Part III.

He Sang.

I.

Beside the well she stood, and water drew: The bowl, high held in both her hands, I drained; She smiled, and sparkles showered of gelid dew On my hot hair, and brows with travel stained.

“O maiden! by thy lambs, and by thy kids, And by that holy, hospitable hand, Know’st thou her name whom Love to name forbids, That fairest fair one of the far‐off land?”

Her eyes grew large; in wonder half, half ruth She spake, like one who sorrowed, yet forgave “_Our_ land a land of beauty is, O youth! _Her_ maids are fair and good; _her_ sons are brave.”

“O maiden! by those eyes, and quivering lids, Forgive! From thee Love hides not his sweet lore: Breathe it to none—not even thy lambs and kids—” Then whispered I thy name, but told no more.

II.

How base the soldier’s revel o’er his wine! The tale around the encampment fire; the song! Would I might hear, O maid! no voice but thine, Or clash of swords that meet to right the wrong!

Why must his earthlier nature taint, or vex Man’s race? His heart is brave; his thoughts are large; Benigner angels guard thy happier sex, The angels that have innocence in charge.

The brightest of that band I saw in dream To thee make way: a lily stem she bore: She vanished, lost in thee, as gleam in gleam Is lost: thou glittered’st brighter than before.

III.

Who shall ascend into thy realm, O Love? It is a garden on a mountain steep: From heaven it hangs, the woods, the clouds above; Sees many rivers into ocean creep.

Round it are icy spires; that vale they guard; But who can breathe the airs that o’er it blow? Within it blooms the rose, and drops the nard; But who can clasp the roses of the snow?

The bird that sings there sings as sings a bride; But who her mystic chaunt can understand? O maid, I saw thee ere we met, and cried, “The land she treads on is a virgin land!”

IV.

Gladdening, as if in founts of Eden dipped, Thy beauty cheers and strengthens hearts forlorn, Not like the shafts of Islam, venom‐tipt;— Dove’s eyes thou hast, the glances of the morn.

Thy father’s joy art thou, thy mother’s boast; Upon the dusty track by pilgrims trod Laugheth the cripple; and the warlike host Divides before thee, giving thanks to God.

The merchants praise thee, and the wandering guest— “Her veil down streams with such a humble pride, Fairer is that alone than all the West Irreverent boasts of charms that scorn to hide!”

V.

“Is thy love fairer than each other maiden?” The young maids ask me. Answer find I none: I know but this;—she shines on hearts grief‐laden Like visitant from star more near the sun.

Above her vesture’s hem a lustre hovers: Whiter her veil than earliest white of dawn, Now lifted as on sighs of happy lovers, Around her now, like mist o’er Hesper, drawn.

Sweet is her voice, as though with saint and angel Her converse had been ever, and were still: With her she seems to waft some high evangel, So light her step, so frank with all good‐will.

Let her be child, or girl, or maid, or woman— I know not what she is. Alone I know She moves o’er earth like creature more than human, Missioned from God to spread his peace below.

VI.

When, travel‐worn, on thee I chance to muse, Breeze‐like the fragrance comes across my heart Of spring‐flowers breathing sweetness through their dews; So blissful and so bountiful thou art.

That hour I sing no song; but all my soul Inly with laughter loud of music rings: The anthems of a spirit o’er me roll; Of virtue, loveliness, and love he sings.

All light, the fields of duty round me spread; Beyond them honor sits, with thee beside: A heaven all glory flashes overhead; An earth all rapture trembles like a bride.

VII.

Changed is my love from what it was when first Forth from my heart that dream of fair and good, Like Eve from side of sleeping Adam, burst, And by me, when I woke, in glory stood.

That dream wert thou! A dream, and yet how true! Still, still I see thee oft beside that brook, Standing ’mid lilies in the evening dew, And in thy hand a little open book.

Dear are such memories; dearer far than these Art thou—now known; a lovely human soul Running on levels of some spirit‐breeze With wingèd feet to virtue’s glittering goal.

The songs and sufferings of our native land, The faith that lifts her high all griefs above, These, and thy daily tasks of heart and hand, Thee too have raised, and with thee raised my love.

VIII.

My hand, made strong by years of manly strife, Has taught my heart to love in manly sort; I know thee now—a maid—one day a wife; No more a phantom from the fairy court.

Mine Arab sires their towers cross‐crowned had raised Like thine, on crag and peak, and dwelt therein, Hundreds of years ere first in scorn they gazed Far down on crescent flags of Saladin.

Seldom for us the unequal strife hath ceased: Age after age that martyr‐crown we bear, Here in our old untamed, inviolate East, The Church for three short centuries bore elsewhere.

Wife of our race must share the heroic mould: A mother ’mid our mothers with calm eye Must look on death: like that great heart of old Must give her own—if God so wills—to die!

IX.

From things that be around thee stand apart, For I thy lover am, and fight afar: A sword I send thee, that betwixt thy heart And alien things henceforth there may be war.

I send thee not the trophies I have won, Tokens of town redeemed, or rescued shrine: I send a sword; thy life is now begun: Look up! In heaven, too, hangs the sword, a Sign!

With this commandment have I bound thine eyes, That, fixed and set, henceforth no more they swerve: Mine are they. She my life who glorifies On me must gaze not, but that cause I serve!

X.

In single fight we met: the invader fell; Two hosts stood mute, one gloomy, both amazed; His eyes, the eyes of one that hears his knell, On me, and not my lifted sword, were raised.

Forth from that shivered helm outstreamed afar His locks dust‐stained. Forth from those eyes there shone, Baleful in death, hate’s never‐setting star: He hoped no mercy, and he asked for none.

Then cried my heart, “A sister’s hands have twined, How oft! those locks; a mother’s lips have pressed: Perhaps this morn the cassia‐shaking wind Waved them, rich‐scented, o’er his true love’s breast.”

“Foe of my race,” I said, “arise; live free; But lift no more against the Faith thy sword!” Was it thy prayer, or but the thought of thee, That sentenced chieftain rescued and restored?

A Glimpse of the Green Isle. II.

After mature reflection, the Lady from Idaho pronounced the Dublin ladies the most beautiful in Europe. I consider the judgment an important one. If the fair arbiter had any prejudice, it could only be a general one against the recognition of beauty in others of her sex. I have been informed by young gentlemen of my acquaintance who profess a thorough knowledge of womankind that such a prejudice is not unusual in feminine minds. I think Madame Idaho was rather astonished at the result of her observations. It is possible that, before her visit to Ireland, she supposed that feminine beauty in Ireland offered only one style: that of the robustious or “Irish washerwoman” type. She did not say so, however. While I agreed with her, in general, in her estimate of the Dublin beauties, I ventured to ask if their lovely feet were not a trifle too flat and too large for perfect symmetry.

“Not at all,” was the reply. “It is the horrid, clumsy, broad‐toed English _chaussure_ that makes the ladies’ feet look so broad and flat. If they wore American _brodequins_, their feet would look as small, in proportion, as—ahem!—as those of any other nation.”

No more on those feet.

Of the various manifestations of Irish beauty, the most engaging is the union of black or dark‐brown hair with soft blue eyes, a skin with the whiteness of milk, and cheeks with the bloom of the rose. It is inexpressibly soft and attractive. And that wonderful blush that decks the cheek of youth and age! Is it the soft moisture of the climate which makes the grass so green, even in the winter of the year, that causes the cheek to bloom so rosily, even in the winter of old age?

A magnificent _jeunesse_ of the sterner sex may also be seen on promenade in Grafton Street every afternoon. Bright, intelligent‐looking, of splendid physique, well dressed, not “flashy,” the students of the university and the other colleges—the picked youth of the country—are not inferior in appearance to any class of young men in the great educational institutions either at home or abroad. They have an amiable weakness for light‐colored Jouvins and single eye‐glasses. You shall not find two out of twenty unprovided with a glazing for the left eye. They are armed with canes—for use as well as ornament. I witnessed a “Town and Gown” row in January of 187‐, in which the canes did vigorous service. A little snow had fallen. Snow is a very precious thing in Ireland. It does not last long, and must be used at once. The foolish janitors had swept the snow into little heaps. This was temptation too strong for undergraduates. Snow‐balling commenced. The young gentlemen paid their compliments to the town through the railings of College Green. The unwashed young gentlemen of the town replied vigorously. The fun grew fast and furious. In the delightful excitement of the moment some of the students, not having the fear of the board before their eyes, paid their compliments to some of the dons, who happened to cross the outer quadrangle in cap and gown, with snowballs of no contemptible solidity. The excitement increased. The gownsmen went outside the college grounds, and charged on the town ragabrashes who were collected outside. The police intervened in the interest of order, and were attacked by both parties. The policeman is the natural enemy of the student as well as of the ragabrash. The police proceeded to make some arrests among the leaders of the gownsmen, and began brandishing their clubs. Snowballs were thrown aside, and canes were used. It was a sight to see the canes go up and down. The gownsmen succeed in rescuing the prisoners from the police, and retire within the walls, taking a captive policeman with them, and cheering in triumph. The police invade the college precincts, and rush to the rescue of their captured comrade. They are driven out, and the victorious students follow them into the street. The police suddenly turn on their pursuers, seize one of the college leaders, and, by a pretty piece of strategy, lift him on an outside car, and drive off with him at full speed to the nearest police station. Rescue was out of the question, the _coup_ was executed so quickly. Everybody rushes after the car, and the green is deserted.

“Et le combat cessa faute de combattants.”

After a week of “hearings” at the police court and intense excitement among the university men, the ringleaders were fined. The fines were paid at once. The captured policeman, who was a little battered and bruised, received ten pounds from the students for “sticking‐plaster.” The board wisely let off the offenders with a reprimand, and the trouble ended in a grand display of fireworks by the students.

Old Trinity is an imposing structure. Life‐size statues of Burke and Goldsmith are placed at either side of the principal entrance. The college grounds cover about thirty acres—a beautiful green spot in the heart of the city. In the centre of the outer quadrangle is a pretty _campanile_. The provost has a pleasant residence within the college limits. Entry into the grounds is free to all. A chief porter, in a swallow‐tailed coat and black‐velvet jockey‐cap, watches over the principal entrance. The examination‐hall, the library, the lecture‐rooms, the museum, etc., are each under charge of a special Cerberus in a jockey‐cap, who shows you the room or building under his particular charge. Each Cerberus expects a gratuity. He will be very obsequious if he gets what his modesty considers a sufficient _douceur_, and the reverse if he does not. The new museum building is a fine edifice. The entrance‐hall and principal stair‐case are remarkable for the splendid specimens of every variety of native marble they contain. The old rooms, where the museum now is, are damp and cheerless. There is an interesting collection of ancient Irish weapons, ornaments, etc. What is said to have been the harp of Brian Boroihme will be pointed out to you by the jockey‐capped janitor, who will also inform you that, though the public is admitted, the collection is intended for the use of the students, and not as an exhibition of curiosities.

Lectures, to which the public are admitted free, are given twice a week by the various professors during term‐time. I had the pleasure of attending some lectures by Sir Robert Stewart, the professor of music, and one by the professor of ancient history. The latter gentleman handled Mr. Froude in an eminently courteous and scholarly manner, but at the same time most decidedly “without gloves.” His lectures, however, were but poorly attended, while Sir Robert crammed the examination‐hall with the taste and fashion of Dublin, from the lady‐lieutenant down. All flocked to hear his comparison of the Scotch and Irish bag‐pipes, illustrated by performers on these instruments. Lady Spencer, it seems, has taken the Irish bag‐pipes under her patronage. Her ladyship seems to be a very amiable and charming person, but as to her taste in musical instruments—well! _dêgustibus non_.

Trinity College is on the east side of College Green. On the north is the principal façade of the old Parliament House. It was sold to the Bank of Ireland after the Union. The House of Commons is now the teller’s office. The principal façade is of the same order. It is grandly simple and impressive. The semi‐circular colonnades of Ionic columns produce a noble effect. This building is said to be the finest development of the order among modern structures in Europe. I am inclined to think that this pretension is not without foundation. The dingy appearance of all public buildings in Ireland and throughout the British Islands—the effect of smoke and almost continual rain—detracts greatly from their effect. A porter in livery, with a scarlet waist‐coat and a nose to match, shows you the House of Lords. A statue of George III. stands where the throne formerly stood. In all other respects the room remains as it was when Ireland had “a Parliament House of her own.” Tapestries of the Siege of Derry and the Battle of the Boyne are hung on the walls. If you give your red‐breasted conductor a sufficient gratuity, he will ask you to “take a chair,” that you may be able to say “you had a seat in the House of Lords.”

One must not leave College Green without paying his compliments to the equestrian statue of William III., which stands nearly opposite the Bank of Ireland. The king is costumed _en Romain_. The bronze representative of the glorious and pious Dutchman and his charger have suffered severely at the hands of their enemies. The steed’s fore‐leg, which is raised, as in the act of stepping, has been broken off more than once, and replaced in contempt of proportion. A curious critic has calculated that, if the leg were straightened out, it would prove to be about half a foot longer than the other legs. A gilded wreath on the brows of the statue gives it rather a “gingerbread” appearance.

