It cannot be denied that there is in this country a natural tendency toward political stagnation. With the exception of slavery and the questions arising from it—which fill, it is true, a large space in our history, but which must be considered abnormal in their origin—there has never been any great and potent cause of dissension, such as rises periodically in almost every country in Europe, setting class against class, changing the form or character of the government and shaking the foundations of society. In England a gradual revolution has been always going on, and there have been several struggles even in the present century where a popular insurrection loomed in the background and was averted only by concession. Our institutions, on the contrary, have undergone no change and been exposed to no danger in any fundamental point. They were accepted by the whole people, and their stability was a subject of national pride. There were two great parties, each of which scented in every measure projected by the other a design to unsettle the balance between the States and the general government, but both claimed to be the guardians of the Constitution, and their mutual rancor was founded mainly on jealousy. But for the existence of slavery, and the inevitable antagonism provoked by it, there must have been a constant decrease of interest in political questions as it became more apparent that these could not affect the freedom and security which, coupled with the natural advantages of the country, afforded the fullest scope and strongest stimulant to industrial activity. The extinction of slavery was the cutting away of an excrescence: the wound under a proper treatment was sure to heal, and even under unwise treatment Nature has been doing her work until only a scar remains. Painful, too, as was the operation, its success has given the clearest proof of the health and vigor of our system, thus increasing the tendency to political inactivity and an over-exertion of energy in other directions. This in itself seems not to be a matter for alarm: if the latent strength be undiminished we can dispense with displays of mere nervous excitement. And, in point of fact, the latent strength is, we believe, undiminished; only, there is no general consciousness that it needs to be put forth, still less any general agreement as to how it should be put forth.

What has happened is, that not only has the stream of political activity been growing languid, but its channel is becoming choked. The noisome atmosphere that exhales from it causes delicate people to avert their nostrils, timid people to apprehend a universal malaria, and many people of the same and other classes to assert that the sluices are not merely defective, but constructed on a plan totally and fatally wrong. Some bold and sagacious spirits have, however, taken the proper course in such cases by examining the obstructions and determining their nature and origin. According to their report, the difficulty lies not in any general unsoundness of the works, but in the failure to detect and stop a side issue from certain foul subterranean regions, the discharge from which becomes copious and offensive in proportion as the regular flood is feeble and low. In plainer words, we are told that the mode in which places in the public service are filled and held has made the active pursuit of politics a mere trade, attracting the basest cupidities, conducted by the most shameless methods, and putting the control of public affairs, directly or indirectly, into impure and incompetent hands. This view has been so fully elaborated, and the facts that confirm it are so abundant and notorious, that further argument is unnecessary. It is equally clear that the state of things thus briefly described has no necessary connection with democratic institutions. The spread of democracy in Europe has been attended by a gradual purification in the political atmosphere. The system of "patronage" had its origin in oligarchy, and wherever it is found oligarchy must exist in reality if not in name. Instead of being an inherent part of our institutions, it is as much an excrescence, an abnormal feature, as slavery was; but, unlike that, it might be removed with perfect safety and by the simplest kind of operation.

Here, then, is a question worthy to come before the nation as an issue of the first magnitude. Here is a thing affecting the interests of the whole country which some men are anxious to preserve and which others are eager to reform. It remains only to consider how it can best be brought before the nation.

We shall perhaps be told that it is already before the nation; that the account we have given of the nature of the approaching contest is incorrect or incomplete; that on the skirts of the two parties is a body of "Independents," carrying the banner of Reform and strong enough to decide the contest and give the victory to whichever party will adopt that standard as its own.

Now, we have to remark that the tactics thus proposed have been tried twice before. Eight years ago the Reformers allied themselves with the Democratic party, which accepted their leader—chosen, apparently, because he was neither a Reformer nor a Democrat—and the result was not only defeat, but disgrace, with disarray along the whole of the combined line. Four years ago they adhered to the Republican party, having secured, by a compromise, the nomination of Mr. Hayes. Apart from the fact that Mr. Hayes was not elected, but obtained the position which he holds through, we will say, "the accident of an accident," his possession of the Presidency has not advanced the cause of Reform by a hair's-breadth. We do not need to discuss his appointments or his views or his consistency: it is sufficient to say that he has had neither the power nor the opportunity to institute Reform, and that no President, while other things are unchanged, can have that power and opportunity. The truth is, that there is a great confusion, both as to the object they have to aim at and as to the means of accomplishing it, in the minds of the Reformers. They talk and act continually as if their sole and immediate object were to secure the appointment to office of men of decent character and ability, and as if the election of a particular candidate for the Presidency, or even the defeat of a particular candidate, would afford a sufficient guarantee on this point. They are "ready to vote for any Republican nominee but Grant," and, in case of his nomination, to vote, we suppose, for any Democratic nominee but Tilden—certainly for Mr. Bayard. It may be safely admitted that no possible candidate for the Presidency enjoys a higher reputation for probity and general fitness for the place than Mr. Bayard—one reason, unhappily, why he is not likely to be called upon to fill it. But, supposing him to be raised to it, what is one of the first uses he may be expected to make of it if not to turn out the solid mass of Republican office-holders and fill their places with Democrats? If Mr. Hayes, with whom the Reformers have been at least partially satisfied, had succeeded to a Democratic administration, can it be doubted that he would have made a similar change in favor of the Republicans? Is not every President bound by fealty to his party, consequently by a regard for his honor and reputation, to perpetuate a system which the true aim of Reform is to abolish?

