CHAPTER V.

ELECTIONEERING.

The four millions of the balcony are at present standing before two suits of male apparel of the kind worn by the working class, contemplating them with an interest one would scarcely expect from millionaires in materials of so ordinary a quality. Spread out on the elegant and costly table cover are two blouses of striped gray at fifteen kreutzers a yard. There are, besides, two pairs of trowsers of a texture well adapted to the temperature of the month of July. There are also two neckties, sold at fairs for six kreutzers apiece. And, lastly, two cheap caps with long broad peaks. These suits were intended to serve as disguises for Seraphin and Carl on this evening, for the banker did not consider it becoming gentlemen to visit electioneering meetings, dressed in a costume in which they might be recognized. As Greifmann’s face was familiar to every street-boy, he had provided himself with a false beard of sandy hue to complete his _incognito_. For Seraphin this last adjunct was unnecessary, for he was a stranger, and he was thus left free to exhibit his innocent countenance unmasked for the gratification of curious starers.

“This will be a pleasant change from the monotony of a banking house existence,” said the banker gleefully. “I enjoy this masquerade: it enables me to mingle without constraint among the unconstrained. You are going to see marvellous things to-night, friend Seraphin. If your organs of hearing are not very sound, I advise you to provide yourself with some cotton, so that the drums of your ears may not be endangered from the noise of the election skirmish.”

“Your caution is far from inspiring confidence,” said Louise with some humor. “I charge it upon your soul that you bring back Mr. Gerlach safe and sound, for I too am responsible for our guest.”

“And I, it seems, am less near to you than the guest, for you feel no anxiety about me,” said the brother archly.

“Eight o’clock--it is our time.”

He pulled the bell. A servant carried off the suits to the gentlemen’s rooms.

“May I beseech the men in blouses for the honor of a visit before they go?”

“You shall have an opportunity to admire us,” said Carl. The transformation of the young men was more rapidly effected than the self-satisfied mustering of Louise before the large mirror which reflected her elegant form entire. She laughingly welcomed her brother in his sandy beard, and fixed a look of surprise upon Seraphin, whose innocent person appeared to great advantage in the simple costume.

“Impossible to recognize you,” decided the young lady. “You, brother Redbeard, look for all the world like a cattle dealer.”

“The gracious lady has hit it exactly,” said the banker with an assumed voice. “I am a horse jockey, bent on euchreing this young gentleman out of a splendid pair of horses.”

“Friend Seraphin is most lovely,” said she in an undertone. “How well the country costume becomes him!” And her sparkling eyes darted expressive glances at the subject of her compliments.

For the first time she had called him friend, and the word friend made him more happy than titles and honors that a prince might have bestowed. He felt his soul kindle at the sight of the lovely being whose delicate and bewitching coquetry the inexperienced youth failed to detect, but the influence of which he was surely undergoing. His cheeks glowed still more highly, and he became uneasy and embarrassed.

“Your indulgent criticism is encouraging, Miss Louise,” replied he.

“I have merely told the truth,” replied she.

“But our hands--what are we to do with our hands?” interposed Carl. “Soft white hands like these do not belong to drovers. First of all, away with diamonds and rubies. Gold rings and precious stones are not in keeping with blouses. Nor will it do, in hot weather like this, to bring gloves to our aid--that’s too bad! What _are_ we to do?”

“Nobody will notice our hands,” thought Seraphin.

“My good fellow, you do not understand the situation. We are on the eve of the election. Everybody is out electioneering. Whoever to-day visits a public place must expect to be hailed by a thousand eyes, stared at, criticised, estimated, appraised, and weighed. The deuce take these hands! Good advice would really be worth something in this instance.”

“To a powerful imagination like your own,” added Louise playfully. She disappeared for a moment and then returned with a washbowl. Pouring the contents of her inkstand into the water, she laughingly pointed them to the dark mass.

“Dip your precious hands in here, and you will make them correspond with your blouses in color and appearance.”

“How ingenious she is!” cried Carl, following her direction.

“Most assuredly nothing comes up to the ingenuity of women. We are beautifully tattooed, our hands are horrible! We must give the stuff time to dry. Had I only thought of it sooner, Louise, you should have accompanied us disguised as a drover’s daughter, and have drunk a bumper of wine with us. The adventure might have proved useful to you, and served as an addition to the sum of your experiences in life.”

“I will content myself with looking on from a distance,” answered she gaily. “The extraordinary progressionist movement that is going on to-day might make it a difficult task even for a drover’s daughter to keep her footing.”

The two millionaires sallied forth, Carl making tremendous strides. Seraphin followed mechanically, the potent charm of her parting glances hovering around him.

“We shall first steer for the sign of the ‘Green Hat,’” said Greifmann. “There you will hear a full orchestra of progressionist music, especially trumpets and drums, playing flourishes on Hans Shund. ‘The Green Hat’ is the largest beer cellar in the town, and the proprietor ranks among the leaders next after housebuilder Sand. All the representatives of the city _régime_ gather to-day at the establishment of Mr. Belladonna--that’s the name of the gentleman of the ‘Green Hat.’ Besides the leaders, there will be upward of a thousand citizens, big and small, to hold a preliminary celebration of election day. There will also be ‘wild men’ on hand,” proceeded Carl, explaining. “These are citizens who in a manner float about like atoms in the bright atmosphere of the times without being incorporated in any brilliant body of progress. The main object of the leaders this evening is to secure these so-called ‘wild men’ in favor of their ticket for the city council. Glib-tongued agents will be employed to spread their nets to catch the floating atoms--to tame these savages by means of smart witticisms. When, at length, a prize is captured and the tide of favorable votes runs high, it is towed into the safe haven of agreement with the majority. Resistance would turn out a serious matter for a mechanic, trader, shopkeeper, or any man whose position condemns him to obtain his livelihood from others. Opposition to progress dooms every man that is in a dependent condition to certain ruin. For these reasons I have no misgivings about being able to convince you that elections are a folly wherever the banner of progress waves triumphant.”

“The conviction with which you threaten me would be anything but gratifying, for I abhor every form of terrorism,” rejoined Seraphin.

“Very well, my good fellow! But we must accustom ourselves to take things as they are and not as they ought to be. Therefore, my youthful Telemachus, you are under everlasting obligations to me, your experienced Mentor, for procuring you an opportunity of becoming acquainted with the world, and constraining you to think less well of men than your generous heart would incline you to do.”

They had reached the outskirts of the city. A distant roaring, resembling the sound of shallow waters falling, struck upon the ears of the maskers. The noise grew more distinct as they advanced, and finally swelled into the brawling and hum of many voices. Passing through a wide gate-way, the millionaires entered a square ornamented with maple-trees. Under the trees, stretching away into the distance, were long rows of tables lit up by gaslights, and densely crowded with men drinking beer and talking noisily. The middle of the square was occupied by a rotunda elevated on columns, with a zinc roof, and bestuck in the barbarous taste of the age with a profusion of tin figures and plaster-of-paris ornaments. Beneath the rotunda, around a circular table, sat the leaders and chieftains of progress, conspicuous to all, and with a flood of light from numerous large gas-burners streaming upon them. Between Sand and Schwefel was throned Hans Shund, extravagantly dressed, and proving by his manner that he was quite at his ease. Nothing in his deportment indicated that he had so suddenly risen from general contempt to universal homage. Mr. Shund frequently monopolized the conversation, and, when this was the case, the company listened to his sententious words with breathless attention and many marks of approbation.

Mentor Greifmann conducted his ward to a retired corner, into which the rays of light, intercepted by low branches, penetrated but faintly, and from which a good view of the whole scene could be enjoyed.

“Do you observe Hans there under the baldachin surrounded by his vassals?” rouned Carl into his companion’s ear. “Even you will be made to feel that progress can lay claim to a touching spirit of magnanimity and forgiveness. It is disposed to raise the degraded from the dust. The man who only yesterday was engaged in shoving a car, sweeping streets, or even worse, to-day may preside over the great council, provided only he has the luck to secure the good graces of the princes of progress. Hans Shund, thief, usurer, and nightwalker, is a most striking illustration of my assertion.”

“What particularly disgusts and incenses me,” replied the double millionaire gravely, “is that, under the _régime_ of progress, they who are degraded, immoral, and criminal, may rise to power without any reformation of conduct and principles.”

“What you say is so much philosophy, my dear fellow, and philosophy is an antique, obsolete kind of thing that has no weight in times when continents are being cut asunder and threads of iron laid around the globe. Moreover, such has ever been the state of things. In the dark ages, also, criminals attained to power. Just think of those bloody monarchs who trifled with human heads, and whose ministers, for the sake of a patch of territory, stirred up horrible wars. Compared with such monsters, Hans Shund is spotless innocence.”

“Quite right, sir,” rejoined the landholder, with a smile. “Those bloody kings and their satanic ministers were monsters--but only--and I beg you to mark this well--only when judged by principles which modern progress sneers at as stupid morality and senseless dogma. I even find that those princely monsters and their conscienceless ministers shared the species of enlightenment that prides itself on repudiating all positive religion and moral obligations.”

“Thunder and lightning, Seraphin! were not you sitting bodily before me, I should believe I was actually listening to a Jesuit. But be quiet! It will not do to attract notice. Ah! splendid. There you see some of the ‘wild men,’” continued he, pointing to a table opposite. “The fellow with the bald head and fox’s face is an agent, a salaried bellwether, a polished electioneer. He has the ‘wild men’ already half-tamed. Watch how cleverly he will decoy them into the progressionist camp. Let us listen to what he has to say; it will amuse you, and add to your knowledge of the developments of progress.”

“We want men for the city council,” spoke he of the bald head, “that are accurately and thoroughly informed upon the condition and circumstances of the city. Of what use would blockheads be but to fuss and grope about blindly? What need have we of fellows whose stupidity would compromise the public welfare? The men we want in our city council must understand what measures the social, commercial, and industrial interests of a city of thirty thousand inhabitants require in order that the greatest good of the largest portion of the community may be secured. Nor is this enough,” proceeded he with increasing enthusiasm. “Besides knowledge, experience, and judgment, they must also be gifted with the necessary amount of energy to carry out whatever orders the council has thought fit to pass. They must be resolute enough to break down every obstacle that stands in the way of the public good. Now, who are the men to render these services? None but independent men who by their position need have no regard to others placed above them--free-spirited and sensible men, who have a heart for the people. Now, gentlemen, have you any objections to urge against my views?”

“None, Mr. Spitzkopf! Your views are perfectly sound,” lauded a semi-barbarian. “We have read exactly what you have been telling us in the evening paper.”

“Of course, of course!” cried Mr. Spitzkopf. “My views are so evidently correct that a thinking man cannot help stumbling upon them. None but the slaves of priests, the wily brood of Jesuits, refuse to accept these views,” thundered the orator with the bald head. “And why do they refuse to accept them? Because they are hostile to enlightenment, opposed to the common good, opposed to the prosperity of mankind, in a word, because they are the bitter enemies of progress. But take my word for it, gentlemen, our city contains but a small number of these creatures of darkness, and those few are spotted,” emphasized he threateningly. “Therefore, gentlemen,” proceeded he insinuatingly, “I am convinced, and every man of intelligence shares my conviction, that Mr. Shund is eminently fitted for the city council--eminently! He would be a splendid acquisition in behalf of the public interests! He understands our local concerns thoroughly, possesses the experience of many years, is conversant with business, knows what industrial pursuits and social life require, and, what is better still, he maintains an independent standing to which he unites a rare degree of activity. Were it possible to prevail on Mr. Shund to take upon himself the cares of the mayoralty, the deficit of the city treasury would soon be wiped out. We would all have reason to consider ourselves fortunate in seeing the interests of our city confided to such a man.”

The “wild men” looked perplexed.

“Right enough, Mr. Spitzkopf,” explained a timid coppersmith. “Shund is a clever, well-informed man. Nobody denies this. But do you know that it is a question whether, besides his clever head, he also possesses a conscience in behalf of the commonwealth?”

“The most enlarged sort of a conscience, gentlemen--the warmest kind of a heart!” exclaimed the bald man in a convincing tone. “Don’t listen to stories that circulate concerning Shund. There is not a word of truth in them. They are sheer misconstructions--inventions of the priests and of their helots.”

“I beg your pardon, Mr. Spitzkopf, they are not all inventions,” opposed the coppersmith. “In the street where I live, Shund keeps up a certain connection that would not be proper for any decent person, not to say for a married man.”

“And does that scandalize you?” exclaimed the bald-headed agent merrily. “Mr. Shund is a jovial fellow, he enjoys life, and is rich. Mr. Shund will not permit religious rigorism to put restraints upon his enjoyments. His liberal and independent spirit scorns to lead a miserable existence under the rod of priestly bigotry. And, mark ye, gentlemen, this is just what recommends him to all who are not priest-ridden or leagued with the hirelings of Rome,” concluded the electioneer, casting a sharp look upon the coppersmith.

“But I am a Lutheran, Mr. Spitzkopf,” protested the coppersmith.

“There are hypocrites among the Lutherans who are even worse than the Romish Jesuits,” retorted the man with the bald head. “Consider, gentlemen, that the leading men of our city have, in consideration of his abilities, concluded to place Mr. Shund in the position which he ought to occupy. Are you going, on to-morrow, to vote against the decision of the leading men? Are you actually going to make yourselves guilty of such an absurdity? You may, of course, if you wish, for every citizen is free to do as he pleases. But the men of influence are also at liberty to do as they please. I will explain my meaning more fully. You, gentlemen, are, all of you, mechanics--shoemakers, tailors, blacksmiths, carpenters, etc. From whom do you get your living? Do you get it from the handful of hypocrites and men of darkness? No; you get your living from the liberals, for they are the moneyed men, the men of power and authority. It is they who scatter money among the people. You obtain employment, you get bread and meat, from the liberals. And now to whom, do you think, will the liberals give employment? They will give it to such as hold their views, and not--mark my word--to such as are opposed to them. The man, therefore, that is prepared recklessly to ruin his business has only to vote against Mr. Shund.”

“That will do the business, that will fetch them,” said Greifmann. “Just look how dumfounded the poor savages appear!”

“It is brutal terrorism!” protested Seraphin indignantly.

“But don’t misunderstand me, Mr. Spitzkopf! I am neither a hypocritical devotee nor a Jesuit!” exclaimed the coppersmith deprecatingly. “If Shund is good enough for them,” pointing to the leaders under the rotunda, “he is good enough for me.”

“For me, too!” exclaimed a tailor.

“There isn’t a worthier man than Shund,” declared a shopkeeper.

“And not a cleverer,” said a carpenter.

“And none more demoralized,” lauded a joiner, unconscious of the import of his encomium.

“That’s so, and therefore I am satisfied with him,” assured a shoemaker.

“So am I--so am I,” chorussed the others eagerly.

“That is sensible, gentlemen,” approved the bald man. “Just keep in harmony with liberalism and progress, and you will never be the worse for it, gentlemen. Above all, beware of reaction--do not fall back into the immoral morasses of the middle ages. Let us guard the light and liberty of our beautiful age. Vote for these men,” and he produced a package of printed tickets, “and you will enjoy the delightful consciousness of having disposed of your vote in the interests of the common good.”

Spitzkopf distributed the tickets on which were the names of the councilmen elect. At the head of the list appeared in large characters the name of Mr. Hans Shund.

“The curtain falls, the farce is ended,” said Greifmann. “What you have here heard and seen has been repeated at every table where ‘wild men’ chanced to make their appearance. Everywhere the same arguments, the same grounds of conviction.”

Seraphin had become quite grave, and cast his eyes to the ground in silence.

“By Jove, the rogue is going to try his hand on us!” said Carl, nudging the thoughtful young man. “The bald-headed fellow has spied us, and is getting ready to bag a couple of what he takes to be ‘wild men.’ Come, let us be off.”

They left the beer cellar and took the direction of the city.

“Now let us descend a little lower, to what I might call the amphibia of society,” said Greifmann. “We are going to visit a place where masons, sawyers, cobblers, laborers, and other small fry are in the habit of slaking their thirst. You will there find going on the same sort of electioneering, or, as you call it, the same sort of terrorism, only in a rougher style. There beer-jugs occasionally go flying about, and bloody heads and rough-and-tumble, fights may be witnessed.”

“I have no stomach for fisticuffs and whizzing beer-mugs,” said Gerlach.

“Never mind, come along. I have undertaken to initiate you into the mysteries of elections, and you are to get a correct idea of the life action of a cultivated state.”

They entered an obscure alley where a fetid, sultry atmosphere assailed them. Greifmann stopped before a lofty house, and pointed to a transparency on which a brimming beer-tankard was represented. A wild tumult was audible through the windows, through which the cry of “Shund!” rose at times like the swell of a great wave from the midst of corrupted waters. As they were passing the doorway a dense fog of tobacco smoke mingled with divers filthy odors assailed their nostrils. Seraphin, who was accustomed to inhaling the pure atmosphere of the country, showed an inclination to retreat, and had already half-way faced about when his companion seized and held him. “Courage, my friend! wade into the slough boldly,” cried he into the struggling youth’s ear. “Hereafter, when you will be riding through woodland and meadows, the recollection of this subterranean den will enable you to appreciate the pure atmosphere of the country twice as well. Look at those sodden faces and swollen heads. Those fellows are literally wallowing and seething in beer, and they feel as comfortable as ten thousand cannibals. It is really a joy to be among men who are natural.”

The millionaires, having with no little difficulty succeeded in finding seats, were accosted by a female waiter.

“Do the gentlemen wish to have election beer?”

“No,” replied Gerlach.

His abrupt tone in declining excited the surprise of the fellows who sat next to them. Several of them stared at the landholder.

“So you don’t want any election beer?” cried a fellow who was pretty well fired.

“Why not? May be it isn’t good enough for you?”

“Oh, yes! oh, yes!” replied the banker hastily. “You see, Mr. Shund”--

“That’s good! You call me Shund,” interrupted the fellow with a coarse laugh. “My name isn’t Shund--my name is Koenig--yes, Koenig--with all due respect to you.”

“Well, Mr. Koenig--you see, Mr. Koenig, we decline drinking election beer because we are not entitled to it--we do not belong to this place.”

“Ah, yes--well, that’s honest!” lauded Koenig. “Being that you are a couple of honest fellows, you must partake of some of the good things of our feast. I say, Kate,” cried he to the female waiter, “bring these gentlemen some of the election sausages.”

Greifmann, perceiving that Seraphin was about putting in a protest, nudged him.

“What feast are you celebrating to-day?” inquired the banker.

“That I will explain to you. We are to have an election here to-morrow; these men on the ticket, you see, are to be elected.” And he drew forth one of Spitzkopf’s tickets. “Every one of us has received a ticket like this, and we are all going to vote according to the ticket--of course, you know, we don’t do it for nothing. To-day and to-morrow, what we eat and drink is free of charge. And if Satan’s own grandmother were on the ticket, I would vote for her.”

“The first one on the list is Mr. Hans Shund. What sort of a man is he?” asked Seraphin. “No doubt he is the most honorable and most respectable man in the place!”

“Ha! ha! that’s funny! The most honorable man in the place! Really you make me laugh. Never mind, however, I don’t mean to be impolite. You are a stranger hereabout, and cannot, of course, be expected to know anything of it. Shund, you see, was formerly--that, is a couple of days ago--Shund was a man of whom nobody knew any good. For my part, I wouldn’t just like to be sticking in Shund’s hide. Well, that’s the way things are: you know it won’t do to babble it all just as it is. But you understand me. To make a long story short, since day before yesterday Shund is the honestest man in the world. Our men of money have made him that, you know,” giving a sly wink. “What the men of money do, is well done, of course, for the proverb says, ‘Whose bread I eat, his song I sing.’”

“Shut your mouth, Koenig! What stuff is that you are talking there?” said another fellow roughly. “Hans Shund is a free-spirited, clever, first-class, distinguished man. Taken altogether, he is a liberal man. For this reason he will be elected councilman to-morrow, then mayor of the city, and finally member of the assembly.”

“That’s so, that’s so, my partner is right,” confirmed Koenig. “But listen, Flachsen, you will agree that formerly--you know, formerly--he was an arrant scoundrel.”

“Why was he? Why?” inquired Flachsen.

“Why? Ha, ha! I say, Flachsen, go to Shund’s wife, she can tell you best. Go to those whom he has reduced to beggary, for instance, to Holt over there. They all can tell you what Shund is, or rather what he has been. But don’t get mad, brother Flachsen! Spite of all that, I shall vote for Shund. That’s settled.” And he poured the contents of his beer-pot down his throat.

“As you gentlemen are strangers, I will undertake to explain this business for you,” said Flachsen, who evidently was an agent for the lower classes, and who did his best to put on an appearance of learning by affecting high-sounding words of foreign origin.

“Shund is quite a rational man, learned and full of intelligence. But the priests have calumniated him horribly because he will not howl with them. For this reason we intend to elect him, not for the sake of the free beer. When Shund will have been elected, a system of economy will be inaugurated, taxes will be removed, and the encyclical letter with which the Pope has tried to stultify the people, together with the syllabus, will be sent to the dogs. And in the legislative assembly the liberal-minded Shund will manage to have the priests excluded from the schools, and we will have none but secular schools. In short, the dismal rule of the priesthood that would like to keep the people in leading-strings will be put an end to, and liberal views will control our affairs. As for Shund’s doings outside of legitimate wedlock, that is one of the boons of liberty--it is a right of humanity; and when Koenig lets loose against Shund’s money speculations, he is only talking so much bigoted nonsense.”

Flachsen’s apologetic discourse was interrupted by a row that took place at the next table. There sat a victim of Shund’s usury, the land-cultivator Holt. He drank no beer, but wine, to dispel gloomy thoughts and the temptations of desperation. It had cost him no ordinary struggle to listen quietly to eulogies passed on Shund. He had maintained silence, and had at times smiled a very peculiar smile. His bruised heart must have suffered a fearful contraction as he heard men sounding the praises of a wretch whom he knew to be wicked and devoid of conscience. For a long time he succeeded in restraining himself. But the wine he had drunk at last fanned his smouldering passion into a hot flame of rage, and, clenching his fist, he struck the table violently.

“The fellow whom you extol is a scoundrel!” cried he.

“Who is a scoundrel?” roared several voices.

“Your man, your councilman, your mayor, is a scoundrel! Shund is a scoundrel!” cried the ruined countryman passionately.

“And you, Holt, are a fool!”

“You are drunk, Holt!”

“Holt is an ass,” maintained Flachsen. “He cannot read, otherwise he would have seen in the _Evening Gazette_ that Shund is a man of honor, a friend of the people, a progressive man, a liberal man, a brilliant genius, a despiser of religion, a death-dealer to superstition, a--a--I don’t remember what all besides. Had you read all that in the evening paper, you fool, you wouldn’t presume to open your foul mouth against a man of honor like Hans Shund. Yes, stare; if you had read the evening paper, you would have seen the enumeration of the great qualities and deeds of Hans Shund in black and white.”

“The evening paper, indeed!” cried Holt contemptuously. “Does the evening paper also mention how Shund brought about the ruin of the father of a family of eight children?”

“What’s that you say, you dog?” yelled a furious fellow. “That’s a lie against Shund!”

“Easy, Graeulich, easy,” replied Holt to the last speaker, who was about to set upon him. “It is not a lie, for I am the man whom Shund has strangled with his usurer’s clutches. He has reduced me to beggary--me and my wife and my children.”

Graeulich lowered his fists, for Holt spoke so convincingly, and the anguish in his face appealed so touchingly, that the man’s fury was in an instant changed to sympathy. Holt had stood up. He related at length the wily and unscrupulous proceedings through which he had been brought to ruin. The company listened to his story, many nodded in token of sympathy, for everybody was acquainted with the ways of the hero of the day.

“That’s the way Shund has made a beggar of me,” concluded Holt. “And I am not the only one, you know it well. If, then, I call Shund a usurer, a scoundrel, a villain, you cannot help agreeing with me.”

Flachsen noticed with alarm that the feeling of the company was becoming hostile to his cause. He approached the table, where he was met by perplexed looks from his aids.

“Don’t you perceive,” cried he, “that Holt is a hireling of the priests? Will you permit yourselves to be imposed upon by this salaried slave? Hear me, you scapegrace, you rascal, you ass, listen to what I have to tell you! Hans Shund is the lion of the day--the greatest man of this century! Hans Shund is greater than Bismarck, sharper than Napoleon. Out of nothing God made the universe: from nothing Hans Shund has got to be a rich man. Shund has a mouthpiece that moves like a mill-wheel on which entire streams fall. In the assembly Shund will talk down all opposition. He will talk even better than that fellow Voelk, over in Bavaria, who is merely a lawyer, but talks upon everything, even things he knows nothing about. And do you, lousy beggar, presume to malign a man of this kind? If you open that filthy mouth of yours once more, I will stop it for you with paving-stones.”

“Hold, Flachsen, hold! _I_ am not the man that is paid; you are the one that is paid,” retorted the countryman indignantly. “My mouth has not been honey-fed like yours. Nor do I drink your election beer or eat your election sausages. But with my last breath I will maintain that Shund is a scoundrel, a usurer, a villain.”

“Out with the fellow!” cried Flachsen. “He has insulted us all, for we have all been drinking election beer. Out with the helot of the priests!”

The progressionist mob fell upon the unhappy man, throttled him, beat him, and drove him into the street.

“Let us leave this den of cutthroats,” said Gerlach, rising.

Outside they found Holt leaning against a wall, wiping the blood from his face. Seraphin approached him. “Are you badly hurt, my good man?” asked he kindly. The wounded man, looking up, saw a noble countenance before him, and, whilst he continued to gaze hard at Seraphin’s fine features, tears began to roll from his eyes.

“O God! O God!” sighed he, and then relapsed into silence. But in the tone of his words could be noticed the terrible agony he was suffering.

“Is the wound deep--is it dangerous?” asked the young man.

“No, sir, no! The wound on my forehead is nothing--signifies nothing; but in here,” pointing to his breast--“in here are care, anxiety, despair. I am thankful, sir, for your sympathy; it is soothing. But you may go your way; the blows signify nothing.”

TO BE CONTINUED.

THE SPANIARDS AT HOME.

There is something very pleasant in waking some morning in a strange country, with strange faces around us, a strange language ringing in our ears, strange costumes, strange institutions, strange everything--something, we fancy, half akin to what Byron felt when he woke one morning to find himself famous. It is pleasant to step from New York to Cadiz, from the heart of the New World into an historic city, that was as historic before our nation was born as it is to-day; that has not cared to march overmuch with the age, yet has never drifted backward, and still stands there, as it did long ago, the “white-walled Cadiz,” rising sheer out of the waters, with its long, straight streets and tall houses sleeping by the golden bay.

It is pleasant, we say, to find ourselves here breathing awhile from the heat of the strife that beats over there for ever and knows no rest; to open our eyes upon “something new and strange”; to miss for once the eternal stages and the rumble and the jingle of the cars, and the multiplicity of signs, and names, and glaring advertisements, crowding in upon us at all times and in all places.

It is not unpleasant even to miss our dames for awhile with their exaggeration of wealth and extravagance, resting our eyes instead on the modest black robes, nunlike in simplicity, crowned by the bewitching mantilla of the beauties whom Byron sang.

As you look into the street, the feeling grows upon you that you are gazing on a moving panorama pencilled by the old Spanish painters. There pass the blooming señorita, fresh as a rosebud, side by side with the duenna, yellow and puckered: how they resemble _la Joven_ and _la Vieja_ of Goya. That little beggar-boy, with those beautiful black eyes and a carnation in the olive cheek, sprawling in his picturesque rags on the pavement, is surely a brother to that of Murillo, so studiously engaged in performing an operation on his person more necessary than elegant. Here saunters a lazy soldier smoking his cigarette; there an old _padre_ totters with bended head hidden under the large hat, snuff-box in hand, and an old calf-skin volume under his arm; he has just stepped out of his gilded frame. The trappings of the mules, the brown faces and merry eye of the muleteer, were known to us long ago on canvas. Nor are there wanting those pale ascetic countenances where religion, and intellect, and inspiration are so marvellously blended: you see them in the pulpit and on the altar, in the cloister and the convent walls. In our last article,[201] we ventured to assert that the Spaniards were the purest race in Europe; and not the meanest proof of the truth of this assertion might be furnished by their paintings. Those who pride themselves on the blue blood that runs in their veins have their galleries filled with portraits of the family, where you may trace the same lineaments handed down from sire to son for generations, which no change of time or costume can efface. The Spanish painters have furnished us with the portraits of their nation, and a beggar to-day might point with pride to his progenitor on the canvas of Murillo.

How different is the life here from ours!

There are only two meals, unless you choose to take what the Spaniards call “lonch.” On rising, the boy brings you your bath, and, if you care for it, as you are sure to do, a cup of coffee. If you have business to transact, you go to your office: if not, you take a book or a newspaper, and saunter into the garden, while the morning is fresh and a thousand delicious odors are around you. At half-past ten or eleven the household meet at breakfast, when you pay your respects to the “señorita,” the dear little lady, as the servants entitle your hostess, and inquire if she has passed the night well. The breakfast is similar to the French _dejeuner_: a variety of courses, with perhaps some delicious fruits, and a cup of _cafe con leche_ at the end. While we are breakfasting, a friend or relative of the family may enter, and, as he sits and jokes, he produces his cigarette, ignites and smokes away as only a Spaniard can, with an ease and a grace and a thorough enjoyment that are enviable. This may startle our lady readers, but remember we are in Spain; the dining-room is spacious and lofty, the windows open, and the pure clear air flower-scented, or, if in season, loaded with the breath of the orange blossom, gains rather than loses by the transient odor so faintly discerned of the delicious Havana leaf. The breakfast ended, your host hands a cigar around to each of the gentlemen: the ladies remain to chat them out, and then everybody goes about his business. And here let us answer once for all a ridiculous question that has often been put to us. Ladies when speaking of their Spanish sisters are apt to say: “Oh! yes, I know they are very charming and graceful, and the mantilla is a love of a costume, and so becoming to a dark complexion; but tell me, now, is it not true that--they smoke?” The astonishment of a Spanish gentleman on being asked by every foreigner he meets if his wife and daughters--for to such the question really reduces itself--indulge in “the weed,” is just as great as our own would be on a similar query being put to us regarding our ladies.