At the end of College Street is a bronze statue of Thomas Moore. The Dublin critics call it “a gloomy horror that murders the memory” of the poet. The unrivalled songster is enveloped in a long cloak, and holds a tablet and pencil. He seems to be taking an inventory of the cabs and “outsides” that pass his station. The statue reminded me of that of Mr. Lincoln in Union Square. Both have the same weather‐beaten, “Ancient Mariner” appearance, even to the trowsers of truly nautical extent. At the end of Westmoreland Street—which is a continuation of College Street—is a statue of William Smith O’Brien, which is quite respectable in design, and does not lack spirit in execution. The artist saw that voluminous trowsers are incompatible with bronze or marble.

Two minutes’ walk brings us to the City Hall—formerly the Exchange—situated on Cork Hill. It is a fine building of Portland stone with a Corinthian portico of six lofty columns. It is surmounted by a cupola. In the hall is a statue of Grattan by Chantrey, one of O’Connell by Hogan, of Dr. Lucas by Rontilias, and of the Third George by Van Nost. If you wish to see the Council Chamber—which has nothing more attractive than portraits of the various lord‐mayors, O’Connell among the number—a gruff and crusty old porter in blue coat and brass buttons will admit you, _moyennant finance_. Even an extra obolus will not soften this rough old Cerberus.

We are now close by the Cork Hill entrance to “the Castle.” A figure of Justice, or Fortitude—I really forget which—surmounts the gate, and a private of the Coldstream Guards stands sentry. He will not stop you, as entry is free to all. About eleven in the morning is a good time to visit the castle‐yard. At that hour the guard is relieved, and a magnificent military band will delight your ears with most excellent music.

The castle is a rambling structure, situated in a poor quarter of the city. There are two quadrangles: the upper and the lower castle‐yard. In the upper are the apartments of the viceroy; in the lower, the offices and the castle chapel. The only portion of the original building now standing is the Record Tower, anciently known as the Ward Tower. Irish prisoners of state were here formerly confined. General Arthur O’Connor, I believe, was the last state prisoner who had to endure its hospitality.

The castle chapel is really a Gothic gem. It is built of Irish limestone and oak. The carving in the interior is exquisite. The windows bear the arms of the various lord‐lieutenants in stained glass. The verger—a patriarchal‐looking Englishman in a long, gray beard—was very polite and attentive. He looked so “respectable,” so venerable, that we hesitated to offer him a gratuity, lest we might offend him. He soon undeceived us on this point, for he accepted an English shilling; and pocketed it with an expression of thanks. The traveller through the three kingdoms never fails to discover a great many very respectable‐looking persons who are not above receiving gratuities of sums from a three‐penny piece upwards.

S. Patrick’s Cathedral is situated in a poor and squalid portion of the city. The poor buildings which cluster close around it mar its general effect. It was closed when we reached it, but a silver key will open S. Patrick’s, like most other buildings, at most hours. We were informed that in one of the dingy tenements hard by we should find a person who would admit us. We did find him—a man still young, dressed in very rusty black. He smelled very strongly of whiskey, _entre nous_. The interior of the cathedral is simple and grand. In the choir hang the helmets, swords, and banners of the Knights of S. Patrick. The spot where Swift and Stella sleep was the one most interesting to us, and thither our guide led us at once. Swift’s memorial is a plain slab of marble affixed to one of the pillars. He is buried in front of it. The church is damp and cold. Our guide seems to feel the need of another stimulant. His voice trembles as he reads the caustic dean’s inscription on Marshal Schomberg’s tomb; for our guide has picked up some Latin—off the tomb‐stones, probably. The dean made several applications to the descendants of Schomberg for funds to raise a monument to their deceased ancestor. But they never vouchsafed a reply to the dean. He finally put up a tablet at his own expense. The inscription, which was written by him, shows that he was very bitter on the subject. The place where Swift lies now needs a little care. Our conductor said he had called attention to it in vain; but, as I said before, he smelt strongly of the native beverage. There is a very fine monument to the officers and men of the 18th Royal Irish who fell in the Indian Rebellion. But the oldest and most remarkable monument in the church is that of Boyle, the first Earl of Cork. It is from twenty to thirty feet high, and represents the earl and countess lying side by side, surrounded by their children, thirteen in number, if I remember rightly. The figures are kneeling. They are life‐size, and are colored.

S. Patrick’s has been recently restored in its original style by a wealthy brewer of Dublin at a cost of seven hundred thousand dollars. It procured him a baronetcy. The grandeur of the interior is not marred by pews. The movable seats—such as one sees in Notre Dame and the Madeleine—are adopted. A pregnant notice is posted on each chair. It informs the public that “the future sustentation” of the cathedral depends solely on the voluntary contributions made by the public at the Offertory. Pity the sorrows of the disendowed Irish Church!

We were not able to visit Christ Church and the tomb of that ancient filibuster, Strongbow, as the church was closed for repairs. A wealthy distiller has undertaken the restoration of this cathedral at his own expense. It is said that he also expects to get a baronetcy for his money, like his rival, the manufacturer of “Foker’s Entire.” Money is a glorious thing, if one has plenty of it. Tom Stumps, who sells just enough of man’s brain‐stealing enemy to eke out a miserable living, is a low, disreputable fellow. Bob Shallow, who manufactures the liquid madness _en grana_ and makes a fortune by selling it to Tom Stumps and his like, becomes a distinguished patriot, a public benefactor, and “Sir Robert Shallow, Esq., Justice of the Peace and _coram_.”

The cathedral in Marlborough Street is in the Grecian style, with a portico of Ionic columns, in imitation, as we are told, of the façade of the Temple of Theseus at Athens. Massive columns separate the nave and aisles. The interior decorations are of great richness. In my humble judgment, they trench on the florid.

The Four Courts, on Usher’s Quay, rise in solemn grandeur over the Liffey. This building stands on the site of the ancient Monastery of S. Savior. It was finished in 1800. The central front has a fine portico of six Corinthian columns surmounted by a rich pediment. On the left stands a statue of Moses. On either side are statues of Justice and Mercy. At the extremities of the façades are reclining figures of Wisdom and Authority. The main building is flanked by spacious quadrangles enclosed by arcades of stone. The quadrangles are entered by broad and lofty gateways. The main hall is circular in shape, and about seventy feet in diameter. The “Four Courts,” Chancery, Queen’s Bench, Exchequer, and Common Pleas, open into this hall. It is a busy, buzzing place in term‐time. Lawyers with plenty of briefs, and plenty of lawyers without briefs, may be seen there, the former having hurried interviews with their clients, the latter dawdling about with quizzing glasses on their eyes, exhibiting their wigs and gowns, and eating oranges and “currant‐buns.” The court‐rooms are small, uncomfortable, badly lighted, and ill ventilated. The hall is covered by a lantern and a dome supported by Corinthian pillars. In the spaces between the windows are allegorical _alti‐relievi_—Justice, Wisdom, Liberty, Law, etc., and medallions of Moses, Lycurgus, Solon, and other great law‐givers. During night sessions a colossal statue of Truth, holding a torch lit by gas, illuminates the hall. Over the entrances to the court‐rooms are bas‐reliefs of subjects in English and Irish history. The hall contains statues of Lord Plunkett and other legal celebrities.

The custom‐house is on Custom‐House Quay, four or five squares east of the Four Courts, and, like the latter building, looks upon the Liffey. The riverfront is about a hundred and thirty yards long. The portico is Doric. The Union of England and Ireland is allegorically represented in _alto‐ relievo_. The sister kingdoms are sailing in the same shell, while Neptune drives away Famine and Despair. The building is surmounted by a lofty dome which bears a statue of Hope.

Dublin is well supplied with means of locomotion at cheap rates. There are omnibuses, street‐railroads, outsides, insides, covered cars, and four‐ wheelers. The four‐wheeler is something the same as the New York _coupé_. The fares for cars or _coupés_ are sixpence English per trip for two persons, sixpence for each additional person, and an additional sixpence for each stoppage or “set‐down.” The street‐cars, or “tramway cars,” have seats on the roof, which are a few cents cheaper than the seats in the interior. The “top seats” are much used by all classes in fine weather. The city ordinances are very strict regarding cabmen and car‐drivers, and the magistrates show the “jarveys” no mercy when they are proved to have made overcharges or illegal demands. The drivers are consequently very careful in their dealings with the general public. If you have a trans‐ Atlantic flavor about you, “jarvey” will expect a gratuity. You give him his exact fare. In order to keep within the law, he does not make a demand for a greater sum, but, allowing the coin to rest on his open palm, he looks at it with an air of superb disdain, and then, eyeing you with a sidelong glance, he asks with an air of primitive innocence:

“An’ what’s this for, sir?”

“For your fare,” you reply sharply, with a determination not to be imposed upon.

“Humph!” he says. “Shure it’s a mighty long dhrive for half a bob. Faith, it’s hard for a poor divil to make a livin’ nowadays.”

Ten to one you agree with him, and give him an additional threepence or sixpence, which he receives with enthusiastic wishes that your life may be prolonged to an indefinite extent.

Our party patronized the four‐wheelers extensively, but never had the hardihood to venture on an “outside” in daylight. We were averse to public display. During our stay in Ireland we tried the “outside” on one occasion only; then it was against our will. Fortunately, it was at night. We reached Dublin, from a visit to some friends in the south, by the 10 P.M. train. All the _coupés_ and covered cars were engaged. Our lodgings were about two miles from the railway station. Walking, with the travelling “traps” necessary on British railroads, was out of the question. We were compelled to take an “outside.”

“How do you feel?” I asked the Lady from Idaho after we were seated and had started.

“Rather out of place,” she replied. “I feel as if I ought to be a little intoxicated.”

Her answer expressed my feeling exactly. It seemed to me that I was going “on the biggest kind of a spree.”

Railroads furnish rapid transit to suburban retreats where reside professional and commercial men whose business is in the city. One can live in the pleasant little village of Kingstown, the harbor of Dublin, six miles from the city, and reach Dublin in fifteen minutes. Trains run each way every half‐hour. It has taken me an hour and a half to come from Eighty‐sixth Street to the City Hall by the street‐cars. This was when we met with no accidents, and made a good trip. But New York has the worst locomotive arrangements of any city in the world, and immeasurably the dearest.

I had counted upon finding a great many beggars in Ireland. I expected, whenever I alighted from coach or car, to have to run the gauntlet of a crowd of hungry petitioners. I was most agreeably disappointed. During my stay in Ireland I was asked for charity in the public streets only once. It was in Dublin, by a wretched‐looking woman with a sick child.

A fine view of Dublin is obtained from one of the eminences in the Phœnix Park. It takes in the entire line of quays. This view has something of a reduced and smoke‐blackened effect of Paris. The Phœnix is one of the finest and most extensive parks in the world. It covers nearly eighteen hundred acres. It is true that art has not done much for it, but nature has done a great deal. It possesses some of the most beautiful characteristics of English park scenery—beautiful green lawns, dotted with clumps of trees. Large herds of deer course swiftly over the uplands, or stop in groups, half frightened, to reconnoitre, in a coy side‐glance, the intruder into their domain. Charming rides, drives, and walks invite the dwellers in the city to pure air and healthful exercise. A portion of the park is railed off into a “People’s Garden,” where poor as well as rich have free ingress, and can gladden their town‐weary eyes with the sight of growing shrubs and budding flowers, and graceful water‐fowl sailing on the pretty meres. A lofty monument to the Duke of Wellington—not possessed of any artistic grace, however—crowns one of the knolls. On the right of the main avenue is the Viceregal Lodge. Near it is the column, mounted by a phœnix, erected by the celebrated Lord Chesterfield, who first caused the park to be thrown open to the people. The English Government never sent to Ireland a viceroy who had less prejudices against the people he was sent to govern. Somewhere in his celebrated letters he speaks of “his friends the Irish,” and says: “They always liked me, and I liked them.” The Viceregal Lodge, with its dependent buildings, is a delightful summer retreat. I do not wonder that the viceroy should be glad to see the return of spring, that he might get away from the poor locality in which the castle is situated. The Hibernian school for soldiers’ children is situated at the lower extremity of the park.

The Zoölogical Gardens are not far from the King’s Bridge entrance. The collection is a fair one, but the damp climate does not agree with the animals, and they have the same woe‐begone appearance as their fellow‐ sufferers in the Regent’s Park. The elephants have a faded, mildewed appearance. The furred animals are suggestive of worn‐out hair trunks. In neither the Dublin nor the London Gardens do they look so bright and sleek as, under the brighter sky and more genial atmosphere of Paris, in the Jardin des Plantes and the Jardin d’Acclimatation. The collection of lions is good. Among them is a noble leo which the keeper informed us was born in the gardens.

