III.

In a month of beautiful weather at Etretal, every day was not an excursion, but every day seemed indeed a picked day. For that matter, as I lay on the beach watching the procession of the easy-going hours, I took a good many mental excursions. The one, perhaps, on which I oftenest started was a comparison between French manners, French habits, French types, and those of my native land. These comparisons are not invidious; I don't conclude against one party and in favor of the other; as the French say, je constate simply. The French people about me were "spending the summer" just as I had so often seen my fellow countrymen spend it, and it seemed to me, as it had seemed to me at home, that this operation places men and women under a sort of monstrous magnifying glass. The human figure has a higher relief in the country than in town, and I know of no place where psychological studies prosper so as at the seaside. I shall not pretend to relate my observations in the order in which they occurred to me (or indeed to relate them in full at all); but I may say that one of the foremost was to this effect—that the summer question, for every one, had been more easily settled than it usually is at home. The solution of the problem of where to go had not been a thin-petalled rose, plucked from among particularly sharp-pointed thorns. People presented themselves with a calmness and freshness very different from the haggard legacy of that fevered investigation which precedes the annual exodus of the American citizen and his family. This impression, with me, rests perhaps on the fact that most Frenchwomen turned of thirty—the average wives and mothers—are so comfortably fat. I have never seen such massive feminine charms as among the mature baigneuses of Etratal. The lean and desiccated person into whom a dozen years of matrimony so often converts the blooming American girl has no apparent correlative in the French race. A majestic plumpness flourished all around me—the plumpness of triple chins and deeply dimpled hands. I mused upon it, and I concluded that it was the result of the best breakfasts and dinners in the world. It was the corpulence of ladies who are thoroughly well fed, and who never walk a step that they can spare. The assiduity with which the women of America measure the length of our democratic pavements is doubtless a factor in their frequent absence of redundancy of outline. As a "regular boarder" at the Hotel Blanquet—pronounced by Anglo-Saxon visitors Blanket—I found myself initiated into the mysteries of the French dietary system. I assent to the common tradition that the French are a temperate people, so long as it is understood in this sense—that they eat no more than they want to. But they want to eat so much! Their capacity strikes me as enormous, and we ourselves, if we are less regulated, are certainly much more slender consumers.

The American breakfast has, I believe, long been a subject of irony to the foreign observer; but the American breakfast is an ascetic meal compared with the French dejeuner a la fourchette. The latter, indeed, is simply a dinner without soup; it differs neither generically nor specifically from the evening repast. If it excludes soup, it includes eggs, prepared in a hundred forms; and if it proscribes champagne, it admits beer in foaming pitchers, so that the balance is fairly preserved. I think it is rarely that an American will not feel a certain sympathetic heaviness in the reflection that a French family that sits down at half past eleven to fish and entrees and roasts, to asparagus and beans, to salad and dessert, and cheese and coffee, proposes to do exactly the same thing at dinner time. But we may be sure at any rate that the dinner will be as good as the breakfast, and that the breakfast has nothing to fear from prospective comparison with the dinner; and we may further reflect that in a country where eating is a peculiarly unalloyed pleasure it is natural that this pleasure should be prolonged and reiterated. Nothing is more noticeable among the French than their superior intelligence in dietary matters; every one seems naturally a judge, a dilettante. They have analyzed tastes and savors to a finer point than we; they are aware of differences and relations of which we take no heed. Observe a Frenchman of any age and of any station (I have been quite as much struck with it in the very young men as in the old) as he orders his breakfast or his dinner at a Parisian restaurant, and you will perceive that the operation is much more solemn than it is apt to be in New York or in London. (In London, indeed, it is intellectually positively brutal.) Monsieur has, in a word, a certain ideal for that particular repast, and it will make a difference in his happiness whether the kidneys, for instance, of a certain style, are chopped to the ultimate or only to the penultimate smallness. His directions and admonitions to the waiter are therefore minute and exquisite, and eloquently accentuated by the pressure of thumb and forefinger; and it must be added that the imagination of the waiter is usually quite worthy of the refined communion thus opened to it.

This subtler sense of quality is observable even among those classes in which in other countries it is generally forestalled by a depressing consciousness on the subject of quantity. Watch your Parisian porter and his wife at their mid-day meal, as you pass up and down stairs. They are not satisfying nature upon green tea and potatoes; they are seated before a meal which has been reasoned out, which, on its modest scale, is served in courses, and has a beginning, a middle, and an end. I will not say that the French sense of comfort is confined to the philosophy of nutrition, but it is certainly higher at this point (and perhaps one other) than it is elsewhere. French people must have a good dinner and a good bed; but they are willing that the bed should be stationed and the dinner be eaten in the most unpleasant neighborhoods. Your porter and his wife dine grandly and sleep soft in their lodge, but their lodge is in all probability a fetid black hole, five feet square, in which, in England or in America, people of their talents would never consent to live. French people consent to live in the dark, to huddle together, to forego privacy, and to let bad smells grow great among them. They have an accursed passion for coquettish furniture: for cold, brittle chairs, for tables with scolloped edges, for ottomans without backs, for fireplaces muffled in plush and fringe and about as cheerful as a festooned hearse. A French bedroom is a bitter mockery—a ghastly attempt to serve two masters which succeeds in being agreeable to neither. It is a thing of traps and delusions, constructed on the assumption that it is inelegant to be known to wash or to sleep, and yet pervaded with suggestions of uncleanness compared with which a well-wrung bathing sponge, well en evidence, is a delightful symbol of purity. This comes of course from that supreme French quality, the source of half the charm of the French mind as well of all its dryness, the genius for economy. It is wasting a room to let it be a bedroom alone; so it must be tricked out as an ingeniously contrived sitting-room, and ends by being (in many cases) insufferable both by night and by day. But allowing all weight to these latter reflections, it is still very possible that the French have the better part. If you are well fed, you can perhaps afford to be ill lodged; whereas, I doubt whether enjoyment of the most commodious apartments is compatible with inanition and dyspepsia.



IV.

If I had not cut short my mild retrospect by these possibly milder generalizations, I should have touched lightly upon some of the social phenomena of which the little beach at Etretal was the scene. I shall have narrated that the French, at the seaside, are not "sociable" as Americans affect to be in a similar situation, and I should subjoin that at Etretal it was very well on the whole that they were not. The immeasurably greater simplicity of composition of American society makes sociability with us a comparatively untaxed virtue; but anything like an equal exercise of it in France would be attended with alarming perils and inconveniences. Sociability (in the American sense of the word) in any aristocratic country would indeed be very much like an attempt to establish visiting relations between birds and fishes. At Etretal no making of acquaintance was observable; people went about in compact, cohesive groups, of natural formation, governed doubtless, internally, by humane regulation, but presenting to the world an impenetrable defensive front. These groups usually formed a solid phalanx about two or three young girls, compressed into the centre, the preservation of whose innocence was their chief solicitude. Here, doubtless, the groups were acting wisely, for with half a dozen cocottes, in scarlet petticoats, scattered over the sunny, harmless looking beach, what were mammas and duennas to do? In order that there should be a greater number of approachable-irreproachable young girls in France there must first be a smaller number of cocottes. It is not impossible, indeed, that if the approachable-irreproachable young ladies were more numerous, the cocottes would be less numerous. If by some ingenious sumptuary enactment the latter class could be sequestrated or relegated to the background for a certain period—say ten years—the latter might increase and multiply, and quite, in vulgar parlance, get the start of it.

And yet after all this is a rather superficial reflection, for the excellent reason that the very narrow peep at life allowed to young French girls is not regarded, either by the young girls themselves or by those who have their felicity most at heart, as a grave privation. The case is not nearly so hard as it would be with us, for there is this immense difference between the lot of the jeune fille and her American sister, that the former may as a general thing be said to be certain to marry. "Ay, to marry ill," the Anglo-Saxon objector may reply. But the objection is precipitate; for if French marriages are almost always arranged, it must be added that they are in the majority of cases arranged well. Therefore, if a jeune fille is for three or four years tied with a very short rope and compelled to browse exclusively upon the meagre herbage which sprouts in the maternal shadow, she has at least the comfort of reflecting that according to the native phrase, on s'occupe de la marier—that measures are being carefully taken to promote her to a condition of unbounded liberty. Whatever, to her imagination, marriage may fail to mean, it at least means freedom and consideration. It does not mean, as it so often means in America, being socially shelved—and it is not too much to say, in certain circles, degraded; it means being socially launched and consecrated. It means becoming that exalted personage, a mere de famille. To be a mere de famille is to occupy not simply (as is rather the case with us) a sentimental, but a really official position. The consideration, the authority, the domestic pomp and circumstance allotted to a French mamma are in striking contrast with the amiable tolerance which in our own social order is so often the most liberal measure that the female parent may venture to expect at her children's hands, and which, on the part of the young lady of eighteen who represents the family in society, is not infrequently tempered by a conscientious severity. All this is worth waiting for, especially if you have not to wait very long. Mademoiselle is married certainly, and married early, and she is sufficiently well informed to know, and to be sustained by the knowledge, that the sentimental expansion which may not take place at present will have an open field after her marriage. That it should precede her marriage seems to her as unnatural as that she should put on her shoes before her stockings. And besides all this, to browse in the maternal shadow is not considered in the least a hardship. A young French girl who is bien elevee—an expression which means so much—will be sure to consider her mother's company the most delightful in the world, and to think that the herbage which sprouts about this lady's petticoats is peculiarly tender and succulent. It may be fanciful, but it often seems to me that the tone with which such a young girl says Ma mere has a peculiar intensity of meaning. I am at least not wrong in affirming that in the accent with which the mamma—especially if she be of the well-rounded order alluded to above—speaks of Ma fille there is a kind of sacerdotal dignity.



V.