Even if we should concede, what it is impossible to believe, that a President personally irreproachable might be trusted to make no unfit appointments, this would not reach the source of the evils of which we have to complain, which lies in the method by which appointments are made and in the tenure by which they are held. So long as the system of "patronage" and "rotation in office" prevails, little real improvement even in the civil service can be looked for. But improvement of the civil service, important as it is in itself, is an insignificant object of aspiration compared with the general purification of political life, the elevation of the public sentiment, the creation of a school of statesmanship in that arena which is now only a mart for hucksters, bargaining and wrangling, drowning all discussions and impeding all transactions of a legitimate nature. The class who fill that arena and block every avenue to it cannot be dispossessed so long as the system which furnishes the capital and material for their traffic remains unchanged. It is a matter of demonstration that if the civil service were put on the same footing as in England and other European countries, the machinery by which parties are now governed, not led, public spirit stifled, not animated, legislation misdirected or reduced to impotence, and "politics" and "politician" made by-words of reproach and objects of contempt, must decay and perish. We are not setting up any ideal state of things as the result, but only such as shall show a conformity between our political life and our social life, exhibiting equal defects but also equal merits in both, affording the same scope to honorable ambition, healthy activity and right purpose in the one as in the other. We are not calling for any change in the character of our institutions or one which they afford no means of effecting, but the removal by a method which they themselves provide of an incumbrance which impairs their nature and impedes their working. No partial measure will suffice—none that will depend for its efficacy on the disposition of those whose duty it will be to enforce it—none that will be exposed to the attacks of those whose interest it will be to reverse it. The end can be secured neither by the action of the President nor by that of Congress. Reform, in order that it may endure and bear fruit, must be engrafted on the organic law, its principles made the subject of an amendment to the Constitution, in which they should have been originally incorporated.

It may be urged in reply that the present action of those who desire Reform is of a preliminary character; that they are simply grasping the instruments with which the work is to be done; that the ultimate object can be achieved only in the distant future, when the nation has been aroused to a sense of its necessity. But the question arises, Is their present action consistent with their principles and suited to advance their purpose? When they stand between the opposite parties, dickering with each in turn, ready to accept any candidate but one that either may put forward, inciting people by the prospect of their support to violate their pledges, are they introducing purer methods or giving their sanction to those which are now in use? Will any nomination they may obtain by such means bring the question squarely before the nation? Would a President elected by their aid be recognized by the country as the champion of Reform? Are they more likely to "capture" the party with which they connect themselves or to be captured by it? If they give their aid to the Democrats, will they expect the Democrats in return to give aid to the cause of Reform? If they support a Republican candidate satisfactory to themselves, will not the lukewarmness or disaffection of large sections of the party ensure his defeat? If the "best man" on each side be nominated, are the Reformers secure against a division and melting away of their own unorganized and easily-disheartened ranks? Will the victory, in any case, be other than a party victory, leaving the fruits to be reaped and further operations to be planned by those who have organized and conducted the campaign?

We know well that it is only in a distant future that Reform can hope for a complete and assured success. But it is in a distant future that the greatest need for it, and with that need its opportunity, will arise. Serious as are the present effects of the virus that has stolen into our system, its malignant character and fatal tendency are apparent only to those who have made it the subject of a careful diagnosis. This in part accounts for the apathy of the great mass of the people under a state of things which in almost any other country would lead to a profound and general agitation. Another cause lies in the consciousness of a power to remedy all such evils by peaceful and ordinary methods; and a third, in the present lack of any organization for applying those methods. This lack will be supplied, and the first step toward a remedy taken, when, instead of a body of "Independents" making no direct appeal to the people, treating alternately with each of the two existing organizations, and liable to be merged in one or the other, we have a Reform Party standing on its own ground, assuming a distinctive character, refusing any junction or compromise with other parties, and trusting to the only means consistent with its aim and capable of attaining it. Eight years ago there was a junction with the Democrats, four years ago a compromise with the Republicans, and one or other of these courses is the only choice presented now. This policy can lead only to defeat or to an empty and illusive victory, worse than defeat.

Had a different policy been pursued in the past, the situation at present would, we believe, be a very hopeful one. It is impossible not to see that the existing parties are undergoing a disintegration which was inevitable from several causes, and which on one side at least would be far more rapid if a third party stood ready to profit by it. One cause of this disintegration is the natural tendency to decay of organizations that have lost their raison d'etre—that have ceased to embody any vital principle and consequently to appeal to any strong and general sentiment. Another is the disgust inspired by the base uses to which they have been turned—a feeling shared by a far larger number of voters than those who have already proclaimed their independence. A third lies in the feuds among the leaders and managers of each party, who, having no longer any principle to represent or any common cause to contend for, have thrown away all pretence of disinterestedness and generous emulation and engaged in a strife of which the nature is undisguised and the effect easy to foresee. Thus it is that outraged principles work out their revenge, making their violators mutually destructive, and clearing a way for those who are prepared to assert and maintain them. In the Democratic party the breach may possibly be skinned over, though it can hardly be healed: in the Republican party it must widen and deepen. The latter stands now in a position analogous to that of the Whig party when it made its last vain attempt to elect its candidate, and shortly after went to pieces, the mass of its adherents going over to that meagre band which in the same election had stood firm around the standard of Liberty. It is for the Reformers to say whether they will contend for the inheritance which is legitimately theirs. With a cause so clear they have no right to intrigue and no reason to despair. They have on their side the best intelligence of the country, and consequently at their command the agencies which have ever been the most potent in the long run. What they need is faith, concert and consistency.



OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP.

EDELWEISS.

Everybody has heard of it, and those who have been in Switzerland have seen in the shop-windows, if nowhere else, or in the hat of the man who leads their horse over the Wengern Alp, the little irregular, star-shaped flower with thick petals that look as if they were cut out of white flannel. People may not be certain how its name is pronounced—may call it eedelwise, or even idlewise—but as to its habits every one is fully persuaded in his own mind; that is to say, if one person believes that it grows on rocks, another is equally sure that it blooms under the snow, while in either case there is apt to be an impression that it is found only in regions where the foot of the ordinary tourist may not venture. The writer has found it, however, in various places perfectly accessible to good walkers or where a horse could carry those not in that category. Edelweiss certainly likes to grow among rocks, on the brink of a precipice or down the face of it, and out of reach if possible; but it will also nestle in the grass at some distance from the brink, and may be found even where there is no precipice at all.