“Why, he is an Irish lion!” said one of our party, hazarding a gentle joke. There was no response from the keeper. Not the merest ripple of a smile. Decidedly, the Irish in Ireland are becoming a serious people.

Between the Under Secretary’s Lodge and the Hibernian School is the historical tract known as “The Fifteen Acres.” It was a celebrated duelling‐ground in the old days, when a “crooked look” was followed by an invitation to pistols and coffee. There it was that “the Queen’s Bench went out with the Common Pleas,” and the “Chancery winged the Exchequer.” It was there that Daniel O’Connell met Mr. d’Esterre, and killed him. Beyond the park lie the famous “Strawberry Beds,” where the Dubliners crowd, in the season, to enjoy their “sweet strawberries smothered in cream.”

An omnibus plies regularly between the city and the Botanical Gardens at Glasnevin; but it is better to take a four‐wheeler, and suit your own time and convenience. Make your bargain with Jehu before you start, however. The gardens are about thirty acres in extent. The cemetery where lie the ashes of the great orators, Curran and O’Connell, is at Glasnevin. The monument to O’Connell is an imitation of that puzzle to antiquarians—the Irish Round Tower. The effect of the monument is not good. It seemed to me grotesque and out of place. I could not at first explain to myself why it produced such a harsh, unpleasing effect. A glance at the veritable Tower of Clondalkin enlightened me. The mock tower wants the mellowing touch of artist‐centuries to soften down its hard, new outlines, and make it seem in keeping with the repose that reigns in the City of the Dead.

A pilgrimage to the birthplace of Thomas Moore was a labor of love which we promised ourselves would be among the first performed after reaching Dublin. We learned that the spot where the bard first saw the light was in Anngiers Street, generally pronounced by the Dubliners _Aingers_ Street. Everybody we asked professed to know all about it, yet nobody could tell us the number of the house. Anngiers Street is not a very long street. We concluded to go through it from end to end, and at either side, examining every house in detail. Anngiers Street commences at Stephen Street, in rear of the castle, and extends to Bishop Street. It is not a particularly clean street. It is only just to say, however, that it is no dirtier than continental, transatlantic, or Britannic streets of like degree. We began our pilgrimage at the wrong end, but our patient search was at length rewarded. The house is No. 12, at the corner of Anngiers Street and Little Longford Street. It was then occupied by “Thomas Healy, Wine and Spirit Merchant.” According to some of little Tom’s biographers, the old house has always been devoted to the sale of intoxicating beverages. His father was what Uncle Sam calls by the undignified name of “rumseller.” But “honor and shame from no condition rise,” and Tom’s muse may owe her seductive, anacreontic blush to his early associations.

A weather‐soiled and smoke‐blackened bust of the poet occupies a niche between the windows of the second story. The house has been recently painted and renovated. When these repairs were commenced, the bust was removed by the proprietor, and was not replaced at their completion. The worthy vender of wine and spirits who occupied the house, though he believed in filling bumpers fair, and their power of smoothing the brow of Care, was probably rather bored by the continual visits of votaries to the shrine of the poet. The sacrifices of these pilgrims to the rosy muse were most probably merely theoretical. They did not “send round the wine,” or order any of it sent to their address in the city. They took none of those “brimming glasses” generative of “wit’s electric flame.” A plague on such pilgrims! say I, marry and amen! The bust of the bard shall no longer be a beacon for them. But the statesmen and critics who sit at the base of Nelson’s Pillar soon noticed that the niche was empty. Their poetical ire was raised to an unpleasant degree. They brought such influences to bear on the proprietor of the Cradle of Genius that the bust was at once restored to its accustomed niche.

The Dubliners have a passion for flowers and rock‐work. Every available foot of ground in front and in rear of their houses is devoted to the cultivation of flowers and the building of miniature grottos. The city is spreading very fast, and rows of cottages are building in the suburbs on all sides. In general, the houses are not what we Americans would call comfortable. The fire‐places are very small; for coal is scarce and dear, and a bundle of kindling‐wood, composed of half a dozen chips not much larger than matches, is an object of purchase. The grates seem constructed to throw out smoke instead of heat. In this they are well seconded by the moist, heavy atmosphere. Living is good and cheap, however—about one‐ fourth cheaper than it is in our principal cities on this side of the Atlantic. Liquors are good in quality and moderate in price. Clothing of all kinds costs two‐thirds less than in New York, and is not “shoddy.” The English custom of wearing flowers in the button‐hole prevails in Dublin. The commerce in flowers is therefore extensive, and the shops devoted to that charming traffic make delightful displays of floral treasures. The Irish fruit, however, with the exception of strawberries, gooseberries, and currants, is inferior to ours. American apples are for sale at all fruiterers’, at prices very little greater than those of New York.

Carving in “bog‐oak” is quite an important trade in Dublin. Indeed, it may much more probably be called an art. I have seen some very artistic specimens of bog‐wood ornaments—statuettes, groups, etc. Ladies’ chains, brooches, and bracelets of Irish bog‐oak were very fashionable a year or two since. The fashion extended even to London and Paris.

The Dublin streets are dull at night. The quality of gas supplied the city is poor. Early closing is pretty general, and all the principal stores are closed at dark. Doubtless this is better for the clerks and shopmen, and more economical for their employers. But it is not so pleasant for that large class of the community who love to saunter along the lighted streets in the evening, and feast their eyes on the treasures in the illuminated shop‐windows. There is little to tempt the tourist into the Dublin streets at night. I should advise him—or particularly _her_—to avoid promenading on Saturday evening. I regret to say that evening is very generally observed by handicrafts‐men and laborers, and even by shopmen and clerks, as a Bacchanalian festival. The number of persons who sacrifice to the rosy god at the week’s end is lamentably great. Monday is a workmen’s holiday, and it is very hard to get mechanics to work on that day.

The unsavory localities of Dublin are designated by strange names. Here are a few by way of example: Bow Lane, near the Insane Hospital founded by Dean Swift, who, as he says or sings,

“Left the little wealth he had To build a house for fools or mad, To show, by one satiric touch No nation wanted it so much”;

Cook’s Lane, Paradise Row, Cuff Street, Bride Alley, Lung Lane, Smoke Alley, Black Horse Lane, Bull Alley, Pill Lane, Marrowbone Lane, Pig Town, and Stony Batter.

One Corpus Christi.

“Flowers? Are they for a bride?” he said, And wondered if that graceful head, Now bent to catch the soft perfume, Was soon to wear their tender bloom; But when she raised her modest eyes, And answered him in half surprise, “No, they are for our Lord,” he smiled, And thought: “This is indeed a child.”

“Give me the loveliest,” she said “Delicate white and rosy red, And heliotrope and mignonette, All that you know and I forget; And heap these crimson roses, so: Yes, they are costly, that I know; But what can be too fair or sweet To strew beneath His sacred feet?”

The light was fading; broken flowers Lay scattered through the aisles in showers; For all their fragrant wealth that day Had marked the Master’s glorious way, And now, before the altar‐rail, A girl knelt, motionless and pale.

A line of sunlight touched her hair, Her slender hands were clasped in prayer; In silent bliss the moments passed, For she had lingered to the last, Unconscious, in that holy spot, Of eyes that watched and wearied not.

“How beautiful!” the whispered thought, All human, all of earth, she caught; And reading what that thought expressed By the one key‐note in her breast, Uplifting her adoring head, “Is He not beautiful?” she said.

A thrill of awe, a flush of shame, He knelt, and named his Saviour’s name. Softly she glided from the place: He never looked upon her face; Low bent to earth his suppliant head, “O Lord! make _me_ a child,” he said.

Relatio Itineris In Marylandiam.

Narrative of a Voyage to Maryland. 1633.

By F. Andrew White, S.J.

The most beautiful chapter in the colonial history of North America is that setting forth the colonization of fair Maryland, _Terra Mariæ_, or, as she was pre‐eminently called, the _Land of the Sanctuary_. And yet this is, strange to say, one of the least read and least known of the chapters of our early history. Every American knows all about the Puritan Pilgrim Fathers, and the _Mayflower_, and Plymouth Rock, and all the facts and fictions concerning the settlement of New England. Most Americans devoutly believe, upon the authority of New England orators and historians, that the Pilgrim Fathers aforesaid were the founders of the civil and religious liberty now organized in this great republic, mistaking a strife for sectarian ascendency and domination for a contest for the great principles of religious liberty. In point of fact, the Puritan Pilgrims held in intense horror the very principles now so generously assigned to them. They wanted, not equality, but supremacy. It was only in Catholic Maryland that religious equality was truly established, both by the design of the Catholic proprietary, Lord Baltimore, and by the legislative enactments of the freemen of the province, who cordially invited all persons persecuted for their religious belief to find not only a refuge in Maryland, but all the rights and privileges, civil and religious, enjoyed by themselves, the founders of the colony.

Here, and here only, then, do we see the first rays of true civil and religious liberty in the American colonies—a glimmer of light in old S. Mary’s like Portia’s candle:

“_Portia_—That light we see is burning in my hall. How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world.”

If now, indeed, the greater glory dims the less, we must not forget the light of the candle in the then surrounding darkness.

Everything connected with the early history of Maryland is, and ought to be, deeply interesting to every American of liberal culture or sentiment. We are pleased to see that the Maryland Historical Society is making earnest efforts to gather and save all the fragmentary lore pertaining thereto. The volume we now have in hand bears evidence of the fact. We give the title‐page in full, as a summary of its substance:

“Fund Publication, No. 7.”—_Relatio Itineris in Marylandiam. Declaratio Coloniæ Domini Baronis de Baltimoro. Excerpta ex Diversis Litteris Missionariorum, ab anno 1635, ad annum 1638._ (Seal of Maryland Historical Society.) “Narrative of a Voyage to Maryland. By F. Andrew White, S.J. An Account of the Colony of the Lord Baron of Baltimore. Extracts from different letters of missionaries, from the year 1635 to the year 1677. Edited by the Rev. E. A. Dalrymple, S.T.D. Baltimore, February, 1874. Baltimore: John Murphy & Co. (Printers to the Maryland Historical Society).”

The Historical Society gives us a neat octavo volume of nearly 200 pages, issued in a style that would do credit to any publishing house in America, or, for that matter, in Europe either.

The learned editor, Dr. Dalrymple, tells us in the preface where and how these valuable documents were obtained: “About the year 1832 the Rev. William McSherry, S.J., discovered, in the archives of the ‘Domus Professa’ of the Society in Rome, the originals of the MSS. which are named on the title‐page. He carefully copied these MSS., and placed the copies in the library of Georgetown College, D. C., of which institution (being at the same time the provincial of the society in Maryland) he afterwards became the honored president.”

Translations were made and printed of these manuscripts; but, copies being nearly exhausted, the Historical Society determined to make a new issue, accompanying the new translation with the Latin text, as far as that could be obtained, some pages of the original transcripts being unfortunately lost. The present volume is of the new issue, and it is little to say that its contents are intensely interesting.

It is quite charming to follow good F. White, missionary, saint, scholar, “vir non minus sanctitate vitæ, quam doctrina conspicuus,” in his humble and earnest and successful labors among the savage aborigines of Maryland. His great soul was given up to his holy mission. We follow the little fleet, the _Ark_ and the _Dove_ (what beautiful and significant names—the _ark_ of Noah, and the _dove_ sent forth by the patriarch!), over the waste of waters, where they had not only the dangers of the sea, but _Turks and pirates_, to dread, even from the British Channel onward over the whole _Virginian_ Ocean.

On the 25th of March, A.D. 1634, the pious missionaries celebrated, as they believed, the first Mass ever said in Maryland. But it seems that some of their own order had preceded them on this field; for as early as 1570 F. Segura and other Spanish Jesuits from Florida were endeavoring to bring the Indian tribes on the shores of the Chesapeake into the Christian fold, when they were ruthlessly murdered before the rustic altar on which they had daily offered the Holy Sacrifice for the traitors who slew them (_Woodstock Letters_).

The colonists in S. Mary’s soon made friendly relations with the Indians, and the missionaries had the inexpressible happiness of bringing many over to the true faith. The fathers would often‐times leave the dwellings of the whites to abide entirely with the Indians, though the governor disapproved of remote excursions, on account of the treachery of hostile tribes, who were always hovering around the borders. The fathers, moreover, had no light duties in attending to the spiritual wants of the colonists themselves, who were largely, but by no means exclusively, good Catholics.

In those primitive days, when all the freemen of the province met in general assembly for the purposes of legislation, F. White and his colleagues were summoned to take part in the sessions; but they declined the honor, and, as “they earnestly requested to be excused from taking part in the secular concerns of the colony, their request was granted.” They could do _their work_ more effectively, _ad majorem Dei gloriam_, in the rude Indian wigwam where they had established an altar, than in the hall of the legislative assembly.