We meet again at dinner at six or seven o’clock. Your host may possess a French cook--we beg his pardon--artiste; if not, you will have a Spanish dinner unflavored, since we must confess it, by the too fragrant garlic, which is confined to the mountaineers up in the Basque Provinces. You have some dishes cooked in oil, and it is so pure and good that you very soon get to like it. There is genuine “Vino de Jerez” on the table, undoctored for the market, clear as amber, ambrosial as nectar, delicious in bouquet and flavor. You will be astonished at the Spaniards taking so little of it; many never touch it at all. They prefer claret or pure water, the climate not admitting of stronger drinks. “_Borracho_,” drunkard, in Spain, as in most southern countries of Europe, is the vilest title you can give a man. There are splendid olives and rare fruits, preserved, or as they dropped from the hand of nature. More friends may call during dinner, ladies, perhaps, this time, and your hostess never disturbs herself with the thought that they have come to see what is on the table. “Señor don Rafael, beso a Usted la mano,” says the lady to her visitor--“I kiss my hand to you.” “Beso a Usted los pies, señorita,” responds the cavalier with a bow--“I kiss your feet, my dear lady.” Dinner over, cigars are again produced, and we all adjourn to the _patio_, it being too warm for music or cards. The elders assemble and discuss the funds, or times, or the state of the country. Politics are very rife at present, and the fire and animation of the speakers, the variation of their tones, the free and striking gesture--for with a Spaniard the whole body speaks--are a pleasing novelty to us, accustomed to a tamer mode of conversation. The ladies nestle together, and are deep in the mysteries best known to themselves. The younger gentlemen gradually detach themselves from their elders, and leave the country to go to ruin, while they indulge in less momentous but far more interesting topics with the ladies, and give vent to their Andalusian wit.

The _patio_ is a feature in a Spanish house. It is a species of court, large or small, according to the dimensions of the mansion, paved with flags or marble, with perhaps a fountain playing in the middle and cooling the atmosphere; in the marble basin silver and gold fish leap, and a few rare plants freshen around it. High overhead is a roof of glass, where a canvas screen keeps out the sun when his rays are too powerful. The house, generally of two stories in the south, but very lofty, is built around this quadrangle, the upper floor reaching partly over it, supported by pillars, sometimes richly wrought and adorned. Paintings or engravings relieve the bare white walls. On the one side a doorway, with a little convent grating to peer from, completely shuts out the view of the street; on the other, an iron gate opens to the garden, where you see the yellowing oranges clustering bright in their dark-leaved recesses, and brilliant flowers and odor-bearing shrubs gladden the eye and soothe the senses. From the _patio_ we proceed to the _Alameda_ or _paseo_--park or promenade as we should call them. Here all the world assembles, seated in groups, sauntering up and down in little bands, small knots standing a little aloof to discuss some grave topic--nobody alone. Laughter resounds on all sides--laughter and the Castilian tongue everywhere: ringing out in music from the mouths of the dames, swelling and falling and adapting itself to every changing emotion in the very emotional breasts of those men, rippling over and enchanting our ears in the tiny mouths of these children. To a stranger the scene is bewitching; the softness of the air and the perfume that lingers on it; the animation in the countenances and gestures of all; the grace of the ladies’ costume, the ever-fluttering fan which only a Spanish woman knows how to use; the sallies of wit in tones that mock the best comedian; a free-heartedness and union among all, springing undoubtedly from the religion which makes all men brethren. At the very entrance of the _Alameda_ there is probably a tiny chapel of the _Virgen Santissima_, with ever-burning light, where men and women pause to drop a prayer as they go to and from their diversion. Imagine such a thing in Central Park!

We are in Andalusia, and of all the lovely spots in this lovely land we think it bears off the palm. Columbus, when the glories of the Antilles burst upon him after that dreary and momentous voyage, compared the climate more than once to an April day in Andalusia. Everything it produces is of the best--corn, wine, fruits, cattle. The bread is the most delicious and whitest we have ever tasted or seen. The nights are most lovely. The sky deep and clear; all the stars of heaven seem to cluster above us, and the moon shines with a startling brilliancy on the white houses of the sleeping town, on the brown cathedral that towers above all, on the dark thick clustering leaves of the orange-trees, on the silent streets, narrow and straggling, showing every stone and pebble on the one side with minute distinctness, while the other is buried in mysterious shadow. Not a sound is heard save the cry of the _sereno_ calling out the hour as he passes his lonely rounds.

The Andaluz is the embodiment of his climate. A child of the sun, of the clear free air, with wealth in his fields and the great ocean smiling all around his coast, where the ships of all nations come to lade and unlade, he yearns for the freedom which strangers hold so carelessly, and is ready to fight and to die for it. So Andalusia is the hotbed of revolution. As the Biscayan is famed for his unyielding nature, the Gallego for his stupidity, so is the Andaluz for his wit. He speaks rapidly and with many gestures, clipping his words--a grave sin against the sonorous Castilian. He is handsome, quick, fiery, with a keen eye for ridicule, but a good nature that can never resist a joke even if it be at his own expense. People say that he derives his comely form and graceful extremities from the Moors, but he would not thank you to tell him so. The Andaluza is worthy of such a partner, if she does not surpass him. If he is a Republican, she is a Carlina, for Don Carlos with her means religion, and religion means everything. Byron has painted her, and very faithfully. His remarks on the state of the country might be written to-day. He moralizes over the barbarity of the bull-fights, too. They are dying out now in exact proportion as man-fights are gaining ground with us. Of the two, we must say we infinitely prefer the bull-fight. It is amusing to hear Englishmen and Americans virtuously indignant on the immorality and barbarism of such an exhibition, as they bury themselves next moment in a three-column description of the latest feat of the _fancy_, or the glorious contest for hours between two miserable dogs or wretched cocks. We are lovers of fair play, manliness, and good-fellowship. We do things in an honest, straightforward fashion, and the hand that shakes another’s preparatory to the combat quite takes the sting from the blow that maims his fellow-man for life or beats that life out of him. So we look on and applaud and make our bets on the contest, and curse the wretch who has lost his own miserable life and our money.

But we are straying into civilization; let us go back to barbarism and Andalusia. The vineyards are decidedly unpicturesque; the vines low, the soil yellow. But the life at vintage season is

“Full of the warm South, Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth.”

The agricultural laborers are very well paid in Spain, getting as much as one dollar a day or even more. The work is terrible; out the whole day under a burning sun, delving and cutting and trenching a dusty soil, with a pick instead of a spade to penetrate below the upper stratum of dust. They are tall wiry fellows, most of them from the mountains, brown as the soil, and sinewy, with dark eyes and crisp, close-cut black hair. A quarter of an hour spent in merely looking on overpowers us; but they seem made for the sun. The food that supports them under such toil is composed chiefly of a single dish called _gazpacho_, and _gazpacho_ merits special mention. Fill a large bowl with water and vinegar, we do not know the exact proportions, but there is a great deal of vinegar, and, so far as we recollect, oil is added. A quantity of bread is thrown in to soak, and some herbs, with, perhaps, a slight flavor of garlic; and there you have _gazpacho_, the staple food of these men in the hot months. You eat a small piece of some light meat and a salad before it; a piece of toast fried in oil is not bad; drink a glass of water or two after; light the never-failing cigarette, and you are cool and refreshed. It may not seem a very delicate diet to us; but when the _Levante_, the hot desert wind laden with the finest of the burning sands, comes choking the atmosphere, and penetrating every crevice with a furnace heat all the day and all the night, burning the blood in the veins till it reaches fever-heat, and leaving you weak and utterly prostrate, “with just strength enough to thank God that breathing is an involuntary action”--as a gentleman aptly described to me the effects of the _sirocco_, the Italian equivalent--then place before a man in such a state of lassitude a steaming joint of roast beef with the heavy incidentals, and he will turn from it with disgust. At such moments the _gazpacho_ seems the most delicious dish under the sun. The houses and furniture of these laborers are the neatest and cleanest in the world. The same feeling runs through high and low in Spain; their houses are models of freshness and purity. And Jacobo or Perico turns out on the Sunday in linen fine as his master’s, in jacket of velvet with buttons or bells of gold, a crimson scarf round his waist, and patent-leather shoes shining on his feet. He can joke and chat with his master with an easy freedom that never passes beyond the bounds of respect and never sinks into servility. As you pass him on the road alone or with any number of his companions, they all lift their _sombreros_ with an inborn grace, and a genial _buenos dias_ or _buenas tardes, señor_. But the new order is trying, and with some success, to change all that; though a stranger still meets in Spain with that rare yet most Christian thing, unbought courtesy.

The Gallego is the very opposite of the Andaluz--a rude, simple mountaineer, he is the hewer of wood and drawer of water to his countrymen. He is honest and open as the day, with a childlike affection for his master, and is particularly happy at a blunder. Rare are the stories told in Andalusia of the Gallegos. We give two, rather as indicating the estimation in which they are held than as happy specimens of the Andalusian _broma_.

When the post was first introduced into Spain, the postmaster of a small town in the north was astonished, one day, by a Gallego bursting in on him with the query, delivered in stentorian tones:

“Is there a letter here for me from my father?”

“I do not know, sir; who is your father?”

This was too much for the Gallego; the idea of anybody in this world being unacquainted with his parent was so overpowering that, not being able to restrain his feelings, he rushed from the spot, and was not heard of for some time afterwards. Meanwhile, a letter arrived directed in a style of calligraphy that might have done credit to Mr. Weller, Senior, addressed

To my Son At San Juan.

Having sufficiently recovered from the violent shock given to his feelings, the Gallego once more presented himself at the post-office with the same question, “Is there a letter here from my father?”

“Oh! yes,” said the official, immediately producing the mysteriously addressed missive; “here, this is from your father. Take this one,” and delivered it without the slightest doubt as to the accuracy of its destination.

Another, on finding himself for the first time in a city, as he stood gaping and wondering at the sights around him, suddenly heard a shrill voice cry out, “I don’t want to go to school; the master beats me.”

He looked around for the child, but the only object that met his gaze was a parrot, mowing and chattering in a cage, and bobbing, wriggling, and looking at the Gallego with its cunning old eye forty different ways at once.

“I don’t want to go to school; the master beats me.”

The bewildered Gallego stared, and pondered, and, after a deep consultation with himself, came to the conclusion that the voice must proceed from the cage; from the strange specimen of humanity before him, so marvellously resembling a bird; but a bird talking the purest Castilian, though with something of a sharp accent, was a clear impossibility. His simple, good-nature was hurt at the idea of having wronged a fellow-creature even in his thoughts. So turning he excused himself: “Pardon me, child; I thought it was a bird.”

Of all traits in the national character, their universal civility astonishes an American or Englishman, accustomed as we are to the every-man-for-himself principle; yet how few we meet who do not consider the Spaniards as a treacherous, revengeful, and bloodthirsty race! Our own statistics, we fear, would furnish but a sorry set-off against theirs for crime in every phase; and particularly for the most cowardly, brutal, and premeditated assaults and assassinations, ending too often with the escape of the culprit. The quarrels in Spain between man and man arise generally from some love affair or political difference, very rarely from money. Two peasants are drinking in a tavern, the wine excites their fiery blood; one has lost his _novia_, the other has won her; a blow or an insult is given; they draw their knives, and adjourn to fight--“just like gentlemen.” It is, in fact, a duel, which common-sense has not yet been able to laugh out of Spain. No pecuniary damages, won by the cold arguments that sway a court of law, can heal the wound of honor in the chivalrous breast of the Spaniard; and not a few examples have we lately had of lives lost in this way. One was most tragic in its end as in all its bearings; I allude to the duel between Don Enrique de Bourbon and Montpensier. And surely never was presented on the stage a scene more dramatic or striking. Don Enrique was by profession a naval officer, high in the service of his royal relative, Queen Isabella, a young, gallant, and efficient sailor, with a promising future opening before him. He was happy in the love of a lady destined as all understood to be his; when suddenly Montpensier stepped in and won her, scarcely by force of personal attractions, for he was already well advanced in years; but the marriage was a closer link to the throne. Don Enrique vowed the death of the man who had crossed his life at the threshold. But his schemes of vengeance were baffled; an order came to quit the country, ostensibly for having joined in conspiracy against the throne. Deprived at once of his love, his command, and his country, life was closed to him. From his retirement he sent challenge after challenge to Montpensier, and vilified him even in the public press, as he could not force a response from him; but to no purpose. Montpensier, high in favor at court, secure in possession and in power, could safely affect to despise the ravings of a madman. By-and-by came the revolution which drove Isabella out. Now was Don Enrique’s chance, and he hastened to seize it. As expulsion under the queen’s reign was a virtue in the eyes of the new government, he applied for restoration to his country and his rank in the navy. The first request was granted, the second denied; as the government had proclaimed an end to the Bourbon race, no member of that race could take rank under them, unless he renounced his title. Here again he traced the hand of Montpensier. If he could have nothing else, at least he would have revenge, being now in the same city with the man who had crossed him at every step of his career. He sent his last challenge, publishing it at the same time in the press, enumerating the occasions on which he had sent similar messages, which had ever been met by the silence of fear. He heaped insults upon him, apostrophizing him as a “pastillero frances,” a fellow ready to soil his hands with the pettiest and meanest intrigue. Montpensier was at the time a candidate for the Spanish throne; for the kingship of a people in whose eyes honor was ever dearer than life; further silence would ruin his prospects; so at last he was forced out of his reserve, and, in a letter that sounded well, accepted the challenge as one which a man of honor could not pass over in silence, disclaiming at the same time any antagonism to its author personally; if there was any justice in what he said, it was the result of accident; in fact, leaving people to understand that he never troubled his head about the man. They met on a cold gray morning, and the chances of success leaned decidedly on the side of Don Enrique. A young, bold man, to whom deadly weapons had been playthings from his infancy, he was urged on by a life of hate to slay the man who had blighted that life and darkened its promising opening; his opponent was a middle-aged man, near-sighted, who bore the reputation of a _littérateur_ rather than a fighter. Both felt that perhaps a crown as well as a life hung on the trigger. Scarce was the word given to fire when the bullet of Don Enrique brushed his foe, and Montpensier’s lost itself in the air. A second shot, and they still stood face to face uninjured. “Està afinando”--“He is getting closer,” whispered the prince to his second, as he took the last pistol from his hand. The words are remarkable as expressing the coolness of the man, whose eye took in everything at such a moment, and perhaps something more. At the next discharge, the bullet of the man who, whether designedly or not, had met him and beaten him at all points, pierced his breast; he sprang into the air, fell forward, and rolled contorted on the ground, a corpse--a theme for novelist as well as moralist: it looked like fatality.

But from such sad scenes we are happy to turn to others more worthy of our attention and more characteristic of the nation at large. The thing that of all others cannot fail to strike the visitor is the intense religion displayed everywhere. “Ay, Maria!” “Por Dios!”--“For God’s sake”--“Ay, Dios mio,” are the expressions that buzz around our ears all day. The holy name is a household word with them, pronounced at all times and on all occasions, but with a reverence that never shocks. When they wish something done, they say “Dios quiere”--“God grant it”; when they bid you good-by, “Adios--Vaya Usted con Dios--Queda Usted con Dios--Que Dios te guarda”--“Go with God--Rest with God--May God guard thee.” They speak of the blessed sacrament as “Su Majestad”--“his majesty,” of the Blessed Virgin always as “la Santissima Virgen”--“the most Holy Virgin.” The graveyard is “el campo santo”--“the holy field”: so like the old Catholic “God’s acre” that Longfellow loves. When they wish to express intense horror of a thing, they make the sign of the cross on their foreheads, lips, and breast, and then in the air, as though to place that invincible sign between them and the object of their abhorrence. The vast majority of the towns and villages are named after the saints, and each one has its special patron as well as the patron of the district. And that intense faith in intercessory prayer to some special saint which holy writers urge us to cultivate is born in them. On the festival of Good Friday throughout Spain, the municipality and gentlemen of the towns walk dressed in evening costume side by side with the poor. Not a vehicle is to be seen in the street: all the world is there to watch and pray. The new government, Prim’s, gave the order for coaches to run as usual on Good Friday, in outrage of a custom immemorial in the nation, and an honor to them as to all Christendom of whatever creed. But the coachmen as well as their masters proved better Christians than their rulers; and on the day in question not a conveyance was to be seen, save a solitary coach, which the populace immediately seized, compelling its occupant to descend, who proved to be a scared member of the diplomatic body. The celebration of Holy Week in Seville attracts the world thither.

The modern churches in Spain, particularly in Madrid, though for the most part spacious and lofty, do not impress one with their beauty. To those accustomed to associate their ideas of religion with the Gothic style of architecture, the altars will not be pleasing. Spiral pillars wriggle to the roof, inwrought and gorgeously painted. The vases are filled with silver and gold filigree work wrought to imitate flowers. There are many figures, small or large, of _el niño Jesu_, or _la Santissima Virgen_, or the saints, not always displaying the most finished art, decked out with a costume of sober black or gorgeous color and texture, glittering with gold and precious stones and ornaments of choice and antique workmanship. Little thanksgiving offerings surround them. Such things as these look like superstition to the cold eye of a man to whom faith is folly and reverence ignorance. But there is something powerful in the simple, earnest belief of the people who pray before them, and are content to be thus reminded of the great and good God and Virgin Mother, who are willing to receive the offerings of the meanest; a reverend familiarity with God is thus created which those people bear about with them. These men and women go into the church _to pray_: their very costume is befitting the sanctuary; and there is very little of that newspaper religion which some of our weekly journals piously advocate by so carefully announcing “where the best dresses and prettiest faces are to be seen.” On the walls hang magnificent paintings. The treasures of Murillo are in the cathedral of Seville. They were placed there by his own hand, having been painted for their several positions that the light might fall on them in such or such a manner. And it is not unpleasant to think of the sun rising and falling day after day as though in obedience to the great master who has passed away, bringing out their beauties faithfully in accordance with his wish. The construction of the cathedral itself is a triumph of architecture. Not a stone has shifted from its place since it was first laid there: there is no sinking or rising in the floor: and to-day you may pass your cane over the surface and not a joint offers the slightest obstruction.

The very names of the people are taken from religion and the mysteries of religion in the same spirit with which they named their discoveries after Santa Cruz, San Domingo, San José, Trinidad. Among men’s Christian and surnames we continually find Jesu, Jesu Maria, Juan de Dios, Santa Cruz, Salvador; among the women, Concepcion, Dolores--a sweet name after the Mother of Sorrows, Maria de los Angeles, and the like.

The very streets and the public places are christened in the same way; and the ships baptized and launched with religious ceremonies, a custom that prevails also in France.

They preserve the old gospel use of the word woman. That is the title by which the husband addresses his wife as often as any other. She calls him _hijo_, son, or _hombre_, man. “_Hija de mi alma_,” daughter of my soul, is also very common. Ceremony is only employed with strangers; _tu_, thou, is the form in which intimate friends are always addressed. After becoming acquainted, you call the lady of the house and her daughters, whether grown up or young, by their maiden names simply. It is amusing to hear little ones who can scarcely lisp address each as _señor_ and _señora_.

They have a fair supply of newspapers, and very able ones, in Spain; though, as usual, those that enjoy the widest circulation at present are devoted to the dissemination of false principles. They are cried out in the streets not by newsboys as with us, but principally by old blind men, who stand in the most public places with a tablet of the latest news on their breasts, and having got their lesson by rote spout away untiringly.

The club is becoming a very favorite institution, and is, in fact, the stronghold and rendezvous of political parties. There is a very famous one in Madrid, which numbers among its members such men as Castelar, Moret, and others. They meet sometimes for public discussion; and those great orators rise there to propound their theories as earnestly as in the Cortes.

They have a code of intercourse worthy of imitation. When a Spanish family takes up its quarters at a hotel or in a new place, the neighbors, though perfect strangers, call, leave their cards, and go away. If their acquaintance is desired, they are waited upon and conversation ensues; if not, the stranger simply returns his card in the same manner as the other was received; and no slight or grievance is felt or intended.

The amusements are various. Apart from the opera, theatre, and those common to all nations, they are very fond of an indoor game called _volante_, which is simply battledoor and shuttlecock; ladies and gentlemen play at it together. There is also a very favorite game of cards, _tresillo_, to which we have no equivalent. The climate compels the Spanish women to lead a more indoor life than with us. The men are fond of riding, hunting, and shooting. They sit as erect on horseback as statues; and the army officers are very fond of displaying the motions rather than the speed of their steeds. Mules are in great demand; for the roads in Spain, except in the neighborhood of the great towns, are very bad; mere bridle-paths most of them. Seated in a vehicle that would be a treasure in an art museum for antiquity, construction, and shape, with a team of six or eight of these animals to jolt you anywhere, is a position more than pleasant. The jingle of the little bells with which the harness is adorned, the cracking of the driver’s whip, the tones in which he endeavors to animate the vicious brutes, now cajoling them in accents that might win the heart of a maiden, again pouring forth a volley of imprecations on their heads and tails and pedigree, as though they were human, is a study. You can never trust these animals, and it is always the safer plan to give their hoofs what a sailor would call sea-room. An archbishop, passing along the streets one day, suddenly came upon a string of them, and as suddenly crossed to the other side of the street. “O Señor Arzobispo,” said the muleteer, “you need not be frightened. These are harmless _animalitos_.”

“Yes, I know they are harmless,” replied his grace, “and that is the reason I cross here; if they were not, I should go to the next street.”

This fact of the roads being so bad and the intercommunication so deficient, coupled with tales of brigandage, gives strangers the idea that travelling in Spain is very insecure. We might pass from end to end of the land, unknown and unarmed, with far greater safety than during a five minutes’ walk through many a street in New York or London after nightfall. We had an instance of brigandage and its treatment in Spain during Prim’s _régime_, a time when the country was as convulsed as at present. Encouraged, no doubt, by the lamentable success of a similar exploit in Greece, some miscreants carried off a merchant from Gibraltar, and demanded a round ransom as the forfeit of his life. Prim, without a moment’s hesitation as to the nice question of treating with brigands, or a thought of where the ransom was to come from, paid it, and sent four of the civil guard to follow up the robbers, which they did so successfully that they shot them all and retook their booty. We have not heard of brigandage since in Spain, notwithstanding the highly touched pictures presented, the other day, of an attack on a railway train, accompanied by smoke and powder, and brigands in the stage costume of centuries back.

This civil guard is an excellent institution. The body is recruited from the best ranks of the soldiery. It is a distinction to be admitted among them, which engenders an _esprit de corps_ that makes them the terror of the wrong-doer and the right arm of order. We ourselves might take a lesson from the incident mentioned above, if we are to credit the reports of the Lowery gang.

They have but one great line of railroad in Spain, which runs through the country from north to south. The train creeps along at a steady thirty miles an hour, without a moment’s variation. To a stranger, wishing to catch a glimpse of the country, this is highly advantageous; as he is not whirled away at a rate that presents to his anxious eye trees, houses, mountains, streams, in a phrenzied panorama. For our present notions of commerce it may be too slow, and a man in a hurry feels half inclined to get out and walk; but as a set-off against this, the Spaniards pride themselves on not having had a single accident accompanied by loss of life since the railroad was first started. You are rolled through the fertile plains and swelling uplands of Andalusia, rich in corn and wine and oil; through fields, and orange and olive groves, dotted with white towns and modest villages, where the church-tower ever soars above all as a landmark. You pass Seville; and as its associations crowd upon you, fain would you linger amid the gay society of the lovely city smiling amid its groves and gardens; dreaming day by day in _las delicias_; lost amid the treasures of art that make every boy in the street an efficient critic, so accustomed is his eye to the beautiful and the true. Famous spots and historic cities greet you as you go. The Escurial looms up, a white, silent palace with deserted windows, standing out in startling relief from a semi-circle of bare mountains. Not a soul was to be seen around it; the monks had been just expelled; not a sound to break the painful silence that seemed to emanate from the gloomy pile. It stood there as the great king left it, a type of himself, out of the world in a grandeur of isolation; a something that ought to have passed away, unknown in these days. Had a troop of cavaliers with pennon and plume and glistening mail shone out a moment on the mountain-side, it would have seemed in keeping with the place rather than strange. There is almost a contrast between the ages as our little engine puffs and snorts and fumes, fretting to “go ahead” and leave it, staring out of its silent windows, unmoved, untouched by the age, which busies itself with things and not with ideas.

Before arriving at Madrid, where the train stops for a few hours, we pass through Aranjuez, the beautiful summer-palace of the late queen; with its woods and magnificent vistas and lengthening avenues, full of lovely recesses and places of cool shade. At last we are in the heart of the kingdom.

Madrid, though not very large, is a brilliant city. Its _prado_ where fashion saunters is beautifully laid out. It has a splendid museum, many churches, though none of them remarkable for beauty, and the vast palace of royalty, rich in furniture and objects of art. The houses and public buildings are lofty, the hotels many and excellent. Fountains spout in the open squares; crowds are buzzing through the streets or discussing at the _cafés_, for politics absorb the life in Madrid. The weather is treacherous, and many are carried off in a few hours by a _pulmonia_, for, as their proverb says, “The air of Madrid will not cause a leaf to flutter from the tree, but will kill a man.” Though the sky is clear and blue, and the sun shines out royally, a breeze comes down from the neighboring _sierras_, frost-laden, that pierces you through and through, and searches all your bones, and the very marrow in them; there is death in its breath. For all that, the Madrileños live a very gay life; retiring to rest generally at the small hours, and rising when they please. In the summer the city is empty, even the shopkeepers flit; for the heat is then intolerable, and they wander to San Sebastian or the south of France, or to their own watering-places, which are numerous and inferior to none.

As the train bears us further north, the scene ever varying grows more and more deserted. You close the curtains of the carriage to keep out the heat during the day, while at night you may wake amid frost and snow. The villagers and mountaineers crowd to the carriage windows at every station; old men, and dark-eyed boys, and graceful girls, with fruits and wines, and water, and milk. “Quien quiere agua? Agua fresca? Quien quiere leche? Agua como la nieve!”--“Who wants water--cool water? Who wants milk? Water cool as snow,” is the shrill cry from many throats on all sides. “Señorito, un quartito por el amor de Dios”--“A farthing, my dear little sir, for the love of God.” “Teno lastima de, un pobrescito, señorito mio, y Dios te lo pagara”--“Have pity on a poor little one, and God will repay thee,” snivels an old beggar in pitiful rags. If you listened to him for five minutes, he would treat you to a sermon on the evil of poverty and the eternal rewards of generosity, that would rival the most eloquent of preachers and charm the money out of your pockets.

Through the Pyrenees, the scenery grows wilder still and more picturesque; the construction of the railway here is a marvel of skill and enterprise. You are shot through tunnels bored through the solid rock, numbers of them of considerable length. You skirt dizzy precipices with scarce a straw between you and the dim hollows or ominous pools that sleep hundreds of feet below. Quaint little hamlets with quaint people are perched on mountain-tops or buried in pastoral nooks far away down. Tiny streamlets start out of the mountain and accompany you as you go. You can trace them as they tumble and fall, and lose themselves, and reappear with gathering volume and widening channel, till you cross them on a bridge lower down, and find them broad and powerful rivers, turning mills and humming onward to the sea. This is a great district for paper mills; you see them on every side. San Sebastian is up here, with its beautiful villas and pleasant strand at the foot of the mountain, skirted by a town increasing in wealth and importance every year. The favorite promenade is called the _Paseo de las Conchas_, “The Walk of the Shells,” a very beautiful one. It is becoming a very favorite and fashionable resort during the summer months; so much so that gamblers tried to obtain permission from the government to establish here the gambling-tables which have been banished from their own Baden Baden. Fine hotels are springing up, and there is no summer residence in Europe that would better repay a visit than this, uniting as it does the air of the sea and the mountains, where you may turn from the strand to the most pastoral of scenery, from the conventionalities of life to the rude simplicity of the Basque mountaineer.

This brings us to the frontier, and here we stop, with the consciousness of having thrown but a very fleeting glance over so vast a field, with its mines of historic wealth and troublous problems of to-day. Our object has been to display in their truer colors a people as little understood as it is studiously misrepresented by a host of writers, who forget that the pen is the handmaiden of truth.

FOOTNOTE:

[201] CATHOLIC WORLD, June, 1872.

AIX-LA-CHAPELLE.

Every summer the fashionable world must go to the baths, must drink the waters, must be refreshed after the arduous winter campaign of dining and wining, of dancing and talking, of matinées and soirées. In America, we recover our strength at Saratoga and Newport, hunt in the Adirondacks, freeze on top of the White Mountains, listen to the roar of Niagara, drink sulphur at Sharon and the Virginia Springs, and shortly, when the magnificent National Park, at the headwaters of the Yellowstone, is fenced in, we will go to sleep in a palace-car in New York, and wake up at the foot or on the top of the Rocky Mountains. I believe the park, so generously voted to a grateful country by our patriotic Congress, is in that charming vicinity.

Human nature is the same everywhere; old Europe and young America live, think, talk, have their being, in one and the same way. London and Paris, Berlin and Vienna, get tired and worn out just like Washington and New York, Boston and New Orleans. People must travel, people must have somewhere to go. Some go to Brighton, some go to Boulogne-sur-Mer, some to Ostend; lately, it is very fashionable to go to Norway, the lakes are so blue, the trees are so green, nature is so grand and beautiful; and if the trip is only continued to Lapland, the midnight sun can be seen to the greatest advantage.