After this came two or three pictures of quite another complexion—pictures of which a long green valley, almost in the centre of France, makes the general setting. The valley itself, indeed, forms one delightful picture, although the country which surrounds it is by no means a show region. It is the old region of the Gatinais, which has plenty of history, but no great beauty. It is very still, deliciously rural, and immitigably French. Normandy is Norman, Gascony is Gascon, but this is France itself—the typical, average, "pleasant" France of history, literature, and art—of art, of landscape art, perhaps, especially. Wherever I look in the country I seem to see one of the familiar pictures on a dealer's wall—a Lambinet, a Troyon, a Daubigny, a Diaz. The Lambinets perhaps are in the majority; the mood of the landscape usually expresses itself in silvery lights and vivid greens. The history of this part of France is the history of the monarchy, and its language is, I won't say absolutely the classic tongue, but a nearer approach to it than any local patois. The peasants deliver themselves with rather a drawl, but what they speak is good clean French that any cockney can understand, which is more than can be said sometimes for the violent jargon that emanates from the fishing folk of Etretal.

Each side of the long valley is a long low ridge, which offers it a high, bosky horizon, and through the middle of it there flows a charming stream, wandering, winding, and doubling, smothered here and there in rocks, and spreading into lily-coated reaches, beneath the clear shadow of tall, straight, light-leaved trees. On each side of the stream the meadows stretch away flat, clean, and magnificent, lozenged across with rows of sober foliage under which a cow-maiden sits on the grass hooting now and then, nasally, to the large-uddered browsers in front of her. There are no hedges, nor palings, nor walls; it is all a single estate. Here and there in the meadows stands a cluster of red-roofed hovels—each a diminutive village. At other points, at about half an hour's walk apart, are three charming old houses. The chateaux are extremely different, but, both picturesquely and conveniently, each has its points. They are very intimate with each other, so that these points may be amicably discussed. The points in one case, however, are remarkably strong. The chateau stands directly in the little river I have mentioned, on an island just great enough to hold it, and the garden flowers grow upon the further bank. This, of course, is a most delightful affair. But I found something very agreeable in the aspect of one of the others, when I made it the goal of certain of those walks before breakfast which of cool mornings in the late summer do not fall into the category of ascetic pleasures. (In France, indeed, if one did not do a great many things before breakfast, the work of life would be but meagerly performed.)

The dwelling in question stands on the top of the long ridge which encloses the comfortable valley to the south, being by its position quite in the midst of its appurtenant acres. It is not particularly "kept up," but its quiet rustiness and untrimmedness only help it to be picturesque. A grassy plateau approaches it from the edge of the hill, bordered on one side by a short avenue of horse-chestnuts, and on the other by a dusky wood. Beyond the chestnuts are the steep-roofed, yellow-walled farm buildings, and under cover of the wood a stretch of beaten turf, where, on Sundays and holidays, the farm-servants play at bowls. Directly before the chateau is a little square garden enclosed by a low stone parapet, interrupted by a high gateway of mossy pillars and iron arabesques, the whole of it overclambered by flowering vines. The house, with its yellow walls and russet roof, is ample and substantial; it is a very proper gentilhommiere. In a corner of the garden, at the angle of the parapet, rises that classic emblem of rural gentility, the pigeonnier, the old stone dovecote. It is a great round tower, as broad of base as a lighthouse, with its roof shaped like an extinguisher, and a big hole in its upper portion, in and out of which a dove is always fluttering.

You see all this from the windows of the drawing-room. Be sure that the drawing-room is pannelled in white and gray, with old rococo moulding over the doorways and mantlepiece. The open garden gateway, with its tangled vines, makes a frame for the picture that lies beyond the little grassy esplanade where the thistles have been suffered to grow around a disused stone well, placed at quaint remoteness from the house (if, indeed, it is not a relic of an earlier habitation), a picture of a wide green country rising beyond the unseen valley, and stretching away to a far horizon in deep blue lines of wood. Behind, through other windows, you look out on the gardens proper. There are places that take one's fancy by some accident of expression, by some mystery of accident. This one is high and breezy, both sunny and shady, plain yet picturesque, extremely cheerful, and a little melancholy. It has what in the arts is called "style," and so it took mine.

Going to call on the peasants was as charming an affair as a chapter in one of George Sand's rural tales. I went one Sunday morning with my hostess, who knew them well and engaged their most garrulous confidence. I don't mean that they told her all their secrets, but they told her a good many; if the French peasant is a simpleton, he is a very shrewd simpleton. At any rate, of a Sunday morning in August, when he is stopping at home from work, and he has put on his best jacket and trowsers, and is loafing at the door of his neighbor's cabin, he is a very charming person. The peasantry in the region I speak of had admirably good manners. The cure gave me a low account of their morals; by which he meant, on the whole, I suspect, that they were moderate church-goers. But they have the instinct of civility and a talent for conversation; they know how to play the host and the entertainer. By "he," just now, I meant she quite as much; it is rare that, in speaking superlatively of the French, in any connection, one does not think of the women even more than of the men. They constantly strike the foreigner as a stronger expression of the qualities of the race. On the occasion I speak of the first room in the very humble cabins I successively visited—in some cases, evidently, it was the only room—had been set into irreproachable order for the day. It had usually a sort of brown-toned picturesqueness, begotten of the high chimney-place, with its swinging pots, the important bed, in its dusky niche, with its flowered curtains, the big-bellied earthenware on the cupboard, the long-legged clock in the corner, the thick, quiet light of the small, deeply-set window; the mixture, on all things, of smoke-stain and the polish of horny hands. Into the midst of this "la Rabillon" or "la Mere Leger" brings forward her chairs and begs us to be seated, and seating herself, with crossed hands, smiles handsomely and answers abundantly all questions about her cow, her husband, her bees, her eggs, and her last-born. The men linger half outside and half in, with their shoulders against dressers and door-posts; every one smiles, with that simple, clear-eyed smile of the gratified peasant; they talk much more like George Sand's Berrichons than might be supposed. And if they receive us without gross awkwardness, they speed us on our way with proportionate urbanity. I go to six or eight little hovels, all of them dirty outside and clean within; I am entertained everywhere with the bonhomie, the quaintness, the good faces and good manners of their occupants, and I finish my tour with an esteem for my new acquaintance which is not diminished by learning that several of them have thirty or forty thousand francs securely laid by.

And yet, as I say, M. le Cure thinks they are in a bad way, and he knows something about them. M. le Cure, too, is not a dealer in scandal; there is something delightfully quaint in the way in which he deprecates an un-Christian construction of his words. There is more than one cure in the valley whose charms I celebrate; but the worthy priest of whom I speak is the pearl of the local priesthood. He has been accused, I believe, of pretentions to what is called illuminisme; but even in his most illuminated moments it can never occur to him that he has been chronicled in an American magazine, and therefore it is not indiscreet to say that he is the cure, not of Gy, but of the village nearest to Gy. I write this sentence half for the pleasure of putting down that briefest of village names and seeing how it looks in print. But it may be elongated at will, and yet be only improved. If you wish to be very specific, you may call it Gy-les-Nonnains—Gy of the Little Nuns. I went with my hostess, another morning, to call upon M. le Cure, who himself opened his garden door to us (there was a crooked little black cross perched upon it), and, lifting his rusty calotte, stood there a moment in the sunshine, smiling a greeting more benignant than words.

A rural presbytere is not a very sumptuous dwelling, and M. le Cure's little drawing room reminded me of a Yankee parlor (minus the subscription books from Hartford, on the centre-table) in some out-of-the-way corner of New England. But he took us into his very diminutive garden, and showed us an ornament that would not have flourished in the shade of a Yankee parlor—a rude stone image of the Virgin, which he had become possessed of I know not how, and for which he was building a sort of niche in the wall. The work was going on slowly, for he must take the labor as he could get it; but he appealed to his visitors, with a smile of indulgent irony, for an assurance that his little structure would not make too bad a figure. One of them told him that she would send him some white flowers to set out round his statue; whereupon he clasped his hands together over his snuff-box and expressed cheerful views of the world we live in. A couple of days afterward he came to breakfast, and, of course, he arrived early, in his new cassock and band. I found him in the billiard-room, walking up and down alone, and reading his breviary. The combination of the locality, the personage, and the occupation made me smile; and I smiled again when, after breakfast, I found him walking up and down the garden, puffing a cigarette. Of course he had an excellent appetite; but there is something rather cruel in those alternations of diet to which the French parish priest is subjected. At home he lives like a peasant—a fact which, in itself, is not particularly cruel, inasmuch as he is usually a peasant born. But his fellow peasants don't breakfast at the chateau and gaze adown the savory vistas opened by cutlets a la Soubise. They have not the acute pain of being turned back into the stale atmosphere of bread and beans. Of course it is by no means every day or every week even that M. le Cure breakfasts at the chateau; but there must nevertheless be a certain uncomfortable crookedness in his position. He lives like a laborer, and yet he is treated like a gentleman. The latter character must seem to him sometimes a rather heavy irony on the other. But to the ideal cure, of course, all characters are equal; he thinks neither too ill of his bad breakfasts, nor too well of his good ones. I won't say that the excellent man I speak of is the ideal cure, but I suspect he is an approach to it; he has a grain of epicureanism to an ounce of stoicism. In the garden path, beside the moat, while he puffed his cigarette, he told me how he had held up his head to the Prussians; for, hard as it seemed to believe it, that pastoral valley had been occupied by ravaging Teutons. According to this recital, he had spoken his mind civilly, but most distinctly, to the group of officers who had made themselves at home in his dwelling—had informed them that it grieved him profoundly that he was obliged to meet them standing there in his cassock, and not out in the fields with a musket in his hands and a dozen congenial spirits at his side. The scene must have been picturesque. The first of the officers got up from table and asked for the privilege of shaking his hand. "M. le Cure," he said, "j'estime hautement votre caractere."