The village of Zweisimmen is a quiet summer resort in the Upper Simmenthal, in the canton of Berne. The valley is green and peaceful, with chalets dotted over all the mountain-sides: the rocks of the Spielgarten tower on the one hand, the snow of the Wildstrubel closes the view to the south, where the Rawyl Pass leads to Sion in the valley of the Rhone, and, looking northward, the mountains grow more and more blue and distant in the direction of Thun. From Zweisimmen, on four excursions, the writer and others have had the pleasure of picking edelweiss. First, at the Fromattgrat. Horses and saddles are forthcoming when required, and the four legs go as far as the scattered chalets of Fromatt, the wide mountain-pasture which is reached after a steady ascent of two hours and a half. Across from the chalets rises the grat or ridge where we have to seek our edelweiss. As we mount higher the gray masses of the Spielgarten seem very near: a fresh vivifying wind, the breath of the Alps, makes one forget how warm it was toiling up the gorge. The clouds are drawing around in white veils and sweeping down into the valley, quite concealing our destination at times, hiding even the members of the party from each other if they separate themselves a little. Our fine day takes on a decidedly doubtful aspect: nevertheless, after the first cry, "Here's some!" nobody thinks of impending discomforts. Here and there in the grass the soft white petals have opened, but where the grat sinks straight down for hundreds of feet it grows more abundantly, on the edge, and, alas! chiefly over the edge; and here a steady head and common prudence come in play. Furnished with those requisites, we can collect a bunch of edelweiss, and go on our way rejoicing even though the rain-drops begin to fall, the wind grows wilder, and presently hail comes in cutting dashes anything but agreeable to one's features. We go back along the ridge and descend to the broad-roofed chalet that lies invitingly below. It goes by the name of the Stierenberger Wirthschaft, and is known to all the cow-herds round; but we want no doubtful wine, only fresh milk and thick cream in a wooden bowl, and a brown fluid called coffee. Bread we brought with us, not caring to exercise our teeth on last month's bake. In any case, nothing more solid than bread and cheese is to be found here, tavern though it is. A fire blazes in the first room, which has no window, and might properly be styled the antechamber of the cow-house, into which there is a fine view through an open door. Sixty tails are peacefully whisking to and fro, for in the middle of the day the cattle are housed to protect them from flies. All the implements of cheese-making—the immense copper kettle, the presses, pails, etc.—are kept in the antechamber. After trying to dry ourselves at the hearth, and discovering that much hail comes down the great square chimney and very little smoke goes up, we are shown into the "best room," the furniture of which consists of a bed, a pine table and benches. In the adjoining apartment are two beds, the gayly-painted chest in which our hostess brought home her bridal outfit, and another table; while in both rooms the knives and forks are stuck in the chinks of the beams over the benches—a convenient arrangement by which one has only to stretch up an arm and take down from the ceiling whatever implement is needed. In most of these chalets a tall man might be embarrassed what to do with his head: it is only necessary to go into their houses to perceive that the Swiss mountaineers are short of stature. When the hail and rain have ceased we start downward over the hilly pastures, through pine woods and beside a rushing stream, into the valley, and so back to Zweisimmen.

Another excursion was to go up to the same inn, and thence to a little lake at the foot of the Seeberg, where edelweiss is again to be found. At Iffigen Lake it may also be had in abundance; and the fourth and last occasion on which we picked it was on the Rawyl Pass. From Zweisimmen one drives to Lenk, whence the fine glaciers of the Wildstrubel are in full view, then through the village and up a steep ascent, but a good carriage-road still, to the beautiful Iffigen Fall. The water descends almost perpendicularly over picturesque rocks from a great height, falling in long arrows that seem to hesitate and linger in mid-air, and then take a fresh swoop down: a rainbow spans it at the foot, where the mist rises. Here the carriage is left, and those who intend to ride take to the saddle. The way goes up steeply to the broad Iffigen Alp, shut in on either hand by Nature's towering gray battlements. Having reached the chalets at the farther end of the pasture, we find ourselves facing the solid rock and wondering what next. Over the brow of the lofty parapet falls a little stream, looking like a white ribbon as it foams on its dizzy way. "The path certainly cannot be there," we say; but, as it happens, it is just there. It zigzags up, cut with infinite labor in the face of the mountain, like the famous Gemmi road from Loeche-les-Bains, only that it is not so smooth and more picturesque. The Rawyl, like the Gemmi, is sometimes given the reputation of a dangerous pass, but in our party a lady rode the whole way without feeling the least uneasiness. The path goes up and up until it crosses the waterfall, where one is showered with cooling spray: soon after we are over the top of the rock and on plainer ground, but still mounting. A hut is passed where the guide says travellers can spend the night should it overtake them. There is indeed nothing to prevent their spending the night there, but also nothing to aid them in so doing: the place is uninhabited and unfurnished, the only sign that it is a shelter for human beings and not for cattle being a tiny stove in one corner, with a pile of wood. Now a small green lake lies beside the way, and then the chalet on the summit is in sight, and a cross that marks the boundary between the cantons of Berne and Valais. There the highest point of our journey is reached in two and three-quarter hours from where the carriage was left, and we walk nearly another hour on the level. Snow lies in wide fields in several places across the path: the pass is never wholly free from it, for what is rain in the valley is apt to be snow at seven thousand nine hundred feet, the height of the Rawyl. During this part of the way the scene is most wild and impressive: the dark masses of the Mittaghorn, the Rohrbachstein and Rawylhorn, and the dazzling glacier of the Wildhorn rise majestically into blue space, while from the granite summits to the very path under our feet there is nothing but rock, rock, rock! It is as if we were passing where the foot of man had never trod before, so solemn is the stillness here in the midst of the "everlasting hills." To see one solitary bird flitting fitfully from point to point only makes the loneliness seem greater, and it is absolutely touching to find in a place like this the lovely little Ranunculus alpestris and Ranunculus glacialis forcing a way between the shingly stones and opening their delicate white petals to light and air. The purple Linaria alpina keeps them company, but it is only farther on, and as we come to green again, that asters, pansies and gentians gem the grass. Where the way begins to descend to Sion there is an enchanting view into the valley of the Rhone, and for a background to the picture a superb line of glaciers and snow-peaks, among them the Matterhorn. The path to Sion can be traced for some distance down, but our party intended to go back by the way it came; and while we still lingered, wandering among the knolls and rocks, we discovered edelweiss, faded and gray, however, for in these regions the latter part of August is too late to find it in perfection.

As American ladies have the reputation of being poor pedestrians, it may be of interest to add that ladies walked on all these excursions.

G.H.P.

SPOILED CHILDREN.