Lord Baltimore obtained lands from the Indians by purchase, and not by conquest, and colonists and Indians and missionaries were usually upon the most friendly terms together. The Indians treated the strangers to their dishes, to _pone_ and _omini_, and roasting ears, and game, and fish, and oysters; and, in return, during a season of famine, the Indians were supplied from the not over‐abundant stores of the colonists. The natives then were not inclined to strong potations: “They are especially careful to refrain from wine and warm drinks, and are not easily persuaded to taste them, except some whom the English have corrupted with their own vices.” Alas! from that day to this how many untold thousands of the children of the forest have been sent, body and soul, to perdition by the infusion and diffusion among them of English vices!

The missionaries give accounts of their labors with a _naïveté_ that is charming. We can see them starting on the broad river in a little boat—a father, an interpreter, and a servant‐man of all work, with their supplies of bread and cheese, and dried corn and beans, with a bottle of wine for religious purposes, a casket with the sacred utensils, and a table as an altar for performing sacrifice, and another casket with trifles for the Indians—bells, combs, fishing‐hooks, needles and thread, and other such commodities. They take a tent to cover them when beyond the reach of English residents, and, after a weary day’s work, they lie down by the open fire to take their rest. “If fear of rain threatens, we erect our hut, and cover it with a larger mat spread over; nor, praise be to God, do we enjoy this humble fare and hard couch with a less joyful mind than more luxurious provisions in Europe.” In fact, they are so happy in their work that they think God gives them already a foretaste of the blessed life of the future.

Upon one of these excursions a friendly Indian was pursued by enemies and transfixed with a spear; they “pierced him through from the right side to the left, at a hand’s breath below the arm‐pit, near the heart itself, with a wound two fingers broad at each side.” Some of the man’s friends were converts, and they called in F. White to prepare him for death. The missionary gave him suitable instructions, taught him short prayers, and received him into the church, and, touching his wounds with relics of the most holy cross, took his leave, directing the bystanders, when he should breath his last, to take him to the chapel for the purpose of burial. The next day this same Indian, with a companion, followed the father in a boat, showed him the red spots where the wounds were of the previous day, exclaiming “that he is entirely well, nor from the hour at which the father had left yesterday had he ceased to invoke the most holy name of Jesus, to whom he attributed his recovered health.”

The people of the lower counties of Maryland have always had a reputation for culture, refinement, and good manners. They appear to have these traits by inheritance. “The Catholics who live in the colony,” writes a missionary (A.D. 1640), “are not inferior in piety to those who live in other countries; but in urbanity of manners, according to the judgment of those who have visited the other colonies, are considered far superior to them.”

We find we are extending what was intended for a brief notice into a regular article, for which the reader may or not thank us; an abiding and essential interest in the cause must be our apology. We will say but little more, though the theme admits of vast expansion.

In Lord Baltimore’s _Declaratio_, or account of the colony—which, by the way, is very much _couleur de rose_ (“It is sad to contrast the glowing accounts of Maryland in the _Declaratio_ and the painful experience of the missionaries,” says the editor with great justice)—we find him inviting his countrymen to go to his colony, not only to better their material interests, but also to spread the seeds of religion and piety—a work, he says, _dignum angelis, dignum Anglis_. This recalls to mind the happy witticism of the great pontiff who sent Augustine to perform the same work with the English themselves.

There is scarcely a page of this new issue of the _Relatio_, and the accompanying letters, that does not invite special interest. Surely those missionaries were men of God, living and dying to serve him only. “I would rather,” writes F. Brock, laboring in the conversion of these Indians, “expire on the bare ground, deprived of all human succor, and perishing with hunger, than once think of abandoning this holy work of God from fear of want.” Within a few weeks after writing that letter, worn out with privations, he went to rest from his labors.

Good F. White, seized by Claiborne’s rebel soldiers, was sent in irons to England, where he died like a saint, as he had lived. “His self‐denial, privations, and sufferings,” says Dr. Dalrymple, himself a Protestant minister, “and the touching patience and cheerfulness with which they were all endured, move our profound respect and admiration. F. White deserves a high place of honor amongst the many heroic missionaries of the Society of Jesus.” What wonderful men they were indeed, the old Jesuit missionaries! We of the present day could scarcely believe their lives possible but for the F. De Smets and kindred spirits who repeat them even in our own day. _Laudamus viros gloriosos.... Omnes isti in generatione suæ gentis gloriam adepti sunt._—Eccles. cap. xliv.

We may repeat that the Maryland Historical Society has done a good work in bringing out this volume anew; and its agents, editor, translator, and publisher have all done their work in the most creditable manner. We observed in the translation, excellent as it is, some few points open to criticism; as, _e.g._, p. 10, “_To the Very Rev. Father, General Mutius Vitelleschi_.” The comma is misplaced between father and general. On p. 11 it is said, speaking of S. Clement, “who, because he had been tied to an anchor and thrown into the sea, obtained the crown of martyrdom.” A man is not a martyr because of his execution in any fashion, but because of the principles for which he suffers. We find, on p. 12, the word _Sabbatum_ rendered _Sabbath_, instead of _Saturday_, which would convey the true idea in this case. There may be some other slight inaccuracies of the same or a similar kind, but, upon the whole, they are unimportant, and the translation is a fair and creditable rendering of the text.

Finally, we would say that if the reader would wish to spend a few hours, safely, profitably, and pleasantly in field and camp, with true soldiers of the cross, let him obtain and read the _Relatio Itineris_, with the accompanying documents.

On The Wing. A Southern Flight. IV.

“De Fil En Aiguille.”(119)

By the time we had been a fortnight at R—— R——, the sentiment of the _dolce far niente_(120) of the Italians seemed gradually to take possession of Mary and myself. I sketched a little, and Mary sat in the _loggia_, reading occasionally, and dreaming a great deal. Frank was still absent; having, in the most unjustifiable way, undertaken a complete tour in the Abruzzi, accompanied by his friend, Don Emidio Gandolfi, who had given him rendezvous at Monte Casino. One day, however, when I came home from a delightful ramble all over the gardens of the Villa “Mon Caprice,” Mary greeted me with the exclamation:

“Frank will arrive the day after to‐morrow, and Don Emidio is coming with him.”

“I thought it had been settled Don Emidio was to go back to Rome.”

“Settled by whom, my dear Jane? I conclude he has changed his plans.”

“Well! I know how it will be: we shall have none of Frank’s society; he will for ever be making excursions with Don Emidio where we cannot go.”

“Their distant excursions are over; and we want them for all the places we have to visit near Naples. Up to now we have been so taken up with the Vernons that I have not cared for much more than the walk backwards and forwards to their house and our own. But we have a great deal to see, and I am longing to begin.”

“Oh! Don Emidio has seen it already a dozen times. It would only bore him to go over it again.”

I cannot conceive what made me say this to Mary. I think I was cross. I know I was tired and hot with my walk. She made no answer for a few seconds; but I felt she was looking at me. And so I did that stupid thing which one always hates doing and cannot the least prevent—I blushed. Having thus made myself look like a fool, I glanced at Mary, and our eyes met.

“Do you dislike Don Emidio, Jane, that you speak in that way?”

“Dear me! no, not at all. I only did not suppose he would care to go over all the old places again.”

“It is not always the places; it is sometimes the company that is the chief attraction.”

“Oh! yes; I know Don Emidio is devoted to Frank.”

“I think he likes us all, Jane.”

“No one can help liking you, Mary; and I dare say he does not _dis_like me.”

“Is that all you think about it, my dear?”

“Of course it is. What more is there to think about it?” And then, as I knew I was blushing again, I went out of the room to take off my hat. But I did not care to go back to Mary directly, for fear she should say anything more to make me cross. So I ran down to Villa Casinelli to have a chat with the Vernons. I found them all in a state of very great excitement. Ida was looking anxious, her eyes glistening like diamonds, and a bright, hectic spot on each cheek—which I never like to see, knowing how delicate she is. Elizabeth, who is always calm and gentle, and rather slow in speaking and moving, was sitting opposite Ida, with her large, dark velvet eyes full of tears. As I entered, Ida started up, exclaiming:

“O Jane! what do you think those dreadful Casinelli have done now? This morning, before anybody was up, they cut down the chapel bell, which was hung outside the door on our floor, near the servants’ rooms, so that Lucia might ring it every morning. And now, to‐day, a feast‐day, on which the congregation was sure to be numerous, when Lucia went to ring the bell for the first time (you know we always ring it thrice), she found that the rope was left dangling, but no bell. After hunting about everywhere, one of the Camerota, the father of your Paolino, found it tied to a fig‐tree on the terrace just above the chapel. The _contadini_(121) are in a wild state of indignation, and I really am at a loss to imagine what will happen next; for what with the insult to religion, the annoyance to Padre Cataldo, and the constant anxiety to ourselves, I begin to think we shall have to throw it all up, and leave this place.”

I had already heard a great deal about the Casinelli and their extraordinary conduct. Indeed, ever since we had been near neighbors to the Vernons, the ins and outs of this intricate and truly Italian intrigue had formed one of the chief themes of our daily conversations. But to enable my readers to follow the plots and stratagems of this Macchiavelian family, I must give an account of the whole group. My story will represent a state of things not, I imagine, to be found anywhere out of Italy. Every nation has its characteristics, its qualities, and their corresponding defects. The peculiar _finesse_ and acuteness of the Italians make them the best constructors of a plot that imagination can conceive, and give them a proportionate facility for carrying it on and working it out. They are natural born actors. And they can so identify themselves with the character they wish to assume that not only is it exceedingly difficult for the most diligent observer to detect the false from the true, but I doubt if even they themselves do not end in interiorly confusing the two so absolutely as to efface all moral lines of demarcation. They can make themselves a false conscience on a gigantic scale, and end in themselves believing the lies they have invented.

The Casinelli are a numerous family, consisting of seven daughters and two sons, all equally endowed with the faculty, of assuming a part, not for days or weeks, but for years or for a whole life. The one fixed and determinate object of the nine persons is, as is usual with Italians, to make money. To obtain wealth, and always more wealth, all means seem lawful to them, and no stratagem too low. The house, garden, and vineyards of Casinelli make altogether a nice and profitable little property, and, of course, it belongs to them all—that is, each has a share in it. They have wisely agreed that more will be gained by their all holding together, as regards the property, than by any division, especially as it is but small. They reserve a few rooms on the ground floor of the house for their own use, though their residence is principally in Naples. The other two sets of apartments in the house they let to strangers. But in order to make sure of all the fish that may come to the net, the elder brother is stated to be the owner of one of the suites of rooms, and one of the sisters of the other. The sister professes to be a very dragon of virtue, and will receive no tenants who do not bear an unspotted reputation, and who cannot also give evidence of a more than merely respectable position of life—they must be well, and even highly, connected. The brother, on the contrary, is quite ready to part with his rooms to anybody who pays his rent. “What does he care about who they are, or what they do, so long as he gets his money?” And in the case of the honest man happening to have a preference for the brother’s rooms, while the gay Lothario has set his heart on the spinster’s domain, ho! _presto_, the proprietorship is quickly changed; the brother owns the sister’s side of the house, while the sister is the fair possessor of the brother’s portion. If you are so ill advised as to look dubious and express an impression that it had been otherwise, you are met with a calm, indulgent smile at your evident deficiency of intelligence: “Dear me! no. Were you not aware it was nothing of the kind? Some repairs necessary to be made in my brother’s rooms had led to his holding mine for a time. He wanted them for a friend of his. I regretted the fact; but I was not acquainted with the character of the tenant when I conceded my rooms to my brother, because I was myself called from home” (or some such reason), “and was unable to attend to the letting. I deeply regretted the fact; but it was done without my knowledge.” And thus they turn about; always contriving to run with the hare, and hunt with the hounds. As a rule, it is the sister who comes forward and acts as _padrona_(122) when the parties wishing to hire either set of rooms are evidently respectable. If they are the reverse, the rooms are let nevertheless, but then it is the brother who meets the storm. And thus they enact the little man and woman who come out of the clock: the lady in fair weather, the gentleman in great‐coat and umbrella when it is wet.