Six miles away—or nearer, by a charming shaded walk along a canal—was an ancient town with a legend—a legend which, as a child, I read in my lesson-book at school, marvelling at the wood-cut above it, in which a ferocious dog was tearing a strange man to pieces, while the king and his courtiers sat by as if they were at the circus. I allude to it chiefly in order to mention the name of one of its promenades, which is the stateliest, beyond all comparison, in the world; the name, I mean, not the street. The latter is called Les Belles Manieres. Could anything be finer than that? With what a sweep gentlemen must once have taken off their hats there; how ladies must once have curtsied, regardless of gutters, and how people must have turned up their toes as they walked!



VI.

My next impressions were gathered on the margin of a southern sea—if the Bay of Biscay indeed deserves so soft-sounding a name. We generally have a mental image beforehand of a place we think of going to, and I supposed I had a tolerably vivid prevision of Biarritz. I don't know why, but I had a singular sense of having been there; the name always seemed to me expressive. I saw the way it lay along its gleaming beach; I had taken in imagination the long walks toward Spain over the low cliffs, with the blue sea always to my right, and the blue Pyrenees always before me. My only fear was that my mental picture was not brilliant enough; but this could easily be touched up on the spot. In truth, however, I was exclusively occupied in toning it down. Biarritz seemed to be decidedly below its reputation; I am at a loss to see how its reputation was made. There is a partial explanation that is obvious enough. There is a low, square, bare brick mansion seated on the sands, under shelter of a cliff; it is one of the first objects to attract the attention of an arriving stranger. It is not picturesque, it is not romantic, and even in the days of its prosperity it never can have been impressive. It is called the Villa Eugenie, and it explains in a great measure, as I say, the Biarritz which the arriving stranger, with some dismay, perceives about him. It has the aspect of one of the "cottages" of Newport during the winter season, and is surrounded by an even scantier umbrage than usually flourishes in the vicinity of those establishments. It was what the newspapers call the "favorite resort" of the ex-Empress of the French, who might have been seen at her imperial avocations with a good glass at any time from the Casino. The Casino, I hasten to add, has quite the air of an establishment frequented by gentlemen who look on ladies' windows with telescopes. There are Casinos and Casinos, and that of Biarritz is, in the summary French phrase, "impossible." Except for its view, it is moreover very unattractive. Perched on the top of a cliff which has just space enough to hold its immense brick foundations, it has no garden, no promenade, no shade, no place of out-of-door reunion—the most indispensable feature of a Casino. It turns its back to the Pyrenees and to Spain, and looks out prettily enough over a blue ocean to an arm of the low French coast.

Biarritz, for the rest, scrambles over two or three steep hills, directly above the sea, in a promiscuous, many-colored, noisy fashion. It is a watering-place, pure and simple; every house has an expensive little shop in the basement, and a still more expensive set of rooms to let above stairs. The houses are blue, and pink, and green; they stick to the hillsides as they can, and being near Spain, you try to fancy they look Spanish. You succeed perhaps, even a little, and are rewarded for your zeal by finding, when you cross the border a few days afterward, that the houses at San Sebastian look strikingly French. Biarritz is bright, crowded, irregular, filled with many sounds, and not without a certain second-rate picturesqueness; but it struck me as common and cocknified, and my vision travelled back to modest little Etretal, by its northern sea, as to a more truly delectable resting-place. The southwestern coast of France has little of the exquisite charm of the Mediterranean shore. It has of course a southern expression which in itself is always delightful. You see a brilliant, yellow sun, with a pink-faced, red-tiled house staring up at it. You can see here and there a trellis and an orange tree, a peasant woman in gold necklace, driving a donkey, a lame beggar adorned with ear-rings, a glimpse of blue sea between white garden walls. But the superabundant detail of the French Riviera is wanting; the softness, luxuriousness, enchantment.

The most picturesque thing at Biarritz is the Basque population, which overflows from the adjacent Spanish provinces and swarms in the crooked streets. It lounges all day in the public places, sprawls upon the curbstones, clings to the face of the cliffs, and vociferates continually in a shrill, strange tongue, which has no discoverable affinity with any other. The Basques look like the hardier and thriftier Neapolitan lazzaroni; if the superficial resemblance is striking, the difference is very much in their favor. Although those specimens which I observed at Biarritz appeared to enjoy an excess of leisure, they had nothing of a shiftless or beggarly air, and seemed as little disposed to ask favors as to confer them. The roads leading into Spain were dotted with them, and here they were coming and going as if on important business—the business of the abominable Don Carlos himself. They struck me as a very handsome race. The men are invariably clean shaved; smooth chins seem a positively religious observance. They wear little round, maroon-colored caps, like those of sailor-boys, dark stuff shirts, and curious white shoes, made of strips of rope laid together—an article of toilet which makes them look like honorary members of base-ball clubs. They sling their jackets, cavalier fashion, over one shoulder, hold their heads very high, swing their arms very bravely, step out very lightly, and when you meet them in the country at eventide, charging down a hillside in companies of half a dozen, make altogether a most impressive appearance. With their smooth chins and childish caps, they may be taken, in the distance, for a lot of very naughty little boys. They have always a cigarette in their teeth.

The best thing at Biarritz is your opportunity for driving over into Spain. Coming speedily to a consciousness of this fact, I found a charm in sitting in a landau and rolling away to San Sebastian, behind a driver in a high glazed hat with long streamers, a jacket of scarlet and silver, and a pair of yellow breeches and of jack-boots. If it has been the desire of one's heart and the dream of one's life to visit the land of Cervantes, even grazing it so lightly as by a day's excursion from Biarritz is a matter to set one romancing. Everything helping—the admirable scenery, the charming day, my operatic coachman, and smooth-rolling carriage—I am afraid I romanced more than it is decent to tell of. You face toward the beautifully outlined mass of the Pyrenees, as if you were going to plunge straight into them, but in reality you travel beneath them and beside them; you pass between their expiring spurs and the sea. It is on proceeding beyond San Sebastian that you seriously attack them. But they are already extremely picturesque—none the less so that in this region they abound in suggestion of the recent Carlist war. Their far-away peaks and ridges are crowned with lonely Spanish watch-towers and their lower slopes are dotted with demolished dwellings. It was hereabouts that the fighting was most constant. But the healing powers of nature are as remarkable as the destructive powers of man, and the rich September landscape appeared already to have forgotten the injuries of yesterday. Everything seemed to me a savory foretaste of Spain. I discovered an unconscionable amount of local color. I discovered it at St. Jean de Luz, the last French town, in a great brown church, filled with galleries and boxes, like a playhouse—the altar and chair, indeed, looked very much like a proscenium; at Bohebia, on the Bidassoa, the small yellow stream which divides France from Spain, and which at this point offers to view the celebrated Isle of Pheasants, a little bushy strip of earth adorned with a decayed commemorative monument, on which, in the seventeenth century, the affairs of Louis XIV. and his brother monarch were discussed in ornamental conference; at Fuentarabia (glorious name), a mouldering relic of Spanish stateliness; at Hondaye, at Irun, at Renteria, and finally at San Sebastian. At all of these wayside towns the houses show marks of Alphonsist bullets (the region was strongly Carlist); but to be riddled and battered seems to carry out the meaning of the pompous old escutcheons carven above the doorways, some of them covering almost half the house. It seemed to me, in fact, that the narrower and shabbier was the poor little dusky dwelling, the grander and more elaborate was this noble advertisement. But it stood for knightly prowess, and pitiless Time had taken up the challenge. I found it fine work to rumble through the narrow single street of Irun and Renteria, between the strange-colored houses, the striped awnings, the universal balconies, and the heraldic doorways.

San Sebastian is a lively watering-place, and is set down in the guidebooks as the Biarritz or the Brighton of Spain. It has of course a new quarter in the provincial-elegant style (fresh stucco cafes, barber shops, and apartments to let), looking out upon a planted promenade and a charming bay, locked in fortified heights, with a narrow portal to the ocean. I walked about for two or three hours, and devoted most of my attention to the old quarter, the town proper, which has a great frowning gate upon the harbor, through which you look along a vista of gaudy house fronts, balconies, and awnings, surmounted by a narrow strip of sky. Here the local color was richer, the manners more naif. Here too was a church with a flamboyant Jesuit facade and an interior redolent of Spanish Catholicism. There was a life-sized effigy of the Virgin perched upon a table beside the great altar (she appeared to have been walking abroad in a procession), whom I looked at with extreme interest. She seemed to me a heroine, a solid Spanish person, as perfect a reality as Don Quixote or St. Theresa. She was dressed in an extraordinary splendor of laces, brocades, and jewels, her coiffure and complexion were of the finest, and she evidently would answer to her name if you spoke to her. Improving the stateliest title I could think of, I addressed her as Dona Maria of the Holy Office; whereupon she looked round the great dusky, perfumed church, to see whether we were alone, and then she dropped her fringed eyelids and held out her hand to be kissed. She was the Sentiment of Spanish Catholicism: gloomy, yet bedizened, emotional as a woman, and yet mechanical as a doll. After a moment I grew afraid of her, and went slinking away. After this I didn't really recover my spirits until I had the satisfaction of hearing myself addressed as "Cabellero." I was hailed with this epithet by a ragged infant, with sickly eyes and a cigarette in his lips, who invited me to cast a copper into the sea, that he might dive for it; and even with these limitations, the sensation seemed worth the cost of my excursion. It appeared kinder, to my gratitude, to make the infant dive upon the pavement.