It will always remain a mystery to sensible people why, when they are held to a rigid consistency, compelled to face palpable and indisputable facts, and to acknowledge that under all circumstances two and two make four, and never five, there is another class who from childhood to old age thrive on their mistakes, are never forced to pay the piper, and are granted the privilege of counting the sum of two and two as four when convenient, and five when they like, or a hundred if so it should please them.

These are the spoiled children of the world, whose fate it is to get the best of everything without regard to their deserts. Others may be warm, may shiver with cold, may be weary, may be ill, but they must not complain. The burden of lamentation comes from those who were never too warm or too cold, never weary or ill, but who tremble lest in some cruel way they should be forced to suffer, and thus provide against it beforehand. To these spoiled children the system of things in general has no other design than to give them comfort in particular. And by some subtle law of attraction the good things of the world are almost certain naturally to gravitate toward them. They sleep well; they dine well; they are petted by everybody; they have no despairs; they never suffer from other people's mishaps.

A woman who marries one of these spoiled children may be sure of an opportunity to practise all the feminine virtues. She is certain to have been very much in love with him, for he was handsome, could dance and flirt to perfection, and was the very ideal of a charming lover. The little dash of selfishness in his ante-nuptial imperiousness and tender tyranny pleased her, for it seemed to be the expression of a more ardent love than that of every-day men. It depends very much upon her generosity and largeness of heart whether she soon wakes up to the fact that she has married a being destitute of sympathy, wholly careless and ignorant of others' needs and requirements, full of caprices, allowing every impulse to carry him away, and thoroughly bent on having his own will and bending everybody about him to his own purposes. Self-renunciation and absolute devotion and self-sacrifice are natural to women of a certain quality of intellect and heart, and possess the most powerful charm to their imagination, provided they can have a dash of romance or a kindling of sentiment. Hence this form of martyrdom offers the female sex the pose in which it has sat for its portrait all the centuries since civilization began, and the picture stands out impressively against a background we all can recognize. As a school for heroism nothing can equal marriage with a spoiled child.

But, although probably quite as many instances may be found in one sex as in the other, the characteristics of a spoiled child are distinctly feminine, and in no measure belong to robust masculinity. Thus, for a study, let us take a girl who from her cradle has found everything subordinate to her princess-like whims, inclinations and caprices, and has had her way by smiles and cajoleries or sobs and tears, as the case may be. She finds out at an early age that it is pleasanter and more profitable to be petted and pampered than to be forced to shift for herself. She learns that an easy little pitiful curve of her coral lips and upward glance of her baby orbs is answered by certain manifestations of tenderness and concern: thus she "makes eyes," flirts, as it were, before she can talk, and studies the art of successful tyranny. The nursery—in fact, the entire house—rejoices when she rejoices and trembles when she weeps. She wants everything she sees, and sulks at any superiority of circumstances in another; but then she sulks bewitchingly. Wherever she goes she carries an imperious sway, and keeps her foot well on the necks of her admirers.

The spoiled child blossoms into perfection as a young lady. That is her destiny, and to the proper fulfilment of it her family and friends stand ready to devote themselves. It may be they are a trifle weary of her incalculable temper, that her fascinations have palled a little upon them, and that her mysterious inability to put up with the lot of every-day mortals and bear disagreeables contentedly has worn out their patience. They want her to marry, and, without wasting any empty wishing upon a result so certain to come, she wants to marry herself. She is not likely to have unattainable ideals: what she demands is a continuation of her petted existence—a lifelong adorer to minister to her vanity and desires, to find her always beautiful, always precious, and to smooth away the rough places of life for her.

Nothing can be more bewitching than she is on her entrance into society. Nothing could seem more desirable to an admirer than the possession of the beautiful creature, who, with her alternations of sweetness and imperiousness, tenderness, and cruelty, stimulates his ardor and appears more like a spirit of fire and dew than a real woman. It seems to him the most delightful thing in the world when she confesses that she never likes what she has, but always craves what she has not—that she hates everything useful and prosaic and likes everything which people declare she ought to renounce. She is unreasonable, and he loves her unreason—it bewitches him: she is obstinate, and he loves to feel the strength of her tiny will, as if it were the manifestation of some phenomenal force in her nature. Her scorn for common things, her fastidiousness, her indifference to the little obligations which compel less dainty and spirited creatures,—all act as chains and rivet his attachment to her.

A few months later, when she has become his wife, and he is forced to look at her tempers and her caprices, at her fastidiousness and expensiveness, from an altered standpoint, her whole character seems to be illuminated with new light. He no longer finds her charming when she has an incurable restlessness and melancholy: her pretty negations of the facts life present to her begin to seem to him the product of a mind undisciplined by any actual knowledge that she is "a human creature, subject to the same laws as other human creatures." He has hitherto considered that her scorn for the common and usual indicated an appreciation of the rarest and loftiest, but she seems to have no appreciation for anything save enjoyment. She has no idea of the true purposes of life: she likes everything dwarfed to suit her own stature. It is not by compliance that her husband can give her more than temporary pleasure. If she wants to see Europe, Europe will not satisfy her. "Sense will support itself handsomely in most countries," says Carlyle, "on eighteen pence a day, but for fantasy planets and solar systems will not suffice."

L.W.

PRAYER-MEETING ELOQUENCE.