But for its being a little too near Spain and its weekly--that is to say, daily--revolutions, Biarritz is charming; so is Vichy, so is Wiesbaden, so is Spa, so is Hombourg, so is Aix-la-Chapelle, where there are the hottest of hot sulphur springs, as hot as when Charlemagne loved to bathe and drink; and loved the place so well that he made it the capital of his dominions north of the Alps, raised it to the rank of second city of his empire, and built the noble cathedral which Leo III. was kind enough to come all the way from Rome to consecrate.

And in 804, when Leo III. dedicated it, according to the wish of Charlemagne, to the Blessed Virgin, in the presence of many cardinals, of 363 bishops, and numerous princes, travelling was not made easy as nowadays. There was no tunnel through Mont Cenis, but people climbed up and slid down mountains as best they could, forded rivers, and jogged along on horses or mules, or any other beast of burden that could be made to answer the purpose. Of course, society was the same then as now; there were good and bad men and women, just as now; but, judging by what we see and read of the past, there was a strong living faith, that was fonder of building up than of pulling down.

Charlemagne could invite the Pope to visit him, and consecrate his cathedral; he could look the Pope honestly in the eyes, and ask his blessing. Strong, mighty, powerful, he was an humble, obedient son of the church; his strength and might and power were used in support, in defence of that glorious Mother Church to whom he owed all that was good and great in his life.

He gave to the Pope, that he might be independent of all human control; he did not steal and insult, as a present reigning sovereign delights in doing; he did not, like a modern emperor of the French, use religion as an instrument for gaining popularity--send soldiers to Rome one day, and order them back the next, make a convention in September with a robber-king, and in October hurry off Frenchmen to retrieve the day at Mentana; but he believed and acted up to his belief. He had his faults, as all men have, but he was true to his principles, and, like all true men, died in the peace of God.

For him there was no Sedan, no Waterloo, but a glorious tomb in his own grand cathedral, and grand it is--an octagon in the Byzantine style, surrounded by numerous chapels. The rotunda is supported by pillars of polished Ravenna marble, presented by Leo III., dividing the galleries into arcades. The church was commenced in 796, and finished in 804; the works were superintended by Eginhard, the biographer of Charlemagne.

All that Rome and Ravenna could furnish of most beautiful in marble was employed in the decoration. The dome was surmounted by a globe of massive gold, the doors and balustrades were of bronze, the vases and ornaments of unparalleled magnificence. The railings of the eight arcades of the triforium, cast in bronze of four different patterns, and the doors, adorned with lions’ heads of the same material, which no longer occupy their original position, but are attached to a porch of the seventeenth century, convey a perfect idea of the state of art in the eighth century. On the right of the porch is the figure of a she-wolf, which has served as a foundation for many popular legends, but the real origin is unknown.

The arches of the gallery are adorned with thirty-two pillars of marble, granite, and porphyry, brought by Charlemagne from the Exarch’s palace at Ravenna and from Rome. The finest of these, removed by the French in 1794, were brought back in 1815, and have been repolished and replaced at the expense of the Emperor of Germany. The interior of the dome was originally adorned with mosaics, remains of which may still be seen. The cathedral was pillaged by the Normans in 881, restored by Otho III. in 983, but in all essential respects is still the church of Charlemagne.

Eastward of the old apse, Otho III. built a chapel, in which he was buried; both of these were pulled down in the fourteenth century, when the present choir, which has preserved the plan of Otho’s chapel, was erected; and his tomb is exactly beneath the present high altar. The choir is Gothic, one hundred and fourteen feet high; nothing can be more striking than the contrast between the octagon nave and the Gothic choir--so totally unlike, and still harmonizing. It is the Christian religion subduing and dominating the proud Roman Empire.

Thirty-seven emperors and eleven empresses have been crowned in this cathedral, from 831 to 1531. Ferdinand I., brother of Charles V., was the last. Since then, they were crowned at Frankfort, where the election was held. From the centre of the dome hangs a massive Gothic lustre, presented by the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa in souvenir of his coronation. The bases of the circles are engraved with groups, representing the Annunciation, Nativity, Adoration of the Magi, Crucifixion, Three Marys at the Tomb, Ascension, Descent of the Holy Ghost, and the Last Judgment. The lustre is suspended by four chains, richly chased, and united in a brass plate, on the lower side of which is engraved a figure of St. Michael.

Immediately beneath the lustre a large slab of marble bears the simple inscription, _Carolo Magno_, which covered the vault where once reposed the remains of Charlemagne. The vault below was opened by Otho III. in 997, and again by Frederick in 1165. Charlemagne, who died at Aix-la-Chapelle in 814, did not designate his burial-place, but it was thought there could be no more appropriate spot than the magnificent church which he had built in his chosen city.

His body was found seated on a throne as if alive, clothed in the imperial robes; his crown on his head, his manuscript of the Gospels on his knees, his sword, Joyeuse, was placed by his side, and his pilgrim’s pouch, which he always wore on his journeys to Rome, was suspended to his girdle. His sceptre and shield, which were of gold, and had been blessed by Leo III., were at his feet. Over all was thrown the imperial mantle, and above was erected a superb triumphal arch, on which was this epitaph:

“Ici repose le corps de Charles, grand et orthodoxe empereur, qui étendit glorieusement le royaume des Francs, et le gouverna heureusement pendant 47 ans.”

The body of Charlemagne was enshrined by order of Frederick, and the throne of white marble on which he was seated is now kept in the upper gallery of the nave, directly facing the choir; the other relics were carefully preserved, and used in the coronation of succeeding emperors of Germany. Towards the end of the last century, at the approach of the French army, they were removed to Paderborn, and returned in 1804, but not complete, as the Emperor of Germany had kept three articles which were regarded as indispensable at a coronation.

These articles were a shrine, enclosing some of the earth watered by the blood of the proto-martyr St. Stephen; the book of Gospels, found on the knees of Charlemagne, which is written on bluish bark, in characters of gold. It was with the hand on this book, and upon the shrine of St. Stephen, that the emperor made his coronation oath. The third article was the sword of Charlemagne, Joyeuse, a present from Haroun-al-Raschid, which was the sword of coronation. It was presented to the emperor by the Elector of Trèves, who invested him with it with these word: “Accipe gladium per manus Episcoporum.” At the words, “Accingere gladio tuo,” the Elector of Saxe placed it in the scabbard, and, assisted by the Elector of Cologne, girded it around the new emperor.

The emperor was by right a canon of the chapter of the cathedral, whose members obtained from Gregory V., when he visited Aix-la-Chapelle in 997, the title of cardinal-priests. In the ages of faith, the imperial dignity was semi-priestly; the emperor was considered as having charge of souls. Before the emblems of sovereign dignity were placed in his hands, he swore, with his hand upon the Gospels, fidelity to the church which had just consecrated him.

The archbishop gave him the sword “to combat the enemies of Christ”--the imperial purple symbolized “the zeal with which he should endeavor to consolidate in the empire the reign of faith and of peace”--and with the sceptre he was exhorted to become “the father of his people, the protector of the ministers of God, the defender of the widow and the orphan.” And, last of all, to seal the alliance contracted with the Holy Church, he received a portion of the sacred Host, consecrated in the pontifical Mass, the other half of which was consumed by the priest of God.

After the election of the emperor at Frankfort, the electors and the emperor elect proceeded to Aix-la-Chapelle, where the coronation took place. The emperor heard Mass in the choir of the cathedral, surrounded by his court; the people were in the nave--the octagon, built by Charlemagne; after the Mass, he was conducted up the staircase, temporarily erected from directly beneath the lustre in the centre, to the throne of Charlemagne. The electors and their suites occupied the arcades in the gallery; and there, surrounded by priests, princes, and people, the Christian emperor swore to maintain the laws of God and man.

Before signing the act of his election, the emperor confirmed all the privileges given by his predecessors to the Cathedral of Notre Dame; and then the cortége proceeded to the Hôtel de Ville, where the coronation banquet was held in the splendid hall, so beautifully restored by the King of Prussia--we beg pardon, Emperor of Germany. The Cathedral of Notre Dame was formerly exempt from ordinary episcopal jurisdiction, and from its foundation was directly under the Holy See, which privilege was confirmed in 1157 by Pope Adrian IV.

Aix-la-Chapelle is very old; it was known to the Romans under the name of Aquis Granum, and is said to have been founded in the second century. Remains of Roman baths have been discovered near the cathedral and the _Elisenbrunnen_. Burnt by the Huns in 451, it was rebuilt, and became a favorite residence of the Frankish kings. Here was Charlemagne born, April 2, 742, and here he died, January 28, 814. In 881, the town was sacked by the Normans, and at the end of the tenth century restored and enlarged by Otho III., who died here in 1002. Charlemagne surrounded the city with a wall, pierced by ten gates, which Frederick Barbarossa rebuilt and strengthened in 1187.

The good old city has seen stormy days, as in 1198 it was besieged by Otho of Brunswick, and in 1247 by William of Holland, to whom it surrendered after a siege of six months. During the middle ages, it attained great wealth by its manufacture of cloth; agencies for the sale of which were established at Venice and Antwerp in the fourteenth century. Many diets of the empire were held here; and three times, in 1668, 1748, and 1818, the diplomats of Europe met in the Hôtel de Ville to settle terms of peace and heal the wounds of war. The conferences of the congress were held in the _Krönungsaal_, a spacious saloon occupying the whole of the third floor; the former banqueting-hall after the coronations.

The Hôtel de Ville was erected on the site of the palace of the Frankish kings, in which Charlemagne was born, and the famous banqueting-hall has been adorned with splendid frescoes, done by the best artists of the Düsseldorf school, depicting scenes in the life of Charlemagne. They were painted at the command of the Emperor of Germany, and the nine frescoes represent: The Destruction of the Saxon Idols; The Battle of Cordova; The Baptism of Witikind; A Diet of the Empire; The Coronation of Charlemagne; The Coronation of his son Louis; The Taking of Pavia; The Opening of the Tomb of Charlemagne; The Foundation of the Cathedral.

Since the time of the Romans, Aix-la-Chapelle has been celebrated as a watering-place; and modern Europe fully appreciates the delicious baths and bubbling springs. Every seven years the Exposition of the Great Relics takes place; and then the pilgrims, drawn by faith, are added to the thousands of votaries at the shrine of fashion who annually flock to the dear old city.

The four Great Relics, which are exposed every seven years, from the 10th to the 24th of July, are: The dress of the Blessed Virgin; The swaddling-clothes of the Infant Jesus at Bethlehem; The cloth that encircled the loins of our dear Lord on the cross; The cloth in which the head of St. John the Baptist was enveloped after his decapitation. Charlemagne obtained these relics from Rome, Constantinople, and Jerusalem. His intimate relations with the Popes Adrian, who died in 795, and Leo III., are well known: his influence was unbounded with the Byzantine emperors, who sent ambassadors with the relics as presents; and in the East he had control over the holy places in Palestine. These sovereigns, who contributed to enrich his church of Notre Dame with treasures from their own sanctuaries, would not have dared incur the wrath of the great warrior by sending him false relics.

In 408, the Empress Pulcheria, the sister of Theodosius and wife of Marcian, built churches to contain the swaddling-clothes of the Infant Jesus and the cincture of the Blessed Virgin. The septennial exposition dates from the ninth century; and since then, historical testimony abounds, public facts attest, without interruption to our day, the authenticity of the relics venerated at Aix-la-Chapelle. Among the lesser relics are the _cingulum_ or leathern belt of our Lord, the extremities of which are united and stamped with the seal of Constantine; a piece of the cord with which the hands of our Lord were bound during his Passion; a piece of the sponge which was dipped in vinegar and gall and presented to our Lord on the cross; and a rib of St. Stephen, the first martyr.

The last exposition was in 1867, and the crowds that assisted bore witness to the living faith that makes the people of the Rhenish Provinces such admirable Catholics. Aix-la-Chapelle looked beautifully; from the high towers and dome of the cathedral, from every church and house, from the spires of the Hôtel de Ville, the banners and flags were flying. The black and white flag of Prussia, the red-and-white and blue-and-white banners of the churches, mingled with the Papal colors.

Sixty thousand pilgrims came every day afoot to Aix; every avenue leading to the cathedral was crowded, people standing in close file waiting their turn to enter. But in those serried ranks there was no noise, no confusion; profound, earnest devotion attested their faith and piety. The Rosary was recited in bands; a man’s voice would say alone the “Hail Mary,” and the “Holy Mary, Mother of God” was taken up by all. From 1 to 8 P.M. the cathedral was opened for the procession of pilgrims, but it was impossible to think of entering during that time, as it was an affair of hours.

After 8 P.M., the canons allowed a few, some hundreds, to enter by a private door; and then we first saw the interior of the superb old cathedral. We passed along through the arches and vaults of the basement story, ascended and descended staircases, and finally reached a vestibule, leading directly to the octagon, the centre of the cathedral. The grated doors were closed, as the pilgrims were still in the body of the church; in the dim light, we could see the glimmer of tapers in the choir; and the voices of the kneeling crowd reciting the litanies rose to heaven, the very incense of prayer.

Soon the doors were opened, and the favored ones passed slowly through. How grand and majestic the cathedral looked! The octagon in darkness, the choir illuminated. In single file, we made the tour around the relics; then all knelt down--the priests who were strangers in the stalls of the clergy, the laity outside. The canons walked in procession, each holding one of the precious relics, which we were allowed to kiss. After all was over, we looked around; we were kneeling in the superb choir, said to be the highest in Europe--higher than the choir in the cathedral of Cologne, which is lower than the nave. As we gazed upwards, and beheld the grand arches which rose so high above our heads, our thoughts were raised to heaven, and made us glorify God, who gives power to man to conceive and execute such works. The stained-glass windows are exquisite, and in the dim, religious light all looked bewilderingly beautiful.

The next morning, at 10 A.M., we took our position in front of the cathedral, where benches were erected temporarily to accommodate those who preferred sitting to standing. The crowds were reverentially silent and recollected, reciting the Rosary and the Litany of the Blessed Virgin. The relics were exposed from five points. When the priests appeared in the tower opposite us, the brass band in the gallery which connects the towers broke forth in grand harmony; the people singing as one voice the superb German choral music. It was overpowering! High up in the old gallery the canons holding the precious relics, the cross glittering, the light blazing around them, the splendid music resounding in triumph in the open air! The ages of faith are not past, as we all felt that day at Aix.

At 12 M. we joined the procession waiting for the doors of the cathedral to open, that we might enter the golden chamber. This was a select crowd, as we had to pay two francs for a card. The Prussian cavalry rode up and down to keep the ranks straight; and after we had been jammed outside, we received a final mash inside, and, by the time we were jelly, we shoved ourselves into the golden treasury, where a canon explained everything in German and French; then the procession passed again through the choir, around the octagon, and out another door.

The last day of the exposition was distinguished by a procession in the streets: the first that had taken place since the French Revolution. It was very solemn and grand; the Great Relics were borne in their superb shrines by the canons of the cathedral, the Archbishop of Cologne carried the reliquary containing the _cingulum_ of our Lord, the Bishop of Luxembourg the cincture of the Blessed Virgin.

Of course these great crowds, with the usual amount of dust and dirt, rather fatigued us, even though we were immensely impressed; so we sought the refreshing waters, and continued our meditations in the Kaiserbad; or, rather, we would commence our morning devotions by making ourselves comfortable. The Kaiserbad is the finest in Europe; long corridors, arched roofs lighted from above, encaustic-tiled floors, beautiful dressing-rooms, each one opening into a delicious bath of white marble, into which you descend by six white marble steps into the pure white sulphur water. Twenty minutes is the time advised for well people; invalids stay in an hour sometimes; after the twenty minutes, the attendants brought in hot sheets, in which we were enveloped. It was Elysium--the perfection of material enjoyment.

From the Kaiserbad we adjourned to the cathedral, heard Mass, and then strolled through the _Elisengarten_, the grounds around the spring; the Prussian military band played delightfully every morning, and we listened, drank occasional glasses of hot sulphur water, and then, refreshed and invigorated, were ready for any performance. In the afternoon, people drive to the heights of Louisberg, formerly a great fortress that commanded Aix, famous in the wars of the middle ages, and demolished after some treaty, to keep the peace of Europe.

The view from the height is superb. Aix-la-Chapelle was the favorite resort of Pauline Bonaparte, and Louisberg her pet promenade; so, after her death, the city of Aix erected a monument to her memory. There is also a Belvidere, where they have musical reunions and balls, and people drink coffee and Seltzer water, in which we indulged. After Louisberg, we drove around the old ramparts, visited the beautiful cemetery and the _Burtscheid_, the hottest of the springs, where the water is boiling--cooks an egg in a few seconds.

Besides the cathedral, there are several beautiful churches. The Jesuit church of the Immaculate Conception is very fine, built in the severest Gothic style, of solid stone. In the convent of the Sisters of the Infant Jesus, they make the most magnificent embroideries, one Gothic chasuble, just finished for an English bishop, was worth 15,000 francs; and the benediction veils, stoles, and capes were exquisite.

In the cathedral are preserved some fine chalices and vestments; amongst the latter a chasuble said to have been used by St. Bernard--it is of purple, adorned with pearls; a cape, with small bells attached to the lower edge, worn by Leo III. at the consecration of the church; a set of vestments of cloth-of-gold, ornamented with pearls, presented by Charles V.; and a chasuble, given in 1599 by Isabella, Infanta of Spain. Among the treasures of the cathedral is a manuscript of the Gospels, beautifully written in letters of gold on purple vellum; its binding is covered with plates of silver-gilt, richly enamelled.

In addition to the pious crowd, there was more than the usual influx of fashionable people. We had the pleasure of contemplating the Prince and Princess Frederick Charles of Prussia while they stood on the balcony of the Hôtel de Ville. Prince Frederick Charles, the Red Prince, is one of the great Prussian captains, and of course there was immense excitement. The place before the Hôtel de Ville is the vegetable and flower market, and the peasants, in their quaint caps and bonnets, were enchanted either with their royal highnesses or with the soldiers, who strolled among them, and bought up their wares.

Dremel’s, the hotel of Aix, was entirely devoted to the Sultan and his suite, who were on their way from Paris to Constantinople, after the Exposition. They were a splendid set of men. In the morning, on our way to the Kaiserbad, we passed Dremel’s, and, as they were always lounging around, we had a fine view of them. The Sultan kept himself secluded from the vulgar gaze, and was only seen the morning of his departure. Every one was on hand to see the commander of the faithful; at last, a great lumbering Prussian state carriage appeared, and there was the Sultan leaning back, eyes half-closed, arms folded on his breast, as if he were the sovereign of the world. His impassible face never changed expression; he looked the miserable fatalist he is.

In our German hotel, the Belle Vue, there was no reading-room, no drawing-room; everybody sat in the dining-room, chattering and talking away. Frank, the jolly landlord, made merry with a chosen band of friends, among whom was the Burgomaster, at the end of one table; all smoking, each man’s bottle of wine standing before him. A German friend assured us all Germany passed the evening in the same way; the professors at the universities think it absolutely necessary to drink as many bottles of wine in the evening as they have studied hours during the day. We mildly suggested it was not strange that German philosophy was rather cloudy sometimes, as the smoke of the evening might befog the learned professors; but our friend maintained it was healthy for mind and body.

Charming, delightful Aix! It was with regret we left it; we looked with longing eyes at the dome of the grand cathedral as it receded in the distance, and sighed for the delicious Kaiserbad as we were whirled through the dust and smoke. However, we had the happiness of making one person enjoy what we had so fully appreciated; on our return home we had the pleasure of seeing once again one whose name is dear to the heart of every American Catholic, the late illustrious Archbishop of Baltimore. He was suffering from rheumatism, and we told him such wonderful things of the baths at Aix, he changed his mind, and, instead of going to Paris, went to Aix; with what result, the following charming note will tell:

AIX-LA-CHAPELLE, August 4, 1867, Hôtel de Belle Vue.

DEAR MADAME: I drop you a few lines, to return my sincere thanks for having so effectually called my attention to the baths and waters of this celebrated city. I find that all you said and promised has been fully realized; and when, hereafter, any one will dare tell me that your amiable sex is accustomed to draw upon its imagination for its facts, or at least to color extravagantly what has proved pleasing, I shall point to your recommendation of these waters as a sufficient refutation, or at any rate a most noted and brilliant exception to the remark.

The baths are all you said, and more; they are really superb, and just what I needed. In fact, I consider it a special providence that I met you in Brussels, or otherwise I should have gone to Paris instead of Aix. Already I am quite relieved, and in another week I expect to be as young and supple as ever. I am at the Belle Vue, but, after taking one bath at the Kaiserbad, I have taken the rest at the Rosebad; the latter are fully equal to the former in sumptuousness, and the attendance is probably better. I expect to return to Paris before or about the 15th inst., and if I can be of any service to you in Europe or America, you may freely command me.

Though I have not yet taken any excursion to the country, I have visited the relics and curiosities of the grand old cathedral, and also the Hôtel de Ville. This is one of the oldest cities in Europe, and its inhabitants say with pride, “After Rome, Aix-la-Chapelle!” The city with its monuments carries us back a thousand years to the brilliant days of Charlemagne, who was a giant not only morally and intellectually, but physically, for he was over seven feet two inches tall. Best regards and blessing to your family, and compliments to the dean. Yours truly, M. J. SPALDING, Archbishop of Baltimore.

AMBROSIA

A LEGEND OF AUGSBURG.

We were talking of our travels, my friend Archer and I, and of the lessons travelling brings to those who go a little out of Murray’s beaten track. And especially, so we were pleased to think, these lessons might be learnt in little out-of-the-way nooks, hidden centres of ignored life, none the less busy for that, and none the less full of exciting life-dramas. I was telling him of Pavia--for my wanderings had led me chiefly through Italy--of the desolate, enchanted look of the wall-enclosed court-yards round the gloomy and picturesque palaces; of the lonely walk on the former ramparts, now planted with fine horse-chestnuts; of the many tapestries of romance I had woven in my mind about the silent-looking houses and the dark-eyed maidens I occasionally met in the streets. It was while Pavia was in Austrian hands that I passed through it, and perhaps the military occupation tended to make the sleepy city still more sombre and dull. Yet what additional elements of romance that circumstance contributed! For it was not impossible that some fair, mild German, with his dreamy sentimentality, yet fresh from college, might have been drawn to feel a holy, wondering love for the bright southern beauty whose childhood had been fostered in indignant hatred of his land and race; and between these two how many complications of pathetic interest might we not imagine, how many shades of feeling and degrees of circumstances might we not conjure up! “But,” said Archer, interrupting my fine flow of language about the joys and sorrows of the town of the _Certosa_, “you know Italy, strictly speaking, is rather the land of passion than of romance. Could you think of an Italian ‘Gretchen’? The one character most like her, the Cenci, is so different despite the likeness! Religion seems more spiritual in Germany; in Italy they do as the Greeks of old, put their own human feelings into heavenly representatives and then pay homage to them, thinking unconsciously that they are honoring supernatural attributes. There is too much earthliness about their ideal--in fact, I do not believe they have an ideal at all.”

“Come, come,” I answered, “you are too hard on the southern temperament. You do not know Italy well enough to speak with authority on the subject. After all, as long as their way of feeling religion does them good, the Italians are quite as well off, spiritually, as your Teutonic ideals. I am not sure but what I prefer warmth and impulse to passive tenderness, however reliable the latter may be throughout a lifetime. But this question of the relative merits of various races will always be an open one, and no one wishes to leave it so more than the church herself, for she wisely sees how much the glory of God gains through this blending of various natures in his service.”

“No doubt,” answered my enthusiastic Teutomane, “as far as that side of the question is concerned. You have been saying something equivalent to telling me that the orchestra is preferable to a single violin or cornet, while _I_ was speaking of the intrinsic merit of each of those individual instruments.”

“Well,” I said, “now tell me something about the tone of these instruments. You know I have been very little in Germany, and I should be glad to hear something worth hearing, something that one would not find in the guide-book, nor in the volume of self-important nonsense occasionally thrust upon the public by a gushing sister or a city alderman.”

“You are very caustic,” said my friend with a laugh. “If I must travel so far out of the beaten track to please you, why not plunge at once into a volume of mediæval legends?”

“Is it in print? Because in that case I could see for myself, and therefore would not care to hear it,” I answered teasingly.

“It is _not_ in print, Sir Doubter, and, what is more, it is not even in manuscript.”

I began to feel interested. “A popular tradition, then?” I asked.

“Exactly. It is not worth much, only I happened to see the places mentioned, the quaint house that is standing yet, though very much disguised of course, and the dark street leading to the cathedral. It happened in Augsburg, and the cathedral, as you know, is Protestantized, though still very well kept. I was only in the town for two days, so you may imagine I know little of it beyond what my narrator told me.”

“And pray who was your narrator?”

The father of a girl in an old book-stall, where I had stopped attracted by some rare copy of a Catholic work, of which she did not seem to know the value. Equally surprised at seeing the book there and at finding her ignorant of its worth, I asked her how she got it. She lifted up her head, which had been bent on some mysterious turning-point of her knitting, and said smilingly:

“_Mein Herr_ is a Catholic, then?”

I answered that I was, and repeated my former question.

“It must have been one of my great-uncle’s books,” she said, “he was going to be a priest, but he died before being ordained. We were always Catholics.”

“And how came you to keep this stall, child?” I asked, becoming interested.

“It is my father’s,” she answered quickly; “and he has been ill for two months, so I keep it for him. His uncle left him all his books.”

“And is your father so poor, then?”

“Very poor, _mein Herr_,” said the girl, with a longing glance at the book I still held in my hand, as if she were thinking of the price a connoisseur might be tempted to give for it. “His father and grandfather were booksellers,” she continued, “but not like him; they had large libraries and plenty of men working under them. That was long before I was born, _mein Herr_.”

“And I suppose your father got into difficulties. But anything would have paid better than this, my poor child.”

“My father would not go to work for any other bookseller, not if he were the king,” laughed the girl, more merrily than I thought the case warranted; “and he is a regular student. My mother used to earn money in many ways, teaching, writing, sewing; and I did the housework. She died two years ago, and we have nothing but the book-stall now to keep my sick father and my little crippled brother.”

I thought to myself, Why, here is a regular romance; perhaps the inevitable lover of German stories is going to peep out next, from the frank revelations of my new friend. At any rate, let us follow it up. So I said aloud: “If your father is willing to part with this book, I should like to buy it. But I should be very glad to see him and chat with him about it. Do you think he could see me?”

“Oh! yes, of course,” answered the girl with a hearty smile; and for the first time I noticed her features and expression. She was not beautiful--I hope you did not expect the romance to be perfect?--but there was a pure, calm steadiness in her look, and an air of unconscious dignity about her that made her striking to the eye. She seemed made for fidelity and helpfulness, and as to external charms, if you admire hair, she simply had superabundant masses of it. German-like, it was put up in broad plaits, tightly coiled round the head, without a shadow of coquettishness, and just as if she thought it no ornament at all. Now I have noticed your Italian girls know how to make a good deal more of their advantages. I have seen poor girls in Venice with as elaborate a coiffure--ringlets, puffs, plaits, and wavings--as any Parisian hair-dresser could exhibit on his waxen models.

“Libels again!” I answered. “I have seen the very contrary at Naples, and there are women there like Grecian statues. Venice is half Eastern, you know. But to go on with your impromptu romance.”

Well, when evening came, I went to the address the young girl had given me, and as you may imagine, it was not a palace that I entered. The neighborhood was as commonplace as any in an old German city can be, that is, picturesqueness itself compared with our modern “back slums.” Still, through the picturesqueness, there stared the most unmistakable poverty. I went up a good many flights of steep, narrow stairs, with curious balusters that would have driven a dealer in old carving wild with delight, and knocked at a door that I recognized by the rude cross and bit of palm over the archway. There was just such another cross and sprig of green inside the door, and a little holy-water vessel in stamped brass hung at the side nearest the door-handle. There was nothing very peculiar about the room, except that it had an air of freshness and cleanliness, which, considering its sick inmates and its cramped locality, was the more pleasant because it was a surprise. A great German bed, with a feather-bed of traditional height, filled one side of the room, and there was a stove in the middle. The remains of the supper were on a side-table, and a lamp drawn close to the father’s arm-chair stood on a centre-table laden with domestic “mending.” The little crippled brother sat in a low easy-chair by the stove, which chair was the only luxury in the room: My friend, the young girl, came quickly forward and said:

“My father is so glad you have come, _mein Herr_.”

I sat down beside him, and soon got into conversation with the old scholar. He was still very weak, but seemed to feel better when excited. I found him a thorough bookworm, full of knowledge that, in another man’s hands, would have made his fortune. I discovered, or rather forced him to tell me, that in that press (pointing to a common painted chest of drawers) were manuscripts ready to be published, if a publisher could be found to undertake the risk, but the author had no ambition, though he was full to the brim of literary enthusiasm. His researches had lain chiefly among works of mediæval ecclesiastical lore, legends and poems, etc. The emblems borne by the various saints were a favorite subject of his. His uncle’s theological collection and the libraries in which he had spent his youth, had furnished him with means to prosecute his studies even after his father’s reverses in fortune--the public libraries had done the rest. His wife’s help had been very important, and piles of her notes and references lay among his own manuscripts. He spoke with pride of his little crippled son, whom he said he had made as good a scholar as if the poor boy had been to the universities; and as to his daughter, his looks said more than his words, as he gazed at her across the table, she sitting so calmly there amid her heap of “mending,” her dark-blue dress reminding me of the coloring of a mediæval virgin martyr in the stained-glass window of some old cathedral. She was more queenly than slender in figure, and neither her face nor her hands were small, though they were perfectly shaped; there was more majesty than grace in her whole air, yet she was thoroughly girl-like. I unconsciously invested her in my mind with royal robes, heavily jewelled, like the Byzantine saints, or with the ample cloak of the brave and learned Portia. Presently she went into a smaller room, opening into the one where we were sitting, and during her absence I ventured to hint to the father that for her sake he should try to make those literary treasures of his more remunerative. He smiled; I asked him if she were already provided for, or if he did not feel it his duty to put by some kind of fortune for her.