A few days later I went back to San Sebastian, to witness a bull fight; but I suppose my right to descant upon this entertainment should be measured less by the gratification it afforded me than by the question whether there is room in literature for another bull fight. I incline to think there is not; the Spanish diversion is the best described thing in the world. Besides, there are other reasons for not describing it. It is extremely disgusting, and one should not describe disgusting things—except (according to the new school) in novels, when they have not really occurred, and are manufactured on purpose. But one has taken a certain sort of pleasure in the bull fight, and yet how is one to state gracefully that one has taken pleasure in a disgusting thing? It is a hard case. If you record your pleasure, distinctly, you seem to exaggerate it and to calumniate your delicacy; and if you record nothing but your displeasure, you feel rather crabbed and stingy. This much I can say, at any rate, that as there had been no bull fights in that part of the country during the Carlist war, the native dilettanti (and every man, woman, and child of them comes under this denomination) returned to their previous pastime with peculiar zest. The spectacle, therefore, had an unusual splendor. Under these circumstances it is highly picturesque. The weather was beautiful; the near mountains peeped over the top of the vast open arena, as if they too were curious; weary of disembowelled horses and posturing espadas, the spectator (in the boxes) might turn away and look through an unglazed window at the empty town and the cloud-shadowed sea. But few of the native spectators availed themselves of this privilege. Beside me sat a blooming matron, in a white lace mantilla, with three very juvenile daughters; and if these ladies sometimes yawned, they never shivered. For myself, I confess that if I sometimes shivered, I never yawned. A long list of bulls was sacrificed, each of whom had pretentions to originality. The banderillos, in their silk stockings and embroidered satin costumes, skipped about with a great deal of elegance; the espada folded his arms, within six inches of the bull's nose, and stared him out of countenance; but I thought the bull, in any case, a finer fellow than any of his tormentors, and I thought his tormentors finer fellows than the spectators. In truth, we were all, for the time, rather sorry fellows together. A bull fight will, to a certain extent, bear looking at, but it will not bear thinking of. There was a more innocent picturesqueness in what I saw afterward, when we all came away, in the late afternoon, as the shadows were at their longest: the bright-colored southern crowd, spreading itself over the grass, and the women, with mantillas and fans, strolling up along before the mountains and the sea.

HENRY JAMES, JR.



THE BALLAD OF CONSTANCE.

I.

With diamond dew the grass was wet, T'was in the spring, and gentlest weather, And all the birds of morning met, And carolled in her heart together.

II.

The wind blew softly o'er the land, And softly kissed the joyous ocean: He walked beside her, on the sand, And gave and won a heart's devotion.

III.

The thistledown was in the breeze, With birds of passage homeward flying: His fortune called him o'er the seas, And on the shore he left her sighing.

IV.

She saw his barque glide down the bay— Through tears and fears she could not banish; She saw his white sails melt away; She saw them fade; she saw them vanish.

V.

And "Go," she said; "for winds are fair, And love and blessing round you hover: When you sail backward through the air, Then I will trust the word of lover."

VI.

Still ebbed, still flowed the tide of years, Now chilled with snows, now bright with roses, And many smiles were turned to tears, And sombre morns to radiant closes.

VII.

And many ships came gliding by, With many a golden promise freighted: But nevermore from sea or sky Came love to bless her heart that waited.

VII.

Yet on, by tender patience led, Her sacred footsteps walked unbidden, Wherever sorrow bows its head, Or want and care and shame are hidden.

IX.

And they who saw her snow-white hair, And dark, sad eyes, so deep with feeling, Breathed all at once the chancel air, And seemed to hear the organ pealing.

X.

Till once, at shut of autumn day, In marble chill she paused and harkened, With startled gaze where far away The waste of sky and ocean darkened.

XI.

There, for a moment, faint and wan, High up in air, and landward striving, Stern-fore a spectral barque came on, Across the purple sunset driving.

XII.

Then something out of night she knew, Some whisper heard, from heaven descended, And peacefully as falls the dew Her long and lonely vigil ended.

XIII.

The violet and the bramble-rose Make glad the grass that dreams above her; And freed from time and all its woes, She trusts again the word of lover.

WILLIAM WINTER.



THE HEARTBREAK CAMEO.

"It is a cameo to break one's heart!" said Mrs. Dalliba, as she toyed with the superb jewel. "The cutting is unmistakably Florentine, and yet you have placed it among your Indian curiosities. I do not understand it at all."

Mrs. Dalliba was a connoisseur in gems; she had travelled from one extremity of Europe to the other; had studied the crown jewels of nearly every civilized nation, haunted museums, and was such a frequent visitor at the jewellers' of the Palais Royal, that many of them had come to regard her as an individual who might harbor burglarious intentions. She was a very harmless specialist, however, who, though she loved these stars of the underworld better than any human being, could never have been tempted to make one of them unfairly her own, and she seldom purchased, for she never coveted one unless it was something quite extraordinary, beyond the reach of even her considerable fortune. Meanwhile few of the larger jewelry houses had in their employ lapidaries more skilled than Mrs. Dalliba. She pursued her studies for the mere love of the science, devoting a year in Italy to mosaics, cameos, and intaglios. And yet the Crevecoeur cameo had puzzled wiser heads than Mrs. Dalliba's, adept though she was. It was cut from a solid heart-shaped gem, a layer of pure white, shading down through exquisite gradations into deep green, and represented Aphrodite rising from the sea; the white form rose gracefully, with arms extended, scattering the drops of spray from her hands and her wind-blown hair; the foamy waves were beautifully cut with their intense hollows and snowy crests; it was evidently the work of a cultivated as well as a natural artist; it was not surprising that Mrs. Dalliba should insist that it could not have been executed out of Italy.

But Prof. Stonehenge was right too; it was a stone of the chalcedonic family, resembling sardonyx, except in color; others, similar to it both in a natural state and wrought into arrow-heads, had been found along the shores of Lake Superior. This seemed to have been brought away from its associates by some wandering tribe, for it had been discovered in Central Illinois. The nearest point at which other relics belonging to the same period had been found was the site of Fort Crevecoeur, near Starved Rock, Illinois. After all, the stone only differed from the arrow-heads of Lake Superior in its beautiful carving and unprecedented size—and, ah, yes! there was another difference, the mystery of its discovery. No other skeleton among all the buried braves unearthed by scientific research at Crevecoeur had been found with a gem for a heart—a gem that glittered not on the breast, but within a chest hooped with human bone. Mrs. Dalliba had just remarked that she had never felt so strong a desire to possess and wear any jewel as now; but when Prof. Stonehenge told how the uncanny thing rattled within the white ribs of the skeleton in which it was found, she allowed the gem to slip from her hand, while something of its own pale green flickered in the disgusted expression which quivered about the corners of her mobile mouth. The cameo was a mystery which had baffled geologist, antiquarian, and sculptor alike, for Father Francis Xavier had gone down to his grave with his secret and his cameo hidden in his heart. He had kept both well for two centuries, and when the heart crumbled in dust it took its secret with it, leaving only the cameo to bewilder conjecture.

Its story was, after all, a simple one. On the southern shore of Michillimackinac, in the romantic days of the first exploration of the great lakes by the Courreurs de Bois and pioneer priests, had settled good Pere Ignace, a devoted Jesuit missionary. The old man was revered and loved by the Indians among whom he dwelt. His labors blossomed in a little village, called from his patron saint the mission of St. Ignace, that displayed its cluster of white huts and wigwams like the petals of a water-lily on the margin of the lake. Just back of the village was a round knoll which served as a landmark on the lake, for the shore near St. Ignace was remarkably level. On the summit of this mound the good father had reared a great white cross, and at its foot the superstitious Indians often laid votive offerings of strongly incongruous character. Here he had lived and taught for many years, succeeding in instructing his little flock in the French tongue, and in at least an outward semblance of the Catholic religion. Even the rude trappers, who came to trade at regular intervals, revered him, and lived like good Christians while at the mission, so as not to counteract his teaching by their lawless example. Here Pere Ignace was growing old, and even this grasshopper of a spiritual charge was becoming a burden. His superior, at Montreal, understood this and sent him an assistant.

Very unlike Father Ignatius was Pere Francois Xavier, a man with all the fire and enthusiasm of youth in his blood—just the one for daring, hazardous enterprises; just the one to undergo all the privation and toil of planting a mission; to undertake plans requiring superhuman efforts, and to carry them through successfully by main force of will. A better assistant for Father Ignatius could not have been found. It was force, will, and intellect in the service of love and meekness; only there was a doubt if the servant might not usurp the place of the master, and the sway of love be not materially advanced by its new ally. Indeed, if the truth had been known, even the Bishop of Montreal had felt that Father Francis Xavier was too ambitious a character to reside safely in too close proximity to himself; and engrossing employment at a distance for him, rather than the expressed solicitude for Father Ignatius, prompted this appointment. The results of the following year approved the arrangement. The mission received a new accession of life; its interests were pushed forward energetically.

Father Francis Xavier devoted himself to an acquisition of the various Indian dialects, and to excursions among the neighboring tribes. Converts were made in astonishing numbers, and they brought liberal gifts to the little church from their simple possessions. Father Ignatius had never thought to barter with the trappers and traders, but his colleague did; large church warehouses were erected, and the mission soon had revenues of importance. Away in the interior Father Xavier had discovered there was a silver mine; but this discovery, for the present, he made no attempt at exploiting. He had secured it to the church by title deed and treaty with the chief who claimed it; had visited it and assured himself that it would some day be very valuable, and he contented himself with this for the present, and even managed to forget its acquisition in his yearly report sent to Montreal. Father Francis Xavier was something of a geologist; his father was a Florentine jeweller, and the son had studied as his apprentice, not having at first been destined for the church. Even after taking holy orders, Father Francis Xavier had labored over precious stones designed for ecclesiastical decoration. His specialty had been that of a gem engraver, and his long white fingers were remarkably skilful and delicate. This northern region, with all its wealth of precious stones, was a great jewel casket for him, and he became at once an enthusiastic collector.