Weekly prayer-meetings in New England villages offer a variety of singular experiences to the unaccustomed listener, and it seems almost incredible at times that they can furnish spiritual sustenance even to the devout. There are apt to be two or three among the regular attendants who being, according to their own estimate, "gifted in prayer," raise their voices loud and long with many a mellifluous phrase and lofty-sounding polysyllable. Mr. Eli Lewis is one of the most eloquent among the church-members in the village of C——, and if left to his own way would engross the entire evening with his prayers and exhortations. Nothing is too large for his imagination to grasp nor too small for his observations to consider. "O Lord, Thou knowest!" he repeats endlessly, sometimes qualifying this statement by putting into the next phrase, "O Lord, Thou art probably aware!" He is fond of poetry too, and frequently interpolates into his petition and thanksgiving his favorite verses. His fellow-worshippers are fully conscious of his excellent intentions, but there is some jealousy of the surpassing length of his prayers. The other evening he was standing, as his custom is, with his long arms upraised with many a strange gesture. He had been on his feet half an hour already, and there began to be signs of restlessness among the bowed heads around him. Still, there was no sign of any let up. He was engaged in drawing a vivid picture of the condition of the universe in the abstract, the world in general and his country and native village in particular, and required ample time fully to elucidate his views regarding their needs, but proposed to illustrate it by quotations. "O Lord," said he, "Thou knowest what the poet Cowper says—" He paused and cleared his throat as if the better to articulate the inspired strains of poetry, and began again more emphatically: "O Lord, Thou art probably aware what the poet Cowper says—" but the second time broke off. He could not remember what it was the poet Cowper said, but with a view to taking the place his memory halted at, went back to the starting-place and recommenced: "O Lord, Thou recollectest what the poet Cowper says—" It was of no use: he could not think of it, and with a wild gesture put his hand to his head. "O Lord," he exclaimed in a tone of excessive pain, "I cannot remember what the poet Cowper says," and prepared to go on with other matter; but Deacon Smith had been watching his opportunity for twenty minutes, and was already on his feet. "Let us pray," he said in a deep voice, which broke on Brother Lewis's ears with preternatural power, and he was obliged to sit down while the senior deacon held forth. No sooner, however, had Deacon Smith's amen sounded than Mr. Eli Lewis started up. "O Lord," he cried in a tone of heartfelt satisfaction, "I remember now what the poet Cowper says;" and, repeating it at length, he finished his remarks.

It was Deacon Smith who one Sunday asked his pastor to put a petition for rain into his afternoon prayer, as moisture was very much needed by the deacon's parched fields and meadows. Accordingly, Dr. Peters, who was something of a rhetorician, alluded in his prayer to the melancholy prospects of the harvest unless rain should soon be sent, and requested that the Almighty would consider their sufferings and dispense the floods which He held in His right hand. After service, as the reverend doctor left the church, he saw Mr. Smith standing rigid in the porch, perhaps looking for a rising cloud, and remarked to him, "Well, deacon, I hope our petition may be answered." He received only a snort of wrath and defiance in reply. Rather puzzled as to what had vexed his parishioner, Dr. Peters said blandly, "You heard my prayer for a shower, Deacon Smith?" The deacon turned grimly: "I heard you mention the matter of rain, Dr. Peters, but, good Heavens, sir! you should have insisted upon it!"

A.T.

THE JARDIN D'ACCLIMATATION OF PARIS.

This beautiful garden, one of the most attractive places in the world, was established in the Bois de Boulogne in 1860. It was in the most flourishing condition at the time of the breaking out of the war with Germany. That war nearly ruined it. During the siege elephants and other valuable animals were sacrificed for food. The carrier-pigeons that did such noble service during the siege were mostly raised in this establishment, and those that survived the war are kept there and most tenderly preserved. "Many died gloriously on the field of honor," as we read in the records of the society, which preserve a full account of their wonderful feats. Some of them again and again dared the Prussian lines, carrying those precious microscopic despatches photographed upon pellicles of collodion—so light that the whole one hundred and fifteen thousand received during the siege do not weigh over one gramme, a little over fifteen grains!

The great greenhouse of these gardens for plants that cannot endure a temperature lower than two degrees below zero centigrade (28.4 deg. Fahr.) would enchant even the most indifferent observer. The building itself is one of the finest structures of its kind. It was once the property of the Lemichez Brothers, celebrated florists at Villiers, at which place it was known as the Palais des Flors. The Acclimatation Society purchased it in 1861, and every winter since then there has been a magnificent and unfailing display of flowers there. Masses of camellias, rhododendrons, azaleas, primroses, bruyeres, pelargoniums constantly succeed each other. These are merely to delight the visitors, the great object of the hothouse being to nurse foreign plants and experiment with them. Among the rare ones are the paper-plant of the Aralia family; the Chamaerops, or hemp-plant; the Phormium tenax, or New Zealand flax; and the Eucalyptus of Australia, that wonderful tree introduced lately into Algeria, where it grows six metres a year, and yields more revenue than the cereals. This, at least, is what the official handbook of the garden says. It may be that the famous "fever-plant" has lost some of the faith accorded to it at first.

At the end of this great greenhouse there is a beautiful grotto where a little brook loses itself playing hide-and-seek among the fronds of the maiden-hair and other lovely ferns. At the right of this grotto is a reading-room where visitors may find all the current periodicals—on the left, the library of the society, rich in works upon agriculture, zootechnie, natural history, travels, industrial and domestic economy, etc., in several languages. The remarkable thing about this great greenhouse is the ever-flourishing, ever-perfect condition of its vegetation. Of course this effect must be secured by succursal hothouses, not always open to visitors. No tree, no plant, ever appears there in a sickly condition, but this may be said also of the animals in the gardens. I shall not soon forget a great wire canary cage some sixteen or more feet square, enclosing considerable shrubbery and scores of birds. There I received my first notion of the natural brilliancy of the plumage of these birds: its golden sheen literally dazzled the eyes.

The garden does excellent work for the French people besides furnishing a popular school and an inimitable pleasure resort: it assures the preservation of approved varieties of fruits, grains, animals. Whoever questions the absolute purity of his stock, from a garden herb up to an Arabian steed, can place this beyond question by substituting those furnished by the Society of Acclimatation. Eggs of birds packed in its garden have safely crossed the Atlantic, seventy-five per cent. hatching on their arrival. So immensely has the business of the society increased that more ground has had to be secured for nursery and seed-raising purposes, and the whole vast Zoological Gardens of Marseilles have been secured and turned into a "tender," as it were, to the Jardin d'Acclimatation at Paris. This was a very important acquisition. Marseilles, the great Mediterranean sea-port of France, is necessarily the spot where treasures from Africa, Asia and the South Sea Islands have to be landed, and they arrive often in a critical condition and need rest and careful nursing before continuing their journey.

One of the functions of the garden is to restock parks with game when the pheasants, hares, wild-boars, deer, etc. become too rare for good sport: another is to tame and break to the harness certain animals counted unmanageable. The zebra is one of these. The society has succeeded perfectly in breaking the zebra and making him work in the field quite like the horse. An ostrich also allows itself to be harnessed to a small carriage and to draw two children in it over the garden. Still another work of the society is to breed new species. A very beautiful animal has been bred by crossing the wild-ass of Mongolia with the French variety.