“My child is watched over from heaven,” he said; “she will never come to harm.”

“What is her name?” I asked. I had already ascertained his family name to be Reinhold.

“Ambrosia,” he answered.

“Rather an uncommon name,” I remarked, well pleased, somehow, that it should be so.

“Yes,” said the father, “and I dare say it will interest you to hear the reason why she has that name. She was born on the anniversary of the day that a young girl called Ambrosia came to life here in the sixteenth century. This was how it happened. The troubles of the Reformation were just beginning, and this young girl, who was the burgomaster’s daughter, was famous through the town for her holiness and modesty. She was betrothed to a young merchant who had been her playmate in childhood. Did you notice that great building on the corner of the street to the right of the cathedral? That was her father’s house; it is a hotel now. Her bridegroom lived two or three streets further off, on a corner too; and under the corner window, which was beautifully carved and painted, stood a wooden image of the Mother of God, with a lamp before it which was never allowed to go out. It began to be whispered about that Engelbrecht, the young lady’s betrothed, and a very handsome, dashing young fellow, was rather inclined to the new doctrines which Luther was then preaching all over Germany. Every one wondered how Ambrosia would take this, but no one knew anything positive until it became the talk of the city that one night Engelbrecht and a few companions, heated with wine and singing profane songs, had broken and extinguished the votive lamp before the image under his window, and thrown the image itself into the gutter. The next day it was known that Ambrosia was very ill, and had sent for her lover. He came, and, as he really was very fond of her, the sudden alteration in her looks frightened and subdued him for the moment. She took off the betrothal ring he had put upon her finger, and very gravely and sweetly told him that she could never be his bride on earth, but that she fervently hoped that she had indeed won his soul’s final salvation, through the joyful and willing sacrifice of her own life. She said she should die on the day that was fixed for their wedding, but that from the dead she would speak to him yet, and in public. Then a year would go by, and she told him that it was not given to her to know if he would repent or not during that time, but that on the anniversary of her death she would come to life again and walk from her tomb to the cathedral and back; and she summoned him to meet her there. It was her hope that, after that second call, he would surely be won back to God. So when her wedding day came, although she seemed happy and looked only very grave and pale, she called her father and mother and her lover to her, and there, sitting by the window that looked on the cathedral, she passed away without agony, and just as the hour struck which should have seen her a new-made wife. She was not buried for several days, for the scoffers said she was deceiving the people and simulating death. Doctors and priests watched the body for a week, and Mass was said in the room where she lay, surrounded with flowers and tall tapers. Exorcisms were even read over her, but the placid expression of her alabaster face seemed to grow only more heavenly day by day. At last signs of decomposition appeared, as if to make the marvel more certain, and those who had watched the body drew up a legal declaration of her undoubted death. She was brought to the churchyard, the family vault was opened, and the coffin, which was still uncovered, was just going to be finally closed, when she raised herself suddenly to a sitting posture, and, seemingly transfigured into greater beauty than had ever been hers in life, she gazed slowly round the crowd and beckoned to her lover. He stood transfixed, and the people fell back from him and left him face to face with his bride. She only said in a clear, pitying voice that was heard by all, ‘Remember, Engelbrecht, thy tryst with me one year from this day. God be with thee until then.’

“She fell slowly backwards into her narrow couch, and when the people had taken courage again, they came hurriedly and closed the coffin in great awe. A year went by, and Engelbrecht, uneasy and remorseful, plunged into worse excesses than ever, went heart and soul, at least outwardly, into the Lutheran movement, and became the head of a band of young men whose dissoluteness was spoken of with disgust by the licentious reformers themselves. The day came, and with it crowds flocked to the grave of Ambrosia. Those who had gone at sunrise found a white-robed figure kneeling there, its face hidden in its hands, and two long plaits of golden hair streaking its drapery. Those who had watched all night and gone there the evening previous after dusk, could tell nothing save that the grave had been the same as ever, but they thought they must have slept for a few minutes before midnight, since they had heard the quarter strike from the cathedral, and had looked at their timepieces directly after, and found it was half an hour _after_ midnight. The radiant, silent figure was there then, and an odor as of incense filled the night air. As soon as the cathedral doors were open (it was in June), Ambrosia rose and turned towards the church. Some sceptics who saw the strange procession, rushed at once to the grave, and, hastily disinterring the coffin, found it empty. Crowds joined the procession to the cathedral, which the young girl reached during the first Mass, for the priests still had possession of it then. Every one wondered if her lover would meet her, but no sign of him appeared. Ambrosia looked incomparably more beautiful than in life; her eyes were cast down, and she wore a golden betrothal ring on her finger. She moved like a spirit, yet there was no doubting the reality and substance of her presence. There were many in the crowd who were scoffers and libertines, men whom no virtuous maiden’s eye would as much as glance upon, yet even they were silenced, and the marvellous beauty of Ambrosia seemed to have no other effect upon them than one of awe and unconscious restraint. The people followed her in and lined the aisles through which they knew she would walk on leaving the cathedral. She knelt for a moment before the high carved tabernacle, with a lovely miniature spire, quite in a separate corner from the altar--you have seen those tabernacles of ours in old Catholic churches in other parts of Germany, _mein Herr_?--and then she turned slowly back. There was no hurry, no anxiety nor expectancy, in her manner; still Engelbrecht had not been seen. She had come to the middle of the left aisle, still with her eyes persistently cast down, and though the people had all asked her many questions as to their future spiritual fate and that of others dear to them, yet she had never answered a word. Now, she stopped deliberately, yet never raising her eyes. A sob was heard in the crowd, and the serried masses heaved to and fro as a young man forced his way violently through. It was Engelbrecht, but he was unrecognizable. A cloak covered him from head to foot--evidently a studied disguise--yet what was more unlike him was his agitated, humble manner, the look of passionate self-accusation in his drawn features, and his impetuous disregard for appearances. As Ambrosia stopped, he rushed forward with his arms extended, but some unseen power stayed his progress, and though she was not a foot distant from him, he could not touch her. For the first time she lifted her head, and a look of love, pure as an angel’s over a repentant sinner, lighted up her ethereal face and mingled with an expression of deepest gratitude. She pointed to the betrothal ring on her finger, and then glanced upward without uttering one word. This second warning from the world of souls was of too solemn a nature to admit of even the holy yet too human expression that her words had given to the first, but it was unmistakably borne in upon the mind of her lover that as long as he kept true to the faith, he might hope to claim her as his spiritual bride in the kingdom of God. And, as she continued her journey toward her grave, he did not even follow her, but went straight to the Dominican convent and asked for the habit of the order. Those who accompanied Ambrosia to the churchyard could tell nothing as to the manner of her disappearance; all they knew was that they saw her one moment, and the next they saw nothing. Engelbrecht gave all his riches to the church to found a seminary somewhere beyond the bounds of the heretical countries of Germany, for the instruction of missionaries; the foundation eventually became a house of his order. He wished his own dwelling to be used for monastic or hospital purposes, should religion again revive in Augsburg; but his wish was not fulfilled. The house was forfeited to the state, and became successively a warehouse, a barrack, a prison, and a factory. Now, it is a great printing-office, and plenty of lies are coined into money within its walls, through the partisan newspapers that issue from it. You can see the corner window still, with its beautiful carving hardly injured by time, and the empty niche beneath it where the image of the Mother of God once stood. Have you noticed it, _mein Herr_?”

“No,” I said, hardly liking to answer, for fear of losing some further detail. “But what of Engelbrecht?”

The old German looked surprised.

“Why, I have told you he became a monk.”

“But did he distinguish himself against the reformers?”

“Ah!” said Reinhold, reverentially, “God knows, and his bride, but he left no record for the world to read. No doubt he worked out the will of God.”

I was silent, for I was ashamed of myself in the presence of this man, to whom the hidden life of the soul seemed so all-sufficient a history.

Ambrosia, his daughter, had come back long before this story was finished, and was sitting sewing diligently, and listening to it with all her father’s pride and personal enthusiasm in the matter.

“So,” continued Reinhold, “the day of this wonder was remembered, and among those who remained Catholics, it became a custom to christen girls born on that day by the name of the holy maiden Ambrosia. My child, thank God, was one of them.”

After listening to this peculiar and interesting legend, I led the conversation to the book I wished to purchase, and which Ambrosia had brought home with her on purpose. Reinhold knew the value of it perfectly well, and firmly resisted my well-meant attempts to fix a price upon it beyond what even its merits warranted. I was hardly able to indulge in such extravagance, yet _bibliomania_ had always been my besetting sin, and I had curtailed our little household in many ways to feed my library. Besides, here was a charity as well-deserved as it seemed well-placed; how else, with my limited means, could I help my poor friends? But my fellow-bookworm was proof against all such artifices, and I was reduced to ask him, point-blank, was there anything which he would allow me to do for him? Without the least show of fussy pride, but with a quiet, manly gratitude that was immeasurably more dignified, he answered at once, his voice shaking as he looked at his little son:

“A very little would make my child’s life happy and useful, and, _lieber Herr_, that little I have it not.”

“How stupid of me!” I exclaimed. “I might have thought of that myself. Is he to be a scholar, or an artist, or what?” I said, stroking his hair, while his great eyes were fixed hungrily on mine.

“Books are his passion,” said his father, “and he knows all our poets by heart. He should have a literary education, I think.”

“But,” said I, “he could not go alone to the university, and if you do not mind leaving Augsburg, would it not be best for you all to go together? I have some English friends at Bonn, Catholics and rich people; they will do much for your child that I cannot do, though my heart would rejoice to do it, so suppose we start to-morrow?”

Reinhold looked up incredulously. Ambrosia laughed, and the poor little cripple clapped his hands in ecstasy. I watched the girl to see whether a shade of regret denoted ties of a tenderer or more passionate nature than her strong, calm family affections; but there was no sign of anything save quiet joy and a gratitude that in its fulness made me feel quite ashamed. I kept thinking of what could be done for her; whether my English friends at Bonn could or would be kind to her in any practical way, and whether in that case she and her father would ever submit to being provided for by the kindness of strangers. She seemed too self-reliant for that; and although she evidently longed for the same education her brother was to have, and had, indeed, already amassed in the intervals of her active work such miscellaneous knowledge as mere reading could give her, yet I felt sure that she would insist on earning her bread and helping to support her father. I decided on introducing the old man to the notice of some great publisher, with whom an arrangement about his manuscripts might perhaps be made; but of this we did not speak just now. I left the room full of our new projects, and spent the early part of the next day in carefully visiting the scenes of Ambrosia’s life, death, and marvellous resurrection. In the afternoon I went back to Reinhold’s old-fashioned abode, and found everything nearly ready. The books were packed in a curious old chest, which was certainly a quaint contrast to the trunks and valises of modern tourists; this and some of the old furniture, endeared to Reinhold and his daughter by the associations of a lifetime, were to be forwarded to their new destination through the care of the good “Pfarrer” (parish-priest), and a few little necessaries (a very slender amount in the eyes of our “girls of the period,” I fancy!) together with the precious manuscripts, were to go with us in a large leather hand-bag, which I volunteered to carry. I asked to be allowed to take charge of the little brother too, as we were too near the railway to need a carriage, but Ambrosia laughingly caught him up, and, with gentle deftness, insisted on carrying him, telling me to give my disengaged arm to her invalid father. As soon as we were seated in the train, Ambrosia began to tell me that she had never been in one before. I asked if she were sorry to leave the old town.

“Oh! no,” she said, “I know I shall go back there one day, when I know more than I do now.”

I wondered if there were any hidden meaning in the words. Reinhold and I talked “shop” all the way, till our fellow-passengers must have been bored with our enthusiastic bibliomania. Ambrosia sat chatting gayly to her little brother, whose glee and wonder were sometimes gravely expressed in questions that made our neighbors laugh. When we got to Bonn, and were comfortably settled at a quiet, old-fashioned hotel, absolutely perfect in its appointments, but as unobtrusive of its merits as its gaudy, noisy rivals were shrilly eager about theirs, I set out to find my friends. They were out of town. Without their influence I was powerless, so I had to wait a few days for their return. They took up the matter as warmly as I could have wished, and were particularly anxious to do something for Ambrosia; the difficulty was to find something she would accept. In the meantime, the crippled child was recommended to the college authorities with plenty of guarantees, seen to by the priest, who was my friend’s adviser and fellow-worker in all his good schemes, and Reinhold was quietly put in the way of good opportunities for the publication of some of his accumulated writings. The little boy promised well, and I was more anxious about Ambrosia, who wanted to support herself by needlework.

“You see,” she said to me, a week after our arrival, “some of the work will be knitting, and I can read as I knit; then I will go to school at night and on Sundays, and pick up what I can, and twice a week I will make time for the singing-class. There is a very good one, and so cheap, attached to our church here, and the master is a really great artist, though he is old and very poor now. He and my father will be friends, I know, so you see I shall be as well off as it is possible.”

Nothing could move her from her resolve, and as I had to leave Bonn shortly after, I was obliged to take things as they were. I received monthly bulletins of my little _protégé’s_ conduct and progress, and sometimes heard from Ambrosia and Reinhold, through their rare but warm letters, though oftener from my friends established at Bonn. After awhile, I heard that the girl had consented to take music lessons twice a week, in the evening, with Miss L., my friend’s niece, and sometimes to share her French and Latin lessons. English she already knew. The needlework was not abandoned, however, and Ambrosia, I was told, seemed to gain new energy with each new pursuit she undertook. Reinhold’s works were in a fair way of being successfully published, and his circumstances were actually beginning to mend. I never heard of such a lucky venture as that hurriedly made at the Augsburg book-stall! Everything and everybody favored it, and my quiet old sister at home used to make me tell the story over and over again, as we turned over the pages of the book that had been the first _deus ex machinâ_ of the romance. She was certainly disappointed in the want of a lover for Ambrosia, and, to console herself, would sometimes so arrange the little we knew as to make it the frame of a possible love-story that we did not, and never might, know.

A year passed by in this way, when business called me up from my cottage in the Isle of Wight to London. It was May, and the exhibitions were just open. I went to Burlington House, and saw very little that was worth seeing; then to Pall Mall, to some of the minor galleries. The French collection of paintings was pretty upon the whole, but suddenly I came upon a picture that was really striking. An old German town and a cathedral painted to the very life formed a most varied background, upon which a conventional “crowd,” that is, a few picturesque groups of burghers and peasants in the costume (accurate to the slightest detail) of the early part of the sixteenth century, was represented, gazing at the central figure, a maiden dressed in white, with two thick cords of golden hair streaking the snowy robe. I looked at once for Mephistopheles and his victim Faust, taking this for a novel and very artistic representation of Goethe’s masterpiece; and turning to the catalogue I looked for the name of the painter--“Franz Eichenthal.” But the painting itself was marked “Ambrosia, a Legend of Augsburg,” and in a few brief words beneath the story was told as Reinhold had told it to me. Strangely interested, I looked at the white figure; I saw the likeness which had before escaped me; it was Ambrosia’s face, her abundant hair, her grand form; the repose, the dignity that I so well remembered were there, but over the whole was thrown an air of etherealized peace and beauty which was a fitting tribute to the entirely spiritual essence of the story. I looked to see if Engelbrecht were anywhere represented, and thought I could discover him in a corner, half hidden by the shadow from a buttress of the cathedral. There was a wonderfully energetic expression about this face, which made me single it out from the rest as being probably meant for the unhappy lover. There was strength and nobility in the features, and an almost feminine grace in the figure, while the look of horror and remorse struggling with unbelief was in painful contrast with this courtly exterior. Underneath, on the buttress, was carved, in antique characters, the name of the painter, “Franciscus Eichenthal, pinxit.” It certainly happened to be the most obvious place for this traditional signature of the artist, yet I could not help fancying, almost hoping, that there was more in it than a mere chance, and that “Engelbrecht” was, in fact, the portrait of the painter himself. Ambrosia’s face drew me to it again; the likeness was life itself, yet such as an American authoress describes as “not the man that we are, but the angel that we may be.” She says that “as to every leaf and flower there is an ideal to which the growth of the plant is constantly urging, so there is an ideal to every human being, a perfect form in which it might appear, were every defect removed and every characteristic excellence stimulated to the highest point.” She likens this to the image of St. Augustine, as his mother, with her spiritual prophetic sight, saw him all through his reckless youth, and then says: “Could a mysterious foresight unveil to us this resurrection form of the friends with whom we daily walk, compassed about with mortal infirmity, we should follow them with faith and reverence, through all the disguises of human faults and weaknesses, waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God.”[202]

The German artist seemed to have had some such revelation vouchsafed to him concerning Ambrosia. The picture was unspeakably beautiful, and I felt instinctively that in the future it would become literally true. And yet the girl had never before struck me as having so exalted a nature; perhaps it was that she was so utterly unlike the usual ideal of a perfect woman.

I made inquiries as to whether the picture was an “order,” or simply a speculation, and learned that it had been the latter, but was now destined for the hall of the “Young Men’s Catholic Society” at Augsburg. An English nobleman had been so struck with it abroad that he had induced the artist to have it exhibited in London, and had himself ordered engravings and photographs from it. I felt very much inclined to go in for another extravagance, and have it copied on a reduced scale for my library, but I thought it most prudent to consult my sister first. I went home full of my discovery, and at once wrote to Reinhold for an explanation.

I received a very happy letter from Ambrosia herself in return, telling me of her engagement to the painter Eichenthal, who was an Augsburg man, and had lived for many years quite close to their old home, without either family having the remotest knowledge of each other. At the singing-class these two had met, their fellow-citizenship had first drawn them together, and the old master, whose favorite pupil the artist was, had brought him to see Reinhold. The result was natural, and my sister was innocently enthusiastic over the ending in so pleasant a reality of the romance she had begun in imagination many months before.

There was a quiet wedding at Bonn, and my friend’s niece, Ambrosia’s companion in her studies, was bridesmaid. My sister and I went over to be present, and the dear old father, now quite strong again, gave his daughter a copy of his first published work for a wedding gift. Next to the dedication leaf, which was addressed to your humble servant, and overflowing with affectionate expressions, there was a cheque for half the proceeds of the work (and the sum was not to be sneered at, I can assure you).

Ambrosia and her husband then went to Rome, where Eichenthal identified himself with the school of Overbeck, and became very popular among the foreign visitors and patrons of art. The Englishman who had taken such a fancy to his picture of the Augsburg legend chanced to come across him again in Rome, and, having succeeded to his father’s property, lavishly encouraged his artist friend. A _replica_, full size, of the original “Ambrosia” was painted for his chapel in England, and a large picture, representing a group of the patron saints of his family clustering round the throne of the Virgin and Child, was also ordered. The painter’s wife was the model for a St. Catharine of Sienna, and the Englishman himself, a thorough Saxon in build and features, made a magnificent St. Edward the Confessor.

Several years later, the young couple settled in Augsburg, where Eichenthal established a flourishing school of Christian art, and used to give lectures on the subject in the very hall where his first successful work was hung. Ambrosia’s brother got on so wonderfully that at twenty he was made professor of belles-lettres at Bonn, and was famous for writing the most beautiful religious poetry that had been known for many years. Ambrosia’s children gather round their young crippled uncle in the spacious, old-fashioned house where Reinhold lives with his daughter, and make him repeat wonderful mediæval legends clothed in verse of his own. This is how he spends his vacation. Reinhold is always at his manuscripts, and the same books that used to be his pitiful stock in trade are now the cherished ornaments of his large library. The Christmas-tree gathering in that house is a poem in itself. The children of Ambrosia’s friend, the English girl of Bonn, are often there playing with the artist’s beautiful boys, for there is no Ambrosia the younger among Eichenthal’s children. The best society of Augsburg, Protestant and Catholic alike, delight to honor the successful artist; the musical soirées given in his house are as perfect in their way as each of his own paintings, and never is anything purely worldly allowed to appear under his roof.

“When I first saw my wife,” he says, “I was a Lutheran or rather a so-called philosopher, but since I won her, I vowed to make her my arbiter and my conscience; you see the result. ‘Seek first the kingdom of God, and his justice, and all these things shall be added unto you.’”

“And this is the end?” I said regretfully, as Archer paused.

“Not quite,” he answered with a peculiar smile; “the end will not really come till Ambrosia has grown to be the counterpart of her spiritual portrait. But she is growing towards that standard every day. Would that you and I were, old friend!”

“There is time yet,” I said; “let us try.”

THE CHURCH.

It is of her womb that we are born; our nourishing is from her milk; our quickening from her breath.... She it is who keeps us for God, and appoints unto the kingdom the sons she has borne.... He who leaves the church of Christ attains not to Christ’s rewards. He is an alien, an outcast, an enemy. He can no longer have God for a father who has not the church for a mother. If any man was able to escape who remained without the ark of Noah, then will that man escape who is out of doors beyond the church. The Lord warns us, and says: “He who is not with me is against me; and he who gathereth not with me scattereth.” ... He who gathereth elsewhere but in the church, scatters the church of Christ.--_St. Cyprian._

THE NECESSITY OF PHILOSOPHY AS A BASIS OF HIGHER EDUCATION.

BY F. RAMIERE, S.J.

FROM THE ETUDES RELIGIEUSES.

CONCLUDED.

UTILITY OF PHILOSOPHY FOR THE FORMATION OF THE POET AND OF THE ORATOR.

The foregoing considerations have borne us up to those luminous heights where philosophy, poetry, and eloquence, separated in their lower regions, mingle and become one. Would to God that the poets frequented more assiduously these sublime regions! How their inspirations would gain in nobleness as well as in purity; how much ignominy would they spare themselves; how many scandals to society! We should not then see them separate beauty from truth, as they too often do, place all the perfection of art in an empty form, and make their independence consist in placing themselves under the hateful yoke of error and of vice.

Such is the ignoble theory which one is compelled to sustain if he deny that the study of philosophy is of the greatest utility for the poet. Unfortunately, this theory has found in our days only too many defenders. How much more numerous still are those who put it in practice!

It is in vain, I know, for me to endeavor to bring back to a sounder and nobler conception of the most beautiful of all arts those poets who debase it by their very idolatry. But, though they may despise the voice of a Christian, let them listen at least to a pagan--a poet like themselves. It is a disciple of Epicurus, it is Horace who tells them to what a shameful barrenness they condemn themselves in refusing to draw from those sources which philosophy opens up to them.

This great master of the poetic art declares to them plainly enough that “unless they first learn to think well, it is vain for them to hope to write well; that it is from philosophy they must borrow the subjects which it is for poetry to adorn with her rich ornaments; that beauty of style can only be the result of beauty of things; and that a work which contains solid truths under an inelegant form, has far more legitimate titles to real success than verses bare of thought and resonant with trifles.”

“Scribendi recte sapere est et principium et fons. Rem tibi Socraticæ poterunt ostendere chartæ; Verbaque provisam rem non invita sequentur.... Interdum speciosa locis morataque recte Fabula, nullius veneris, sine pondere et arte, Valdius oblectat populum meliusque moratur, Quam versus inopes rerum nugæque canoræ.”

If Horace returned among us, he would have no cause to congratulate us on our fidelity in following those precepts, which good sense dictated to him, and which all of us have learned by heart from our childhood. Modern poetry has something far different to do than demand of wisdom the theme of its song. It drinks, generally at least, at founts of beauty of quite another character; the ideal is nothing to it; the living expression of reality in its every imperfection, of the revolting, of the hideous, such is the task which it imposes on itself; emotion, such its aim--a surprising strangeness of imagery, novelty of expression, peculiarity of character, harshness of pictures, harmony of rhyme replacing harmony of thought--behold its means of success. Behold the merits which an effete society looks for in those whose mission is to amuse it, and to which these easy-going poets sacrifice the most magnificent gifts of the Creator.

Dante places in one of the circles of his hell a lost one whose crime consisted in having, by vileness of heart, made a great abdication (_Che fece per viltade il gran rifiuto_). It is difficult to recognize this criminal, on whose brow inexorable justice or the political rancor of the Florentine poet branded this burning stigma. But to whom can it be applied more justly than to these kings of poetry whom we see in our own days making themselves slaves of a vile popularity; to these prophets of the natural order, who prostitute to error the power which was given them to embellish truth, and who employ the creative force which makes them participators of the most noble attribute of Almighty God, in order to form the idols which draw away the crowd from the altars of Jehovah? O traitor poets! veritable apostates of genius, what gain is yours in debasing thus the most beautiful of arts! In place of profaning your lyre by songs which awake in hearts nothing but the lowest desires and most guilty passions, would it not be worthier of you to avail yourselves of this irresistible power of seduction which you exercise over your brothers, in drawing them in your train to the pursuit of true beauty? Do you alone fail to perceive the forfeiture which threatens your genius from the moment that it denies to truth the glorious testimony which truth demands of it? Do you not see that the beauty of forms fails you from the time that you seek it outside of the beauty of thoughts? Can you be astonished that your influence over souls is null, when you are pleased to destroy it with your own hands? Is it not you who, in denying the philosophy which would elevate your art to the height of a priesthood, reduce it to nothing more than a frivolous pastime for the idle, unless, indeed, you place it as an incendiary torch in the hands of the factious?

Still less than poetry may eloquence consent to lower its dignity to the botching up of incoherent images and the nice balancing of periods as empty as they are sonorous. More serious in its aim, more positive in the immediate results which it has in view, it can still less dispense with the assistance of philosophy. Listen to one of its princes, who is at the same time the chief of its lawgivers, while he proclaims loudly this dependence. “Let us lay down in the beginning,” says Cicero, in the book _De Oratore_, “that the aid of philosophy is indispensable for the formation of the perfect orator whom we seek. It alone can open up to him an inexhaustible source of great thoughts and developments as large as they are varied. It is to it that Pericles owed, according to the testimony of Plato, his superiority over all his rivals. The lessons of Anaxagoras developed the fecundity of his genius; they taught him, among other things, the great secret of eloquence, the art of discerning the proper incentives for moving the passions and the different faculties of the soul. Plato rendered the same service to Demosthenes. And how,” continues Cicero, “how can we without philosophy know the properties of things, whether generic or specific, how can we define them, divide them, discern the true from the false, deduce consequences, refute that which is repugnant, distinguish that which is ambiguous? How can we penetrate into the nature of things, a knowledge of which imparts its chief richness to the discourse? How can we speak pertinently of the moral life, of duties, of virtues, if we have not searched deeply into these truths, aided by the light of philosophy?”

In these words, Cicero displays admirably the superiority of the philosophic orator over the one who depends for the guarantee of success on the facility of his memory, the wealth of his imagination, or the vehemence of his feeling. Such a one without doubt can carry off triumphs; he may reap the applause of the crowd, and drag the masses in his train. The masses, who live much more by imagination than by intelligence, scarcely perceive the want of depth, and allow themselves to be captivated by the splendor of imagery and the rush of movements. But he who would seek a success more real than passing applause, he who would understand that the aim of eloquence is to render men better, and that imagery and feelings are for it but the instruments destined to make truth triumph--such a man will strive above all to place himself in possession of that truth which he is called upon to communicate to his fellows, to know the nature and extent of the duties whose observance he must inculcate, to acquire, in order to communicate it to them, the true science of good and evil. Besides this, he will study the nature of the souls over whom God destines him to hold sway, by the all-powerful sceptre of speech; he will inquire into the conditions and the requirements of each one of those faculties and passions, which he ought alternately to move like an obedient army, and push forward to the conquest of good and the banishment of evil. When philosophy shall have given him this knowledge, when it shall have arranged it in his mind in luminous order, then the orator will be a priest. He will have nothing more to do than, following the circumstances, to give to each of his teeming thoughts the form which befits it: on whatever subject he has to speak, the great principles will offer themselves, his plan will be all arranged beforehand, the framework of his discourse all laid out; his march will be firm, his divisions clear, his advance irresistible; and, while the orator of imagination will go on groping, without order and without light, contenting himself with flowering the surface of the soul, the philosophic orator will penetrate into the depths of the intellect, and will establish therein, on convictions which cannot be broken down, the motives of which he will avail himself victoriously to persuade the will.

VI.

NECESSITY OF PHILOSOPHY FOR THE FORMATION OF THE THEOLOGIAN.

That we may comprehend in all its extent the utility of philosophy, there remains still to be examined its relation with the divine science--theology. A single glance will suffice to convince us that there is no science with which it should be more intimately bound up than with this queen of sciences, which occupies uncontested the first place in the hierarchy of knowledge. This first rank would have belonged of right to philosophy, had not God thought it good to make us acquainted by his Word with the treasures of his own science. But far from revelation having lowered our reason by adding to its light a higher light; far from philosophy being abased in receiving from the sovereign truth illuminations which of itself it could never have attained, it has on the contrary acquired thereby a wealth and an elevation incomparable; for, in allying itself with the word of God, in uniting its gifts with the gifts of faith, in applying its principles and processes to the dogmas revealed, it has produced a science greater than itself, though born in its bosom--a science divine in its object, like the Word who is its father, although it remains human in form, like the philosophy of which it has this form--the scholastic theology.

There is, then, between theology and philosophy a connection of dependence, which renders the study of the first of these sciences impossible without the preliminary study of the second. It is not with theology as it is with faith: faith is entirely supernatural, and consequently it cannot depend directly on any natural cause. Thus we have established above that the utility of philosophy for the acquirement and keeping of faith can only be a negative utility.