Before the coming of his assistant, Father Ignatius had managed his own simple housekeeping in all its most humble details. Now they had the services of an Indian maid of all work, who had been brought up under the eyes of Father Ignatius, and whom the old man regarded rather as a daughter than as a servant. Her moccasined feet fell as silently as those of spirits as she glided about their lodge. She never sang at her work, and rarely spoke, but she smiled often with a smile so childlike as to be almost silly in expression. Father Ignatius loved the silent smile, and a word from him was always sure to bring it; but it angered Father Francis Xavier more than many a more repulsive thing would have done. It seemed so utterly imbecile and babyish to him, he had got so far away from innocence and smiles and childhood himself, that the sight of them irritated him. The young Indian girl had a long and almost unpronounceable name. Pere Ignace had baptized her Marie, and the new name had gradually taken the place of the old.

One day, as she was silently but dexterously putting to order the large upper room, which served Pere Francis Xavier as study and dormitory, she paused before his collection of agates and minerals, and stroking the stones, said in her soft French and Indian patois, "Pretty, pretty." Father Xavier was seated at the great open window, looking over the top of his book away across the breezy lake. He heard the words, and knew that she was looking at him from the corner of her eye, but his only reply was a deeper scowl and a lowering of his glance to the printed page. The silly smile which he felt sure was upon her face faded out, but the girl spoke again, and this time more resolutely, determined to attract his attention. "Pretty stones. Marie's father many more, much prettier—much."

Father Xavier laid down his book. He was all attention. "Where did your father get them?" he asked.

"In the mountains climb, in the mines dig, in the lake dive, he seek them all the time summer."

"What does he do with them?"

"Cuts them like mon pere," and Marie imitated in pantomime the use of the hammer and chisel. "Cut them all time winter, very many."

"What does he do that for?" asked the priest, surprised.

"All the same you," replied the girl—"make arrow-heads."

"Oh! he makes arrow-heads, does he? Mine are not arrow-heads, but I should like to see what your father does. Does he live far from here?"

"Marie take you to-night in canoe."

"Very well, after supper."

She had often taken him out upon the lake before, for she managed their birch-bark canoe with more skill than himself, and it was convenient to have some one to paddle while he fished or read or dreamed. She rowed him swiftly up the lake for several miles, then, fastening the canoe, led the way through a trail in the forest. The sun was setting, and "the whispering pines and the hemlocks" of the forest primeval formed a tapestry of gloom around the paternal wigwam as they reached it. Black Beaver, her father, reclined lazily in the door, watching the coals of the little fire in front of his tent. He was always lazy. It was difficult to believe that he ever climbed or dug or dived for agates as Marie had said, so complete a picture he seemed of inaction. The girl spoke a few words to him in their native dialect, and he grumblingly rose, shuffled into the interior of the wigwam, and brought out two baskets. One was a shallow tray filled with the finished heads in great variety of material and color. There were white carnelian, delicately striped with prophetic red, blood-stone deep-colored and hard as ruby, agates of every shade and marking, flinty jasper, emerald-banded malachite, delicate rose color, and purple ones made from shells, and various crystals with whose names Father Francois Xavier was unfamiliar. There was one shading from dark green through to red, only a drop of the latter color on the very tip of the arrow where blood would first kiss blood. Father Xavier looked at it in wondering admiration, and at last asked Black Beaver what he called it.

"It is a devil-stone," replied the Indian. "More here," and he opened the deeper basket in which were stored the unground and uncut stones, and placed a superb gem in Father Xavier's hand. He had ground it sufficiently to show that it was in two layers, white and green; in this there was no touch of red, but in every other respect it was the handsomer stone.

"Will you sell it to me?" asked the priest. "How much?"

The Indian smiled with an expression strangely like that of his daughter, and put it back with alacrity in his basket, saying, "Me no sell big devil-stone. No money buy."

"What do you mean to do with it?" asked Father Xavier.

"Make arrowhead—very hungry—no blood"; and he indicated the absence of the red tint. "Very hungry—kill very much—never have enough!"

"Then you mean to keep it and use it yourself?"

"No," said the other. "Me no hunt game—hunt stones."

"What will you do with it?" asked the puzzled priest.

"Give it away," said Black Beaver—"give away to greatest——"

"Chief?" asked Father Xavier.

Black Beaver shook his head.

"Friend then?"

"No," grunted the arrowhead maker—"give away to big enemy!"

"What did he mean by that?" Father Xavier asked of Marie on their way back to the mission. And the girl explained the superstition that Indians of their own tribe never killed an enemy with ordinary weapons, for fear that his soul would wait for theirs in the Happy Hunting Grounds; but if he was shot with a devil-stone, the soul could not fly upward, but would sink through all eternity, until it reached the deepest spot of all the great lakes under the stony gaze of the Doom Woman.

When he inquired further as to the whereabouts of the Doom Woman's residence he ascertained that she was only a sharp cliff among "the pictured rocks of sandstone" of the upper lake—a cliff that viewed from either side maintained its resemblance to a female profile looking sternly down at the water beneath it, which was here believed to be unfathomable. The Doom Woman still exists. Strange to say, under its sharp-cut features a steamer has since been wrecked and sunk, and its expression of gloomy fate is now awfully appropriate. Marie had visited "the great Sea Water" with her father. Nature's titanic and fanciful frescoing and cameo cutting had strongly wrought upon her impressionable mind, and the old legends and superstitions of paganism had been by no means effaced by the very slight veneer of Christianity which she had received at the mission.

From this evening Father Xavier's manner toward her changed. Her smile no longer seemed to irritate him, and a close observer might have noticed that she smiled less than formerly. He talked with her more, paid closer attention to her studies, made her little presents from time to to time, and spoke to her always with studied gentleness that was quite foreign to his nature. And Marie watched him at work over his stones, spent her spare time in rambling in search of those which she had learned he liked, and laid upon his table without remark each new discovery of quartz, or crystal, or pebble. She had been in the habit of making little boxes which she decorated with a rude mosaic of small shells, and Father Xavier noticed that these gradually acquired more taste and were arranged with some eye to the harmonies of color, while the forms were copied with Chinese accuracy from patterns on the bindings of his books or the borders of the religious pictures. Marie was developing under an art education which if carried far enough might effect great things. She even managed his graving tools with a good deal of accuracy, copying designs which he set her, until he wondered what his father would have thought of so apt an apprentice.

Suddenly, one morning in midsummer, Marie announced that she should leave them. Her father was going on a long expedition for stones to the head of Lake Superior, and she did not know when she might return. As she imparted this information she watched Father Xavier from the corner of her eye, and something of the old childish smile reappeared as he showed that he was really annoyed.

The summer passed profitably for the Black Beaver, and he began to think of returning to St. Ignace with his small store of valuable stones before the fall gales should set in. He was just a few days too late. When within sight of Michillimackinac a storm arose driving them out upon the open lake, and playing with their canoe as though it were a cockle shell. When the storm abated a cloudy night had set in; no land was visible in any direction; they had completely lost their direction, and knew not toward which point to seek the shore. Paddling at hazard might take them further out into the centre of the lake, and indeed they were too worn with battling with the storm to do any more than keep the tossed skiff from capsizing. Morning dawned wet and gray, after a miserable night; they were drenched to the skin, and almost spent with weariness and hunger, and now that a wan and ghostly daylight had come they were no better for it, for an impenetrable fog shut them in on every side. Marie and her mother began to pray. The Black Beaver sat dogged and inert, with upturned face, regarding the sky.

The day wore by wearily; some of the time they paddled straight onward, with sinking hearts, knowing not toward what they were going, and at others rested with the inaction of despair. When the position of the bright spot which meant the sun told that it lacked but an hour of sunset, and the clouds seemed to be thickening rather than dispersing, the Black Beaver gave a long and hideous howl. His wife and daughter shuddered when they heard it, as would any one, for a more unearthly and discordant cry was never uttered by man or beast; but they had double reason to shudder; it was the death cry of their nation.

"We can never live through another night," said he, and he covered his face with his arms.

"Father," said Marie, "try what power there is in the white man's God. Say that you will give Him your devil-stone if He will save us now."

"The priest may have it," said the Black Beaver, and he uncovered his face and sat up as though expecting a miracle. And the miracle came. The sun was setting behind them, and in front, somewhat above the horizon, the clouds parted, forming a circle about a white cross which hung suspended in the air. They all saw it distinctly, but only for a few moments; then the clouds closed and the vision vanished. With new hope the little party rowed toward the spot where they had last seen it, and through the fog they could dimly discern the outlines of the coast—they were nearing land. A little further on, and a village was visible, which gained a more and more familiar aspect as they approached. Night settled down before they reached it, but ere their feet touched the land they had recognized the mission of St. Ignace. The cross was not a vision. The clouds had parted to show them the great white landmark and sign which Father Ignatius had raised upon the little knoll.

The next day the Black Beaver unearthed his devil-stone, and fastening a silver chain to it, was about to carry it away and attach it to the cross, which was already loaded with the gifts of the little colony; but Marie took it from his hand. "I will give it to the good priest myself," she said. "He may see fit to place it on the image of the Virgin in the church."

A few days later Marie placed the coveted stone in Father Xavier's hand; but what was his bitter disappointment to find that she had marred the exquisite thing by a rude attempt at a delineation upon it of the vision of the cross. She had carefully chiselled away the milky white layer, excepting on the crests of some very primitive representations of waves, and within the awkwardly plain cross in the centre of the gem. All his hopes of cutting a face upon this lovely jewel were crushed; it was ruined by her unskilful work. Father Xavier was completely master of his own emotions. He took the stone without remark, and hung it, as Marie requested, about the neck of the Madonna. Each day as he said mass the sight of the mutilated jewel roused within him resentful feelings against poor, well-wishing little Marie. He had been very kind to her since he had first seen the stone in the possession of her father, but now it was worse than before. He avoided her markedly, for the smile which so annoyed him still lighted her face whenever she saw him, and there was in it a reproachful sadness which was even more aggravating than its simple childishness had been.