Among the rare animals of the garden may be mentioned the apteryx, the only bird existing belonging to the same family as the Dinornis giganteus and the still larger Epyornis maximus of Madagascar—monstrous wingless birds now extinct. One of the eggs of the latter in a fossil condition is preserved in the museum of the Garden of Plants in Paris. Its longer axis is sixteen inches, I think. It is, for an egg, a most wonderful thing, and on account of its size the bird laying it has been supposed to be of very much greater size than even the Dinornis giganteus, a perfect skeleton of which exists; but this seems to be a too hasty conclusion, for the apteryx, a member of the same family, has laid an egg or two in captivity, and one of these on being weighed proved to be very nearly one-fourth the whole weight of the bird, the bird weighing sixty ounces and the egg fourteen and a half.

The Tallegalla Lathami, or brush-turkey of Australia, is another rare bird. It does not sit upon its eggs, but constructs a sort of hot-bed for them, which it watches during the whole term as assiduously as a wise florist does his seeds planted under glass or as a baker does his ovens. As in the ostrich family, it is the male that has the entire care of the family from the moment the eggs are laid—a fairer division of labor than we see in most menages. The interesting process of constructing the hot-bed has been observed several times in Europe. It is as follows: When the time arrives for the making of the nest the enclosure is supplied with sticks, leaves and detritus of various kinds. The male then, with his tail to the centre of the enclosure, commences with his powerful feet to throw up a mound of the materials furnished. To do this he walks around in a series of concentric circles. When the mound is about four feet high the female adds a few artistic touches by way of smoothing down, evening the surface and making a depression in the centre, where the eggs in due time are laid in a circle, each with the point downward and no two in contact. The male tends this hot-bed most unweariedly. "A cylindrical opening is always maintained in the centre of the circle"—no doubt for ventilation—and the male will often cover and uncover the eggs two or three times a day, according to the change of temperature. The observer, noting how intelligently this bird watches the temperature, almost expects to see him thrust a thermometer into his mound! On the second day after it is hatched the young bird leaves the nest, but returns to it in the afternoon, and is very cozily tucked up by his devoted papa.

One thing in the garden that used to greatly attract visitors was the Gaveuse Martin, a machine for cramming fowls in order to fatten them rapidly. The society considered Martin's invention of so much importance to the world that it granted him a building in the garden and permission to charge a special admission. The machine has since been introduced into the artificial egg-hatching establishment of Mr. Baker at Catskill-on-the-Hudson; at least, he has a machine for "forced feeding" which must greatly resemble Martin's. Specimens fattened by the Gaveuse Martin, all ready for the broche, used to be sold on the premises. The interior of the building was occupied by six gigantic epinettes, each holding two hundred birds. A windlass mounted upon a railroad enabled the operator (gaveur, from gaver, to cram, an inelegant term) very easily to raise himself to any story of the epinette. The latter was a cylinder turning upon its axis, and thus passing every bird in review. "An india-rubber tube introduced into the throat, accompanied by the pressure of the foot upon a pedal, makes the bird absorb its copious and succulent repast in the wink of an eye." Four hundred an hour have been thus fed by one operator. Fowls thus fattened are said to possess a delicacy of flavor entirely their own.

M. H.



LITERATURE OF THE DAY.

Christy Carew. By May Laffan, author of "The Honorable Miss Ferrard," etc. (Leisure-Hour Series.) New York: Henry Holt & Co.

The novels to which Miss Laffan gives a sponsor in affixing her signature to the latest, Christy Carew, present two strong and distinct claims to our notice in the vigor and realism with which they are written, and the thorough picture they give of Ireland, politically and socially, at the present day. They are no mere repetitions of hackneyed Irish stories, no sketches drawn from a narrow or partial phase of life, but the result of large and penetrating observation among all classes, made in a thoroughly systematized manner, so as to form a thoughtful and almost exhaustive study of a country which is more dogmatized over than understood. Ireland has never been depicted with so much interest and sympathy by any novelist since Miss Edgeworth wrote her Moral Tales, and both the country and the art of novel-writing have advanced since then, the latter possibly more than the former. Miss Edgeworth, indeed, has been singularly unfortunate. She drew from life, and her talent and observation were worthy of a more lasting shrine, while the artificiality of her books has caused them to decay even faster than those of some of her contemporaries. Her successors in Irish fiction, with no lack of talent, have been too often careless in using it, or have preferred story-telling to observation. Miss Laffan wields a genuine Irish pen, graphic, keen of satire, with plenty of sharp Hibernian humor, but she shows in its exercise a care and directness of aim which are not the common qualities of Irish writers. In beginning her career as a novelist she had the courage to refrain from the pursuit of those finer artistic beauties which lure to failure so many writers incapable of seizing them: she even put aside the question of plot, and strove to give a sound and truthful representation of life and manners.

That end was gained with masterly success. No one reading the anonymous novel Hogan, M.P., would have been likely to set it down from internal evidence as a woman's book: it is one of the stoutest and most vigorous pieces of fiction which have appeared for years. We can find no trace of its having been reprinted in this country, and are at a loss to account for the omission: its distinctively Irish character ought to form an attraction. Hogan, M.P., is a political novel as realistic as Anthony Trollope's, but more incisive in tone and wider in scope. Instead of confining her energies to the doings and conversations of one set of people, Miss Laffan looks at politics as they are mirrored in society, sketching not alone the wire-pulling and petty diplomacies, but phases of life resulting therefrom. In Hogan, M.P., we have a vivid coup d'oeil of Dublin society, with its sharp, irregular boundaries, its sects and sets, its manner of comporting and amusing itself. The field is a wide one, but Miss Laffan has the happy art of generalization—of portraying a whole society in a few well-marked types. There is no confusion of character, and though we seem to have shaken hands with all Dublin in her pages, from great dignitaries to school-boys, the picture is never overcrowded.