Theology, on the contrary, supernatural in its object, is natural in its essence, since it consists in the rational analysis of the data of faith. There is, then, nothing repugnant in admitting the very direct and very positive influence which the study of philosophy exercises over its acquisition.

This influence extends itself to every branch of theology--to dogmatic theology first; for this branch of sacred science, as we have shown in a preceding article, borrows from philosophy the processes which it uses, the method which it follows, and the greatest part of the definitions and axioms on which it depends.

God, having made use of human language in order to reveal to us his mysteries, has laid us thereby under an obligation of applying, in a just measure, to the supernatural order the ideas of the natural order expressed by this language. We must therefore analyze with the greatest care those ideas, under pain of comprehending nothing of revelation, and of falling into the most fatal errors; and this analysis ought to be proportionately more delicate when it applies itself to ideas involved in the dogmas of faith, since it ought to discern in those ideas that which is proper to the supernatural order from that which belongs to the universal essence of things.

The study of dogmatic theology is then impossible if it does not depend upon an exact and profound study of metaphysics. There is not a single one of those general notions which the science of metaphysics tries in its crucible that does not show itself again in the different treatises of theology, and present itself before us under all its forms. He who has not beforehand penetrated into the depths of these notions will walk in darkness; he will hesitate and be in constant doubt, and will have no means of protecting himself from the grossest blunders save by imposing on himself the rigorous task of studying philosophy in proportion as he advances in the study of theology.

The same connection which exists between speculative philosophy and dogmatic theology exists between practical philosophy, moral theology, and canon law. Perhaps this latter connection is still more intimate than the former; for in moral questions there is much less of revealed truth than in dogmatic. The moral theologian, then, will apply most often to reason for the principles which ought to guide him. It is therefore by the aid of this torch that he will solve the difficulties which present themselves in the application of those principles. The greatest part of the duties which man has to fulfil, whether towards God, towards his fellows, or himself, pertain to the essential order, and are therefore under the domain of philosophy. To it, in fine, belong those fundamental theories on human actions and conscience which form as it were the pivot of moral theology.

As for canon law, its study presupposes general notions on law and on the conditions of social authority no less than the study of civil jurisprudence. Natural right is the necessary preamble of both; it establishes the base whereon is founded the legislation of the church as well as of the state; it lays down the general formulas which the positive laws apply to particular cases; it is then to positive right, whether canonical or civil, what algebra is to geometry. He who is possessed of it will have no difficulty in generalizing particular data, and enlarging by simplifying them, as he who ignores it will only acquire a far more imperfect knowledge at the cost of a far greater amount of labor.

These considerations will aid us in comprehending the importance which the church has attached from all time to the teachings of philosophy in her universities, and the efforts she has made to lift it up when she has seen it threatened by a disastrous decline. If we have caught the straight line which connects this teaching with that of sacred science, we shall no longer be astonished at seeing a great Pope publish a bull in order to give to philosophy the favor which the emoluments attached to the study of jurisprudence tended to snatch from it. The church knew that philosophy could not fall without theology falling with it. Would that we could understand it thus, and apply to the restoration of philosophy all the zeal which we ought to have for the resurrection of the high ecclesiastical studies!

It is here--let us understand it well--that we must commence. If you take St. Augustine or St. Thomas as the type of a great theologian, you cannot fail to set upon his brow the aureola of philosophy. A theology which, to the exposition of dogma, did not unite its philosophic analysis, would be nothing more than a catechism; it would have nothing in common with that magnificent science, the materials of which the holy fathers have furnished, and whose majestic edifice the scholastic doctors have built up. Never will the priest be able to fulfil, in all its extent, the function of doctor, unaided by a profound study of philosophy; never, above all, will he be able to defend revealed truth against the attacks of its enemies; for I ask, against what points are these attacks directed to-day above all? Is it not against those truths which belong at once to the natural and supernatural order--to philosophy and theology? And of what arms do our enemies avail themselves to effect a breach in these fundamental dogmas? Are they not almost exclusively those with which a false philosophy supplies them? What shall we do then, we, the defenders of truth? What is our sacred, indispensable duty in the face of these attacks, which day by day tear away one or other of the sheep from the flock of the church? Are we to content ourselves with groaning over the abuse of reason? Shall we give pretext to the ignorant to conclude from our invectives that there is a contradiction between our faith and true philosophy? No; we will mount the breach boldly; we will capture the weapon which our enemy uses in his attack. Our fathers in the faith have taught us how to wield it. Let us demonstrate that true philosophy is on our side, and that our adversaries can only attack our faith by denying their own reason. Thus the ignorant will be enlightened; the wavering minds strengthened; come what may, we shall have done our duty in rendering to the Word of God the testimony which the necessities of the time in which we live demand of us.

I trust I have said enough to disabuse those of their dangerous error who believe that they glorify theology by vilifying with all their power philosophy. Undoubtedly the philosophy which they pursue with their invective is the philosophy which is separate from faith, the philosophy of doubt, of revolt, that is to say, the very opposite of true philosophy. But to hear them speak, one would say, sometimes, that they recognized no other philosophy than that, and conceded to their adversaries the absurd and insolent pretension which they assume of being the representatives of reason. Thank God, this pretension was never less defensible than in our days; never has revolted reason done better the work of faith by its monstrous excesses, and made more advantageous the ground of the champions of the cause of God. Never was it more manifest that there are no true defenders of human dignity except the defenders of divine authority. Let us know how to profit by our advantages. All of us who love the church and the doctrine of heaven, whose depository is the church--we who groan under the darkness which gathers round intelligence, and seems to thicken day by day, let us unite our efforts, and employ every influence we possess toward that restoration of true philosophy which is so desirable. Thereby we render a service equally signal to society and to the church: to society, which is being lost, because the love of truth is extinguished in the hearts of men; to the church, the mistress of truth, which has no longer a hold upon souls to whom truth is nothing. Nay, more; to the divine Word himself we render the greatest service he can expect from his creatures, by re-establishing in their integrity the two channels whereby he pours his light into our intelligence--the science of natural and supernatural truths.

We must, in fact, lift ourselves up to the divine Word in order to form an idea of the destination of philosophy, and to appreciate exactly its dignity and importance. Is not he indeed the common source of natural and supernatural truth? Different in their mode of manifesting themselves to us, are they not identical in their beginning? Whence comes it that, in perceiving the essential properties of my soul, the laws of numbers and of figures, I am absolutely certain that all minds which judge rightly must perceive them in the same manner, and that never, at any moment of time or eternity, can they perceive them otherwise? This necessity, this immensity, this eternity, which our intelligence embraces, proves to us manifestly that these essential laws which we perceive in contingent beings are but the reproduction of a necessary and infinite type. It is then the splendor of God, it is his Word, who reveals himself to our reason, by the medium of his creatures, before revealing himself to us by himself. Philosophy is, then, truly a way which God has opened up for us of journeying to him, and should we disdain to enter thereon? Should not we traverse it with the same reverence with which Moses approached the burning bush? And when, guided by Augustine and Thomas, we behold appear before our eyes the great light of the idea of the infinite; when that name Jehovah, He who is, graven in our soul by the hand of God himself, and involved in the idea of being in all our intellectual acts, shall unfold itself little by little and grow in splendor, like the flame of the aurora, and reveal to us at last in their infinite simplicity the multiplicity of the divine attributes and the laws of all creation, shall we not bow ourselves down before him with the prophet and intone a canticle of acts of praise? And should we permit one to speak with contempt of a science whereby God is manifested to us? Let one say all the evil he wishes of that proud philosophy which seeks in the natural light of reason a means of obscuring the supernatural light of faith. Nothing, I acknowledge, is so revolting, nothing so satanic, as this transformation of light into darkness which a systematic incredulity effects in a rebellious intelligence. But, in like manner, nothing is so beautiful, nothing so divine, as the fusion of natural with supernatural light, of philosophy with faith, which is effected in the intellect of a Christian. Read the _Summa_ of St. Thomas, the _Confessions_ and the other works of St. Augustine, the _Itinerarium of the Soul to God_ of St. Bonaventure, and try, if you can, to separate one from another the thoughts and the sentiments which these great doctors have borrowed from faith, from those which they have borrowed from philosophy. This separation you will find impossible--the rays of these two torches are so intersected, united, and mingled in these splendid intellects. Starting from the same focus, after traversing diverse routes, they find themselves reunited in acting together on souls as eager for science as they are docile to the teachings of faith; and together they have worked in the soul to fulfil their common mission, in producing in them the created image of the uncreated Word. This union with the light of faith in the intellect of the Christian is the end to which philosophy aspires, in the same way as faith, penetrating into this intellect, seeks to unite itself therein with science. “Faith seeking understanding.” Oh! how ill do those understand the interests of philosophy who are ever prating of its independence, and who by independence understand an absolute separation between its teachings and those of revelation! How can light tend to separate itself from light? No, not in this separation does the dignity of philosophy consist; it consists, on the contrary, in producing here below in the soul of its true disciples a reflection and an outline of that splendor which the clear vision of the divine essence produces in the intelligence of the blessed, to make them comprehend what they believe in order to make them love it the more.

VII.

But it is time to pause. However incomplete may have been the development of the thesis I undertook to prove, I have said enough, I think, to make obvious the capital importance of philosophy, its necessity for the formation of the man and the Christian, of the influential citizen and the defender of the church. Hence I have a right to conclude that the far too narrow corner allotted by us to this study in the framework of a liberal education is a very great misfortune, and constitutes one of the gravest dangers of the actual state of things. A society which neglects to form the intellect of the new generation is evidently a society condemned to an inevitable decay.

Independently of this common peril, very capable it seems of awakening our solicitude, I have demonstrated that for the unfortunate youth launched into the midst of the _mêlée_ of errors without having been prepared by a deep study of truth, there was a danger of disaster, from which he could only escape by miracle. On whom, I ask, falls the responsibility of this disaster, save on those who, with the power and obligation of giving this youth the preparation whose necessity has been pointed out to them, shall have neglected to acquit themselves of this duty?

It is not for me to say more. I know all the excuses that one may justly allege to throw off this terrible responsibility. The masters are hindered by the parents, the parents themselves are hindered by social necessities. The anti-rational spirit of this age of rationalism is like an impetuous wind which whirls away youth far from serious reflection, and which neutralizes the best directed teaching.

These excuses may quiet our consciences for the past, but they can in no wise lessen our fears for the future. The evil exists in all its gravity, and it is necessary at any cost to remedy it.

The first thing to do is clearly to use all our means of persuasion, in order to make parents and youth themselves comprehend the essential importance of philosophy. It is necessary to accustom them from the earliest period of life to regard this study as the indispensable completion of their education; the most solid guarantee for their future success, the act of emancipation of their manhood, the taking complete possession of their dignity as men, and the most powerful instrument which they are called upon to hold of influencing their fellows. If from the moment of entering upon this laborious career of education, we do not accustom them to consider the science of things as the reward most to be desired of all the labors they undertake in acquiring the science of words, we cannot expect that at the moment when custom authorizes them to reclaim their liberty, they will submit themselves willingly to bear two years longer the yoke of dependence.

Here we have the first thing necessary to do in order to ward off the immense danger with which the decline of philosophy threatens us.

But there is a remedy still more efficacious and still more necessary against this evil. If we wish philosophy to be esteemed and studied, let us render it worthy of the esteem we claim for it, and of the sacrifices at the cost of which it must be acquired. Let us lift it up from its fall; let us prove, not by _a priori_ arguments, but by the very reality, that it is worthy of its name. Let it appear in our books and in our hearts no longer as we find it satirically represented in certain ancient pictures, as the combat between a lizard and a scorpion, but like that bee of which the church speaks to us in the beautiful Office of St. Cecilia, which, reserving for the enemies of truth its piercing sting, goes to place in the bottom of the chalice the most odorous essence of all the flowers to compose for it its honey, _quasi apis argumentosa_. Let us acknowledge, then, if philosophy is too neglected and so profoundly despised in our days, it is above all to those who have abused it that it ought to impute its disgrace. Christianity had made philosophy divine, as it made divine everything that it touched. It was a virgin as beautiful as she was pure whose earthly form was surrounded by a halo of heaven. Impure lovers of her human beauty have endeavored to force her to apostasy, in order to be able to make her the toy of their swollen pride. Alas! they have only been too successful. With its divine beauty its very human form has passed away, and nothing is left in their hands save a disfigured corpse. But God has made sciences curable as well as nations. He only waits for us to lift up philosophy from where she lies, and restore her to life and dignity.

Let us put an end to this senseless and fatal contest which during two centuries reason has waged against faith; let us cease from using against God the most noble gift with which he has endowed our nature; let us cease to oppose light to light, natural to supernatural truth; let us desist from converting the ray which illumines our soul into a veil to hide us from the sun, and taking the waters of the stream made turbid by our pride to trouble the source. Let us, in a word, understand the true conditions of the liberty and greatness of the creature: nothing of itself, it can rise even to the infinite, to the condition of union with it, and of leaning upon its strength.

Let reason understand this law which is so rational, and philosophy by that same law take back the glorious place which God marked out for it; it will remount the throne whence its revolt hurled it, and acquire anew the right of dictating to the other sciences the eternal principles and immutable laws on which the natural order depends.

FOOTNOTE:

[202] Mrs. Beecher Stowe, _Minister’s Wooing_.

ON THE MISTY MOUNTAIN.

CONCLUDED.

ROUTE III.

One does not feel particularly festive starting out in the rain and the dim uncertain light of the hour before day. The best thing to be done under these circumstances is to go to sleep, if you can sleep staging. The “front boot” affords a very comfortable berth, of which the lieutenant took possession. I concluded to go inside, and endeavor to snatch the shaky sleep of a coach. I felt as though I could not keep awake if the road were picketed by hostile redskins. The ladies--bless their kind souls!--sat close to make room. I sank into a corner, and was soon jolted into a sleep.

I was aroused by a sudden stoppage. The day had dawned. I looked out of the stage, and saw a wagon overturned in the road. Seeing the conductor and the lieutenant alight, I alighted. The body of a man lay by the upturned wagon.

“It’s poor Tommy!” said the lieutenant.

“I thought the thievin’, cowardly devils would git him at last,” said the conductor. “Poor old Tommy! It will be an awful blow for his wife and her six poor orphans.”

Yes! there lay poor Tommy in the early sunlight--dead, stripped, and scalped. His clothes had been torn from his body, which was gashed in every limb. Every gash, the lieutenant told me, was the sign of a different tribe. The number on poor Tommy’s body showed that representatives of seven tribes assisted at his murder. His throat was cut across--the sign of the “Cut-throats.” His arms and his thighs were crossed by deep transverse gashes. His abdomen was scored by two long gashes meeting in a point. The lieutenant told me the names of the tribes whose devilish signs-manual were written in the blood and on the flesh of poor “Tommy John,” but I have memory only of one in the horrid sight then before me.

The oxen lay with their throats cut and large pieces hacked out of their still quivering flanks. The Indians had taken everything they could use. What they did not take, with savage malignity they had broken into atoms or torn into shreds. A baby’s crib and a child’s chair which the poor fond father was taking to his little ones on the “Sandy” were broken into very chips.

We remained for some time gazing on this horrid sight. No one spoke. At length the lieutenant and sergeant decently covered the mangled body with a blanket. As we were already behind time, the conductor said he could not take back to the station the body of the murdered man. We concluded to remain by it until the arrival of the stage from the West, which was already due at that point.

It was a sad vigil--fortunately not a prolonged one. The stage from the West arrived. It had no passengers. We wrapped poor Tommy in an additional blanket, and the coach drove off, taking him away for ever on this earth from his “old lady and his half-dozen babies over on the Sandy.”

After having examined the “signs” about the place of the murder, the lieutenant and the conductor estimated the number of Indians engaged in the bloody deed at about fifty. Matters became critical. I could not stay inside the stage any longer. I mounted the roof once more, feeling that if I were to be killed by Indians--a fate to which I did not in the least aspire--I wanted to see whence my death-bolt came, and have plenty of room to die in.

The party on top of the stage seemed quite cool, but by no means conversationally inclined. I could see their keen eyes continually making the circuit of the horizon, which traced around us a perfect circle unbroken by mound or shrub.

We reached the Lone Hollow Station, a “swing,” twenty-eight miles from Artesian Wells, without seeing any more signs of Indians. Here we found yesterday’s Western-bound stage. It had started at the usual time, but when within a mile or so of Cypress Spring, an abandoned intermediate or “swing” station, the driver saw the buildings in flames. With a glass he could discern Indians about the burning structures. He had wisely concluded to turn back to the station he had left, and there we found him. He had no passengers.

Lone Hollow Station was kept by a solitary stock-tender--an old fellow who received “$75 per month and found,” for offering himself as a perpetual candidate for immolation by his red brethren.

When we arrived at the Lone Hollow, I felt an unaccountable buoyancy and a rather humiliating craving for food--animal or vegetable. Fortunately, the old stock-trader had some biscuit and a large panful of dried apples. Tea was soon made, and I ate an immense meal. I was not alone in this, however; the lieutenant, the conductor, in short everybody, ate voraciously, except the women, who still clung to the coach, and could not be prevailed upon to change their position for a moment. The men were all in high spirits, and there seemed to be no more trace of Tommy John’s memory than if he had never been.

“How do you find it here now?” asked the lieutenant of the old stock-tender. “Pretty lonely?”

“Well,” answered John, “rather. Before they sent away the hosses and tuk to mules, things wuz more sociable-like. I got fond of them hosses, and them hosses got fond of me. But a mule ain’t got no feelin’ for nobody. You can’t trust ’em. They’re too tricky. I didn’t feel near so lonesome last year. I had a big yellow dog that was the best companion I ever had. But he got pisoned, by eatin’ wolf-bait most likely; and now I ain’t got nothin’ but two small pups, and they ain’t no society for a man.”

“I should think not,” said the lieutenant.

With an abominable want of _savoir-faire_, I must strike in at this point with the following:

“Being alone here, are you not afraid of Indians?”

The question was one which evidently disturbed the old fellow. I saw it was a sore subject with him, and regretted having touched upon it. It was plain he wished to keep it out of his thoughts.

“The Injuns won’t bother me,” he said nervously and impatiently, as if hastily thrusting the skeleton out of sight.

The “dug-out” has its skeleton-closet as well as the palace.

“What do you do to pass the time, John?” asked the conductor.

“Well,” replied John, “I cook--look after the mules--_promenade_ up to the crest of the ridge. When all my work is done, and I want something to keep my mind occupied, I mend old clothes.”

Our colloquy was cut short, by the warning cry of “All aboard!”

Both coaches were ready to start. The conductors had concluded to unite their forces. This arrangement gave more room. We divided our party; the lieutenant and I mounted the empty coach, which now took the lead, followed at about fifty yards by the other.

The flash of good spirits which blazed momentarily at the station soon died out. Everybody seemed disposed to silence. We were all busy, straining our eyes, watching for Indians.

Ten miles passed thus without other conversation than monosyllabic remarks. From the top of a “divide,” we now looked upon the charred and smouldering relics of Cypress Station. We stopped and reconnoitred carefully before descending. There were no Indians to be seen. Having descended the Hollow in which the station had stood, we found the tracks very fresh. The lieutenant, the sergeant, and the conductor, attended by the writer (through curiosity rather than bravery), alighted and examined the ground. The Indians had destroyed everything they could lay hands on outside of the redoubts or “dug-outs.” These they had not dared to enter. The rough “bunks” of undressed timber used by the guards were untouched. In one was found a water-keg, and in the other a woollen blanket, left in the hurry of departure, but which no Indian could have seen and not appropriated to his own use and benefit.

“The Indians are afraid of those ‘dug-outs’ even when unoccupied,” said the lieutenant. “They do not like to go near them--much less enter them. They fear a trap of some kind. An Indian always strives to keep his lines of retreat open; he wants a good chance to run away. Indians have been known to watch about abandoned stations for days before daring to go within rifle-range of the ‘dug-outs.’”

Within four miles of Sandy Station, a spur sweeping semicircularly from a high bluff to the north nearly touches the road on that side, while the great bend of the Big Dryasdust cuts into it on the south. The lowland to the west of the spur is entirely concealed from the view of the traveller. This was a favorite place for Indian ambuscades, and we approached it with great caution. After crossing the bridge the driver said to the conductor:

“Ain’t that Mac’s pony out yonder?”

“Let’s see!” said the conductor, taking the field-glass and adjusting it. “Pull up a minute, Joe! I can’t see with this outfit while the coach is moving. Now, then! By the law, sir, that there’s Mac’s pony! He acts mighty strange, too. He is either lamed or hobbled. No! by gracious! he’s not hobbled. He’s saddled, too! He’s wounded, sir! You may bet your bottom dollar!”

“Drive over to him and see,” said the lieutenant.

The coaches were driven to where the pony was on the prairie, about a mile from the road. The lieutenant jumped out.

“Gentlemen!” said he, “this is more Indian work.”

And so it was. The pony had one bullet-hole through the near foreshoulder. A second ball had struck it on the lower jaw, and turned a portion of it with the teeth over on the tongue, which was held as in a vice. The poor animal seemed to suffer intensely. It was proposed to shoot it to end its suffering, but the proposition was not agreed to.

“Let’s try and prise back his teeth so that he can eat, and he’ll find his way back to the station.”

With a “king-bolt” for a lever, by the united efforts of four men the teeth with the portion of the lower jaw containing them were turned back, and resumed their natural position with a snap like that of a spring-lock. The poor animal, relieved, at once began grazing.

“Come, gentlemen,” said the driver, “get aboard, and let’s make for the station. There’s been trouble, sure.”

When we reached the road again the conductor of our coach said he heard a shot in the direction of the station. The lieutenant said he thought he had heard it, but it might be imagination, our thoughts being occupied by such anticipations. All doubts were soon at an end, however, for we all heard the next shot, and then another and another.

You get within half a mile of Sandy Station before you see it. As soon as we reached the point from which it is visible, we could see that a pretty lively fight was going on between the men at the station and a mounted party on the opposite bank of the stream. The attacking party were about fifty in number, all mounted, some having remounts which they led. They rode at full speed in single file, at intervals of some paces, in a circle whose circumference at the point opposite to the station nearly reached the stream. Each horseman fired as he reached this point. The party at the station were well covered by the roof of a “dug-out” stable cut in the bank. The attacking party looked more like Mexicans than Indians. They wore wide-brimmed straw hats, and their body-covering was of a dark color.

The conductor, however, pronounced them Indians.

“They have,” said he, “the broad-brimmed straw hats, uniform coats, and six-shooters given them by the Peace Commissioners last spring.”

The drivers now dashed on with all the speed of their animals, “to have a little piece of the fight,” they said; but, no doubt, also to escape being cut off by a party who were evidently preparing to cross the creek for that purpose. Fortunately, though there was very little water in the stream, it was very wide, and full of soft, wet, treacherous sand. Half a dozen Indians galloped to the bank when they saw us, and rode up and down seeking for a crossing. One of them dashed in, and his pony soon went down to its flanks. Two snap-shots from our stage as we dashed by grazed him pretty closely. A third wounded him and caused him to abandon his pony. He was helped up the bank by the others, put on a spare pony, and, supported by an Indian on either side, was carried at full speed out of range. Luckily for the other Indians, they succeeded in doing this while we were getting out of the stage, which we did as quickly as possible after getting the ladies’ coach under the lee of the stable.

We were all anxious, of course, “to get a shot in the fight.” I was in a state of intense excitement. I received a pretty lively shock from the unexpected discharge of my gun while I was in the act of cocking it. Its position was fortunately, however, a vertical one. My friends, hearing the fire in the rear, swore, started, turned round, as if each and every one of them had received a bullet. Seeing the source of the firing, and finding nobody hurt, they laughed, but insisted I should henceforth move in advance, as they could not stand such firing as mine. After this little episode, I “got in” a couple of shots; I cannot say with what success, as for the life of me I could not tell where my bullets struck.

There were now on our side ten men and a non-commissioned officer of regular infantry, two or three station men, and our reinforcement of two drivers, two conductors, the lieutenant, the sergeant, and myself. One or two good volleys from our party soon put an end to the circus performances of the “friendly Indians.” They scattered and disappeared as if by magic. They sent us their P.P.C. compliments in some stray shots, the flash and smoke revealing whence they came, not an Indian being in sight.

“Now, gentlemen!” said Mr. Bunter, the station-keeper, “I think we can take a bite o’ dinner.”

The worthy landlady, Mrs. Bunter, furnished a notable instance of the susceptibility and indifference to externals of the lovers of the plains. She was known, I was informed, as the “widow,” though her husband, a tall, broad-chested, intelligent-looking man of about thirty-three or thirty-four, was “alive,” and probably capable of a good deal of vigorous “kicking.” The _sobriquet_ had clung to the lady from her very general appearance in the character indicated by it. Her present husband was the fourth or fifth occupant of the position. Notwithstanding the number of her husbands, her terms of wedded bliss were very brief. Widowhood was the rule, connubial felicity the exception. Hence was it that, though married, she was still universally spoken of as “the widow,” and some not very intimate acquaintances already knew her as the Widow Bunter. The stalwart husband did not appear to see any unpleasant significance in the title given his fair spouse. He was jovial, and seemed contented.

“The widow” did the service of the table, and very well served and supplied it was. A good antelope stew, with cabbage and potatoes (luxuries in the then uncultivated world of the plains), good bread and butter, pies, and an excellent cup of tea, made us all feel, as our driver expressed it, “mighty good.” Mrs. Bunter evidently made pretensions to personal attractiveness. She was a woman of thirty--perhaps past that proverbially captivating age--very tall, lank, concave-chested, with great projecting teeth and bony, clawlike fingers. Her long, thin visage was thickly coated with rice powder (or flour), which stood out in bold ridges on her high cheek-bones, while pools of rouge shone in the cavities of her hollow cheeks. She had a clear, cold, steady eye, however, which showed that, if she was devoid of heart, as was commonly supposed, she was not without a will of her own. In her time, she had created quite a flutter among the gentlemen of the stage-driving and stock-tending professions. The dread of relicts which embittered the maturer years of the elder Weller had no place in the bold bosoms of the “whips” of the desert. More than one man (not including her four dear departed) had died “for her sake.” The shooting of one suitor only had the effect which hanging a British admiral formerly was supposed to have--that of “encouraging the others.”

Swift and ample justice was done to the “squarest meal,” as the driver termed it, we had upon the road. A very few minutes sufficed us to make a hearty dinner, and we were seated in the porch, pipes were being filled and lighted, preparatory to a discussion of the various incidents of the fight, when the wounded pony we had seen upon the road limped into the station. His master had not been dead more than a few hours, but he was completely forgotten until the arrival of his wounded horse brought him to mind again. So ordinary an event was the killing of a man by Indians, at that time, on the Misty Mountain.

“Where’s Mac?” asked the driver.

“In yonder,” answered our host, nodding toward the granary.

“Hurt?”

“Killed.”

“How?”

“The fust we knew there wuz Injuns around wuz when Mac was attacked. He rode down to the Butte to bring in a horse from the herd. We heard shootin’ down that way. Jim and I and the blacksmith took our arms and rode toward the firin’. When we got near the Butte, we seen three our four Injuns circlin’ round Mac, whose pony was wounded, firin’ at him from all directions. I think he wuz already dead when we first seen him. We made all the haste we could, and druv them from the body, but we wuz too late to stop ‘em from playin’ some o’ their usual tricks. We got the body on to one of the horses, and started back for the station at an easy pace, drivin’ in the loose stock afore us. When we’d come within about three-quarters of a mile of the station, we seen the soldiers runnin’ towards us with their muskets in their hands and makin’ signs to us. I looked back and seen the durned Injuns with twenty or thirty more comin’ for us. I hollered to Jim and the smith to light out for the station. We separated, to give the soldiers a chance to git in their fire on ’em, which they did. This staggered ’em somewhat and saved us. They got two of our animals, though!”

Some one proposed going to the granary to look at poor Mac’s remains. The body lay among corn-sacks and miscellaneous stores. Mac was a tall, well-shaped young fellow of twenty-three or twenty-four. He had evidently made the best fight he could. When he left the station, his revolver had but two loads. He fired them both at his savage foes. Bunter said, had it not been for the wounding of his pony, “the Indians would not have got him.”

The Indians had raised Mac’s entire scalp, slitting it through the centre and turning it down over his face. This sight was not beheld unmoved by even the most hardened frontierman in the party. Had one of those worthy and humane gentlemen, the Peace Commissioners, unfortunately dropped in at that moment, I fear he might have been the recipient of much personal indignity, if not of serious bodily harm. The presence of a regular officer with the station-guard would have saved him from falling a martyr to his humanitarian convictions. Without the soldiers he might even attain the crown of martyrdom.

“As we’re here, boys,” said the driver, with a view to economy of time, “let’s fix him out like a Christian.”

Rough in speech, yet tender in action, they set to work to make ready poor Mac’s remains for the grave. His scalp was returned to its proper place and sewed together, his hair combed, and his blood-stained face cleansed of its gory marks. He was shrouded in a pair of soldier’s drawers and an under-shirt. Several empty chests in the room were measured, but proved too short for a coffin. A large arms-chest was furnished by the soldiers, which, with a slight addition to its length, supplied the improvised bier on which we laid “poor Mac.” Scarcely had these sad offices been performed when the sentinel without shouted:

“Indians in sight!”