One day Father Xavier in turning over his papers came across an old etching of Venus rising from the sea. The figure, with its outstretched arms, suggested a possibility to him. He made a careful tracing of it, took it to the church and laid it upon the stone. All of its outlines came within the white cross; there was still hope for the cameo. All that winter Father Xavier toiled upon it, exhausting his utmost skill, but never exhausting his patience. His chief trial was in the extreme hardness of the stone, which rapidly wore out his graving tools. At last it was finished, and Father Xavier confessed to himself, in all humility, that he had not only never executed so delicate a piece of workmanship, but he had never seen its equal. Every curve of the exquisite-hued waves was studied from the swell that sometimes swept grandly in from the lake on the long reef of rocks a few miles above St. Ignace. The form of the goddess was modelled from his remembrance of the Greek antique. It was a gem worthy of an emperor. What should he do with it?

As the spring ripened into summer, ambitious thoughts flowered in Pere Francis Xavier's soul. What a grand bishopric this whole western country would make with its unexplored wealth of mines, and furs, and forest. Why should he be obliged to make reports of the revenue which his own financiering had secured to the mission, to the head at Montreal? Why should not his reverence the Lord Bishop Francis Xavier dwell in an episcopal palace built somewhere on these lakes, with unlimited spiritual and temporal sway over all this country? To effect such a scheme it would be necessary for him to see both the King of France and the Pope. He was not sure that even if he could return to Europe immediately, he had the influence necessary in either quarter, but the cameo was a step in the right direction. Something of the same thought occurred at the same time to the Bishop of Montreal. Father Xavier's reports showed the mission to be in a flourishing condition. The first struggles of the pioneer were over. Father Xavier must not be left in too luxurious a position. The Chevalier La Salle was now fitting out his little band designed to explore the lakes and follow the Mississippi from its source to the Gulf. A most important expedition; it would be well that the Jesuit fathers should share in the honors if it proved successful, and if the little party perished in its hazardous enterprise, Pere Francis Xavier could perhaps be spared as easily as any member of his spiritual army.

And so, in the summer of 1679, the Chevalier sailed up the Lac du Dauphin, as Lake Erie was then called, into the Lac d'Orleans, or Huron, carrying letters in which Pere Francis Xavier was ordered to leave his charge for a time in order to render all the assistance in his power to the explorers. The Bishop of Montreal could never have guessed with what heartfelt joy his command was obeyed. Father Xavier was tired of this peaceful life, tired of "the endless wash of melancholy waves," of the short cool summers, and long white blank of winter; tired of inaction, of the lack of stimulating surroundings, of the gentleness of Father Ignatius and Marie's haunting smile. Here, too, might be the very occasion he craved of making himself famous and deserving of reward as an explorer. It was true that he started as a subordinate, but that was no reason that he should return in the same capacity. Marie had served the noble guests with pleasant alacrity, passing the rainbow-tinted trout caught as well as broiled by her own hand, and the luscious huckleberries in tasteful baskets of her own braiding, and Tontz Main de Fer, the chivalric companion and friend of La Salle, was moved like Geraint, served by Enid, "to stoop and kiss the dainty little thumb that crossed the trencher." The salutation was received with unconscious dignity by little Marie; once only was Pere Francois Xavier annoyed by the absence of a display of childish pleasure in an ever ready smile.

History tells how trial and privation of every kind waited on this little band of heroic men—how hunger, and cold, and fever dogged their steps; how the Indians proved treacherous and hostile; how, having reached central Illinois after incredible exertion, they found themselves in the dead of winter unable to proceed further, and surrounded by tribes incited against them by some unknown enemy. A fatality seemed to hang over them; suspicious occurrences indicated that they had a traitor among their number, but he was never discovered. La Salle did not despair or abandon the enterprise, but when six of his most trusted men mutinied and deserted, he lost hope, and became seized with a presentiment that he would never return from his expedition. Father Xavier was his confidant as well as confessor, but he seems not to have been able to disperse the gloom which settled over the leader's mind. Perhaps he did not endeavor to do so. Hopeless but still true to his trust, La Salle constructed near Peoria a fort which he named Crevecoeur, in token of his despondency and disappointment. Leaving Tontz Main de Fer in command here with the greater part of his men, he set out with five for Frontenac, on the 2d of March, 1680, intending to return with supplies to take command again of his party, and to proceed southward. It was at this point that the most inexplicable event of the entire enterprise occurred. Before the party divided some one attempted to poison the Chevalier La Salle. The poison was a subtle and slow one, similar in its effects to those used by the Borgia family; the secret of its manufacture was thought to be unknown out of Italy. Fortunately he had taken an under or overdose of it, and the effects manifested themselves only in a long illness. He was too far on his journey from Fort Heartbreak when stricken down to return to it, and was mercifully received and nursed back to health by the friendly Pottawottamies.

While the leader was lying sick in an Indian lodge, the knightly Tontz, ignorant of the fate of his friend, was having his troubles at the little fort of Heartbreak. Pere Francois Xavier had remained with him, and aided him with counsels and personal exertions; he had made himself so indispensable that he was now lieutenant; if anything should happen to Tontz, he would be commander. He was secretary of the expedition, drew careful maps, and made voluminous daily entries in a journal, which was afterward found to be a marvel of painstaking both in the facts and fictions which it contained. Scanty mention was there of La Salle and Tontz Main de Fer, and much of Pere Francois Xavier, but it was clear, explicit, depicting the advantages of an acquisition of this territory to the crown of France in glowing terms, and strongly advising that the man who had most distinguished himself in the difficulties of its discovery should be appointed as governor, or baron, under the royal authority.

While Father Xavier was compiling this remarkable piece of authorship, the Iroquois descended in warlike array upon the somewhat friendly disposed Illinois Indians, in whose midst Fort Crevecoeur had been built. The suspicious Indian mind immediately connected the advent of their enemies with the building of the fort, and regarded the little garrison with distrust. Tontz, at the instance of Father Xavier, presented himself to their chief, and offered to do anything in his power to prove his friendly intentions. The chief accepted his services, and sent him as ambassador to inquire into the cause of the coming of the Iroquois. This mission had nearly been his last, for Tontz was received with stabs, and hardly allowed to give the message of the chief. His ill treatment at the hands of their enemies did not reassure the suspicious Illinois, who ordered Tontz to immediately evacuate the fort and return with his forces to the country whence he had come. In his wounded condition such a journey was extremely hazardous, and it must have been with grave doubts as to his surviving it that Father Xavier took temporary command of the returning expedition.

It was the spring of 1681. Father Xavier had been absent nearly two years. Father Ignatius missed him sadly—all the life and fire seemed to have gone out of the mission. Even Marie moved about her work in a listless, languid way, which contrasted markedly with her once lithe and rapid movements. They had not once heard from the explorers, and Father Ignatius shook his head sadly, and feared that he would never see his energetic colleague again. The Black Beaver had slept through the last months of winter, and, as with the general awakening of spring the bears came out of their dens, and the snakes sunned themselves near their holes, he too stretched himself lazily and awoke to a consciousness of what was passing around him. In the first place something was amiss with Marie. When she came to the wigwam it was not to chat merrily of the affairs of the mission. She did not braid as many baskets as formerly, and no longer showed him new patterns in shell mosaic on the lids of little boxes. He was a curious old man, and he soon drew her secret from her. Marie loved Pere Francois Xavier, and he had gone.

The Black Beaver went down to the mission one evening and had a long talk with Father Ignatius. He ascertained first that Pere Francois Xavier really meant to return; then, with all the dignity of an old feudal baron, he offered Marie as a bride for his spiritual son. Very gently the good Pere Ignace explained that Romish priests were so nearly in the kingdom of heaven that the question of marrying and giving in marriage was not for them to consider. The Black Beaver went home, told no one of his visit, and for several days indulged in the worst drunken spree of which he was capable. When he came out of it he announced to his wife and Marie that he was going away on his annual trip for stores, but that they need not accompany him.

Marie knelt as usual in the little church on the evening of the day on which her father had gone away. Pere Francois Xavier had replaced the cameo on the Virgin's breast before he went; it was a safer place than the vault of a bank would have been, had such a thing existed in the country. There was no one in the island sacrilegious enough to rob the church. Marie had gazed at the stone each time that she repeated the prayer which he had taught her. She looked up now, and it was gone.

Half-way upon their northward route, Tontz's band were struggling wearily on when they were met by a solitary Indian, who, though he carried a long bow, had not an unfriendly aspect. He eyed the little band silently as they passed by him in defile, then ran after them, and inquired if the Pere Francois Xavier, of Mission St. Ignace, was not of their number. He was informed that the reverend father had remained a short distance behind to write in his journal, but that he would soon overtake them; and he was warmly pressed to remain with them if he had messages for the priest, and give them to him when he arrived; but the Indian shook his head and passed on in the direction in which they told him he would be likely to meet Father Xavier. The party halted and waited hour after hour for the priest, but he did not come. Finally two went back in search, and found him lying upon the sod with upturned face—the place where he had written last in his journal marked by a few drops of his heart's blood, and the long shaft of an arrow protruding from his breast. They drew it out, but the arrow-head had been attached, as is the custom in some Indian tribes, by means of a soft wax, which is melted by the warmth of the body, and it remained in the heart. Father Xavier had been dead some hours. They buried him where they found him, and proceeded on their march. Tontz recovered on the way. They reached Michillimackinack in safety, where they were joined two months later by La Salle; and the world knows the result of his second expedition.

Little Marie learned by degrees to smile again, and in after years married another arrow-head maker, as swarthy and as shaggy as the Black Beaver. There is no moral to my story except that of poetic justice. Pere Francois Xavier had sown a plentiful crop of stratagems, and he learned in the lonely forest that "Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap."

Meanwhile to all but you, my readers, the Crevecoeur cameo remains as great a mystery as ever.