I am not aware of what the Casinelli family motto is; but it ought to be, “Divide and govern.” For they adopt the same double‐surface process as regards politics. One brother is a staunch Bourbonist, the other a fervent Liberal. In public each bewails the opinions of the other. And thus, between the two, they catch the favor of both parties, and divide the spoils between them. If circumstances call for extreme measures in order to gain some end in view, the whole family will combine together to fall upon one particular member who, for the time being, represents some political view at that moment discredited. Their lamentations over the one black sheep are long and loud. Everybody’s sympathy is appealed to; everybody must lend an ear to the terrible calamity which has befallen their illustrious family, inasmuch as one of the race has been, or is, guilty of—, whatever the crime in question may be. Such grief, such indignation, expressed on the highest moral grounds, attracts attention, procures small favors from compassionating friends, creates at least an interest, and adds to their importance and consideration; while all the time the black sheep himself is privy to the whole affair, and receives, in the secrecy of the domestic circle, his full share of indemnification for having stood as whipping‐boy for the rest of the family. He keeps quiet for a little while, as being under a cloud. Then presently he reappears to enjoy the results of his own condemnation. The elder brother and sister, who are the prima donna and tenor of the domestic comic opera, are always said to be on bad terms with each other; not that they are so in reality, but because, if one has made a bad bargain or inconveniently offended anybody, the other can immediately step forward, pretending severely to blame the delinquent, and offering his or her services to repair the injury, or, in the case of a bad bargain having been made, insisting on a readjustment of the case; not from personal motives, having, as he or she states, no interest in the matter, but solely from a sense of justice. In short, they “hedge” in a way that would make their fortune a thousand times over at Epsom or Ascot. No matter what horse loses, they are sure to have made up their book in such a way that they must win something out of whatever happens. And, meanwhile, the member of the family who appears to the outsider to take his part against all his own kith and kin obtains the eternal gratitude of the deluded individual, who is not aware that he has been assisting at a family intrigue, based upon his own misfortune, and intimately and minutely combined by the whole set of them. When the Vernons wished to rent one of the suites of apartments, it was the elder sister who came forward with expressions of the warmest delight. What she had long desired had been that some family should reside there who had a chaplain, and that thus their pretty little chapel, entirely cut out in the tufa rock on the sands of the sea‐shore, which rock forms the foundation of the house, would again come into use. She was eloquent in describing how that formerly that chapel had been so useful to the numerous _vignaiuoli_ and their families living on and near the premises. They themselves, she stated, were no longer rich enough to afford themselves so great a consolation, now that the one brother who had been in the priesthood was dead. She was quite certain that Padre Cataldo was a saint; and, for her part, no one but the Vernons should inhabit that part of the house, for their mere presence would bring a blessing on all the rest. She even talked of restoring whatever was wanting in the chapel, and doing it up. It had been sadly neglected, and the cobwebs hung in festoons from the rude but effective carving above the altar on the coved roof and the walls. The subject of the bas‐reliefs was the Assumption, and, though roughly done, it had a very good effect, scrolls and angels’ heads being intermixed with the principal figures, and the whole distempered in white picked out with bright blue. A great deal was said about the reparations, and the Vernons, who did not then know what sort of people they had to deal with, imagined all that was required for the use of the chapel would be found. They soon discovered their mistake, and, beyond a little cleaning done, they had to provide almost everything. As soon as the Vernons had prepared it, the eldest Casinelli brought all her friends to look at it, that they might admire the piety of her family, and learn the sacrifices _they_ had made in order to afford this consolation to the neighborhood!

But wisely judging that unforeseen circumstances might occur which would show their interests and the way to make more money might lie in another direction, the eldest brother was directed to assume quite another tone. He was therefore deputed to act the sceptic on the occasion, and make supercilious remarks about his sister’s excess of piety, and the inconvenience and folly of these extremes of devotion. He shrugged his shoulders about it, and lamented that, not being master, he could do nothing to refrain her from so rashly committing herself to possible expenses, and even to probable difficulties with the present government, from the presence of a zealous and hard‐working Jesuit father. At the same time, he gave no handle against himself in the matter, but preserved an outwardly civil manner towards the Vernons, and a cold regret towards Padre Cataldo. As time went on, the Vernons discovered that there was an ever‐increasing difficulty about all that was requisite for the altar. The altar linen was withdrawn, and they had to find their own. The vestments were borrowed one day, and never returned. By the time we arrived, almost everything for the service of the altar was the property of the Vernons; and Ida’s active fingers had achieved the happiest results from very limited materials.

Meanwhile, there could be no doubt of the good that was being done in the neighborhood from the reopening of the little chapel and the active piety of Padre Cataldo. The parish church is a long way off, and up a very steep hill. The result is that few of the little children and women could get to church at all. There is a chapel, dedicated to Our Lady of Dolors, by the roadside at Posilippo, but it is very small. And there is another built by the Minutoli when, for love of the poor, they left their beautiful villa of “Mon Caprice,” and raised an asylum for the aged poor, and a house to which they themselves retired, giving away all they could spare from their own modest requirements. But this also is somewhat at a distance; and, moreover, the population is large, and the accommodation altogether but scanty.

I have seldom seen more fervor and devotion than in the little chapel at Casinelli, hewn out of a rock, with its simple decorations and a few natural flowers on the altar. There was no music, and I cannot for a moment pretend that there was the slightest approach to harmony in the loud, harsh, powerful shouting which the Italian peasantry are content to mistake for singing. But, at least, there was real devotion, as they sat with eyes fixed on the preacher, who so beautifully and so earnestly discoursed to them as a father might to his children. I have often seen the tears streaming down their cheeks; and then from time to time we would hear of first this and then that hardened sinner who came creeping back to his or her duties, and making us all glad. Several small boys served at the altar; and as the honor was highly prized, they had been made to come in rotation to obviate quarrels. One small creature of about four years of age, and who had quite the most marvellous eyes and the longest lashes I ever saw, was specially pertinacious about his rights. In short, there was something touchingly primitive and real about the whole thing which could not fail deeply to impress us who came as strangers into this little seaside sanctuary. As we sat waiting for the priest to arrive, or in the silent parts of the Mass, we could hear the waves lapping the yellow sands just outside the half‐closed door. This was the public entrance; and sometimes, in rough weather, I think it must have entailed a little sprinkling of salt water on the worshippers. We entered the chapel by a flight of marble stairs, in a tower which led from the inner court of the Villa Casinelli, and which stairs brought us into an aisle of the chapel, cut further in the rock, and consequently always somewhat dark. I remember Mary’s going to Mass before breakfast, and having desired Paolino to bring her coffee, and put it in one of the niches of the marble staircase; which he did, greatly amused and pleased at so unusual a proceeding. It was never, however, repeated, for the wind blew fresh and cold, and the Vernons were almost hurt at what might look like a mistrust of their ever‐ ready and abundant hospitality.

There was altogether something about the arrangement and position of the chapel so unlike the beaten ways of everyday life that, united as it is with the memory of the beautiful short addresses of the father and the devotion of the people, it remains in our minds heightened by a tinge of romance. And now there was the fatal apprehension that all this was to be destroyed.

It was some little time before Mary and I could quite make out what this suddenly‐developed though long smouldering hostility to Padre Cataldo and the Vernons could mean, the Casinelli had appeared so anxious to be civil to the latter, and had professed such delight at first that the chapel should be reopened. At length we learnt the facts of the case, which were as follows: The Vernons had been residing at Casinelli for about two years, and doing a great deal of good in their immediate neighborhood, when an Italian gentleman, a strong Liberal, and openly professing infidelity, applied for the set of apartments corresponding to those occupied by the Vernons. In this case it was the brother who appeared as the owner, and who, careless of all save his rent, let it at once to the Martorelli, as we will call the gentleman in question and the lady who accompanied him.

This, of course, was a grand opportunity for the sister to come forward in the family comedy, and enact her part. So with loud bewailings and great disturbance of the whole household, she took to her bed, and sent for all her acquaintances to come and bewail with her the wickedness of her brother, who had let the apartments to such people—not even respectable!—and so brought a slur on his father’s house. Everybody was entreated to pray that the brother’s hard heart might be touched and his conversion effected.

But, in the meanwhile, nothing was done by any member of the family to prevent the Martorelli from taking quiet possession, as tenants, of a property which belongs to all the Casinelli, and about the letting of which, therefore, every one had a voice. This case was so glaring a one, and was so likely to bring the Casinelli into disrepute, that it was found necessary to drill all the members of the family to act the part of outraged propriety. Therefore all the seven sisters refused acquaintance with the new‐comers, while they redoubled their attentions to the Vernons, wearying them with reiterated invectives against the Martorelli, and ostentatiously going the whole round of the garden, rather than run the risk of meeting them in the avenue which leads to the principal entrance.

Six months elapsed, and during that time the brother was a constant guest at the Martorelli’s, while more and more he evinced a marked absence of civility towards the Vernons, and especially towards Padre Cataldo. On one occasion, as the brother returned from dining with the Martorelli, he said something positively insulting to the Vernons, whom he met in the garden. This was overheard by some of _vignaiuoli_,(123) and was repeated to the seven sisters, who accordingly went in a body, the next day, to call on the Vernons, with redoubled regrets about their brother and about the vicinity of such objectionable people as the Martorelli, who, however, they rejoiced to add, would certainly vacate the apartment in another month. The Vernons, knowing no reason to doubt their statement, were naturally gratified to hear it, as the garden belonged equally to all the inhabitants of the house, except a very small portion assigned to each family, only sufficient for the cultivation of a few flowers. Time, however, wore on, and another six months had expired without making any difference as regarded the presence of the Martorelli.

Far from showing any signs of intended departure, Signor Martorelli was allowed to undertake several improvements in the house and garden at his own expense. About the same time some of the sisters called on Padre Cataldo, and, without making any allusion to the works that were being carried on by their tenant, they informed him, with every demonstration of zeal, that the lady who resided in the house with him had shown some signs of a better state of feeling than the gentleman; and that, in short, she was a very interesting person—one about whose welfare they could not but feel anxious. They added that, when she saw people going to and from the chapel, she was noticed to sigh deeply, and had actually expressed surprise that no one had ever invited her to enter the chapel; while, on the other hand, their brother was always taunting them with a want of real charity in having avoided any intercourse with this perhaps repentant sister. They had therefore, they asserted, after many misgivings, come in a body to consult his reverence as to what he would advise them to do. Personally, they could have no wish to know such people; but here, possibly, was a question of the salvation of a soul, and all selfish sentiments must be laid aside for that. Perhaps _their_ knowing her might do good; did his reverence not think that, with such an end in view, they ought to sacrifice their natural aversion, and call on the interesting lady? Of course the only reply that a priest could make to such a question was that no consideration should stand in the way when any hope of doing good is in question. And then all the seven damsels, breaking forth in expressions of submission to his advice, and appearing to take it as if the initiative had come from him, with pious phrases and low courtesies, left his reverence’s presence. From that day the greatest intimacy and constant intercourse sprang up between the two families. The seven sisters and the young lady were inseparable. Signor Martorelli’s sentiments and principles were deeply bewailed; but if her husband, as he is called, and as we hope he is, showed so little religion, at least she was a promising subject; and whenever they saw the Vernons, it was always to relate the growing success of their happy manœuvre. Time, however, sped on his way, and no practical results followed. Signora Martorelli entered no church, while the man threw off the mask, and openly began to do the devil’s work among the pious _contadini_(124) of the place. He would send for two or three of the young lads at the hour of Mass on Sundays and feast days, and promise them a trifling sum, if, instead of going to church, they would execute some commission for him. When they hesitated, he would laugh at their scruples, and ridicule their attachment to the Jesuit father, and their caring to have objects of devotion like a rosary or the picture of a saint. By degrees his discourses to them became impregnated with positive blasphemy; he grew bolder in his expressions of hatred against religion, and more virulent in his attacks on the ministers of the church. At length he had messages conveyed to the Vernons, to the effect that the bell for Mass (which was never rung before 8 o’clock) was an intolerable nuisance to him; and he threw out hints of revenge if it was not discontinued. Whenever it was rung, suddenly furious sounds proceeded from his part of the house. And really it would seem as if the wretched man were seized with the rage of the possessed, and that, when that bell sounded, the devil entered into him. The Vernons’ servants became the objects of mysterious threats and of vile calumnies. A wretched peasant was bribed to frighten one of them at night; and a more daring sinner, but who afterwards repented with tears, was induced, by promises of money, to fire at Padre Cataldo one evening as he was entering the avenue where the man stood concealed.

At length the climax was reached which I have related at the beginning of this chapter, and the Mass bell was cut down in the night, and hung upon a fig‐tree. I remained a long time with Ida and Elizabeth, discussing what would be the best course to pursue; and as I have got so far in the history of the Mass bell, I think I had better carry it on to the end, though it will lead me beyond many of the other incidents of our stay at Posilippo. It was decided that Ida should write very civilly but very firmly to the elder sister, remonstrating at the bell being removed. The sisters rose up in a body, and all together intoned a loud lamentation over the wickedness of the world. It was their desire the bell should be replaced, and that in all things the reverend father should do whatever he thought proper. It was impossible to say who had removed the bell; no one could so much as guess who could be at the bottom of so much wickedness; but as it was quite overwhelming, the eldest sister, true to her traditions and habits, retired to bed, informed her friends of the circumstance, and gathered them round her couch for two days of sympathy and condolence. The bell was, of course, replaced by the still trusting Vernons; but the atheistic Martorelli only escaped condign punishment at the hands of the indignant _contadini_ through the remonstrances and commands of Padre Cataldo, who, in this instance, had unusual difficulty in getting his orders obeyed, and in preventing the insults that had been heaped upon him from being revenged by his loving but hot‐headed Italian penitents.