"A drop of ditch-water under a microscope" Hogan calls the society of his native city—"everybody pushing upward on the social ladder kicking down those behind." This zoological spectacle is not confined to Dublin, but there appears to be a combination of strictness and indefiniteness of precedence belonging peculiarly to that place. At the top of the ladder, though not so firmly fixed there as before the Disestablishment, is the Protestant set, regarding the Castle as its stronghold and looking down on the Roman Catholic set, who reciprocate the contempt. These grand divisions are separated by a strict line of demarcation, even the performance of the marriage ceremony between Protestants and Catholics being forbidden in Dublin. They contain an endless ramification of lesser groups, whose relations we may attempt to illustrate by quoting from the book before us an account of the mutual position of Mrs. O'Neil and Mrs. Carew, the former the wife of a tradesman shortly to become lord mayor, the latter a "'vert" from Protestantism and the spouse of a Crown solicitor in debt to his future mayorship. "The lady mayoress elect, conscious of her prospective dignity in addition to the heavy bill due by the Carews, was the least possible shade—not patronizing, for that would have been impossible—but perhaps independent in manner. She did not turn her head toward her companion as she addressed her; she put more questions to her and in a broader accent than she usually did in conversation; and she barely gave her interlocutor time to finish the rather curt contributions she vouchsafed toward the conversation. On her side, Mrs. Carew, mindful of her position and of her superior accent, which implied even more, wanting to be condescending and patronizing, and half afraid to be openly impertinent, was calm and self-possessed. She grew more freezingly courteous as the other lady grew less formal."

We have said that Miss Laffan began with realism pure and simple. Hogan, M.P., remains, so far, to our mind, her strongest book, but there are finer and sweeter qualities in her other writings. We should be inclined to rank The Honorable Miss Ferrard as an artistic rather than a realistic book, though it is based on the same soundness of observation as its predecessor. It is an episode, suggestive, rather analytic in treatment, with the freshness of a first impression—le charme de l'inacheve. The heroine is a singularly original, fresh and attractive conception. The book deals almost wholly with the outside aspects of things, with picturesque rather than moral traits, though a breath of feeling true and sweet is wafted across it and heightens its fine vague beauty.

A deeper humanity is shown in the short story Flitters, Tatters and the Counsellor, which made its first appearance in this magazine in January, 1879. This sketch gained a quicker popularity than her longer novels, and drew forth warm eulogies from critics so far apart in standard as Ruskin, Leslie Stephen and Bret Harte.

Christy Carew, in its picture of two middle-class Catholic families in Dublin, takes us back to the society described in Hogan, M.P., but its range is narrower and its theme rather social than political. It is a softer and more attractive book than Hogan, M.P., though, like that novel, it is devoted to a realistic picture of life. Miss Laffan's characters have the merit of being always real. They are often types, but they are never mere abstractions. Whatever their importance or qualities, they stand firmly on their feet, are individual and alive. Her men are drawn with a vigor which ought to ensure them from the reproach of being ladies' men. They may display traits of weakness, but these are due to no faltering on the author's part. In Christy Carew the men are in a minority as far as minuteness of portraiture goes, and the most elaborate touches are bestowed on the two young girls who act as heroines, for the one is as prominent as the other. Christy and her friend Esther O'Neil present two types of girlhood. Esther, devote and gentle, is a very tender, lovable figure, but there is perhaps more skill shown in the more contradictory character of Christy, a pretty girl addicted to flirting, keenly intelligent and impatient of the restraints and inconsistencies of her religious teaching, yet with an earnestness which makes her feel the emptiness of her life and vaguely seek for something higher. When each of the friends is sought by a Protestant lover their different ways of regarding the calamity are in keeping with their characters, and though any reader will agree with Christy that Esther was the more deserving of happiness, no one will be sorry that her own love-story should find a pleasant denouement. As an argument in favor of mixed marriages the book would have been stronger if Esther's lover had been separated from her only by prejudice, and not by unworthiness as well, but the pathos of the story is in no way marred by the neglect to clinch an argument. Like all Miss Laffan's novels, it is simple in plot. Construction is not her strong point, and though Christy Carew has more story to it than her former books, it is by no means technically perfect. There is a certain hurry about it: its good things are not driven home, and effects upon which more skilful artists would dwell at length are dropped in a concentration upon other objects. The book, in the American edition, is also marred by numerous typographical defects that betray a singular laxity in proof-reading.

Hogan, M.P., was published in 1876: Miss Laffan's career as a novelist is therefore only four years old. We will not attempt to cast its future: we have simply endeavored, as far as space would admit, to point out the soundness of its foundation and the method by which it has been laid. In all that she has written there is a reserved strength, a sincerity and conscientiousness, which mark her work as unmistakably genuine. A large store of observation lies behind all her writing, and an intellectual power of a very high order is apparent throughout. What she lacks is a mellowness and breadth of art which would enable her to blend and concentrate her qualities—to bring the realism of Hogan, M.P., into unison with the grace of The Honorable Miss Ferrard and the pathos and sympathy of Christy Carew—to give form and completeness to her work. Then Ireland would have a great novelist.

The Reminiscences of an Idler. By Henry Wikoff. New York: Fords, Howard & Hulbert.