LIZZIE W. CHAMPNEY.



MONSIEUR DELILLE.

NOTE-BOOK OF A SECRETARY OF LEGATION.

The newspapers of Berlin announced the arrival of a superior artist, the celebrated M. Delille of the Theatre Francais de Paris, where he had played first parts. Born and bred in the French metropolis, it was believed he would not only open new sources of amusement to the public, but add elegance to the French even of the highest regions. Everybody was talking of him. His acquisition, rendered possible only by a differend with the Paris manager, was a triumph for Berlin. I was quite curious to see him.

One day I stepped into Rey's perfumery shop to buy some cologne water. The rooms were crowded with fashionable ladies looking over the glittering and fragrant assortment of savons de toilette, pates d'amandes, huiles essentielles, eaux de vie aromatisees, etc. While making my purchase, a very handsome fellow came in who excited unusual attention. His toilette recherchee, his noble but modest air made one look at him again and again. He spoke with Rey in a voice so harmonious and in such French as one does not hear every day even in Paris. I heard a lady whisper to another: "Ah, voila qui est parlez Francais (that is the way to speak French)." The stranger was certainly somebody, or so many furtive glances would not have been cast at him. I might, by inquiry, easily have ascertained who he was, but I found a kind of pleasure in prolonging my curiosity. The Emperor Nicholas of Russia was daily expected. He was supposed to be the handsomest man in the world. But he was six feet two, taller than this person. The Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin had arrived the previous afternoon; but, it seemed to me, no German could speak French with just that modulation. The Prince de Joinville was expected. Perhaps it was he.

"Will you kindly give yourself the trouble to send the box to M. Delille, Friedrich strasse 30?"

Ah ha! Le voila! There was my man. Strange I had not thought of him.

I had a season ticket at the French theatre for the purpose of learning French, and I had been as much entertained as instructed (I mean instructed in the language). Every one knows a Frenchman can infuse airy elegance into a button, bestow a marketable value upon a straw, breathe esprit into a feather, and make ten dishes out of a nettle-top. So the poet can transform any incident into an attractive vaudeville. The tender situation dramatique, the humorous coup de theatre, the jeu d'esprit sparkling up into music, the elevated sentiment, the merciless exposure of vice and folly, the purest and noblest morality, largely mixed with an ostentatious ridicule of every sacred truth, and an absolute disregard of every principle of decency and duty, give strange glimpses into French social life.

As a school for the French student, however, the theatre is a useful institution. For French has got to be learned somehow or other. A dancing master of my acquaintance used always to commence his course by a short address to his class in which he remarked: "Mesdemoiselles! La chose la plus importante du monde c'est la danse!" (the most important thing in the world is dancing.) Perhaps he was right. In that case I must add that the next most important thing in the world is the French language; at least to a foreigner on the continent of Europe. Without that you do not know anything. You are a straw man. You are a deaf and dumb creature. Ladies gaze at you with compassion, gentlemen with contempt, children with wonder, while waiters quiz you, cheat you, and make the imaginary mill behind your back.

Impressed with the inconvenience of this position, I had long ago commenced a siege of the French language. I studied it a fond. I looked into every y and en. I had attended the French theatre as a school, and profited by the performances. The company was excellent, particularly one young girl, Mlle. Fontaine. Her playing was unsurpassable. She knew always when to go on and when to stop. Perfect simplicity, a taste never at fault, delightful humor, a high tragic power; to these add a lovely face, a beautiful form, grace in every movement, a voice just as sweet as a voice could be, and you have a dim idea of Mlle. Fontaine. In her private life, moreover, she enjoyed the reputation of being without reproach. The whole world repeated of her the old saying: "Elle n'a qu'un defaut, celui de mettre de l'esprit partout!" (She has but one fault: she touches nothing without importing to it a charm of her own.)

When M. Delille came out, Mlle. Fontaine and he generally played together, amid thundering plaudits of overflowing audiences. Delille himself was a perfect artist. The French theatre was in its glory.

One morning, hard at work in my office, I was surprised by a card, "Monsieur Delille, du Theatre Francais." The gentleman wished to have the honor of a few moments' conversation.

The theatre and all the various personages of its imaginary world were so completely apart from my real life, that I could scarcely have been more surprised at receiving a card from Louis XIV., or hearing that the General Napoleon Bonaparte was waiting at the door, and desired the honor of my acquaintance.

M. Delille entered, hat in hand, with bow and smile, as I had so often seen him do in the theatre drawing-rooms. We had a pleasant chat. He spoke no English, which forced upon me the necessity of exhibiting my dazzling French. He complimented me upon it. I told him it was principally owing to himself and to Mlle. Fontaine. This brought out the object of his visit. He was going to be married. He had been in America, which emboldened him to consider himself in some sort my countryman, and to request the honor of my presence at the ceremony.

"And the lady?"

"Monsieur," he said, "peut-on douter? (can you doubt?) Mlle. Fontaine! You are to come to the French church at 3. You will, then, will you not, do us the honor to dine at our lodgings, Friedrich strasse, No. 30?"

I returned his own answer:

"Monsieur, peut-on douter?"

At the hour appointed I was at the church. I found quite an assembly—artists, painters, sculptors, actors, critics, poets, newspaper writers, several members of the corps diplomatique, some officers, a few gentlemen of the court, etc.

The bride and groom appeared very simply attired. Their deportment was perfect. The ceremony was impressive. In a short time the holy bands had made them one. There was no acting about either of them. M. Delille was pale; Mademoiselle still paler. Their emotion was obviously genuine. Some folks think when actors tremble or shed tears, it must be only acting; and that they can get married or die as easily in the world as on the stage. This is a mistake. Getting really married is as serious a step to them as to you; and they know that real dying is a very different thing from those exits which they make at the end of the tragedy. They struggle with life, and walk forward toward death just as do their fellow-creatures, who preach from the pulpit, speak in the Senate, or congregate on the exchange. The rich banker; the self-important diplomat; the general, covered with orders; the minister, who holds the helm of state; the emperor, the queen, who deign to honor the representation with their presence, smile when they behold themselves reflected on the stage. But there is not so much difference, as they are pleased to suppose, between themselves and their theatre colleagues. Shakespeare says:

All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players.

The question is, which of these men and women are the best? Perhaps the theatre statesman would have administered the affairs of his country with more wisdom; the dramatic banker would have made his money more honestly and used it with greater discretion; the stage general would have conducted the war with more humanity and success; and the senators, in "Julius Caesar" and "Damon and Pythias," would have been less open to bribery and corruption than the gentlemen who have really occupied similar positions in the world. Perhaps, if M. Delille had been Admiral Blank, he would have looked at his chart, and not run his ship upon that rock in the Mediterranean on a clear summer morning. Perhaps, if Mme. Delille had been Empress of France, she would not have striven quite so hard to bring on the last war with Prussia.

From the church to the lodgings of Monsieur and Madame Delille. On passing through the entrance, in Berlin generally a way for horses and carriages, you would scarcely expect such elegant apartments. The moment you crossed the threshold you were in another world. Everything rich, tasteful, new; the walls superbly papered; the woodwork painted like snow and varnished like a mirror: Brussels carpet, then not over-common in the richest houses; lounges, chaises longues, sofas, divans; a strong smell of Russia binding from splendid volumes on the table, and gleaming from mahogany book-cases; beautiful paintings and engravings; a lavish display of clocks on tables and writing-desks; one, looking down from a loftier pedestal, clicked audibly the seconds and struck the quarters with a solemn sound, like the booming of some far-off old cathedral bell hanging in the clouds. Everything told of the new married man: everything new, bright, unexceptionable, faultless, perfect—like the new wife, the new husband, the new affection, the new hopes, yet unexposed to the wear and tear of years.

I was among the first. My host and hostess awaited their guests. Mademoiselle—I beg her pardon—madame received me with graceful cordiality. The company immediately began to appear, principally performers whose faces I had never seen before, except on the stage, associated with incidents, words, actions, intrigues, and scenes of the poet's imagination. I enjoyed as if I had been a boy, recognizing the various characters whose pranks, joys, and sorrows I had followed with so much interest: the wicked "jeune homme a la mode," the bewitching "femme de chambre," the vieux "general sous l'empire," the rich banquier de Paris, the handsome, dangerous guardien, the naughty husband who had exclaimed, "Ciel ma femme!" the jealous lover, the hard-hearted landlord, and the comique of the troupe, upon whose mobile face I could scarcely look without laughing when he asked me: "Voulez-vous bien avoir la bonte de passer le sel?" There were present several from the court: the Marquis de B——, who in private theatricals at the King's had distinguished himself; M. le Comte de S——, supposed to be a little impressionne by Mlle. Zoe, the last successful debutante, and now among the guests.

Mme. Delille looked like a lady born, and did the honors of her house like one. The servant announced the dinner, and we adjourned to the dining-room.

The dinner was on ne peut pas mieux. I sat between the lady of the house and Mlle. Zoe. One of the French arts is that of placing people at ease in society. It is not uncommon to meet persons not wanting in intelligence, yet who, unless you draw them out, will simply remain in the whole evening. My charming neighbors drew me out immediately. They possessed a magnetism which made talking, and in one's best style, as easy as flying to a bird. Mlle. Zoe said a great many brilliant and surprising things; but Mme. Delille's manners and conversation were far superior. I found in her a thoughtful, cultivated, balanced mind, inspiring genuine esteem. I was struck by her views of political events and characters. She touched lightly and skilfully upon various personages with wisdom and humor, but with charity. She referred to her own position in life as an actress in a way which interested me extremely, and she found opportunity amid the miscellaneous conversation to relate her history, and how she came to adopt a profession contrary to her taste; and a more touching story I never heard. The conversation even ascended to higher subjects. I was not a little astonished to find in a young and universally flattered French actress a noble-minded, superior woman, who had suffered deeply, and thought seriously and spiritually upon subjects generally considered irreconcileable with her profession.