The next Sunday morning Mary and I, who had far less faith in the possibility of any sincerity in the Casinelli than even the Vernons, listened anxiously for the first sound of the Mass bell. My watch was, I suppose, in advance of the right time; for it was five minutes past eight, and I had not heard a sound, when Mary came running in with the joyful exclamation that it was all right, and that the bell was pealing loud. The good Posilippians looked out of their cavernous houses, and peeped from their windows; and as we stood at our garden door, we could hear them calling to each other just as Mary had done to me—that the bad man had not dared again to cut down the bell in the night.

It was not long, however, before Martorelli, whose rage knew no bounds, began to express his threats against the Vernons, and especially against their chaplain, too loudly to escape notice. The father himself was well aware of these threats, because they never failed to be repeated by the people about the place, who were all devoted to him. Of course he avoided telling the Vernons, for three girls and one aged lady could do little in the matter, except feel very anxious for his safety. On the other hand, he was not the man to avenge, or even protect, himself. But as he was constantly out till late in the evening, preaching at different churches, giving retreats, and visiting the sick, several of the men who formed part of the congregation decided that he was never to be allowed to go down that treacherous winding path which leads from the Strada Nuova through the vineyards and garden to Casinelli, except accompanied by one of them. The terraces are admirably adapted for shooting down upon your enemy, as he passes just beneath you, while you lie concealed amongst the beans above. At length some of the wiser and more authoritative of the men, disgusted at the annoyances to which the females of the Vernon household were exposed, and at the threats against Padre Cataldo’s life, had Martorelli summoned before the magistrates as a disturber of the peace. This strong measure kept him quiet for some time; and it was during this happy interval that Frank and Don Emidio Gandolfi returned from their long wanderings, Frank, of course, to take up his abode with us, and Don Emidio to return to his Neapolitan villa, his principal residence being in Rome.

The day of their return we were all sitting in the _loggia_ together watching the evening light, which, falling on the rocks of Sorrento and on the island of Capri, seemed to turn them into pink topaz set in a sapphire sea. I was eagerly relating the history of the bell to our two gentlemen, and, forgetting that Don Emidio was an Italian, I launched out in strong expressions against the cunning and intrigue of the whole nation. In the midst of my harangue I suddenly looked up, and there was Don Emidio leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, his hands loosely clasped, his deep, calm eyes fixed on my eager face, and a slight, sly smile curving his well‐defined mouth. I stopped dead short, and blushed to the eyes. We were so used to seeing him with us, and to hearing him talk in his perfect English, that, in the heat of my discourse, I forgot I was abusing his countrymen. Frank laughed outright when, looking at Don Emidio, he saw the expression which had so suddenly arrested me, and Mary alone looked sorry for me.

“O Don Emidio!” I exclaimed, “I forgot you were not one of us. I forgot you were an Italian.”

“It needs no apology, signorina. I agree with a great deal that you say. In the first place, you spoke chiefly of Neapolitans. I am only half a Neapolitan. And, secondly, whatever you may think of Italians you are too just not to believe there are many honest men amongst them.”

“You are very kind to let me off so easily. No one who knew Padre Cataldo, who is a Neapolitan, could fail to believe in the possibility of honest Italians.”

“Excuse me, signorina, if I say that you would be nearly as far wrong in taking Padre Cataldo as a guarantee for there being honest men amongst us as you would be in believing us all rogues because you have met with people like the Casinelli.”

“Why so?”

“Because saints are as much an exception to the generality as are accomplished Machiavellians like the Casinelli.”

“You are right,” said Mary. “But do you not think that just as the French are specially addicted to vanity, so the Italians are to intrigue?”

“I do. It is the reverse of the medal. The French are sanguine, and the drawback to that is self‐conceit. The Italians are astute, and the corresponding defect is cunning.”

“As Emidio is too sensible to be thin‐skinned at our speaking out our thoughts,” interrupted Frank, “I must say that I have always thought the Italians great in duplicity.”

“The Italian does not care to tell you an untruth about a trifle. If he did so, it would be from carelessness rather than from purpose. But when once he sees his way, or thinks he sees it, to accomplishing some distant and important end, then the full strength of his close‐knit mind and his marvellous faculty of mental investigation are brought to bear. He is unscrupulous because he is passionate. Not passionate only as a sudden burst, but condensed, sustained passion. The object he has in view, no matter what it be, becomes the object of his passion, and gradually he weaves around it the web of his whole being. With fixed, undeviating purpose, he bends all things to one point. If truth will serve him, he will employ truth; where that fails, deceit will be as readily adopted. He overlooks mountains and valleys, walls and barriers, in pursuit of his end; or rather he sees through them, as if they were merely a mist, and fixes his unflinching gaze on what he is resolved to obtain beyond them. So long as his purpose is unchanged, nothing will stay his progress. Once that changed, no matter how or why—out of his own will or through the will of others—and the whole fabric of deceit passes from him like a mantle loosely draped from his shoulders, only to be resumed when next required.”

“You seem to me to have made it out very clearly, Emidio,” said Frank. “Now, what is the good side of this disagreeable picture?”

“The good side is the strength of will and the power of sustained and concentrated thought and purpose. Turn all that in the right direction, and you will find it leads you to a long list of heroic saints, surpassed in no country, and equalled only in Spain, where some of the like characteristics exist.”

“But surely,” said I, “France also is a great land of saints.”

“No doubt. But, generally speaking (of course there are exceptions), they belong to a different category. The greatest contemplatives have been Italian or Spanish.”

“But, Don Emidio, I don’t like to think that nationality, which seems to include temperament, and even climate, can have anything to do with the making of God’s saints.”

“And why, signorina, should you object to it when He who makes his saints makes also the climate and the temperament? He has linked the outer and inner world too closely together for us to have any reason to be astonished that he should observe certain general laws in connection with the gifts of his highest graces.”

Mary started forward from the depths of her arm‐chair, and said eagerly: “Then do you really think that the slower temperament and depressing climate of England, for example, have prevented, and will prevent, our country from being honored by great saints?”

“I am very far from thinking it. On the contrary, and strange as it may appear at first sight, there are certain characteristics amongst the English which assimilate them, in my mind, to the Italians in a way I never could assimilate the French. I allude to your steadiness of purpose and to your reserved and silent habits. These qualities, when laid hold of by grace, tend to lead to contemplation and mystic holiness, much as do the qualities we have spoken of among Italians.”

“Then, I suppose, the extraordinary energy and versatility of the French are likely to make them more active than contemplative.”

“Just so, signorina, and yet there have been wonderful exceptions; and I should be wrong in making out anything like a rigid rule. In the first place, ‘the wind bloweth where it listeth’; and, in the next, the demarcations of national character are not sufficiently strong to necessitate any given development of even mere natural qualities, much less of spiritual qualities.”

“I suppose, in short, all you really mean, Don Emidio,” resumed Mary, “is that, when it pleases God to make a saint in the full acceptation of the term, he makes use of natural conditions blended with the supernatural.”

“God always works with a method, signora—by rule and measure. We cannot solve all the divine problems; but we know that they are according to truth and justice.”

Don Emidio’s last words seemed to shut us all up in silent thought. Frank went on puffing at his cigar in a way which set my wicked imagination wondering how far smoking was conducive to meditation. But then I never heard of a saint who smoked. Perhaps if any very holy man, whose canonization was in progress, had been given to smoking, the devil’s advocate would lay hold of it, and try to destroy the cause. I do not think tobacco was much in vogue when the great modern saints lived. S. Philip Neri, for instance, that large‐hearted, “large‐sleeved”(125) saint—I wonder if, in these days, he would have smoked? But then he was a priest. That makes a great difference. I think a layman might have an occasional cigar. There is that dear old Frank lighting his second. But Don Emidio has had only two tiny cigarettes. What nonsense runs in my head! And, meanwhile, the red lights have all died away. Capri lies like a large, dense cloud on the bosom of the sea; and though all the sunlight has faded from the sky, there is a strange color of mingled purple and orange that seems to flash upon the water, and that I never saw anywhere except in the Bay of Naples. Presently we are roused from our reverie by the sound of voices; and Ida’s tall figure stands by the open window looking out upon us, while Elizabeth and Helen are behind.

“How silent you all are!” exclaims Ida with a laugh. “I am afraid we shall disturb you.”

“Oh! it is only that Don Emidio has been talking to us so much about heroic sanctity that we are all in a state of depression from the consciousness that we have no hope of ever reaching it.”

“I am quite sure you never will, if you set about it in this melancholy fashion. Besides, nobody is a saint till he is dead; and who knows but what you may live to pray at my tomb yet?”

“_Yours_, Ida dear?” said Mary quite gravely.

“Why not? There are so many kinds of saints; and I may yet come out as quite a new variety. But that is not what I am come about. Padre Cataldo is gone to see the poor man I told Mary of this morning. He has got the fever, and, when he is delirious, he keeps calling so piteously for the padre that this is the second time to‐day he has had to toil up our hill to go to him, besides all his other toils. As soon as the man is pacified, he promised to come here. He told us at dinner that to‐morrow will be a free day, and that for once he could make an excursion with us, if we liked to go to Baiæ.”

It was soon all settled. I thought it strange the two gentlemen did not wish to ride, but preferred coming in the carriage with us. For my part, I longed to be on horseback, and, in their place, I would have ridden. Padre Cataldo looked in for a moment to learn our plans, and then Don Emidio took leave of us. He had a long way to drive home.

“Your villa is on the Vomero, is it not?” I said.

“No, signorina; it is at Capo di Monte. Do you prefer the Vomero?”

“Oh! dear, no. I think Capo di Monte very beautiful.”

He was holding my hand, as he wished me good‐night. I thought what an odd question it was to ask me. What could it matter which I liked best? I told Mary I thought Don Emidio was sometimes a little absent, and hardly knew what he was saying. But I suppose Mary did not agree with me, for she only smiled and made no answer.

The next morning I overheard Mary lamenting to Frank about the way in which Paolino disturbed her rest, beginning, as early as half‐past four, firing at the little birds in the garden. I used to envy that lad his faculty for early rising. The first streak of light through his shutterless window saw Paolino on the alert. And then he would go strolling out into the garden, leaning over the low wall that divided our entrance from the main road, hailing all his comrades on their way to their work, whistling and shouting to his sisters, who lived in a portion of the villa where we had originally thought of taking apartments but for its dirty and miserable condition. These noises so early in the morning, and close to our windows, were bad enough; but when to these the constant firing of a gun was added, Mary’s powers of endurance failed. It would have been a waste of feeling to compassionate the birds, who flew away from Paolino’s aim with perfect impunity. It was therefore from no apprehensions for the few songsters of a garden in Southern Italy that we complained. But all day long Paolino was absent at inopportune moments, attempting a hopeless massacre of sparrows and finches. He had often been scolded about it, but the instinct of sport in the boy was superior to any fear of being found fault with. When at length it reached such a pitch that Mary even was induced to complain, Paolino had to endure a sharp scolding from Frank. The result of which was that, a few hours after, he took the gun, with tears in his eyes, to Monica, requesting her to carry it to his father, that through him it might be returned to the friend who had lent him the fatal weapon. He alleged that he had not the moral courage to have the gun in his possession, and yet refrain from inordinate use of it; and thus, as he said, the only way was to put the occasion out of his reach. The little birds enjoyed peaceful matins ever after, and Paolino rose wonderfully in our esteem.

The roomy landau and the impish coachman were ready early to take us on our long excursion; while Pascarillo, the coachman’s master, and the owner of many carriages, provided another conveyance for the rest of the party. Don Emidio went with Mary, Ida, and myself; Padre Cataldo and Frank with Mrs. Vernon and the other girls. We took the Posilippo road, intending to return by the Grotto of Puzzuoli. Nothing can be more beautiful than the view which greets you at the top of the hill, and which, in a steep winding descent, brings you to the town of Puzzuoli. To the left is a high bank of verdure covered with flowering shrubs, and here and there a goat browsing on some almost inaccessible peak. The sea always seemed to me to be even bluer here than in the Bay of Naples. We drive past places bearing some of the grandest names of antiquity; Puzzuoli itself was once a “little Rome”; Cicero’s villa was here; here Sylla died. Temples unrivalled in beauty covered those hill‐sides, and villas with umbrageous trees were dotted all over those flat plains where the willows wave their long, yellow twigs amid rows of tall poplars, and here and there a plane‐ tree. Here are the market gardens that supply Naples, or rather a portion of them. But all the land is full of sulphur springs, and it is only in certain seasons of the year that Puzzuoli and its neighborhood is fit for habitation. Then Neapolitans and strangers come to take the sulphur baths, the hateful vapors of which catch our breath as we pass. I have a growing sense of everything being unreal around me; and no length of time or habit removes the impression. The sea has swallowed up one‐half of the spots sacred to classic memories. But where are the trees of Cicero’s villa that Pliny praises? What wild havoc or gradual but most obliterating change has availed to wipe away all but the faintest traces of what once was looked on as a paradise? Fire and water alike have combined to erase the last relics of that luxurious pagan time. The volcanic action in all this part of Italy and the encroaching ocean have sufficed to wipe out all but the faintest indications of a state of luxury, wealth, architectural beauty, and lavish decoration to which old Phœnicia, Greece, and Rome had lent their aid in the long course of ages. Never was ruin greater, perhaps, since the beginning of the Christian era. Sodom and Gomorrah, Nineveh and Babylon, have passed away more entirely. But in Puzzuoli, Misenum, Cumæ, and Baiæ the ruin is more pathetic, from the fact that enough remains to betray how vast those villas and baths and temples once were, and how absolutely the aggressive force of silent nature has overpowered and swept away or buried the proud achievements of man.