There was a rush for the outside. Every man picked up his gun. With the glass the Indians could be seen crossing the stream near where they had murdered MacSorley. The party was increased to a hundred and fifty or two hundred. They moved to the top of the bluff, and remained there for some time, apparently holding a council as to their future movements. The lieutenant, after instructing the commander of the station-guard to wake him as soon as the Indians showed a disposition to move, spread out his blankets, lay down, and fell asleep over a novel. The driver and conductor followed his example; and the latter was soon in the arms of Morpheus. But I could not sleep. I was too much excited by the unusual events I had witnessed during the past twenty-four hours. So I fraternized with the soldiers of the guard, and listened to their opinions on Indian matters, and their tales of Indian adventure.

About sunset the Indians began to move. Unanimity of action was not the result of their council; they separated into two parties, one of which went due east, the other to the northwest, passing in rear of the station, but at the respectful distance of three or four miles from it.

Night fell at last. Sentinels having been properly posted, all who were not on guard, except the lieutenant and the writer, went to bed, or, rather, to a blanket on the floor. I sat up to write some letters by a dirty, sputtering candle on a lame, old table, the only furniture in the room, except a greasy, rickety chair. The lieutenant read his novel by the better light of a civilized candle which, knowing the customs of the region, he had had the good sense to bring with him.

The savage stillness of night on the plains fell upon the place. No sound was heard save the occasional wailing of the hungry wolves, that thronged around the barn where the dead man lay.

“Confound that horrible noise!” said the lieutenant, at last jumping up and shutting his novel with a bang. “It sets my teeth on edge, and rasps every nerve in my body. Let us go out and smoke in the open air before turning in!”

We lighted our pipes and went forth, turning our steps toward the barn. Half a dozen wolves sat around the building, looking like professional mourners, and moaning their hunger-melancholy moans. We were close to them before they would move. One of them was so hunger-bold that he stood at bay for a moment, and the lieutenant thought it necessary to draw his pistol and cock it. The click was enough for the wolf, who dashed off at once, growling with head still turned towards us, and teeth shining in a parting snarl. After smoking we proceeded upstairs, to a cold, cheerless, unfurnished room, and betook us to our blankets. The wind howled dismally through the unglazed sashes. We sought positions the least exposed to cross-draughts. Spreading our blankets on the floor, unswept except by the wind, we lay down to such rest as excitement, fatigue, and youth can bring.

We did not rise so early next morning as might be supposed from a calm consideration of our sleeping accommodations. We were up in time for breakfast, however. It was a good one, and we enjoyed it. After its conclusion arrangements were made for the burial of MacSorley. It was decided that he should be buried on the top of a high mound within about a thousand yards of the station.

The funeral _cortége_ was neither large nor imposing. It consisted of Mr. Bunter, two or three stage drivers and stock-tenders, the lieutenant, the sergeant, and the writer. The guards, excepting those necessary to protect the station, were out, posted around on commanding eminences to prevent a surprise.

The grave was already dug. The rough substitute for a coffin, drawn to the place of interment on a hayrack, was covered with its earthy bed as tenderly as possible.

Bunter had asked the lieutenant to read prayers at the grave; and the latter had consented. But there was no prayer-book to be found at the station. Bunter requested the lieutenant to improvise a prayer for the dead, when one of the men began shovelling the earth into the grave.

“Hold on, Jack!” said Bunter, “the lieutenant’s goin’ to say a prayer.”

Jack “held on,” looking rather astonished at this unusual delay.

The lieutenant threw earth upon the coffin, repeating, with a voice full of emotion, such devotional passages, appropriate to the occasion, as occurred to him, ending with the simple but all-including words of the church: “May God have mercy on his soul!”

Jack, supposing it unnecessary to “hold on” any longer, commenced pitching in the clay with the rather out-of-place energy usually displayed in the performance of that last duty.

“Hold on, Jack!” cried Mr. Bunter a second time, “the lieutenant ain’t through yet.” And Jack unwillingly ceased his labors for awhile.

“I have finished,” said the lieutenant. “I am but a poor hand at public praying; but if I spoke for an hour it would amount to no more than what I have said.”

“We don’t know whose turn it may be next,” said a young driver, feeling it proper to indulge in the hackneyed morality of such occasions--words given forth, perhaps, as mere conversational small change; but their truth was made terribly manifest shortly after. It was the young driver’s turn next. A month had not elapsed before he was killed and scalped within a mile of the station. When I passed there at a later period, they recalled what he had said, and showed me his grave by the side of MacSorley’s.

ROUTE IV.

The Big Sandy Station soon became terribly dull. I felt I would rather risk being scalped than stay there any longer. Learning that some emigrants with their families, two wagons, etc., were about to push westward, and that the lieutenant had determined to go to the next station with them, though they set out against his advice, I concluded to go on with him.

We made an early start next morning. We had two government wagons and some half a dozen men besides the emigrant contingent. When we had reached a point about a mile and a half from Big Sandy Station, the sergeant said to the lieutenant in a low tone:

“Lieutenant, there are Indians on that hill in front of us.”

The hill was about fifteen hundred yards distant. The lieutenant called a halt, and examined the redskins through a field-glass.

“They are Indians,” he said, “and in pretty strong force,” at the same time handing me the glass.

The hillside literally swarmed with mounted Indians, moving incessantly, like ants crawling up and down an ant-hill. The dust of two parties--each about fifty strong, judging by that indication--could be seen rising from a ravine which ran along the base of the hill and across the road over which lay our route. It was also noticed that the dust aforesaid ceased at the road.

The move was evident. They lay in ambuscade to capture us. We got out our arms, but eight or nine weapons in all, the emigrants being unarmed, and began withdrawing slowly to Big Sandy.

The children wept and screamed. The women howled that they _would_ be taken by the Indians. They scolded and lamented by turns. The men said nothing. They were not in a talking mood, nor was anybody just then--except the ladies. We effected our retreat in good order, the unarmed men driving the teams, the armed protecting “the movement.” Some Indians followed us, just out of range, and one whom I shall always see in my mind’s eye, on a white pony, followed on at the same distance until we reached Big Sandy Station once more.

The next day we again got tired of smoking, talking, and reading novels. The lieutenant succeeded in getting a coach, and he and I with three men and the sergeant, all armed this time, started once more for Welcome Spring Station--the next on our route West.

We had a good driver and a splendid team of mules. Arrived at about six miles west of Big Sandy, we saw some Indians, twelve or fifteen, coming toward us from a distance. A judicious use of mule power soon put them out of sight. We had no further trouble until we came within five or six miles of Welcome Station. There, after we had almost entirely dismissed Indian dangers from our minds, we suddenly discovered three parties in uncomfortably close proximity. They were coming towards us at a good round pace. Two of the parties numbered about fifty each, the third about half that number. The last mentioned was evidently trying to cut us off from the station, while the other two were closing in upon us from the right and left.

The curtains were thrown up. The coach bristled with needle-guns on every side.

“NOW GO IT,” said the lieutenant.

_And we went it!_

“If the wheels don’t take fire,” said the driver tremulously, “we may make it!”

On we went!--good Springfield breech-loaders, loaded and cocked, thrust out behind, before, and on each side of the coach. On came the Indians! Rather chary, however, of the breech-loaders, but looking for something to turn up. Their sudden dash had failed. There was now the chance of our being cut off by the third party. The driver plied whip and voice. The mules almost flew to gain the turning-point.

We passed the important point without breaking anything. Then our mules were brought down to a less expeditious, though by no means contemptible pace. The Indians slackened their speed and gave up the job. They still followed us, however, at a respectful distance, until we came in sight of the station.

Welcome Spring Station was a welcome station to us. I felt so happy that I jumped out through the coach window, disdaining the commonplace convenience of a door. What appetites we had! What a dinner we ate! And what a glorious sleep we had on some corn-sacks in the stable!

Our route henceforth lay through a more settled country. No further danger from Indians was to be feared. We enjoyed the ride. The sight of mountains in the distance and soon, of tall pines all around us had a cheering influence on me. The lieutenant, who was in the very best humor, said he was so much accustomed to life on the plains that he had acquired a dislike to wooded countries. Even when on leave of absence in the East, where there was not the ghost of an Indian to be feared, he experienced a feeling of insecurity when in woodland. He wanted to have plenty of elbow room, he said, and to see all around him for miles.

We reached Sierra City without further incident next morning. The lieutenant and I parted, with many kind wishes on both sides and hope of meeting again.

I have not since met my military friend. I have even forgotten his name. My memory never was much better than a waste, and names were the very last things that would take root in it. I hope yet to meet my old Misty Mountain companion. When I do, may he be, at least, a major!

I returned over the same route. All was then quiet on the Misty Mountain. The only change I saw was that two more graves had been made by the side of MacSorley’s, on the high mound near the Big Sandy--“killed by Indians.”

Before I made my Misty Mountain trip, I had a boy’s usual desire for a soldier’s life. That trip was the turning-point in my desires. I have “seen Indians” since, and in my summer vacations have occasionally accompanied scouting parties against the hostile tribes. My further experience completed the change in my tastes. The life of a soldier on the frontier has no charms for me. Fighting Indians is far harder work than fighting a civilized foe. It is continued privation, suffering, and danger. Even success, so difficult of achievement in this species of warfare, is generally repaid, not by glory, but by misrepresentation and ingratitude.

I am content with my old desk in the dingy old office in the leathery old Swamp. The smell of the leather is more grateful to me than the purest of prairie breezes, which, when it plays with your locks, is unpleasantly suggestive, to those acquainted with the usages of Indian warfare.

ORLÉANS AND ITS CLERGY.

In the outskirts of Orléans, between the roads leading to Paris and Chartres, stands an antique chapel under the invocation of Notre Dame des Aydes--the remains of a former hospital. Thousands of pilgrims have been here to pray, from age to age: among them the last of the Valois, the indolent Henry III. A small statue of Our Lady of Aid on one of the gables seems to welcome and bless the traveller. To this sacred spot, that for ages had known no other sound but the voice of prayer and praise, and no other smoke but that of holy incense, came the din of war and the smoke of cannon. Around this asylum of peace took place one of the most thrilling scenes of the late war. The battalion of foreign legions held the place for a time under a frightful cannonading on the part of the Prussian forces. M. Arago, the commander, perished gloriously on the field of battle. The thirteen hundred men under him were of all races and climes. The Austrian mingled with the Italian; the negro of the desert with the Polish exile; the Chinese with the Servian prince. Of these, six hundred were killed or wounded; three hundred made prisoners; the remainder escaped to recommence the combat elsewhere. The Germans pressed on, leaving behind them the flaming houses of the faubourgs to record their triumph. They pushed into the very heart of the city--to the statue of Joan of Arc, which must have wept out its very heart of stone at its powerlessness to drive out this new invader--to the steps of the church where the holy maid once worshipped, or, if not the same, to one on the same spot, for the ancient church of Ste. Croix was destroyed by those _Brise-Moutiers_, the Calvinists, and rebuilt by Henry IV.

Among the inhabitants of Orléans, one man of sacred character and European reputation stands out prominently at the time of this invasion--the illustrious Bishop Dupanloup. This eminent prelate has had the unique privilege of displaying his eloquence before a very unusual variety of audiences--at the Sorbonne, the French Academy, the Palais de Justice, the National Assemblies, the pulpit of Notre Dame de Paris, and the Council of the Vatican. He has also pleaded the cause of weakness, justice, and patriotism before an arrogant conqueror. In this time of universal alarm, the Bishop of Orléans proved himself a worthy successor of the bishops in the times of the invasions of the barbarians, around whom gathered the multitude with a feeling of security. Wherever there was severity to be tempered, crime to be denounced, wounded to be rescued, or condemned to be saved, he was brought to interpose. The panic-struck women from the smoking ruins of Châteaudun betook themselves to him. He was a refuge when every other hope failed. The august function of Defensor Civitatis, Defender of the City, which the popular voice once bestowed on the bishops, had come down from the ages of faith. St. Agnan’s holy prayers are said to have delivered Orléans from Attila, who besieged it in the fifth century. Hence, every bishop of Orléans, when he took possession of his see, enjoyed for ages the privilege of delivering all prisoners. When the new bishop approached the city, all the prisoners came out in procession with ropes around their necks, and knelt before him to implore release. Then they went back to the city, and heard Mass in the church of St. Yves. At a later hour they assembled in the court of the _évêché_ to listen to an address from the bishop, who, from a window, exhorted them to atone for their previous misdeeds by their penitential lives. He then gave them his blessing, a dinner was provided for them, after which they all went where they pleased. This was only one of the results of the moral power of the first bishop of the country. What the popular voice at first bestowed, afterwards merged into political power when the time of peril was past, and the burden accepted as a possible duty to their flock became a source of reproach, as if it were usurped.

Bishop Dupanloup was worthy the old title Defensor Civitatis. He filled the office simply and generously, with a devotedness nothing could exhaust and a firmness nothing could bend. At the second occupation of Orléans, when the Prussians had replaced the Bavarians, the kind of Truce of God that naturally established itself around the servant of the Most High was done away with. The bishop was an object of severity in his turn; he was imprisoned in a corner of his own palace and strictly guarded. Prince Frederick Charles was impolitic. He should have been mindful of a great captain of loftier genius than his--Prince Eugene, whom history honors for honoring Fénelon at Cambrai.

In speaking of the Bishop of Orleans, we must not forget the priests that everywhere, in town as well as hamlet, walked in his noble footsteps. In the engagements at Notre Dame des Aydes and Coulmiers, as well as elsewhere, the priests, both curé and vicar, were at their posts, going to and fro among the wounded, with hands not raised with murderous weapons, but uplifted to bless; not inflicting death, but braving it, and consoling the dying.

The _Moniteur Officiel_ at Berlin has reproached the clergy of Orléans for what is really their glory. “At the approach of our troops,” says the Prussian journal, “the solitary laborer threw down his spade, seized his musket on the ground beside him, and fired. Every day such opponents were brought to headquarters and shot according to martial law. Priests were often brought with them who had abetted or been actors in some instance of bold resistance.”

Such was the touching emulation of all classes in rallying to defence against the invader.

In the Armée du Nord, General Faidherbe also testifies to the same devotedness on the part of the clergy, and mentions with special gratitude the bold stand of the Archbishop of Cambrai, the Bishop of Arras, the hospital sisters at Corbie, and the clergy generally. He especially holds up one brave Dominican monk for admiration--doubtless a disciple of Lacordaire, or one of the companions of the Martyrs of Arcueil--the Père Mercier, “who received four wounds at the battle of Amiens, where he displayed remarkable courage.”

The bravery and patriotism of the priesthood is no new thing. How constantly were they evinced during the middle ages! If their sacred character did not allow them to participate actively in the fray, they were there to animate and encourage, and especially to succor the dying. Among a thousand instances, we read that, at the battle of Neville’s Cross, the Prior of Durham, England, and his monks, took the sacred banner of St. Cuthbert, and repaired to a hillock in sight of both armies, hoisted it, knelt around it, and prayed. Other brethren from the belfry of the cathedral sang hymns of praise and triumph, which were heard afar off in a most miraculous manner.

Yes: Orléans has reason to be proud of its clergy, with its hereditary spirit. “The heart of France” has not lost its ancient courage. The service its people rendered the crown in ancient times induced Louis XI. to give it as its arms an open heart, showing the lilies of France within. Above this _blason_ is the quatrain

“Orléans, ville de renom, De haut pris, de grand’ excellence, Eut pour blazon le cœur de France De Loueys, onzième du nom.”

And another poet has said:

“Non potuit regni caput esse Aurelia magni Ergo quod superest, corque, animusque fuit”--

Orléans being so-called from the Emperor Aurelian, who enlarged the city towards the end of the third century, and gave it the name of Aurelianum, from which Aurliens, and finally Orléans.

Perhaps Orléanais has had the glorious privilege of suffering more than any other part of France for its country. It has been a battle-field on which some of the most famous personages in history have figured. Cæsar ran over the country as a conqueror; Attila withdrew from it conquered and humiliated; here the Maid of Orléans delivered France; here Francis de Guise died after forcing Charles V. to give up Metz; and here Turenne saved the country threatened by the Fronde. For two centuries the valley of the Loire had not been disturbed by the noise of arms, but Orléans, Coulmiers, Villepion, etc., now testify how the open heart of France has again bled and suffered.

USE AND ABUSE OF THE STAGE.

We are a very theatrical people. The old unbending Puritan stuff has almost died out amongst us; whether for better or worse, such is the fact. If a Brutus appeared in our midst to-day, he would be dubbed a “rowdy”; a Cato, a decided bore. Where we would not turn to look at them, we rush pell-mell to catch the first glimpse of a prince; even a lord finds a following here that must rather surprise him in a nation where he only expected to meet with the stern virtues of republicanism. We crowd in the same way to see a new “star” in the theatrical firmament, whether that star’s radiance consist in a melodious voice, or a dexterous use of the limbs, or a display of physical charms, so artistically concealed that not one of them is missed. So we throng to hear a great preacher or a loud one, provided he is “puffed” enough. Our politics have degenerated into a money-making concern; our religion, almost to a fashion. As it was a fashion in the old days when the Pharisee went up to the temple to pray, and his prayer consisted in thanking God that he was so far above the poor publican, together with a grand recital of his fastings and self-flagellations, and alms given to the poor; as it was a fashion later on, in the time of the Puritans and the Scotch under right John Knox, as Carlyle would call his hero--when the godly sat out their two hours’ sermon, and at the end applauded, and begged the preacher to continue, and sat them grimly a two hours more; going their way, comforted at heart, to murder Cavalier and Catholic, and all who wore the mark of the beast and the color of the scarlet woman.

We have touched on religion, for it is inwoven with our theme, the theatre, which sprang from religion, and, could it be made to preach as it has done, would, without lack of amusement or attraction, become a house of prayer, and not, as it now is, a home of corruption. The Greeks used it for a twofold purpose: to lash vice or as a political weapon. And nothing pierced so fatally the thick hide of the low demagogue, Cleon, as the barbed shafts of Aristophanes, scattered with all the great master’s skill among the keen-witted and appreciative Athenians. We see a similar instance to-day in the attack by one of the leaders of the modern French drama on a much greater man than Cleon. The _Rabagas_ of Sardou has tended to demoralize Gambetta more than the holocaust he sacrificed, in his unwise and inopportune zeal, to the glory of France, as he would claim; in reality to its ruin. It has done more to lower him in the eyes of the people than the terrible logic of events. Why have not we a man to do the like for the _rings_ and the political immorality that inundates us; from which we are only just beginning to emerge, without the certainty of not sinking beneath it again?

The stage with the Greeks was, moreover, a preacher. It held up lofty thoughts in language worthy of them. It preached the virtue of self-sacrifice and its nobleness in tones that could not fail to be heard. It did not mock the false with puny laughter and weak travestie; but laid it bare in all its ugliness, cutting deep into it and round about it, probing the soil that it grew in, piercing its thick rind with a weapon whose wound was death. And there stands out that wonderful play of the _Prometheus Vinctus_: the bold story of the god-born man, who, with the insight of the god-nature that was in him, saw the misery of his brethren, and dared to filch the sacred fire from heaven that he might lift them up from their degradation; who suffered on an eternity of woe, with the relentless bird ever gnawing at his vitals; and, as the curtain fell upon the convulsion of nature, foretold, in words indeed prophetic, the fall of Jove and of his false heaven. We read and stand amazed; wondering, now at the grace, now at the terrible power of the words; pitying the great and tameless soul enduring an agony unspeakable for his kind, chained there to the bare rock with the pitiless heavens above him, the starry-curtained night, and the ever-dimpling ocean smiling beneath him. We see Calvary and the Saviour there; and marvel at the boldness of the conception, the magnificence and prophetic truth of its carrying out. From this story of a pagan Greek, told to pagans before Christ came into the world, bearing the fire that he willed only to be kindled, we turn with shame and sickness at heart to the things of this day, of this era of civilization and enlightenment.

But first let us trace the course of the drama when it fell into Christian hands.

That fierce Northern blast which overthrew for ever the gorgeous fabric of the Roman Empire, withered and blighted everything that could be called intellectual or refined. The civilization, the literature, the very language of Greece and Rome, were extinguished, and the world had to begin its intellectual schooling anew. Then the church stepped in, and moulded those rough elements into a nobler race than that which had been swept away. The Roman had been taught to live for the state; the Christian was taught to live for Christ. The church filled their rugged minds with great ideas and noble purposes; she laid the foundation of a great faith, and on that built up everything. A belief in one Supreme God, in eternal joy for the good, eternal pain for the wicked: such was the doctrine, easily learned, easily understood, which she unceasingly poured into their untutored minds. It was a hard task. There was no press then; there were no newspapers, no telegraph wires flashing thought from world to world in less time than it takes to conceive it. Men were taught by word of mouth. And when we contemplate the magnitude of the work--the education and conversion of an illiterate world--we can only wonder at its success, and see therein the finger of God, guiding and directing his daughter--the one stumbling-block to the march of reason, according to our modern notions.

Then came up those quaint old miracle plays, performed at fairs and festivals, and sometimes even in the cathedrals and churches. They clothed the mysteries of religion in simple language, well adapted for simple minds, and brought home to the crowds assembled great and impressive truths. A relic of them to-day attracts the fashionable world, _ennuyé_ of the opera, the conventional stage, and an existence weary of itself and its emptiness. It takes its opera-glasses and scent-bottles and flirtation to the rude rocks of the Tyrol to behold the Ammergau _Passion Play_. It is a novelty. We wonder that no enterprising manager has offered fabulous sums to bring the performers out here to us. They would certainly “draw.” To be sure, he could scarcely transport the Tyrol, but then the scene-painter and machinist could manage that. If the butterflies of fashion can find motive enough to brave the terrors of sea-sickness and flit out thither to behold a novelty, can sit it out without a yawn, and be struck by the reverence of the performance and its effect on the grave mountaineers, surely something far less taxing on our conventional notions, but bearing the germ of a great truth within it, might send the thousands who flock nightly to our theatres home with a thought in their heads and a more earnest feeling in their hearts.

The stage grew with the growth of time and the spread of education, till, at the close of the sixteenth century, we find it at its zenith in Spain and in England. The French and Italians never possessed a _great_ stage--a stage, that is, for all time and all nations; the German is of recent growth. At this point the stage was great; was in the broad sense moral, elevating, high. It towered above men, above the times; it educated while it attracted them. In plot, in action, in delineation of character, in thrilling scenes and happy conceptions, the plays of the sixteenth century are unrivalled, while their language makes of them classics. Dr. Arnold of Rugby proposed that the English classics should be made one of the principal studies of boys at school. We wonder what benefit boys would derive from the study of the trash we listen to and applaud in these days--whether it would be better calculated to improve their morals than a close application to the pages of the _Newgate Calendar_ or the columns of the _Police News_?

From that period the course of the stage has been a downward one passing from bad to worse, till it has been our fortune, with a solitary exception here and there, to light upon the worst; for the plays of the time of Charles II., bad as they are and revolting, are safer from their very outspokenness than the gilded licentiousness that allures us. We rival them in obscenity, as we fall immeasurably below them in wit. The reason of this decline, at a time when the discovery of the art of printing gave a new impetus to the spread of education, is foreign to our present purpose. With a glance at the past, at what the theatre was, and what it might become, we turn to that which immediately concerns us, the present: what the theatre now is, and why--restricting our remarks principally to New York.

Now the dramatic season has just drawn to a close,[203] so it is a fair time to indulge in a retrospect. We believe it has been on the whole what managers might term a fairly good season; that is, people have gone to the theatres, paid their money, and endorsed, by their presence and applause, the various species of entertainments which the managers, in their capacity of public caterers, have provided for them.

Our question is, What have we endorsed? What have been the theatrical “hits” of the season? What are the plays which have brought crowds to the theatre, money to the manager, and delight to the public at large? The answer, looked at soberly and honestly, is startling.

With the exception of the Shakespearian and a few other classical plays at one of the theatres, some transitory pieces got up occasionally for “stars,” and French adaptations, which we shall refer to after, we have not had a single play worthy of the name, worthy of the actors who performed them, worthy, we sincerely hope, of the audiences who witnessed them.

It may be as well to explain that by actors we mean ladies and gentlemen who are equal to the very difficult position they have taken upon themselves; who can speak pure English in a manner we can all understand--a slight qualification seemingly, yet in these days one of the rarest; who can portray emotions with fidelity; who can forget, first of all, themselves; secondly, the audience, in the character they have assumed. We do not mean those with whom vulgarity passes for wit, coarseness for humor, or a liberal display of the person for all that is needed. The name of the latter class is legion; the individuals who compose the former, exclusive of passing stars, might be almost counted on our fingers.

And now for the performances we have endorsed. The great attractions, the “hits” of the season, beyond _Humpty Dumpty_, which is no play at all, but a display of the antics of the cleverest mime who has appeared on our stage, have been the _Black Crook_ and _Lalla Rookh_. These two pieces drew the largest crowds for the longest time; one of them is an old favorite, and vies with _Humpty Dumpty_ in duration; the other, but for its untimely end by fire, was as likely to become so, and may yet, for all we know to the contrary. We wish to place this well before the public; the chief theatrical attractions in New York, the commercial capital of our Republic and the New World, during the past year, have been _Humpty Dumpty_, the _Black Crook_, and _Lalla Rookh_!

What are these two latter things? Are they plays? Is there any acting in them at all? Is there a single good thought inculcated, good feeling stirred, good end attained by their presentation? Are they fit to place before a public composed of ladies and gentlemen, of virtuous men and women, above all before the young, the pleasure-seekers, of both sexes?

To all these questions we answer an emphatic no; and we are certain that the managers who got them up would agree with us. Yet all New York--speaking generally--crowded to see them. The expense in producing them was enormous. Actresses, scenery, dresses, machinery, were purchased and brought from over the sea; and all for what? A display of brilliant costumes, or rather an absence of them; crowds of girls set in array, and posturing so as to bring out every turn and play of the limbs. Throughout it was simply a parade of indecency artistically placed upon the stage, with garish lights and intoxicating music to quicken the senses and inflame the passions. The very advertisements in the streets and in the public press set forth as their crowning attraction the crowds of “ladies” and their scanty raiment.

How women with any pretensions to modesty could sit out such an exhibition without a blush--how men could take women for whom they had any respect to witness it, are things we cannot understand. That such things can succeed at all, can succeed so well, can beat everything else from the field, among us, speaks ill for us; speaks ill for our taste, our morality, our civilization. To Protestants and Catholics alike we say: Cry down, with all the power that is in you, public exhibitions that are daily undermining and uprooting the morality of this great nation, which affects, as it must continue to affect more and more day by day, the destiny of the world. They influence the fashions; they fill the public streets with impurity. Their effect is in the very air we breathe, the press we read, the pictures that meet our eyes on every stand. To the recognition and open admiration we display for such performances on the public stage, we owe those lower dens of infamy that corrupt our youth, poison their life, and cause the whole race to degenerate; and the bloody tragedies in real life which have from their frequency almost ceased to create a sensation. They are a blot upon our institutions, a stain upon our morality, a scandal to every decent eye.

But who is to blame?

The public deplores the depravity of the taste of the age, and carries its opera-glass to the theatre so as not to miss an iota. The manager blames the actor, the actor the author, and the author the manager. Perhaps all are to blame more or less; but undoubtedly the onus of it rests with us who pay for and go to see such things. The manager whom we blame so much objects very properly: The people want to be amused, and we must find something to amuse them. Good plays that are presentable are almost as rare as good actors to interpret them, as an appreciative audience to come and admire them. If the public did not demand such sights, you may be perfectly certain we should not present them. Our interest in the whole matter is merely one of dollars. Love of art, and educating the public taste, and so forth, sound very well in the abstract, but they do not pay. These things are of enormous cost in the scenery, the putting on the stage, the costumes, and, as far as the actors are concerned, to-day we are compelled to pay a higher price for limbs than for genius.

Now, this sounds very plausible, and there is, no doubt, a vast amount of reason in it. Certain it is that, if the public kept away from such exhibitions, the manager would scarcely ruin himself by presenting them to empty houses. But are good plays so scarce, and why?

Shakespeare, we fear, is almost out of the question. We confess, in common with very many, a secret misgiving, almost amounting to horror, at the idea of going to see Desdemona or Banquo doubly murdered. The education of the vast majority of our actors renders them incapable of catching the meaning of the great master’s words, far less of interpreting them in a manner to enchain our attention or enthrall our senses: the invariable result when we sit down to read them. We generally find one or two characters ably sustained, and the rest, as a rule, rendered absolutely ridiculous. Notwithstanding, we take it as a very encouraging thing, and a great sign of advancement in intelligence and education, to see in one instance, at least, this class of drama drawing houses the whole year through. The more we have of such plays, the less we shall see of _Black Crooks_ and _Lalla Rookhs_. Sheridan, again, and Colman are almost beyond our actors, though they are scarcely a hundred years old. An actor undertaking a character must understand not merely the words he utters, but the _character_ he represents, the position it holds in the play, its _bearings_ on the others; for our modern actors are too apt to consider that there is only one character in every play, and that their own. The costume, mode of life, look, gait, air, _tout ensemble_, should fit the person to the age in which he lived. Now, how many of those employed to personate the fops, or fools, or men about town of Sheridan, know the age in which those characters lived, the mode of conversation, the walk, “the nice conduct of the clouded cane,” the way of passing the time, the affected laugh and pronunciation of certain letters, the ceremony thrown into a bow or a proffer of a pinch of snuff, with a thousand other little things only to be found in a close study of the writers of the time? Yet, without this intimate knowledge, our modern actor must trust to his wig and antique coat and ruffles to give us an idea of Charles Surface or Sir Peter Teasle. Passing regretfully by these, then, we come to the question before us, the drama of to-day, where we atone for lack of genius by sensation; where words give place to “business”; where for a good author we substitute a good carpenter, aided by a good scene-painter; where a conflagration, or a shipwreck, or a cab, drive Shakespeare and the rest off the boards. Wherein lies the excellence of the sensational school of playwrights? Strip them of their drowning scenes, fires, chloroform, and slang phrases, and what have we left? Simply nothing. Not a single conception of a great idea or a great character; no noble purpose to fire the soul; no keen wit to scorch the age and purify while it burns; but in their stead sorry jokes, and the meanest and most ordinary characters speaking bad grammar; with plenty of howling, and climbing, and swimming, and water and fire and limelight, and a stirring song that is not the author’s, all interspersed with stray spars of wit floating about here and there in the heterogeneous mass, and turning up at happy places--wit, by the way, which is generally stolen from the French or from some well-known story, all adjusted to slow music, set to magnificent scenery, with mechanism enough to construct a city; and the audience, wheedled there by puff, is amazed and overcome, and, going away, tells its friends that there is not much in it, but the scenery alone is well worth the money.