The reminiscences of idle men are apt to be more entertaining than those of busy men. The idler, passing his time in search of amusement, can hardly fail to communicate it when he yields up his store of experiences. Being disengaged, his mind is more observant and more retentive of the by-play of life, which is the only amusing part of it, than that of one of the chief actors can possibly be. Moreover, idlers are the natural confidants of the busy: they are consulted, made useful as go-betweens, entrusted with those little services which, being transient and disconnected, are precisely suited to their disposition and secure them a place in the economy of Nature. Mr. Wikoff has been a model idler, with large opportunities of this description. From boyhood he has, according to his own account, shirked all regular application and devoted himself to the pursuit of pleasure, including the gratification of an intelligent but superficial curiosity in regard to men and manners. He has come in close contact with a great variety of people, especially of a class whose private lives and public careers react in the production of a piquant interest. These associations kept his hands full of what only a very rigid censor would denominate mischief. His intimacy with Forrest gained him a suitable companion in a journey to the Crimea, and the tragedian a not less suitable negotiator in the arrangements for his marriage and his professional engagements in London. He aided Lady Bulwer in her fight with her husband's family and the recovery of her stolen lap-dog. His friendly offices to Fanny Ellsler were more important and fruitful. He had the chief share in bringing her to America, smoothing away the difficulties, assuming the responsibilities, and escorting her in person, while taking charge at the same time of two other interesting and otherwise unprotected females. It was, indeed, we need hardly say, in feminine affairs that Mr. Wikoff was most at home. But his obliging disposition made him equally ready to execute commissions for members of the Bonaparte family, his relations with whom grew closer and more interesting at a period subsequent to that which is embraced in this volume. Many other notabilities, both American and European, have more or less prominence in its pages. Some letters from Mrs. Grote are especially deserving of notice. As long as it is confined to personal topics the narrative is never dull. Without being distinguished for vigor or wit, it has the graceful and sprightly garrulity characteristic of the well-preserved veteran. Unfortunately, it betrays also the tendency to tediousness which belongs to a revered epoch, much of it, being devoted to persons and things seen only from a distance and without the powers of vision requisite for penetrating their true character. But, in spite of this defect, the book is exceedingly readable and enjoyable, and we trust to have a continuation of it which may show a restraining influence exercised with kindness and tact, such as were so often exerted by the author for the benefit of his friends.

The Life and Work of William Augustus Muhlenberg. By Anne Ayres. New York: Harper & Brothers.

There could not well be a stronger contrast than between the subject of this book and that of the one just noticed. We have called Mr. Wikoff a model idler, and with at least equal truth we may call Dr. Muhlenberg a model worker, not because he was unremitting and methodical in labor or because his work was his delight, but because it was consecrated by a devoted singleness of purpose and crowned by the noblest achievements. The life of the founder of St. Luke's Hospital and St. Johnland, as exhibited in this faithful record, has the simplicity and grandeur of an antique statue, and in the contemplation of it the marvel of its rare perfection grows, till we are half inclined to ask whether it, too, be not some relic of the remote past rather than a product of our own age. Saintly purity, unbounded beneficence, intense earnestness and great-hearted liberality of sentiment were never more symmetrically blended than in the character of "the great presbyter," whose ministrations were neither inspired nor confined by any narrower dogma than "that love to man, flowing from love to God," which, as he himself, with no lack of humility, said, "had been their impulse." It has been justly observed that "he was eminently the common property of a common Christianity," and not less truly that "there is, and ever will be, more of Christian charity in the world because Dr. Muhlenberg has lived in it as he did." He was perhaps not a man of extraordinary intellect, but his singularly healthy mind, with its union of resoluteness and candor, sound sense and lively fancy, gave the needed counterpoise to his moral qualities, keeping his enterprises within the domain of the useful and the practical, and thus saving him from the disappointments that too often checker the career of the philanthropist. This biography, written from long and intimate knowledge and admirable alike in spirit and execution, will find, we may trust, a multitude of readers among members of all sects and those who belong to none. Its interest is of a far more absorbing kind than any that can be excited by gossip or anecdote. It is that of a vivid portraiture, in which nothing characteristic is missing, in which the details are all harmonious, and which awakens not only our admiration, but our warmest sympathies.



Books Received.

History of Political Economy in Europe. By Jerome-Adolphe Blanqui. Translated from the fourth French edition by Emily J. Leonard. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons.

Pure Wine—Fermented Wine and Other Alcoholic Drinks in the Light of the New Dispensation. By John Ellis, M. D. New York: Published by the Author.

Shakespeare's History of King Henry the Fourth. Parts 1 and 2. Edited, with Notes, by William J. Rolfe, A. M. New York: Harper & Brothers.

A History of New York. By Diedrich Knickerbocker. (New "Geoffrey-Crayon" Edition of Irving's Works.) New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons.

Card Essays: Clay's Decisions and Card-table Talk. By "Cavendish." (Leisure-Hour Series.) New York: Henry Holt & Co.

William Ellery Channing: His Opinions, Genius and Character. By Henry W. Bellows. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons.

The Virginia Bohemians: A Novel. By John Esten Cooke. (Library of American Fiction.) New York: Harper & Brothers.

Nana: Sequel to "L'Assommoir." By Emile Zola. Translated by John Stirling. Philadelphia: T. B. Peterson & Brothers.

The Hair, its Growth, Care, Diseases and Treatment. By C. Henri Leonard, M. A., M. D. Detroit: C. Henri Leonard.

The Amazon. By Franz Dingelstedt. Translated from the German by J. M. Hart. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons.

Reminiscences of Rev. William Ellery Channing, D. D. By Elizabeth Palmer Peabody. Boston: Roberts Brothers.

Around the World with General Grant. By John Russell Young. Parts 19 and 20. New York: American News Co.

Proverbial Treasury. English and Select Foreign Proverbs. By Carl Seelbach. New York: Seelbach Brothers.

The Princess Elizabeth: A Lyric Drama. By Francis H. Williams. Philadelphia: Claxton, Remsen & Haffelfinger.

A Foreign Marriage; or, Buying a Title. (Harpers' Library of American Fiction.) New York: Harper & Brothers.

William Ellery Channing: A Centennial Memory. By Charles T. Brooks. Boston: Roberts Brothers.

Rev. Mr. Dashwell, the New Minister at Hampton. By E. P. B. Philadelphia: John E. Potter & Co.

History of the Administration of John De Witt. By James Geddes. New York: Harper & Brothers.

Masterpieces of English Literature. By William Swinton. New York: Harper & Brothers.

The Theory of Thought: A Treatise on Deductive Logic. New York: Harper & Brothers.

The Logic of Christian Evidences. By G. Frederick Wright. Andover: Warren F. Draper.

Modern Communism. By Charles W. Hubner. Atlanta, Ga.: Jas. P. Harrison & Co.

Free Land and Free Trade. By Samuel S. Cox. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons.

Only a Waif. By R. A. Braendle ("Pips"). New York: D. and J. Sadlier & Co.

Life: Its True Genesis. By R. W. Wright. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons.

Joan of Arc, "The Maid." By Janet Tuckey. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons.

Mrs. Beauchamp Brown. (No-Name Series.) Boston: Roberts Brothers.

THE END