We proceed from one marvel of destruction to another. The Mare Morto is to our right, shrunk to a tiny lake; and yet this was to have been, when completed, the great port for Roman merchandise. The same melancholy feeling of utter destruction and radical change in the whole aspect of the country fills the mind wherever we turn; and through all the excursions we made in this neighborhood, I never found it less; while Mary, who had been here many years ago, recollected having experienced the same impression, and found that it returned upon her, if possible, with fuller force. It may be as well to remind my readers that the ancient name of Puzzuoli was Puteoli. And perhaps in no one place are crowded, within a circumference of about twelve miles around it, so many and such intimate associations with pagan Rome and the old classic life. The crumbling tufa‐banks by the road‐side are filled with rectangular Roman bricks, the remains of baths connected with the villa residences and temples of antiquity. Also, there are considerable remains of Columbaria and large tombs. We passed beneath the Arco Felice, and, clambering up a high bank, reached the cottage of a _vignaiuolo_, and rested beneath an elm‐tree while I made a drawing of Lago Fusaro and part of the Elysian Fields. We saw the Lake of Lucrinus, but the oysters are gone. We shuddered as we approached Avernus. The dense forest which once flung its black shadows on the waters has long ago been felled or died away. The wholesome mid‐day sun shot laughing beams on the clear surface, disarmed of all preternatural horror. The Elysian Fields are, indeed, a smiling plain of land partially cultivated, and partially covered with trees and brush‐wood, the king’s favorite hunting‐grounds. We women refused to enter the Sibyl’s cave, liking neither damp nor sulphurous smells. The horrors of the surroundings are all swept away. The little birds fly over the once deadly Lake of Avernus as safely as from Paolino’s harmless gun; and as we look back through the dim avenue of misty ages, it is curious to reflect that what is a dream of the past to ourselves was hardly less so to others who are now but shadowy representatives of a world gone by to us; for it was Agrippa whose engineering robbed Avernus of many of its terrors, and probably disturbed even the placid oysters of Lucrinus. Thus the sense of unreality grows upon us, as we visit one spot after another, and find the green tendrils of the young vine, the blue‐purple blossoms of the vetch, and bright scarlet poppies covering with gay garlands the few vestiges of a world that is dead and gone. Yet even here I am tempted to repeat, “Le passé n’est pas mort, il n’est qu’absent,”(126) and yet how far absent! How the old gods have died away from their own sylvan scenes, and the nymphs fled, shamefaced, from lakes no longer solitary! Victor Emanuel will scare no dryads from their leafy bowers, and is hardly the man to trace the small footprint of the chaste huntress on the yielding moss, as he pursues the wild boar through what were doubtless once her covers. No laughing Bacchante peeps behind the trailing vine, or dances, with light, flowing tresses and scanty tunic, to the trilling of double pipes. The goats are here, but the satyrs are absent. The vines show promise of rich grapes; but Bacchus, grape‐crowned, with the skin of the spotted pard across his sun‐bronzed chest, and the tragic melancholy of liquid eyes with sleepy lids, is nowhere found; for, be it remembered, the god of wine was no drunken lout, but rather one who, at least in his ripe youth, was but quickened and inspired by the blood of the red grape.

The myths and fables have long ceased. As myths, they held a divine truth, dimly shadowed forth. As fables, they degenerated, like all half‐truths, into wholesale errors. Then human depravity swept over them, and left its poisonous slime o’er all. We go back to the memory of those times with mingled feelings of wonder and of pain. But amid the decaying fragments of classic lore there shines forth one little incident which quickens our pulse, and bridges over all the succeeding ages with a touch of feeling that obliterates time and space. The words are few, but they are dearer to us than the epics of Virgil, or the letters of Cicero, or all else that may grace the memory of this lovely land: “The south wind blowing, we came the second day to Puteoli, where, finding brethren, we were desired to tarry with them seven days.”

“Finding brethren!” Yes, even here, beneath the shade of marble porticos, temple, and fane devoted to an infamous religion, the Name that is above every name was whispered by a few. The sign of the cross was secretly made by quiet inhabitants of Puzzuoli’s noisy streets, the Virgin Mother was revered, and the words of S. Paul and S. Luke listened to as a message from above. And how little the citizens of Puteoli knew of the divine mysteries which were going on among them! And now, as if the wicked city had been in every sense too near the gate of hell, the volcanic flames have penetrated the earth’s thin crust on all sides, and flung down and devoured the traces of brilliant, triumphant, and overbearing vice, leaving in its place a handful of Christian peasants and a few relics prized by the scholar and the antiquarian.

I must own to my readers that I am chiefly repeating Don Emidio’s words, and that, as we approached Baiæ, I with startling indecorum exclaimed: “But it must not be forgotten that we have come here to eat oysters, whether or not the Lake of Lucrinus produces them.” We did eat oysters. We alighted at the humblest little wayside inn close to the shore. We sat beneath the trellised vine that covered the vast _loggia_. The lemons were gathered, as sauce for the oysters, in the garden below; the ruins of the circular temple of Venus or Mercury shone, deep red, in the light of the setting sun. The merry landlord and a half‐dozen nondescript servants, men and maids, proposed to dance the _tarantella_ for us. The women happened to lack beauty, and the men youth. But that was not our reason for declining the pleasure. The dance was doubtless innocent enough; but it was not often we were favored with the company of “Nostro Zio Prete,” our uncle priest, and we thought it more decorous not to order dances in his presence. I must explain to my readers that the peasantry in South Italy call a priest uncle when they do not call him father; and that in some of our excursions, when Padre Cataldo bargained about carriages or refreshment (and which must always be done if you do not want to be scandalously overcharged), they always protested that for no consideration would they attempt to impose on their uncle priest! Happily for us, our reverend uncle was a Neapolitan, and too well acquainted with the true value of the services we received for us to have any apprehension of being cheated in any expedition organized by him. Perhaps our host himself surmised our reason for declining the _tarantella_, for he did not press it; and returning to our carriage, we drove home by moonlight through the Grotto of Puzzuoli.

Switzerland In 1873.

Lake Of Lucerne.

It was a lovely evening as we sailed away, a happy, lively party, from Lucerne. Our minds were full of the enthusiasm for his native land which Herr H——’s descriptions had excited, but for one characteristic of the Lake of the Forest Cantons we were as yet totally unprepared, namely, its unusual and wonderful variety.

Every traveller viewing it from Lucerne readily admits its extreme beauty. Its interest is acknowledged beforehand, according to the greater or lesser degree in which each one can clothe its shores with historic memories, but its remarkable diversity of scenery is a feature generally ignored until seen, although amongst Swiss lakes it is in this respect pre‐eminent. And this peculiarity is mainly attributable to its geographical formation. Consisting, as it does, of divisions completely distinct one from the other, they lead us on, as if designedly arranged in the most artistic manner, in a series of “surprises,” from one picture to another, on an ever‐increasing scale of beauty.

That part of the lake which is nearest to Lucerne may be said to resemble in shape a Maltese cross, so equal do its proportions appear to the passing observer. In characteristics and detail, however, it differs widely. The northern shores, though spreading round two of the arms in undulating hills, may decidedly be called flat compared to the magnificent line of Alpine peaks towering along the southern extremity. At one of the angles of the cross stands Mount Pilatus, 5,900 feet high—at the opposite one the Rigi, 5,541 feet above the sea—like two sentinels guarding the entrance to the territory beyond. The tourist sailing straight onwards from Lucerne is fain to believe that the lake ends where a spur of the Rigi seems to stretch across the southern bay, right before him. No other explanation appears possible until the spot itself is reached, when suddenly a channel, hitherto unperceived, opens to the right, between that mountain and the opposite shore—the two promontories thus disclosed rejoicing in the rather ignoble appellation of “Die Nasen,” or “The Noses.” What a beautiful and perfectly different view is then disclosed, as the steamer darts through the narrow strait to the village of Buochs, at the foot of its own Buochserhorn, the base of which is covered with comfortable farm‐houses, embosomed in their orchards, changing step by step into châlets as they ascend to the higher pastures! At once we have got into another country. A landlocked bay, that to the eye seems nearly circular, bordered on one side by the precipitous but wooded mountains of Unterwalden, and on the opposite by the southern peaks and slopes of the Rigi, between whose folds nestles pretty Gersau, not large enough to be called a town nor unimportant enough for a village. A sunny, peaceful picture—a “happy _lake_ of Rasselas”—from which no exit is visible, nor, we might suppose, ever need be sought for! At the further end, towering in the distance, snow‐clad summits peer above the clouds; but, more striking than all, rise two curiously‐pointed peaks close by, which stand, we are told, right above the white houses of Schwyz. So here we are truly in the cradle of Switzerland—the genuine “Urschweiz”! And as we sail towards Brunnen (the port of Schwyz, three miles inland) we try to trace their resemblance to a bishop’s distinctive mark, which has given to these two bare rocks, nearly five thousand feet high, the familiar name of “The Mitres.”

But where is the land of Tell—Uri and the Rüti?—for again our course seems barred at Brunnen: valleys, meadows, and a background of mountains alone lie before us. Once more turn round on the quay of Brunnen, at a sharp angle to the right, and say, can a more exquisite picture anywhere be found! Here, in this bay of Uri—for so this part is named—instead of the great expanse near Lucerne, the lake has narrowed into a space not wider than a valley, whilst huge mountains jut forward, and, dipping perpendicularly into the green waters beneath, barely leave room in some spots for the road, which is an engineering achievement of recent years, whilst in others it must needs be carried on through tunnels and open galleries. Right in front, the Uri Rothstock rears its lofty head, with its glacier—a transparent wall of ice three hundred feet in height—sparkling in the sun. Tell’s home lies within its folds. But close by, just opposite, is the Rüti, almost undistinguishable until the steamer passes near it. At the head of the bay, on its broad, green meadows, lies Aldorf, below the Bristenstock, which alone, when we reach that spot, hides from us the mighty Gothard. A paradise it truly seems on a brilliant sunny day, with a people worthy of such a land and nurtured into excellence amidst this noble nature. But we have not reached them yet, and have to see and hear of others before we come to this quarter.

Like every other part of Switzerland, the shores of Lucerne Lake are thickly inhabited. No signs of poverty are anywhere visible, and an air of comfort is diffused over the whole district. The most fruitful portion, however, is pre‐eminently the strip of land lying at the base of the Rigi, where the straight wall of the mountain rises precipitately facing the north. So proverbial is its fertility that it is called the “Garden of Lucerne,” and through winter and summer that town is supplied with fruit and vegetables by the peasants of this neighborhood. The steamers which now navigate the lake carry them thither in numbers with their produce on every market‐day. Of its numerous villages, Weggis held the first place until the last three years, when the engineers of the wonderful Rigi Railway fixed on Vitznau, three miles further on, for their station. Up to that period, no one ever thought of this out‐of‐the‐way little village, lying in a sheltered nook close under the Rigi‐Nase. Weggis, on the other hand, was the starting‐point for all aspirants to sunsets on the Kulm: the chief place for horses and guides, and full, in consequence, of animation and importance. But the world marches on rapidly nowadays, and matters, therefore, are much changed; for few, except the timid, or the most determined seekers of the picturesque, think of choosing this route to the summit, when both time and trouble can be saved by the railway ascent to those hundreds of summer tourists whose excursions are made at high‐ pressure speed. Vitznau, consequently, is daily advancing in importance, and the price of land has risen in an incredibly short space of time from fifty centimes to five francs per metre. No buildings, however, have yet been attempted, except two pretty hotels; and it was to one of these, opened this season on the water’s edge, that we had telegraphed for rooms. But it was not large enough to accommodate all our party, so my friend Anna L—— and myself adjourned at night to the second one, situated further back near the church.