This is undoubtedly the English drama of the day, dividing the palm with the anatomical exhibitions we have previously referred to, and almost as prolific of good results to the public. _Eileen Oge_, one of the latest and best plays of this class, was the only one which attracted audiences to that splendid failure, the Grand Opera House.

There is another class of play to which we promised to refer--the modern French school--which finds its home in one of our theatres, and which, by lavish expenditure, the splendor of costume, excellence of mounting, and general efficiency of the cast, has proved more or less a success. They pass among us as dramas of society. Let us examine the most recent of these “society plays,” and see if they are worthy of their name.

_Article 47_ runs as follows: A lover, in a moment of jealousy, shoots his mistress, attempting at the time to gain possession of a casket belonging to her. She escapes with life, but that life is dead to her, for her beauty, though not destroyed, is for ever marred. Her love changes to hate. She appears as a witness against her lover on a charge of attempted murder and robbery. He is acquitted of wilful attempt to kill, but condemned to five years at the galleys, and placed for ever, by Article 47 of the penal code, under police surveillance. Both lives are embittered, the one with the consciousness of a wrong done to the woman he loved, but loves no longer; the other from the consciousness of, to her, an irreparable loss sustained, a beauty marred in the dawn of life, and a love contending with hate for the man who once loved her, and whom she still, in her sane moments--for the crash of contending emotions and the brooding over her lost life are goading her to madness--loves. The term of his confinement ended, the lover changes his name, flies to Paris, and hopes thus to escape the surveillance of the police. He enters society again, and falls in love with an old acquaintance who has ever loved him. They are married. In society he meets with the old love. She recognizes him, and, finding that his love is turned to abhorrence, hate again strives for mastery, and she compels him to frequent the _salon_ where she is to be seen, and spend a certain time of each day in her society, on pain of disclosing to his wife that he is a convicted felon, and the whole story of her wrong. In a moment of despair he unfolds all to his wife in her presence; they determine to fly. The madness has been working all this time in the other’s blood. She retains enough reason to send a message to the prefect of police, disclosing the person and whereabouts of the ex-prisoner. The letter is intercepted, and she finally dies at his feet, still mad, and thinking that he loves her. The play is a powerful one, but revolting. The gradual growth of the madness in the woman is well worked up. But the woman is a fiend, and her fiendishness is the whole point of the play. We have women as bad or worse in plays that are infinitely superior, Lady Macbeth, for instance; but the mastermind that conceived that character conceived it aright--laid it bare in all its hideousness, and surrounded it with such moral strength and contrasts that we hate it. The French writer enlists a forced sympathy for his heroine. Everybody is in a chronic state of misery all the way through; the vice of the thing is condoned or glossed over, and the character most to be pitied at the end is the hideous thing that is called a woman. It is a delineation and upholding of a false principle from beginning to end; and, if such is society, we can only pity it. While there are such things as truth, honor, womanly nature, and manly strength among us, such a play should hold no place in our midst; and the writer debases his talents when he can turn them to so much better account. Most French plays of the modern school come to us in this fashion. They are all unhealthy, morbid, false to God and man; and though they are well written, abounding in felicitous repartee, clever tirades against society, witty mockery of characters that go down among us, and in their English dress are stripped of the dangerous _équivoque_ and _double entendre_, it is better for us either to let them alone, or so change them that we do not recognize them, as the late Mr. Robertson succeeded in doing. All, or nearly all, of his comedies were originally founded on the French. But he did not reproduce; he adapted. And his plays, the most charming, as they are by far the wittiest and most brilliant, of the day, are always presentable, always enjoyable, though they strike out no great thought, nor, indeed, aim at it, but are clever satires on society as we find it, as it comes and goes. We should very much like to see them produced oftener here. There is only one house which, as a rule, attempts this class of play; and its programme has to be changed so often that it looks very much as though the public did not appreciate its efforts. Yet we have never met with a single person who has witnessed one of Mr. Robertson’s plays and would not be very happy to witness another. We think the fault lies chiefly with the company. The rank and file are not adequate. At the Prince of Wales’ theatre in London the same company performs still that performed when Mr. Robertson first produced his plays; and each one of them, from first to last, is a thorough actor. We hear a great deal about people, immediately they make a hit, demanding an enormous increase of salary; and, if their demands are not conceded, rushing off to “star it in the provinces.” In England it is just the reverse. If actors can obtain a footing at all in London, they abide there. And we cannot but think that, if fair inducements were held out here, a stock company of excellent actors could be organized who might form a school; and the manager would not be compelled to hunt Europe for a name, and spend a small fortune nightly on a single individual, which he might much more judiciously divide among his own staff, and keep his house well filled in spite of all the stars of the firmament.

But good plays are needed as much as good actors; and good plays we shall never have so long as managers can procure gratis the latest London success, which London itself has generally derived from a French source. Managers are cautious of new playwrights, and wisely so. But this caution may be, is carried a little too far. We have a society of our own, and a history of our own. We have already a host of clever and even brilliant writers. We have had a great war and a great convulsion. We have plenty to attack, and plenty to uphold. Our society, political, social, and religious, is scarcely what it might be. There is many a foul thing to sweep away; there is a meeting of many elements in this land of ours; there is a history to look back upon, and a glorious history to build up, if we build rightly. At the same time, there is a licentiousness, outspoken, scornful, and gaining ground day by day, which it is our duty to withstand by every force in our power. There is that aping, too, of the worst imported fashions, that running after wealth and rank, when they come among us, that betokens a wandering from the sturdy ways of our fathers. There is a widespread corruption in the administration of the law, a venality in political life, which it would be well to crush. There is here field enough for the native dramatist, without looking abroad for the “cheap and nasty.” Could a Sheridan rise up among us now, he would find no lack of subjects for his pen in the extravagance, the contradictions, the licentiousness of this age and this great Republic. At all events, if we must import, let us import the best, and not things which poison our life, and stop our intellectual and natural as well as our moral growth, and make us a laughing-stock to the outer world.

FOOTNOTE:

[203] At the time of writing this article.

HOW I LEARNED LATIN.

When I was young, I travelled a good deal, but travel then was very different from what it is now. My travelling was all obligatory, it was on business, and I sometimes found myself detained in places from which I would gladly have taken a quick departure. It happened once that, during my tour through France, I had to stay a Sunday at Lyons. The stages on Saturday were few, and did not suit me, and of course it was against my principles to travel on the “Sabbath.” I had been brought up a very strict Presbyterian, and was very particular, especially in a foreign country, about attending service. I could hardly speak any French, which perhaps you will think strange, since I had business to transact in France, but my business was with English and American houses and their agents. You know, too, in my time young people did not learn French as they do now, any more than young ladies learned to play on the piano. But I was determined I would go to church, and so set about finding out whether there was any English-speaking clergyman in Lyons. I could not find any, and, when I inquired after a church, I was deafened and confused by the number of St. Marys’, St. Monicas’, St. Vincents’, St. Josephs’, that were pointed out to me. If it had not been the “Sabbath,” I think I should have been tempted to swear at the whole calendar and its Lyons representatives. I asked for a _Protestant_ church. “Oh! yes,” said one (all the others looked blank), “there is a ‘temple’ (so they call them in France) in such and such a street,” naming it, and giving me directions by which I could not fail to discover it. I started, fearing I should be late. I had heard that the French Protestant religion was not unlike the Presbyterian, but I had never been to one of its churches before, having always been luckily within reach of some church where my own tongue was used. At last I found my “temple,” and got in, rather behind time, to be sure. The people were singing. The church--meeting-house, I should say--was bare and whitewashed, large square windows lighted it with a painful exuberance of brightness, the seats were stiff and uncomfortable. I could not understand one word, and thought the voices rather nasal. The congregation sat down and the minister got up. This evidently meant a sermon. I tried hard to fix my mind on some Bible texts I knew by heart, so as to prevent my thoughts from wandering. As the preacher went on, his voice droning into my ear, I caught myself wondering whether I were in the right place after all, and whether his doctrine was the same as mine. I could not tell what he might be saying, but, of course, the hymns must be all right. I took up a hymn-book, and tried to make out from their analogy to some English words what these French words could mean. I could see the name of “Jesus” pretty often, and could make out “Saviour” too, but that was about all. The sermon was very long, and I was hardly quite awake at the end. Then the people sang again, and a harmonium joined in from somewhere. When it was all over, I felt very dissatisfied, and somehow it did not seem to me as if I had been to church at all. I lost my way going back to my hotel, and happened to pass one of the “saints’” multitudinous shrines, just as the Catholic congregation were coming out. An acquaintance of mine, a young Englishman, was among them. He came across the street and shook hands.

“Why, where have you dropped from?” he said.

“From church,” I answered.

“What church?” he asked, rather blankly.

“The Protestant ‘temple,’ of whatever religion that may be,” I said, not in the best of humors. I told him my whole adventure, whereat he seemed very serious.

“My dear fellow,” he said at last, “have you not often heard us Catholics abused for all sorts of mummeries, for muttering and mumbling in an unknown tongue, for bowing and scraping, and popping down, suddenly on one knee, and so forth?”

“Of course I have,” I said.

“Well, and what do you think of what you saw in the French Presbyterian church, this morning?”

“Think! I simply think it was unintelligible.”

“Well, say, quite as unintelligible as our Latin, for instance?”

“Yes, but not for the Frenchmen who were there.”

“But if those Frenchmen had been in a Presbyterian church in America, they would have been as badly off as you were this morning. And if both you and they went to a German church, as Calvinistic as you could wish and as like your own in belief, would not you and your French friends be all at sea, as the saying is?”

“Exactly so; but what are you driving at?”

“Only this: that, when you go to the church, and know that the people believe pretty much as you do, you would like, I think, to be able to join in their devotions, and not feel yourself left out in the cold, as if you were a heathen or a Mormon, wouldn’t you?”

“Of course; but it can’t be helped.”

“I tell you it can, my dear fellow. Look at us, millions and millions of Catholics, all believing the same doctrine, all going to the same ceremonies, and taking part in the same devotions, because we have only one language for our services, one language that is spoken in Canton, in San Francisco, in London, in Africa, everywhere where a Catholic altar is put up and a Catholic priest says Mass.”

“There is some convenience in that, I’ll grant you.”

“I tell you, my friend, when I come to a foreign city and find everything strange and feel very lonely in the hurrying crowd that has not one idea in common with me, I just find out a Catholic church as quick as I can, and hear Mass. See if every worshipper does not become a brother then, and if one’s feelings don’t change! I take my chair, put it where I like, open my book, and follow the same old prayers that I heard long ago in little poky chapels in England. I feel quite at home.”

“Well, it _is_ pleasant: but that is not all one wants.”

“But is it not a great deal? What do you think of a religion that meets you everywhere, just the same, dear old familiar faith, never changing among the mandarins of China, the Red Indians of your own territories, the blacks of South Africa, and the traders of London and Birmingham? Don’t you call it comfortable, homely, to say the least?”

“Yes, but I suspect it is all sentimentalism: you like the sound of the old words, but you don’t really understand them. A baby would like the same cooing it was used to at home, supposing it got lost and picked up somewhere, but there would be no sense in the cooing, for all that.”

“But, my dear fellow, we _do_ understand our Latin. All of us who can read have the translation of it plainly printed alongside of the text in our books of devotion, and the greater part we are already familiar with on account of its being taken from the Gospels and the Psalms.”

“No, really? Is that so indeed?”

“Indeed it is. And, now, what do you think of this? You see the priest ‘pop down suddenly on one knee, and pop up again,’ as you would put it. Well, he has been saying, ‘The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.’ Is not that in the Bible, in St. John’s Gospel? Of course you are well up in texts, you know where _that_ is. And, again, when you see the priest beat his breast three times, and you call out ‘Superstition!’ do you know what he is saying? ‘Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldst enter under my roof; but say the word, and my soul shall be healed.’ Is not that in the Bible (with the substitution of ‘soul’ for ‘servant’), where the centurion begs our Lord to cure his servant? And so on through the greater part of the Mass. When you see the priest wash his hands, he repeats a whole Psalm, the Twenty-fifth; and at the very beginning, when you see him stand at the foot of the steps, he is also repeating a Psalm, the Forty-third. Further on he repeats the ‘Our Father,’ and there are other parts of the Mass, whose names would only confuse you, which change according to the ecclesiastical seasons, but are always exclusively composed of Scripture texts, aptly chosen for the different solemnities of the year. So, you see, we know all about what we hear said in Latin.”

“Well, you surprise me; all that mumbling seemed to me so childish.”

“Do you think these Frenchmen childish when they speak their own tongue, and do their business in it, and their courting, and their literature?”

“Well, no, of course that would be absurd.”

“And the Italians, the Germans, the Greeks, the Spaniards, don’t they all talk foreign languages, yet you don’t think them childish, or call their conversation _mumbling_?”

“No; I simply say I am sorry I cannot understand them.”

“Then don’t you see that as a Catholic you would be even better off, for though the Latin would be a foreign language, yet you _would_ understand it?”

“Certainly, if all you say is true, the Latin is by no means a bad contrivance.”

“Do you know that, up to the twelfth and thirteenth centuries at least, most books were written in Latin, no matter to what country the author might belong, and that till even later than that all law business was transacted in Latin all over the civilized world?”

“Was it indeed? Well, I have learnt something this morning, and it is really worth thinking over.”

“Come this afternoon to St. Vincent’s, and I will show you at Vespers how well every one understands the service.”

“All right! agreed.”

And so we parted, and in the afternoon my English friend and I went to a Catholic church, and sat down among a crowd of very attentive worshippers, all of whom were reading their prayer-books. My friend opened his, and pointed out the Psalm the choir was singing; it was one I knew very well: “The Lord said to my Lord.” The people about us were all French; their books had the same Latin Psalm on one column as my friend’s book showed, while the French translation was in the place of the English one which he had on the opposite page. Many of the congregation were singing alternately with the choristers at the altar. My friend sang too; he did not mumble, but said the words distinctly, so that I heard each syllable, though I could not understand the meaning. He gave me his book presently, and chanted by heart. As we came out, there was a group of dark-skinned men, talking eagerly near the door. They were Spaniards; they too seemed quite at home. The next day, I was curious enough to go to Low Mass with my friend; as the ceremony went on, he showed me every word, and made me follow everything, even the introit, collects, gradual, communion, which he looked out for me in a missal he had with him. I was puzzled by all these names then, though they are A B C to me now. My friend had to leave in a day or two, but I had bought a book like his in the meanwhile at an English library, and continued through curiosity to go to the different Catholic services, just to assure myself that the Latin was not gibberish. It struck me as strange that three-quarters of the prayers should be my own Bible texts!

Well, to make a long story short, I left Lyons soon after, and travelled to many other places, European and Asiatic. At last one day I was in Canton, in high spirits, for I was to go home soon and be a partner in the firm whose foreign business I had been managing. Sunday came, and I went to church; I was just as anxious as ever about my Sunday duties, but somehow it was not for a Presbyterian church that I was looking. I knew my way very well to _my_ church, and my church had a cross on its gable end, and was called “The Church of the Holy Childhood.” There were plenty of Chinese there, a few English, a few Americans, and a good many French people. They all had the Latin on one page of their books, and their respective languages on the opposite page. But I did not need to look at my English translation, for I knew the Latin by heart now. I am sorry to say I had distractions, and during one of them I suddenly perceived my old friend of Lyons. When Mass was over, I went to him and called him by name; he stared and did not recognize me; we had never met since, and I had a beard of many years’ growth. I told him my name, and asked him if he had forgotten St. Vincent’s Church at Lyons? I can tell you we had a good long talk over the past, and he congratulated me heartily, while I thanked him eagerly for the best lesson I ever learned in my life.

And that, boys, was how I learned Latin.

But I have only told you about one reason which our church has for keeping to the Latin tongue; that particular reason struck me most, because it was through that I was converted; but of course, when I came to examine things thoroughly, I learnt all about the other very good reasons assigned by the church for this practice. You know how modern languages are always changing, and how the same word will mean a different thing in two separate centuries; there is the word “prevent,” for instance, which now means to hinder, but which formerly was used in the Anglican liturgy in its Latin sense, to succor and to help. Well, it would not do for the dogmas or the rites of the church to be subject to these apparent changes, which would lead most likely to misunderstandings and perhaps heresies, so the church chose to fix her liturgy in a language whose rules and construction undergo no alteration from century to century. You know the law, also, has Latin terms, probably used for the same reason. Then, besides, it is not necessary for the people to be able to join in the absolute words of the Mass and other services, provided they join heartily in the _intention_ of the sacrifice and prayers. As I have told you already, the _fact_ is that most Catholics do understand the words themselves, and not very imperfectly; still, the _theory_ remains that such comprehension (which after all is more a grammatical accomplishment than a devout necessity) is not absolutely required. If it were otherwise, you see, the doctrine of intention would suffer. In the old days, the Hebrews--on whose ritual all non-Catholics claim to take their stand, or by which at least they measure their standard of adequate worship--used to stand outside the temple, where they could neither see nor hear, though they knew that by their presence alone they were participating in the sacrifice and receiving the blessing attached to it. Then, again, we forgot, when as Protestants we used to object to the Latin liturgy, that the Catholic ceremony of Mass is essentially a _sacrifice_ offered to God _for_ the people, the priest being the sole representative of the people and interceding in their name. Long ago, at the English court of the Plantagenet kings. French was the language universally spoken, while the Saxons, the subjects, adhered to their own tongue. The petitions of the people were offered to the king in the language of the court, that is, French; but the result was identical with that which would have been the consequence had the prayer been in a tongue the people could understand. So in the church it is sufficient for God to hear the petition of his children; they themselves would not be benefited the more for understanding every word of the pleading of the priest. The things that are said _to_ us, not _for_ us, the sermons and instructions which are to explain God’s will and our duty to us, are always in the tongue common to each particular country; and when there is a large foreign settlement in a town, it has a church of its own where such instruction is administered. Look at this large city of New York: have we not German churches and a French church besides our English-speaking churches? The Mass is identically the same in each, but for those who are to be taught the language is varied according to their nationality. And so for all offices which the priests perform toward us, as, for instance, confession. In the great church of which you have all heard, St. Peter’s at Rome, there are confessionals where priests of every nation are ever ready to receive and console the sinners of every clime, while above each box is plainly written “For the English,” “For the Spaniards,” “For the French,” “For the Germans,” “For the Greeks,” “For the Poles,” etc., etc. So, you see, the church, after all, is quite as wise as she is loving, and indicates her claim to be our mother in every way. Take my advice, and always look well into things before you condemn them; for, if _I_ had done so when a boy, I should have saved myself a great deal of trouble in getting rid of prejudices which every year increased and deepened, till it needed a miracle of the grace of God to strip the tightening garment they were wrapping round my fettered soul.

THE HANDKERCHIEF.

If there is one article of the toilette that, more than another, appeals particularly to the imagination, it is certainly the handkerchief. The favored glove that has encased a fair hand is often treasured up by a sentimental admirer; a broidered scarf or a knot of ribbon has been worn by many a gallant knight as the colors of the lady of his choice; the collar encircling some ivory neck is envied to such a degree as to almost warrant the ambition of Winnifred Jenkins: “God he nose what havoc I shall make among the mail sects when I make my first appearance in this killing collar”; but a thousand killing collars bear no comparison to that delicate fabric of muslin and lace which plays as important a part in the flirtations of fashionable life here as the fan among the ladies of Spain. Who could imagine so small a square of cloth--if it be not profanity to apply so common a term to so wondrous a tissue--could be made to express or conceal so much in the hands of its fair owner? Such an expressive toss or whisk could only be the result of the profoundest study. And what a delicate attractive odor it gives out, suggestive of roses, and violets, and all the flora of occidental as well as oriental gallantry. And then the touching _rôle_ it plays in the pathetic--it is the recipient of some timely tear--perhaps too, vain coxcomb, a screen for many a yawn. We can never be too sure of what is confided to this bosom companion.

The sacredness imputed to the handkerchief is no modern idea. It came to us from the East, whence sprang religion, science, and romance itself. Ages ago the handkerchief was regarded in Egypt as a kind of amulet. The fair one of later days, who interweaves a thread of her own life into the handkerchief she intends for some favored knight, hopes it may prove like the magic handkerchief given by the Egyptian charmer to Othello’s mother, endued with a power to subdue him “entirely to her love.”

“There’s magic in the web of it: A sibyl that had number’d in the world The sun to make two hundred compasses In her prophetic fury sew’d the work: The worms were hallow’d that did breed the silk: And it was dyed in mummy, which the skilful Conserved of maidens’ hearts.”

The handkerchief is the strongest proof of love, not only among the Moors, but among all Eastern nations, says Byron, who approved of Shakespeare’s making the jealousy of Othello turn on this point. But poor Desdemona found the inherited talisman she “kissed and talked to” a fatal gift.

Perhaps the handkerchief immortalized by Drummond of Hawthornden, embroidered for him by the beautiful Lesbia to whom he was betrothed, was likewise ominous, for she died “in the fresh April of her years,” and the handkerchief she gave him was steeped in tears at her loss.

Calderon says:

“She gave me too a handkerchief--a spell-- A flattering pledge, my hopes to animate, An astrologic favor, fatal prize That told too true what tears must wipe these eyes.”

The significance of the handkerchief is referred to in Horace Walpole’s letters: “Lord Tavistock has flung his handkerchief to Lady Elizabeth Keppel. They all go to Woburn on Thursday, and the ceremony is to be performed as soon as her brother, the bishop, can arrive from Exeter.”

Miss Strickland tells us that when Anne Boleyn dropped her handkerchief from the balcony at the feet of Henry Norris, the latter, heated from the part he had just been taking in the jousts, took it up, presumptuously wiped his face with it, and then returned it to the queen on the point of his lance. At this, King Henry changed color, abruptly retired in a fury of jealousy, and gave orders for the arrest of the queen and of all who were suspected of being favored by her. It proved a fatal handkerchief to him also, for he was soon after executed.

The handkerchief may be regarded as one of the great indications of civilization. Though the Celestials have not yet arrived at this climax, and still carry their small sheets of delicate paper as a substitute, but which possess no moral significance whatever, so far as we know, more refined nations have made its use universal. Even the poorest may whip out of his pocket, in these days, not that red cotton flag of abomination that used to offend the sight, but one of pure white linen, betokening a higher state of cultivation.

We are quite well aware that the handkerchief is, notwithstanding, a luxury some of the laboring classes reserve for Sundays and high festivals, which alone should invest the article with a quasi sanctity, associated as it is with religious observances. With what careful deliberation such an one draws it forth from the receptacle devoted to its use! With what a tremulous awkwardness he applies it, as though he were making an unaccustomed experiment; or losing his caution, perhaps he charges with desperation, like Miss Wix, one of whose peculiarities was that she always blew her nose as if it belonged to an enemy! And how carefully it is refolded and returned to the secret depository. What heaps of “wipes” the astonished Oliver Twist saw in the Jew’s den, and all so badly marked, too, that the stitches had to be picked out!

We cannot help rejoicing over the handkerchief the Artful Dodger drew from Mr. Brownlow’s pocket which led to such a change in Oliver’s fortunes.

The handkerchief is an important article in many a romance, as well as in real life. Tears more touching than those of Mr. Mantalini have brought it into requisition. If all the handkerchiefs in the world could tell their experience, how many a sad tale they would unfold!--We cannot help regarding Adam and Eve with the deepest commiseration without a handkerchief between them, as hand in hand through Eden they took their solitary way. What bitter tears poor Eve shed!--but those that fell on the ground were turned into roses, and those that dropped into the water were changed into pearls, as ours too will be shown not wholly lost at some future day.

Many a hero’s bleeding wounds have been bound up by the handkerchief of some Sister of Charity on the battle-field, and many such handkerchiefs have been sent as sacred remembrances to dear ones at home, ensanguined like that Orlando sent his Rosalind, but, alas! not always so happy an omen.

The handkerchief has been made a signal of distress from more than one watch-tower besides that we used to linger by in our childhood with fear and trembling, waiting anxiously till Sister Ann’s fluttering kerchief brought deliverance to Bluebeard’s fearful hold.

We will not pass over the handkerchiefs, or aprons, mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles, that received a virtue from the very touch of the holy Apostle Paul to heal the sick--the first intimation, perhaps, of the wonder-working scapular; nor of that other handkerchief over which have been shed the tears of the whole Christian world--the _sudarium_ of Veronica, sometimes called her veil, and again a napkin (Othello’s handkerchief is called a little napkin), which has been enshrined by tradition, and to which artists and poets have paid tribute, Dante himself mentioning it in his _Paradiso_--the handkerchief that wiped the dust and sweat from the face of the Divine Sufferer and bore away the impress of his wondrous face.

To those of our readers who think every article in a magazine of this character should have a direct moral bearing, and can see none in what has just been said, we will mention an important instance of the possible power so humble an article as the handkerchief may exert in the spiritual world. We beg leave to refer them to the noble society so solemnly recommended by the Rev. Mr. Stiggins, for providing the infant negroes in the West Indies with moral pocket-handkerchiefs.

“What’s a moral pocket-ankercher?” said Sam. “I never see one o’ them articles of furniter.”

“Those which combine amusement with instruction, my young friend,” replied Mr. Stiggins, “blending select tales with wood-cuts.”

“Oh! I know,” said Sam, “them as hangs up in the linen-drapers’ shops with the beggars’ petitions and all that ’ere upon ’em?”

Mr. Stiggins began a third round of toast, and nodded assent.

So do we. And it is not difficult to imagine the budding Othellos contending loudly for their share of the didactic “ankerchers.”

“Not fierce Othello in so loud a strain Roared for the handkerchief that caused his pain!”

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

LECTURES AND SERMONS. By the Very Rev. Thomas N. Burke, O.P. New York: P. M. Haverty, 5 Barclay Street. 1872. pp. 644.

Mr. Haverty has brought out this eagerly expected volume in splendid style, and, what is better still, in a style which is tasteful and appropriate. The title-page, adorned with the Dominican coat-of-arms, is especially beautiful, and the portrait of F. Burke is both an excellent engraving and a good likeness. We are also pleased to notice that there are but few typographical errors, and, in general, that the care and pains which were due from courtesy and gratitude to the immense labors which the author of these lectures and sermons has performed for our profit and pleasure, have been diligently bestowed in making his first published work worthy of his high character and reputation. The cost of the volume will not, we trust, deter any who can possibly afford it from adding this rich legacy of instructive and eloquent teaching to the Catholics of the United States to their libraries, and thus, at the same time, contributing some trifling offering to the Order with which the author is identified, and which is itself wholly identified with the good of the poor Catholic people of Ireland for seven long centuries of labor and martyrdom. It is much to be desired, however, that as soon as the first costly edition is disposed of, a cheap one should be issued for the vast body of people who cannot afford to buy an expensive book. We hope, however, for the credit of our country, that no publisher will so far forget himself as to publish any such edition without F. Burke’s permission and full sanction.

The contents of the volume, which is a large royal octavo, comprise thirty-eight lectures and sermons on a great variety of the most important and interesting topics of the Catholic religion, and Irish history in its relation to religion, although there are sometimes several lectures on the same or very similar topics. Only a few of these were written out for the press by the author, most of them being extemporaneous discourses which were taken down by reporters, and only hastily revised by the father in the short and broken intervals of his incessant labors. It is due to the reporters, however, to say that their work has been performed with the utmost diligence and accuracy, and that they have reproduced, with almost literal fidelity, everything which fell from the lips of the orator--a service to religion and literature for which we tender them our most sincere thanks. F. Burke, with characteristic modesty, apologizes for the publication of his discourses, which, he tells us, he would have prevented if possible. We are very glad that it was not possible, for we have gained in this volume a new and rich casket of real jewels of truth and beauty. It is true that it is necessary to hear F. Burke in order to appreciate and enjoy fully the power of his word, which is emphatically a spoken word, and not a mere written and readable expression of thought in language. His voice, with its baritone richness; his action; his Dominican habit, so beautiful and graceful a dress for a sacred orator in itself, and so sacredly impressive from its associations; and, above all, the magnetic power of his vivid faith and noble enthusiasm for truth and justice, together with the surrounding circumstances of the scene and audience, all enter into the correlation of causes producing the convincing, persuasive, inspiring, and captivating effect of his eloquence. The power of producing the effect which he does produce, and that generally and continually, would prove F. Burke to be an orator of a high order, even if his discourses, written out and read, like those of Massillon and Henry Clay, were incapable of producing a similar effect upon a cultivated reader. But F. Burke’s discourses will bear reading, and their publication will enhance instead of diminishing his fame. Their intrinsic merits as products of learning, intellect, and imagination, prove him to be something more than an orator: they prove him to be a theologian, a philosopher, and a poet, although he is all these in subservience to his distinctive and specific character and vocation as a popular preacher and orator. F. Burke is a master of the most profound Catholic theology, a true disciple of St. Thomas. His logical and argumentative ability in proving the Catholic doctrines, especially those relating to the constitution of the church, is equal to that of our best controversialists; he is a scholar and a historian of rich and varied acquisitions, and he has the sentiment of the beautiful in nature and art to a high degree, joined to a happy descriptive faculty which belongs to his oratorical gifts. He has also an abundance of wit and humor.