The dinner was finished; the nuts and the jokes were cracked; the cafe, the chasse-cafe, the enigmas, the conundrums, the anecdotes, the songs, the tableaux-vivants followed each other. My amiable hostess seemed to think I must have had enough of it, and, with her graceful acquiescence, I stole out after a confidential pantomimic leave-taking with her and my host.

I became subsequently well acquainted with Monsieur and Madame Delille, and have seldom known more interesting persons. Occasionally they invited me to a quiet family dinner, where I always met one or two distinguished guests; and sometimes I had the pleasure of having them at my house in a quiet way. They both rose more and more in my esteem the more I observed their inner life and character. As years rolled on, my visits were enlivened by the sight of small drums, trumpets, horses with their tails pulled out, and dolls with their noses knocked off. Sometimes very pretty little cherubs peeped in at the door, or were invited for half an hour to the dinner table.

The world went on with its ways. More than one throne was vacated and filled anew. Great knotty questions of diplomacy rose and disappeared. Mehemet Ali, M. Thiers, the King of Hanover, Metternich, the Chartist, the anti-corn law league, Sir Robert and Mr. Cobden filled the newspapers. Nations growled at each other like bulldogs, and we had wars and rumors of wars a plenty.

One day who should come in but Monsieur and Madame Delille, the very picture of a perfectly happy man and wife. They came to bid me good-by. He had made his fortune, wound up his affairs with the theatre, and abandoned his profession for ever. Madame was at the summit of earthly felicity. She spoke with inexpressible delight of the change in her life. She had longed so often to quit the theatre, and now at last her dream was realized. M. Delille was going to buy a cottage in the south of France, and to be perfectly happy with his dear wife and four children. Amid oranges, lemons, and grapes, beneath the blue summer sky, surrounded by flowers, the waves of the beautiful Mediterranean breaking at his feet, he intended to pass the rest of his days in unclouded peace and joy. He had worked all his life, and now he was going to take his reward.

"But," said I, "did you say four children?"

"Mais oui! I have four.

"Why, it seems but yesterday that——"

"Comptez donc! Six years and six months."

His picture of future felicity was very bright. I thought in my heart that such plans of retirement were—but I suppressed my sermon and congratulated him upon his prospects. Why should I disturb his happiness even though it might be a dream? What but a dream would have been even the realization of all his hopes?

We parted after embracing like old friends. I had more respect for those two than I had for a great many whose sonorous titles did not cover qualities half so estimable, manners half so agreeable, characters half so pure, or a sense of religion half so true and deep.

The French theatre declined after the departure of Monsieur and Madame Delille. I had entirely ceased attending or taking any interest in it.

Two years passed, when one day, in a lonely part of the Thiergarten, I met—whom do you think? M. Delille; but pale, sad, solitary, subdued.

"Well, here I am again," said he. "All my fine dreams have disappeared. I won't bore you with the story. The fact is—that is to say—one can never count upon one's plans in this world. I have lost my fortune, and accepted an invitation to become director of the Berlin French theatre. I am to form a new company. There is a great opposition to this, and the matter has raised up against me furious enemies. They accuse me of everything base. You know me. You know I would not be guilty of anything dishonorable."

I looked into his sad, ingenuous face, and replied:

"I am sure you would not."

"Oh, I thank you. But the worst remains to be told. My wife—my poor, dear wife—who had been my consolation in all this trouble! Pauvre Marie! she is very ill, and I was obliged to leave her in Paris, or to lose all our prospects. She would have it so. This annoys me. This makes me unhappy. With her I am proof against all troubles. Ah, monsieur, you do not know my Marie. The most faithful, the most gentle, the purest, the——"

"But is she so dangerously ill?"

"I hope not. I think not. She will be here in a few weeks. The doctor has given me his word of honor."

A couple of months more. A series of articles, in the mean time, appeared in the newspapers against M. Delille and the new French theatre government. The venomous shafts were launched by an able hand. Gall is sweet compared with them. An actor is the most sensitive of human beings. His reputation is his all. The personal malice and interest of the writer were obvious, but the public were too busy to examine. The crowd enjoy a battle, without caring much about the right.

I met M. Delille a few days after the appearance of the fifth of these articles, and expressed my indignation. His manner of viewing the subject was really noble and more instructive to me than many a sermon. He spoke temperately of the desagrement of his position and the wisdom of keeping on his way calmly. "An actor," he said, "is a public target. Every one has the right to shoot at him. I cannot always forget, but I try to forgive."

"And your wife?"

His face darkened.

"Oh, I am weary. She does not get well. She lingers on. She is not strong enough to come to me. I cannot go to her. She will not consent. They would declare I had run away. Her short letters are full of encouragement and consolation. Ah, if these men knew—but we must be patient. The doctor positively assures me she is doing very well."

Three weeks later I was again taking a walk through the Thiergarten, wrapped in my cloak, for it was winter, when I perceived M. Delille sitting on a quite wet bench. His face was very pale. I never saw a sadder expression. Hoping to rally him, I said:

"What a melancholy countenance! What a brown study! Come, I have arrived in time to laugh to you and of it!"

His face did not reply to my gayety. He asked after my health.

"But you are sitting on a wet, snowy bench. You will take cold."

"No, I shall not take cold."

"And how," said I, "is your——"

I paused, for I now for the first time remarked a black crape on his hat.

He perceived my embarrassment and relieved me.

"My children?"

I was silent.

"They are very well, I thank you—they are very well."

"Come," added he, with an effort, after covering his eyes a moment with his hand, "what have we now? Is there really to be a war?"

THEODORE S. FAY.



INFLUENCES.

The southern bird, which, swift in airy speed, Toward ruder regions wings its careless way, Wafts from its plumage oft a floating seed, Unheeded relic of some tropic day.

And lo! a wonder! on the spot beneath The tiny germ asserts its mystic power; With sudden bloom illumes the rugged heath, And bursts at once to fragrance, light, and flower.

All the sad woodland flushes at the sight: The brook, which murmured, sparkles now, and sings: The cowslips watch, with yearning, strange delight, The bird which shed such glories from its wings,

Watching it hover onward free and far; Breathing farewell with restless doubt and pain. What were a heaven with but one only star? Must this be all? Will it not come again?

While the new lily, lonely in her pride, Sighing through silver bells, repeats the strain, Longing for sister blossoms at her side, And whispering soft, Will it not come again?

CHARLES CARROLL.



DRIFT-WOOD.



THE TWELVE-MONTH SERMON.

The year's end is traditionally the season for moralizing and retrospect. Eheu! fugaces anni is a sigh that even the Latin primer teaches us; and though in schoolbook days calling the years fugacious seems absurd, we catch the meaning as they glide away. To schoolboys the man of fifty is immoderately old: thirty marks a milestone on the downhill of life. People whom we looked upon as of great antiquity, in childhood, turn out to have been mere striplings. I saw "old Kent" yesterday after the lapse of thirty years, and protest he was younger than when he rapped sepulchral silence from his resounding desk. "How are you, Quilibet First?" he said, quite in the ancient way; he seemed once more to brandish the ferrule on his awful throne.

Boys always call schoolmasters and sextons "old," irrespective of their years. Clerks in the shop style their employer "the old gentleman" without meaning to impute antiquity. Gray-haired diggers and pounders speak of their overseer as "the old man," even though he be a rosy-cheeked youth of two-and-twenty. Lexicographers should look to this. "Old" evidently means sometimes "having independent authority," and does not necessarily signify either lack of freshness or being stricken in years. Thus Philip Festus Bailey's dictum, that "we live in deeds, not years," is borne out by common parlance, and future Worcesters and Websters must make a note of it.

Whoever, also, reaches a fixed position of authority, seems (rightly enough, as the world goes) to have achieved success in life. This measurement of success by the kind of occupation one follows begins with us in short clothes. Mary's ambition is to be "either a milliner, a queen, or a cook;" the ideal of Augustus is a woodchopper, killing bears when they attack him at his work, and living in a hut. The sons of confectioners must be marvels if they grow up alike unspoiled in morals by the universal envy of comrades, and unspoiled in teeth by the parental sugar-plums. People of older growth attach childish importance to the trade one plies. Nobs and nabobs (at least on the stage) disinherit daughters offhand for marrying grocers, and groan over sons who take to high art. The smug and prudent citizen shudders at the career of the filibuster, while the adventurer would commit suicide rather than achieve a modest livelihood in tape and needles. The mother of Sainte Beuve was sorely distressed at his pursuit of literature, a career that she reckoned mere vagabondage, despite his brilliant feats in it, until the day he was elected to the French Academy, and thereby became entitled to $300 a year. "Then my mother was a little reassured; thenceforth, j'avais une place."

When the close of the year sets us to reckoning up how much we have made of life, pray what is that "success" of which we all talk so glibly? It is plainly a standard varying according to each man's taste and temperament, his humility or vanity, and shifting as his life advances. What to the Bohemian is success to the Philistine is stark failure. The anchoret looks on this sublunary sphere as one of sighing, the attorney as one of suing—there being all that difference betwixt law and gospel. Sixty years cannot see life through the eyes of sixteen. When men, fearing to measure themselves, seek the judgment of their fellows, adulation or affection may lead astray. In the year's retrospect of science, touching the solar eclipse it is said: "Cape Flattery is our northwestern cape, and there occurred the largest obscuration of the sun in the United States." "Cape Flattery," I fear, is the locus of largest obscuration for the United States every year, and was particularly so in the past twelvemonth of jubilee and gratulation; and what the mantle of flattery is for the sunlight of truth in the nation it is in the individual. In politics, at any rate, the centennial year is closing with some reproof of our all-summer conceit. Our frame of government is not so flawless as we fancied; the pharisaic contrast we drew between our politics and those of other nations is no longer so effective.