his cast of the figures intended to ornament the mausoleum of Ex-Senator E.D. Morgan (of New York), about to be erected at Hartford, Connecticut. Mr. Saint-Gaudens intends removing his atelier from Paris to New York in June, and will hereafter be permanently located in that city, where he will be an important addition to the art-movement in our own country.

The catalogue numbers, names and birthplaces of the Americans who exhibit this year are here given:

OIL PAINTINGS.

103. Audra, Rosemond Casimir, New Orleans, La. 127. Bacon, Henry, Boston, Mass. 139. Baird, William, Chicago. 142, 143. Baker, Miss Ellen K., Buffalo. 193. Bayard, Miss Kate, New York. 220, 221. Beckwith, Arthur, New York. 329. Bierstadt, Albert, New York. 344. Bispham, Henry C., Philadelphia, Pa. 355, 356. Blackman, Walter, Chicago. 362. Blashfield, Edwin H., New York. 380. Boggs, Frank Myers, New York. 490, 491. Bridgman, Frederic D., Alabama. 519, 520. Brown, Walter Francis, Rhode Island. 742. Cheret-Lauchaume de Gavarmy, J.L., New Orleans. 823, 824. Coffin, Wm. Anderson, Allegheny City. 841. Collins, Alfred Q., Boston, Mass. 844. Comans, Mrs. Charlotte B., New York. 855. Conant, Miss Cornelia, New York. 866. Copeland, Alfred Bryant, Boston. 890. Correja, Henry, New York. 893, 894. Corson, Miss Helen, Philadelphia. 933, 934. Cox, Kenyon, Warren, O. 965, 966. Daniel, George, New York. 1009. Davis, John Steeple, New York. 1089. Delport, J.S., New York. 1132, 1133. Deschamps, Mme. Camille, New York. 2096. DeLancey, William, New York. 1155. Dessommes, Edmond, New Orleans. 1161. Desvarreux-Larpenteur, Jas., St. Paul, Minn. 1199. Dillon, Henry, San Francisco, Cal. 1234, 1235. Dubois, Charles Edward, New York. 1381. Faller, Miss Emily, New York. 1426. Flagg, Charles Noel, Brooklyn, N.Y. 1537, 1538. Gardner, Miss Elizabeth J., New Hampshire. 1559. Gault, Alfred de, New Orleans, La. 1569, 1570. Gay, Walter, Boston. 1614. Gilman, Ben Ferris, Salem, Mass. 1693, 1694. Gregory, J. Eliot, New York. 1796. Harrison, Thomas Alexander, Philadelphia. 1799, 1800. Healy, George P.A., Boston. 1801, 1802. Heaton, Augustus G., Philadelphia. 1835, 1836. Herpin-Masseras, Madame Marguerite, Boston, Mass. 1851, 1852. Hilliard, William H., Boston. 1853. Hinckley, Robert, Boston. 1859. Hlasko, Miss Annie, Philadelphia. 387. Jones, Bolton, Baltimore, Md. 2011. Knight, Daniel Ridgeway, Philadelphia. 2337. Lippincott, William H., Philadelphia. 2364. Loomis, Chester, Syracuse, N.Y. 2513. Mason, Louis Gage, Boston. 2556, 2557. May, Edward Harrison, New York. 2666. Mitchell, John Ames, New York. 2730. Morgan, Charles W., Philadelphia. 2738. Mortimer, Stanley, New York. 2739, 2740. Mosler, Henry, Cincinnati, O. 2741. Moss, Charles E., Charloe, Kansas(?). 2742, 2743. Moss, Frank, Philadelphia. 2760. Mowbray, Henry S., Alexandria, Egypt (of American parentage). 2780. Neal, David, Lowell, Mass. 2789. Nicholls, Burr H., Buffalo, N.Y. 2823. Obermiller, Miss Louisa, Toledo, O. 2878, 2879. Parker, Stephen Hills, New York. 2895. Pattison, James William, Boston. (Mr. Pattison exhibits also an aquarelle.) 2944. Perkins, Miss Fanny A., New York. 3014, 3015. Picknell, W.L., Boston, Mass. 3147, 3148. Ramsey, Milne, Philadelphia. 3177. Reilly, John Louis, New York. 3284. Robinson, Theodore, Irasburg. 3428, 3429. Sargent, John S., Philadelphia. 3525. Shonborn, Lewis, Nemora. 3578. Stone, Miss Marie L., New York. 3579. Strain, Daniel, Cincinnati, O. 3584. Swift, Clement. 3606. Teka, Madame E., Boston, Mass. 3695. Tuckerman, Ernest, New York. 3697. Tuttle, C.F., Ohio. 5850. Vogel, Miss Christine, New Orleans. 3879. Walker, Henry, Boston. 3891, 3892. Weeks, Edwin Lord, Boston. 3900, 3901. Welch, Thaddeus, Laporte, Ind. 3908, 3909. Williams, Frederic D., Boston. 3921. Woodward, Wilbur W., Indiana. 3923. Wright, Marian Lois.