But, beyond and above all this, F. Burke is a man of faith; pure, intelligent, uncompromising, Catholic faith and loyalty to the Vicar and the Church of Christ; an apostolic preacher and champion of the truth and law and cause of God. All his gifts are placed in the censer, and made to send up the incense of praise to God; they are laid on the altar and consecrated to our Lord Jesus Christ. The great aim and effort of his sermons and lectures has been to revive and strengthen faith and virtue in the breasts of the people, to arouse their devotion to the Holy See, and enlighten them on the duty of obedience and loyalty to the teaching and the cause of the Holy Father. As an instance of the effect which he has produced on the minds of the people, we may relate an incident which came to our knowledge a few days ago. A longshoreman, who had come to a priest to take the pledge, said to him: “You see, father, that since we heard F. Burke, we have been talking among ourselves a great deal about penance and putting ourselves all right, and so I have just come up to your reverence to begin by taking the pledge.” These are the best triumphs of the Catholic priest, and of far more value to him than the applause of listening thousands. There is no one who has such an empire over the hearts of his countrymen at present in New York as F. Burke. We think there is a greater work for him here than anywhere else in the world, and we therefore conclude by expressing the hope that he may remain here to do it.

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MEMOIR OF ROGER B. TANEY, LL.D., Chief-Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. By Samuel Tyler, LL.D., of the Maryland Bar. Baltimore: John Murphy & Co. 1872.

This long-expected and important book has just appeared. It was known that Chief-Justice Taney had, in his lifetime, selected Mr. Tyler to write his biography, a fact well calculated to prepossess the public favorably towards the author and his work. It inspired, also, the hope that ample materials were placed within his reach, and that he would be peculiarly favored in his labors. But as the Chief-Justice, with characteristic modesty, preserved but little of his own writings, and was in the habit of destroying most of the letters he received, and of retaining no copies of those he wrote, it appears that Mr. Tyler labored under great difficulties in accomplishing his appointed duty. Towards the close of his life, when in his seventy-eighth year, the Chief-Justice was reminded, by seeing his biography in Van Santvoord’s _Lives of the Chief-Justices_, that his life would form a part of the history of his country, and he commenced then a _memoir_ of himself, ending with the account of his early life and education, which now forms the first and an extremely interesting chapter of Mr. Tyler’s _Memoir_. It seems that the author had to rely, beyond this, chiefly upon his own industry and researches. He has done his work well and faithfully, not as an allotted task, but as a labor of love, a tribute of manly friendship. He has collected a vast amount of historical matter relating to the scenes and times in which the Chief-Justice’s lot was cast, to the great lawyers and judges of the past, most of whom Judge Taney survived, to the public men and statesmen who have shaped the destiny and made the history of our country for the last fifty years, and to the great constitutional questions which, during that period, have agitated the public mind. In order to vindicate the memory of the eminent jurist, he has, from necessity, introduced into his book issues that are now dead; he does not do this in a partisan or aggressive spirit, but treats them rather historically, and with the view of showing what were Judge Taney’s sentiments and what the motives of his action. In the Appendix he gives at length the opinions of the Chief-Justice in the celebrated Dred Scott case, in the cases of Ableman _vs._ Booth and Kentucky _vs._ Ohio, both relating to the same subject, and in the noted Merryman _habeas corpus_ case, and has done well in doing so, because these remarkable papers are thus brought within the reach of many not in the habit of reading the law-books. Mr. Tyler’s style is easy and fluent, though not of a high literary order. The book must prove very interesting and instructive to all connected with the law and the administration of justice. Perhaps the subject has been treated too much from a professional standpoint, and for this reason may not prove as interesting to the general reader as such a theme might have been made.

There is one respect in which we regard this work with regret. Chief-Justice Taney was a Catholic and his biographer is a Protestant. It was, then, impossible for Mr. Tyler, even with the best intentions, to do full justice to the character of the Chief-Justice, to his interior life, to his Catholic virtues, and, consequently, to the motives which governed his public actions. We find no fault with Mr. Tyler for this, for he has shown an earnest desire to be fair and just, and has done his best in this as in every other respect. But that best does not meet the necessities of the subject. Mr. Tyler, himself a lawyer, was selected to write the life of a great lawyer and judge, and he has performed his work with ability and zeal, but he has performed it as a lawyer--he could not perform it as a Catholic. To the eyes of Catholics the faith and piety of Chief-Justice Taney were more beautiful and more precious than even his transcendent abilities and profound learning. We think they were the glory of his life and the motive power which made him superior to fear and to all human respect. We think they constituted the charm of his public and private life; and had they been handled by a Catholic, and as none but a Catholic can handle them, the work would have been far more valuable. There were points in the Chief-Justice’s life as a Catholic which remain to this day undeveloped and unelucidated, and for this reason, while Mr. Tyler’s memoir will prove invaluable to the legal profession and general reader, it will disappoint the expectations of his Catholic readers. No Protestant writer could be more free from bigotry than Mr. Tyler, and none could have written Chief-Justice Taney’s life as well. We impute no blame; on the contrary, we thank him for the admiration he expresses of the Chief-Justice’s religion and piety. But the subject was deeper and more fruitful than any Protestant eye could perceive or pen portray. Notwithstanding this, we can and do earnestly commend the work to all Catholics. It is a noble tribute to one of the purest and greatest men of our age. No one, be his faith or politics what they may, can read it without instruction and improvement. Indeed, no one can fairly read it without conceiving a greater respect for that ancient church of which its hero was so devoted a son.

Our duty obliges us, however, to add that Catholics should also take warning from his life of the fatal effects flowing from early disobedience to the precepts and counsels of the church, which subsequent penance is frequently unavailing to remove. All the children of the Chief-Justice were Protestants--a sad fact which is its own best comment.

* * * * *

HISTORICAL SKETCHES. Rise and Progress of Universities, Northmen and Normans in England and Ireland, Mediæval Oxford, Convocation of Canterbury. By John Henry Newman, of the Orator, sometime Fellow of Oriel College. London: Basil Montagu Pickering. 1872. (New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication Society.)

Mr. Pickering, who is the very pink of elegant and aristocratic publishers, edits Dr. Newman’s works in just the style most suitable to the classic productions of that thoroughly English gentleman and scholar. We cannot give a better or more attractive description of this new volume in the series of the Newman republications, than by simply copying the table of contents:

“1. Introductory; 2. What is a University? 3. Site of a University; 4. University Life: Athens; 5. Free Trade in Knowledge: The Sophists; 6. Discipline and Influence; 7. Influence: Athenian Schools; 8. Discipline: Macedonian and Roman Schools; 9. Downfall and Refuge of Ancient Civilization: The Lombards; 10. The Tradition of Civilization: The Isles of the North; 11. A Characteristic of the Popes: St. Gregory the Great; 12. Moral of that Characteristic of the Popes: Pius the Ninth; 13. Schools of Charlemagne: Paris; 14. Supply and Demand: The Schoolmen; 15. Professors and Tutors; 16. The Strength and Weakness of Universities: Abelard; 17. The Ancient University of Dublin; 18. Colleges the Corrective of Universities: Oxford; 19. Abuses of the Colleges: Oxford; 20. Universities and Seminaries: L’Ecole des Hautes Etudes.”

Every scholar will eagerly desire to read these essays on such interesting topics, handled by the masterly pen of Newman. The subject of universities is one just now of great practical importance, and Dr. Newman’s long experience qualifies him in a special manner to write about it. We can only hope that we may not much longer confine ourselves to writing and reading about the matter, but may soon be up and doing, both in England and in the United States.

* * * * *

(1.) THE DIVINE TEACHER. With a Preface, in Reply to No. 3 of the “English Church Defence Tracts,” entitled “Papal Infallibility.” By Wm. Humphrey, of the Oblates of St. Charles.

(2.) ANGLICAN MISREPRESENTATIONS: A Reply to “Roman Misquotations.” By W. E. Addis, of the Oratory. London: Burns & Oates. 1872. (New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication Society.)

The polemical writers of the High Church party have taken to the swamp, like the old moss-troopers, where it is vexatious to follow them. The rehashing of old, stale lies, calumnies, and misrepresentations, interspersed with a good deal of impudent abuse, has become, alas! the tactics of a party once so remarkable for calm reasoning, conscientious adhesion to truth, so far as known, and courtesy. It is a sign that their cause is nearly desperate. Meanwhile, they dupe and mislead, or at least perplex and distress, for a time, some very sincere inquirers after truth. It is necessary, therefore, although very vexatious, to chase them out of their morass. Happily, there are some Englishmen who have a talent and a liking for this work. They are cool and quiet, patient and minute, accurate, logical, and clear in their statements and arguments. They enjoy hunting such writers as the Canons Liddon and Bright out of their hiding-places, as much as Grahame of Claverhouse did beating up the quarters of the Covenanters. The two young and chivalrous knights of the faith whose names stand at the head of this notice are of this sort, and their raid has been performed gallantly and well. The essay first on the list, in particular, is an excellent little treatise on Papal Infallibility, which we commend to our readers who like something short and sweet.

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GREAT TRUTHS IN LITTLE WORDS. By the Rev. Father Rawes, O.S.C. Third Edition. London: Burns, Oates & Co. 12mo. (New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication Society.)

A well-printed book of modest pretensions, and not devoid of merit, containing in its two hundred and sixty pages thirty chapters on various religious topics, both of controversy and devotion, and a good deal of simple, practical instruction.

THE OLD GOD: A Narrative for the People. Translated from the German of Conrad von Bolanden. By the Very Rev. Theodore Noethen. Boston: Patrick Donahoe. 1872.

Some time ago, we published one of Bolanden’s longer and more elaborate novels, entitled “Angela,” in this magazine. He has written a number of these, and particularly a series of historical romances on the Thirty Years’ War, of the first order of merit; all of which we hope to see translated. We are now publishing one of his short popular novels, entitled “The Progressionists,” and the present volume is another of the same class. The subject of it is the imprisonment of Pius VII. in France. There are several more of the same series, “The New God,” “The Infallibilists,” “The Marvel of the Cross,” etc. They are very popular in Germany, where they sell at the rate of 85,000 copies of a single story. They are capital for their purpose, and we are glad to see the indefatigable Father Noethen giving them to the public in an English dress.

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THE ORDER AND CEREMONIAL OF THE MOST HOLY AND ADORABLE SACRIFICE OF THE MASS EXPLAINED, ETC., ETC. By Frederick Oakeley, Canon of the Metropolitan Church. New York: The Catholic Publication Society.

We take great pleasure in announcing, in behalf of The Catholic Publication Society, a new edition of Canon Oakeley’s well-known and admirable little book on the ceremonies of Holy Mass.

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PONTIFICATE OF PIUS IX. By J. F. Maguire, M.P. London: Longmans. 1870. (From the author.)

Mr. Maguire is well known on both sides of the Atlantic as an able and upright member of the British Parliament, representing an Irish constituency, as the editor of one of the best Catholic newspapers in the English language--the _Cork Examiner_--and as the author of several interesting books. The present volume, published two years ago, has just been sent to the editor of this magazine by the author, for which courtesy he will please accept our thanks. It is a revised and enlarged edition of a work already well known and extensively read in this country, under the title “Rome and its Ruler.” The author has made many additions to it, and has brought it down to the year 1870, so that its value is, we may say, trebled, so great are the events which have crowded these later years of our glorious Pontiff now happily reigning. It is impossible to exaggerate the value and importance of a work like this. In momentous interest, the topics of which it treats are on a level with those of the Sacred History itself. The means of information for English readers are scanty. Mr. Maguire is a loyal and devout Catholic, an able, well-informed, and conscientious statesman and historian. It is therefore of the utmost consequence that his book should be circulated and read extensively. We trust the demand for it will be such as to induce American publishers to make ample provisions for supplying the American public with this most necessary and valuable work.

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TRAVELS IN EUROPE AND THE EAST. By Rev. J. Vetromile, D.D. New York: D. & J. Sadlier & Co. 1872.

This is a volume of quite large size, handsomely printed, and ornamented with a fine portrait of the reverend author, who is an Italian priest, for many years laboring as a missionary among the Indians of the State of Maine. The style is easy, agreeable, and entertaining, and the book is very much like a cosy afternoon chat with an intelligent and travelled gentleman about the scenes and countries he has visited. Reading the description of the pleasant home and delightful circle of friends which the author has left, we can better appreciate the great sacrifice he has made in banishing himself to the Indian settlements of Maine, and we are sure he will make a friend of every reader of his book.

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MEMOIRS OF THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CHURCH IN NEW ENGLAND. By Rev. James Fitton. Boston: P. Donahoe. 1872.

Father Fitton is the oldest priest in New England, having exercised his sacerdotal ministry there during forty-seven years. At the time when, in company with one other young deacon, he was ordained priest by Bishop Fenwick, there were only three other priests in that prelate’s diocese, which embraced all New England. Father Fitton is entitled to the reverence and gratitude of all the Catholics of New England, as one who has been an apostolic missionary and a laborious parish priest for almost half a century. He is also worthy of confidence and credence as a competent and truthful witness and annalist of the principal facts and events in the history of the Catholic religion in New England. He has prefaced his history of the church as existing in modern times by an interesting account of the ancient mission in Rhode Island during the residence of the Northmen at Newport, and of the early Indian missions. This is the romantic part of the history. The rest of it is prosaic and commonplace, and yet of great value, and made interesting by the great results which have come from small and humble beginnings. Every priest and layman in New England ought to have this book and read it attentively, and it is worth the perusal of all those out of New England who take an interest in the progress of the Catholic religion in the United States of America.

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HORNEHURST RECTORY. By Sister Mary Frances Clare. New York: D. & J. Sadlier & Co. 1872.

The appearance of a novel from this distinguished writer will be an agreeable surprise to her numerous admirers in this country, who have read with so much pleasure and profit her graver historical and biographical works. _Hornehurst_ is an English tale illustrative of the movement in the ranks of the English Church towards Catholicity, inaugurated some forty years ago by Dr. Newman and the Tractarians. The characters throughout are well drawn, the writer being of course thoroughly acquainted with the expressions, modes of thought, and arguments of the class she portrays.

The book presents a handsome appearance, and we anticipate for it an extensive patronage, and a permanent place in our Catholic libraries.

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GOING HOME. By Eliza Martin. Philadelphia: Eugene Cummiskey. 1872.

We are glad to see that this novel, which has already appeared serially in a Philadelphia Catholic newspaper, has been published in a more portable and permanent form. It is a work of very considerable merit, combining amusing and exciting incidents with sound instruction; and from its latent power and partially developed dramatic strength we judge that it is not the last nor the ablest of the productions with which the authoress is likely to favor the public. We are sadly in need of books of its refined and humanizing character, for, if our young people must read fiction, they ought to be supplied with the very best attainable in temper and tendency. The plot of the tale is not complicated, the leading characters are well and clearly delineated, the moral obvious, and the scene confined to our own country, not overdrawn. As a whole, its tone is sad, sometimes even painfully so, and in our opinion the contrasts between abject poverty and unlimited affluence, virtue almost superhuman and unmitigated villany--though all drawn with great vigor--are too violent to be thoroughly artistic. A novel should be like a well-finished painting, with a middle distance softening and blending the more prominent lights and shadows of the picture. It might be objected, also, that the physical beauty of Mrs. Martin’s heroines, of whom there are three, is too highly colored, too elaborately depicted, for actual life; but as this is a fault which carries with it its own palliation, we presume it will not be considered a very great blemish by most of her readers. For the sake of the authoress, who doubtless has devoted much time and labor to her work, as well as from the respect in which we hold her publisher, we would be glad to be able to extend our praise from the literary qualities of _Going Home_ to its mechanical execution, but in common justice we find it impossible to do so. On the contrary, it must be admitted that the paper upon which it is printed, the type, ink, and presswork, are all of the most inferior sort--carelessness or want of ordinary taste, for we cannot attribute it to design, is evident on every page, lessening in no slight degree the unalloyed pleasure one might otherwise feel in reading so interesting a story.

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THE PLEBISCITE. By Erckmann-Chatrian. New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co. 1872.

This prettily bound and printed book is the combined effort of the authors of the _Conscript_ and other tales well known by English translations on this side of the water. Its object is to give, in the form of a tale, a picture of French peasant manners and opinions immediately before and during the late Franco-German war; and to a certain extent it may be considered a success. A vein of irony and sly humor, at which our “volatile neighbors” are such adepts, runs through every page, and, Napoleon III. having been unfortunate, of course it is directed against him and his line of policy. There is nothing, it is said, so successful as success, and, now that the mighty Empire has failed, every good Frenchman with brains enough to write a pamphlet or a song considers that he is perfectly justified in heaping obloquy on everything connected with the late order of things. The authors of the _Plebiscite_ are foremost among this army of ingrates, but they go even further than politics, and venture their ridicule on more sacred matters, a step which much greater men than Erckmann-Chatrian have attempted before now, and for which they have repented when too late.

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A BAKER’S DOZEN. Original Humorous Dialogues. By George M. Baker. Boston: Lee & Shepard. 1872.

The dialogues contained in this neat little volume, first appeared in _Oliver Optic’s Magazine_. They are well adapted to school exhibitions, etc., and will meet a very general and urgent demand.

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MARION HOWARD; OR, TRIALS AND TRIUMPHS. By F. A. Philadelphia: Peter F. Cunningham.

In the modest preface to this volume, we have the reason for its appearance before the public, which is most praiseworthy--‘the dearth of Catholic light literature.’ While the majority of readers will seek light reading, it is certainly to be regretted that there is so little that can be read without injury to faith or morals. The author of _Marion Howard_ has given us a pleasing story of English life, into which she has skilfully introduced conversations on various Catholic dogmas, which are well sustained, and in which the principles of the faith are given in a form that may attract the attention of numbers who would never look into a controversial work. It is doubtful if Protestants can be persuaded to any great extent to read even the light literature of Catholics, but such a work as _Marion Howard_ will bring pleasure and help to many a young Catholic, in need of a pleasing answer to the common objections of Protestants to the Catholic faith. The youth of the church in this country, surrounded by and mingled with those who have a false faith or no faith, should be prepared to meet the assaults they are sure to receive, and books like the one under notice will be a great assistance to them. We surmise that the author is a convert, from the multiplicity and variety of the conversions related in the book. We only wish this were true to life, and that friends would follow each other into the church in such rapid succession. There are carelessly written sentences scattered here and there through the story, but the narrative is interesting to the end, and we find a loving, tender devotion to our mother the church, like a golden thread woven into beautiful thoughts of our holy religion, that could only have been wrought by one who has the eye of faith.

The type is large and clear, and the volume presents an attractive exterior.

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BY THE SEASIDE. By a Member of the Order of Mercy, authoress of “The Life of Catherine McCauley,” “Glimpses of Pleasant Homes,” etc. New York: P. O’Shea. 1872.

This is a prettily got up book, written by one who has heretofore shown her capacity to interest and benefit the young folk. We are glad to see attractive books of a healthful tone, suited to the rising generation, thus multiplying on our publishers’ lists, as a necessary antidote to the baneful literature with which those addressed are frequently assailed. The church is the home of beauty as it is of goodness and truth, and we should not allow those who do not possess either, except in fragments, to excel us in the artistic features of their publications, any more than in what relates to ethical proprieties.

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CHRISTIAN COUNSELS, selected from the Devotional Works of Fénelon. Translated by A. M. James. London: Longmans, Greene & Co. (New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication Society.)

Our Protestant friends have, of late years, set to work very industriously in translating Catholic books and in writing original works on Catholic subjects. Besides the Edinburgh edition of the Ante-Nicene Fathers, just completed, and individual and collective lives of the saints we could once enumerate, the English versions of Continental devotional works have increased so rapidly as to alarm those High Churchmen who are averse to any further investigation. Of course we can only augur favorably of such enterprises when undertaken in the right spirit, though we may fear lest formulas be adopted without the necessary accompaniments of faith and obedience. Their “starved imaginations and suppressed devotional instincts,” as Dr. Bellows once phrased it, cannot long be satisfied with words only, one would think. The writings of the Archbishop of Cambrai have been too long before the English-speaking public to need any characterization at our hands, and we therefore simply chronicle the appearance of a new edition of the _Christian Counsels_ under Protestant auspices.

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PUBLIC SCHOOL EDUCATION. By Michael Müller, C.SS.R. Boston: P. Donahoe. 1872.

This is Father Müller’s contribution to the literature of one of the great questions of the day. It will have attained its end if it awakens Catholics to the importance of the general theme and their duty in its regard; and also enables judicious Protestants to comprehend why we are so solicitous that our children should receive their religious training at the same time that they acquire secular knowledge.

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SIR HUMPHREY’S TRIAL: A Book of Tales, Legends, and Sketches, in Prose and Verse. By Rev. Thomas J. Potter. Boston: P. Donahoe. 1872.

Father Potter seems equally at home in addressing the young and the mature, priests and people; as witness his works on homiletics and those of a miscellaneous character adapted to different ages. He evidently believes that variety is the spice of books as well as of life, as will be seen by the title of the present volume; and readers indisposed to take up a more serious book will find this an agreeable substitute.

_The Catholic Review_ of Brooklyn has already established its position among our best weekly papers. Its sound principles, and the tact and liveliness with which it is edited make it well worthy of support. We trust that it will soon attain a sufficient circulation to furnish the means of still further increasing its value and interest, and that it will prove to be permanently successful.

THE CATHOLIC PUBLICATION SOCIETY will publish at an early day a new work, now in preparation, by the author of _The Comedy of Convocation_, entitled _My Clerical Friends_. It will be published with the consent and approval of the author.

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WANTED.--Numbers 494, 501, 502, 504, 505 of the _Civilta Cattolica_, for which a fair price will be paid. Address the editor of THE CATHOLIC WORLD, 9 Warren Street, or corner of Ninth Avenue and Fifty-ninth Street.

BOOKS AND PAMPHLETS RECEIVED.

From KELLY, PIET & CO., Baltimore: Excelsior; or, Essays on Politeness, Education, and the Means of Attaining Success in Life. Part I. for Young Gentlemen, by T. E. Howard; Part II. for Young Ladies, by A Lady (R. V. R.) 12mo, pp. 318.--The Gold-Diggers and other Verses. By Lady Georgiana Fullerton. 12mo, pp. xi., 187.--Dramas: The Witch of Rosenburg.--The Hidden Gem. By H. E. Cardinal Wiseman. 12mo, pp. 76, 105.--Lectures by the Most Rev. Henry Edward Manning: The Four Great Evils of the Day; The Fourfold Sovereignty of God; The Grounds of Faith. 18mo, pp. 133, 170, 101.--St. Helena. A Drama for Girls. By Rev. J. A. Bergrath. Paper, 12mo, pp. 43.

From P. DONAHOE, Boston: Devotions for the Ecclesiastical Year. By the author of “Jesus and Jerusalem,” etc.

From P. O’SHEA, New York: Meditations on the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ. By Brother Philip. 12mo, pp. ix., 483.--The Profits and Delights of Devotion to Mary. By Rev. J. O’Reilly, D.D. 12mo, pp. 153.--The Crown of Mary. By a Dominican Father. 24mo, pp. 101.--The Agnus Dei: Its Origin and History. 32mo, pp. 78.--Evaline. By P. J. Cohen. 12mo, pp. 225.--Spiritual Retreat of Eight Days: Extracted from the Works of St. Alphonsus Liguori. 12mo, pp. viii., 160.

From SCRIBNER, ARMSTRONG & CO., New York: Within and Without. By George MacDonald, LL.D. 12mo, pp. 219.--Easy Experiments in Practical Science. By L. R. C. Cooley, Ph.D. 12mo, pp. 85.--Natural Philosophy. By L. R. C. Cooley, Ph.D. 12mo, pp. 192.

Transcriber’s Notes:

Obvious punctuation errors have been repaired. Common alternate spellings were retained. Hyphenation is not necessarily consistent from author to author, and was retained as written.

It appears that “Sand” was used where “Shund” was meant on page 624, but the text has been left as printed. (How come you, then, to call Mr. Sand a good-for-nothing scoundrel)

“Voltarian” changed to “Voltairian” on page 17. (you will find under it a Voltairian)

Repeated word “the” removed on page 27. (the diary of the first Mrs. Williams)

“Honi” changed to “Honni” on age 32. (Honni soit qui mal y pense)

“Amecan” changed to “American” on page 35. (An American best understands the American mind.)

“felfow” changed to “fellow” on page 41. (doing good to his fellow-men)

“has” changed to “have” on page 50. (the principles which have always guided them)

“Cathoolic” changed to “Catholic” on page 51. (by which Catholic life)

“inpired” changed to “inspired” on page 71. (Felix had always inspired her)

Extra word “to” removed on page 73. (But their claims are not equal to his) “Marceliinus” changed to “Marcellinus” on page 81. (Alexander, Marcellinus, and _Peter_)

“migh” changed to “might” on page 105. (might go on indefinitely)

“Castel-Gaudolfo” changed to “Castel-Gandolfo” on page 108. (the pleasant hamlets of Castel-Gandolfo)

“á” changed to “à” on page 138. (Demander à tes champs leurs antiques ombrages)

“Engénie” changed to “Eugénie” on page 138. (Eugénie de Guérin’s library)

“orgin” changed to “origin” on page 140. (origin of the Greek people)

“ehurch” changed to “church” on page 142. (the church honors real reformer)

“glace” changed to “glance” on page 161. (cast an indignant glance on her sister)

Repeated word “to” removed on page 185. (it amounted to any reproach to be a new man)

“fel-asleep” changed to “fell asleep” on page 188. (I fell asleep and actually dreamed)

“Gallaic’s” changed to “Galliac’s” on page 206. (at Madame de Galliac’s)

Repeated word “at” removed from page 207. (They were both sound at heart)

“abandantly” changed to “abundantly” on page 234. (perhaps more abundantly accorded)

“step” changed to “stept” on page 247. (Her bosom heaved, she stept aside)

“copmanions” changed to “companions” on page 260. (Melania and her companions)

Extra word “of” removed from page 266. (the wife of King Ethelbert)

“Captains” changed to “Captain” on page 301. (Captain Cary’s way of expressing the fact)

“familar” changed to “familiar” on page 317. (a familiar swing and freedom)

“Elyseés” changed to “Elysées” on page 324. (drive home by the Champs Elysées)

“bétises” changed to “bêtises” on page 326. (Edgar _a fait des bêtises_)

“formulalation” changed to “formulation” on page 334. (its precise formulation)

“where” changed to “were” on page 367. (were shamed into less inhuman ways)

Extra word “to” remove on age 368. (she had it placed in a shrine, to which it was carried)

“Bulter” changed to “Butler” on page 376. (After her husband’s death, Adelaide, says Butler)

“illustrous” changed to “illustrious” on page 379. (the merits of its illustrious foundress)

“surrended” changed to “surrendered” on page 379. (voluntarily surrendered itself)

“seventeeth” changed to “seventeenth” on page 382. (the beginning of the seventeenth century)

“succcessful” changed to “successful” on page 384. (more successful than Lord Derby)

“ἡροων” changed to “ἡρωων” on page 385.

“οἰονοισι” changed to “οἰωνοισι” on page 385.

“ψύχας” changed to “ψυχὰς” on page 385.

“προ-ιαψσεν” changed to “προ-ιαψεν” on page 385.

“Byrant” changed to “Bryant” on page 389. (reproduced by Mr. Bryant)

“Τροων” changed to “Τρωων καιοντων” on page 389.

“εὐθρονον” changed to “ἐυθρονον” on page 390.

“Byrant” changed to “Bryant” on page 392. (Then Mr. Bryant:)

“Byrant” changed to “Bryant” on page 392. (Voss and Mr. Bryant)

“know” changed to “known” on page on page 431. (discovery known as)

“becauuse” changed to “because” on page 434. (because Streichein has lavishly greased their palms)

“dedeprive” changed to “deprive” on page 445. (combine not only to deprive the building of scale)

“picturesqe” changed to “picturesque” on page 449. (part of a picturesque whole)

“freqently” changed to “frequently” on page 450. (frequently supplied the place)

“remaing” changed to “remaining” on page 452. (the richness of our remaining material)

“cenventionality” changed to “conventionality” on 455. (An utter absence of conventionality)

“â” changed to “à” on page 459. (_A l’eau! à la lanterne!_)

“sufficent” changed to “sufficient” on page 478. (having sufficient control)

“equilibrum” changed to “equilibrium” on page 544. (poised in rational equilibrium)

“eradiate” changed to “eradicate” on page 544. (It seeks to eradicate)

“inflnences” changed to “influences” on page 576. (correct these literary influences)

“wordly” changed to “worldly” on page 598. (sagacity as of worldly ambition)

“importanc” changed to “importance” on page 612. (which gives them their importance)

“sieze” changed to “seize” on page 673. (seize some unlucky porter)

“beggers” changed to “beggars” on page 676. (all the beggars who were refused entrance)

“envv” changed to “envy” on page 729. (envy is but thinly concealed)

“unburbened” changed to “unburdened” on page 740. (the sweetness of an unburdened heart)

“Adelentado” changed to “Adelantado” on page 750. (the title of Adelantado of Florida)

Extra word “of” removed from page 754. (Many of these missions and residences)

“westtern” changed to “western” on page 757. (the power of Spain in the western world)

“Lallemant” changed to “Lalemant” on page 762. (Jogues, Brébeuf, and Lalemant)

“Christain” changed to “Christian” on page 763. (their white Christian neighbors)

Extra word “my” removed on page 772. (I prevail on myself)

“descending” changed to “descended” on page 825. (Having descended the Hollow)

“posisition” changed to “position” on page 827. (fourth or fifth occupant of the position)