DESIGNS, AQUARELLES, PORCELAINS, ETC.

4101. Berend, Edward, New York. 4182, 4183. Boker, Miss Orleana V., New York. 4187, 4188. Boni, Mrs. Marie Louise. 4370. Chauncey, Mrs. Lucy, New York. 4399, 4400. Clark, George, New York. 4462. Crocker, Miss Sallie S., Portland, Me. 4474, 4475. Dana, Charles E., Wilkes-Barre, Pa. 4578. Dixey, Mrs. Ellen S., Boston. 4586. Donohoe, Eliza, Buffalo, N.Y. 4686. Faquani, Miss Nina, New York. 4688. Faller, Miss Emily, New York. 4855. Goodridge, Miss S.M. 4867. Greatorex, Miss Eleanor E., New York. 4868, 4869. Greatorex, Miss Kathleen, New York. 4927. Hardie, Robert G. 4953. Heuston, Miss Emma L., Sacramento, Cal. 5384. Merrill, Mrs. Emma F.R., New York. 5396. Mezzara, Mrs. Rosine, New York. 5562. Pering, Miss Cornelia. 5914. Tompkins, Miss Clementina, Washington. 6008, 6009. Volkmar, Charles, Baltimore. 6015. Walker, Miss Sophia A. 6028. Wheeler, Miss Mary, Concord. 6029, 6030. Whidden, W.M., Boston.



SCULPTURE.

6081. Bartlett, Paul, New Haven. 6136. Boyle, John, Philadelphia. 6276. Donoghue, John, Chicago. 6312, 6313. Ezekiel, Moses, Richmond. 6371. Gould, Thomas Ridgway, Boston. 6534. Mezzara, Joseph, New York. 6661, 6662. Saint-Gaudens, Augustus, New York —J.J.R.



A PLOT FOR AN HISTORICAL NOVEL.

In Hawthorne's American Note-Book, among his memoranda, into which he conscientiously put every scrap and detail which might be useful in his writings, is an allusion to the "Grey Property Case," a lawsuit which held the Pennsylvania courts for more than half a century, and turned upon a curious story which will be new to some readers and may have slipped from the recollection of others. It belongs to the history of Mifflin, Juniata county, first settled by Scotch-Irish colonists in 1749. Two of the four men who claimed some land and built a fort had the name of Grey, and the narrative concerns the younger of these two brothers, John Grey. One morning in August, 1756, he left his wife and children at the fort and set out on an expedition to Carlisle. He was returning when he had an encounter with a bear, and was detained on the mountain-road for several hours. This probably preserved his life, for when he reached the settlement he found that the fort had just been burned by the Indians, and that every person in it had either been killed or taken prisoner. Among the latter were Grey's wife and his child, a beautiful little girl of three years old. Grey was an affectionate husband and father, and he was almost heartbroken by this catastrophe. Fired with longing for revenge, he joined Colonel Armstrong's expedition in September against the Indian settlement at Kittanning on the Ohio, with some hope that his wife and child might be found among the captives whom, it was rumored, the Indians had carried there. Colonel Armstrong's onslaught was successful: he succeeded in burning the village, killed about fifty savages and rescued eleven white prisoners. Grey gained no information, however, about his family, and, sick and exhausted by the disappointment and the fatigues of the campaign, went home to die. He left a will bequeathing one-half of his farm to his wife and one-half to his child if they returned from captivity. In case his child should never be given up or should not survive him, he gave her half of the estate to his sister, who had a claim against him, having lent him money.