The evening continued fine, and as the moon shone on the calm waters whilst we supped under the veranda of the inn, every one was happy and contented. The young C——s declared they felt “most romantic,” we elders “sehr æsthetisch” (very æsthetic), as Heine calls it, and all looked forward with confidence to the morrow. The plan was, by sleeping here, to start in the first train, which is generally the least crowded, and, halting at Kaltbad, thence to explore the other parts of the Rigi. It had been devised by Herr H——“cunningly devised,” he secretly told Mr. C——, “in order to humor the nerves of the ladies, always stronger in the early morning, and which he knew, though he chose to conceal this fact from us, would be sorely tried by the alarming railway.” As to a change of weather, no one ever dreamt of it. There had been such a spell of fine days and lovely moonlights that nothing else was taken into account. But, alas for presumptuous confidence! What was our dismay on awaking to hear the unwelcome sounds of rain! Patter! patter! drop after drop, it fell against the window; and, rising in trepidation, the painful fact became evident that a steady downpour had commenced. There was no wind, but such thick clouds rolled down from the mountain and spread over the lake that the opposite shore was soon invisible. It might pass off, and we determined to have patience; so, when the bell tolled for Mass at half‐past seven o’clock, seizing our umbrellas we rushed across the cemetery, which separated our hotel from the church. This latter, as suited to so small a village, is not large nor rich‐looking—on the contrary; but all was very clean, the building solidly constructed, and the congregation, despite the rain, fairly large, and most attentive. Everything was arranged, too, on the same system as elsewhere. The cemetery full of holy‐water stoups, with a separate corner for the children, the church doors open all day long, the lighted lamp betokening the Blessed Sacrament, and men and women often, as we noticed, passing in and out, to say a prayer in its divine presence.

At half‐past nine the train was to start, but the rain grew heavier each minute, and no one, we supposed, could think of ascending the mountain in such weather. At the appointed time, however, the steamers arrived from both ends of the lake, with their ship‐loads of enterprising tourists. How we pitied them! To have come so far in this weather, only to be disappointed—for no one surely could land on such a day! But experience has since taught us differently, and shown that in no part of Switzerland, or perhaps of any other country, does this class so pertinaciously defy the elements as on the Lucerne Lake and the Rigi Railway. To‐day, from behind our hotel windows, we watched hundreds rushing on shore, in their water‐proofs, and with dripping umbrellas, to the railway station—adventurous spirits, who trusted to their good stars to drive away the clouds from the mountain‐top on their arrival; or, if the views should fail them, at least to go through the “sensation” of this singular railway. And, in this one respect, no one could be disappointed. A “sensation” it certainly would be: whether pleasant or terrifying must depend on each individual temperament.

And now the sloping engines emerged from their night’s hiding‐place, and we too began to share the general excitement. One by one our party ran to the pretty station, and there stood examining the proceedings. So fascinating did the attraction become, that every time there was an arrival or departure whilst we remained at Vitznau, books, writing, and all other occupations were hastily thrown aside to scamper off to the still novel sight. But a very unwise course this proved; for, instead of reassuring our feeble nerves, the disinclination to make a personal experience of the ascent visibly increased as the day wore on. And what wonder! The engines were unlike any we had ever seen; shaped in a slanting fashion to fit the mountain side. There were five, but of these each one was attached to only one carriage, which contains cross benches for fifty passengers (with an ominous printed request “not to move!”), and with open sides, so that nothing should obstruct the view to those whose nerves might retain their customary tranquillity. Five such trains compose each departure, hence, should the arrivals exceed 250, the unlucky “last” are left behind at Vitznau to wait patiently for the next trains—two or three hours later. And now we understood the cause of the rush on shore, and the violent squeezing between the rails of the ticket office, which had so much puzzled and amused us.

In mid‐season this constantly happens, it being a case of “first come, first served.” Even to‐day, all the carriages were full. As a rule, therefore, it is calculated that on an average between 1,100 and 1,200 tourists daily ascend the Rigi during the summer months from this point alone. Up they went at a short interval between each train; the engine not preceding, but pushing the carriage before it—mounting slowly to all appearances, but withal rapidly, for in less than five minutes they were lost to sight; climbing first high above the church‐tower, and then above the cottages, which one by one here overtop the village. It took away one’s breath to look at them: a seeming tempting of Providence thus scaling mountain walls and precipices at the measure of from 18° to 25°—perhaps all the more awe‐inspiring to day by reason of the weather and the mysterious cloud‐land they boldly pierced through.

As yet, no serious accident has happened. Let us hope none ever may! The principle of construction, with a central notched rail, tightly grasped by a cog‐wheel, besides the powerful brakes belonging to each carriage, seem to promise fairly. The trains, too, proceed in reality so slowly, and with such caution, that a man is always able to walk in front of the first carriage. Most striking was it to watch the down trains two hours later; the guard blowing a horn as they passed the height above the village, then marching into the station with a solemn countenance that seemed to tell of perils met and conquered, leisurely followed by the sloping engine, looking helpless and distorted once it reached the level ground. Steady and serious‐looking men these guards and engine‐drivers are, quite unlike the daring beings to whose care we so thoughtlessly entrust our precious lives in every‐day railway travelling. In walk and dress, too, they have a mountain air and bearing, at once telling us of the life to which they were “born and bred,” and reminding us of the intrusion of our material world into their hitherto simple sphere. So far, however, it does not appear to have interfered with Vitznau habits. Being what the French call a “cul de sac,” without even a road over the promontory to Gersau, there is no temptation to linger here, and the trains and steamers are made to fit in so exactly that, except in the case of undue numbers, or for a hasty luncheon, few travellers ever do remain. Nothing struck us so much during our enforced stay as the sudden relapse into its ordinary quiet which took place at Vitznau the moment train or steamer passed on.

The nature of its position will also prevent this pretty village from ever losing much of its original character. It consists of but forty or fifty houses situated on a narrow ledge, a small strip of land, between the precipitous Rigi cliffs on one side and the lake on the other, so that room does not exist for very large extension. Only this summer it narrowly escaped destruction from the effects of a thunder‐storm higher up, such as had not been known for years. The stream overflowed into a torrent, carrying all before it, and the villagers and railway officials had to turn out in the middle of the night to open channels and raise embankments, and only succeeded by great exertions in arresting destruction. Personally, I should fear the rocks rolling from above more, as they have often done at Weggis—but of this the natives seem to take no account. We were told that there is one point on the road between this and Weggis—to which larger village the Vitznau children go to school, three miles distant—where stones fall so constantly that the little ones are always on the look‐out, and make a run when they see them approaching. Yet this pretty spot has many attractions, especially for invalids. We met a gentleman lately who had passed a winter here, and was loud in its praises. Nothing can exceed the morality and sobriety of the people; the winter climate, too, is perfect—he and the parish priest had made observations together during one season, which proved that the temperature is as mild as that of Montreux and of other sheltered spots on this side of the Alps. Fruit grows here abundantly, even figs and melons, as in Italy, and flowers thrive equally well. One of the prettiest features in the place was the numberless girls in front of the station with small baskets of each—the grapes having just arrived from Italy over the St. Gotthard, and come hither by the steamers; but the “fresh figs” and “beautiful peaches” which they offer in excellent English are genuine Vitznau productions.

The day advanced, yet there seemed no cessation of the downpour, and all were in despair at being thus caught at such a spot, without the resources even of a large hotel. At last “a happy thought” suggested the idea of our abandoning the Rigi altogether! “Let us move on to Gersau,” said one—“just round the corner!” broke in another weather‐bound traveller, who gave a glowing report of its charms and comforts. Even the young people, who in the morning were so anxious for the railroad excitement, were worn out by waiting and the little likelihood of a change. “No sooner said than done” was therefore the result of our conversation, and the telegraph had ordered our rooms, and our luggage was on board the steamer, before we almost reflected on the consequences. But what matter if we never saw the Rigi! It was more than likely those travellers would never reach the top in that dreadful railway, and our vexed spirits refused to recognize the attractions of anything on such an afternoon but the prospective charms of comfortable _salons_ and piles of the latest newspapers, which we prophetically beheld awaiting us at Gersau. In twenty minutes we had crossed to Buochs, tried in vain to discover the landscape thence—so lovely from this point in fair weather—through the heavy mist of rain and cloud hanging over the lake, and found ourselves lodged in “the palatial hotel” (as the prospectus calls it) at Gersau, close alongside the water’s edge.

No sooner were we fairly landed than the curtain of cloud began to rise, and we clearly beheld the opposite shore. Half an hour afterwards, we were discussing the possible return of fine weather, when a sudden commotion took place around us. Waiters rushed right and left closing windows, housemaids even shutting shutters, without any apparent reason, like demented beings, not giving themselves time to answer our questions. At last, they declared that a storm of wind was approaching, although we could perceive no symptoms of it, and truly, as they foretold, there soon came rushing by one of those sudden squalls against which kindly guide‐ books have so many words of warning. Small waves rose rapidly, and in less than half an hour, without one drop of rain, the whole surface of the lake was in commotion. Then came a great excitement!—half the village and all the travellers crowded to the shore, and every eye fixed on the centre of the lake told of a tiny boat in extreme danger. Had the clouds still continued, it could scarcely have been seen, but now a large, well‐manned craft pulled out to the rescue. It took a long time to reach the sinking boat, for the lake is wider here than it seems, but at last there was a cry of joy on shore when three men were seen to jump from one to the other, and so certain did we then feel of their safety that only a few remained to greet their arrival. The wind, too, subsided, and later that evening the moon struggled—though feebly—to reassert her empire.

The Gersau Hotel is certainly excellent, owing to the skilful direction of Herr Müller, one of the potentates of the place, as are the majority of hotel‐keepers in all these Forest Cantons. He also built the one at the Rigi‐Scheideck, on the peak above Gersau, equally celebrated for its comfort; but lately a company, which calls itself the Regina Montium (one of the supposed meanings of the word Rigi), has purchased it together with others on the mountain. We found the Gersau establishment full, many having come down from the higher “pensions,” and amongst the number two or three acquaintances who laughed at our fear of the railway and general lack of spirit. But nothing is so discouraging to tourists as rain, especially when nearer to the end than to the beginning of their rambles. We were all in bad humor at the trick the clouds had played us, and planless and annoyed we all retired early to bed that night.

But “la nuit porte conseil,” and there is no resisting a sunshiny morning! The Angelus‐bell once more awoke us, but this time to sun and brightness. Again the church was close by, its bell ringing for half‐past seven o’clock Mass. Anna and I quickly answered its bidding. It is a good‐sized parish church, of the solid, unarchitectural style of building usual in these parts, but making a pretty effect with its lofty tower seen rising against the high green hill behind it. To‐day, the Mass was for the dead, and the benches were all full, as at Lucerne; respectably dressed men on one side, while the women knelt on the other. What most struck us, however, were the children; the boys in front of the men, and about twenty girls in the two front benches opposite. These were in charge of a devout‐ looking young school‐mistress, whose sweet, placid countenance seemed to tell of pleasant hours for her youthful scholars. Later, we learned that the children, though obliged to attend school by law, are not compelled to attend Mass, but that, as a rule, they do so both by their own and their parents’ desire. Nothing could be tidier than the little maidens’ appearance; their frocks clean, and their hair neatly plaited round their heads, all according to the same pattern, probably as their mothers had done before them; and so attentive and reverential were they, that although we strangers knelt right behind them, not one ever turned to look at us. Each had her prayer‐book, which she read attentively, and, besides, her rosary wound round her hand when not in use, all in the same fashion and of the same pattern. This small incident carried our thoughts back swiftly to another land, recalling a sermon we had heard in London by the Archbishop of Westminster, when, after speaking of the olden days of the true faith in England, and the culpability of its first disturbers, he made allowance for the “invincible ignorance” of the mass of its people nowadays; “for,” exclaimed his grace, “who has there been since then to teach the little maidens their rosary, and to bring them to our Lord and his blessed Mother?” and we thanked God, as we beheld the Gersau children making their genuflections with serious little countenances, that there is still one nook at least left in this world where the demon of heresy and unbelief has not penetrated, and where piety and reverence are, from earliest childhood, taught to go hand‐in‐hand with modern life. At the offertory of the Mass another peculiarity occurred. Suddenly, an elderly woman rose, and, going forward, was followed by all the other women in the church, who, in single file, advanced towards the altar, walked round it by a passage at the back, laid an offering on the altar itself, and then quietly returned to their places. The oldest man, on the other side, now rose, and followed by all the men, in like manner proceeded through the same ceremony, only varied by their passing round the altar from the contrary side, and depositing, as did some of the women too, an offering besides on a small table in front of the choir. It was weeks before I could learn the origin of this custom, but then, opening by chance an old history of Switzerland, I found this rule quoted from an ancient document, which purported to regulate the relations between pastor and people some centuries ago. There it was stated that the offering for the priest should be laid on the altar itself, and that for the sacristan on a small table outside—so steadily and closely do these conservative‐republicans still keep, even in form, to the pattern of their ancestors.

The Mass being only one of commemoration and not of burial, the congregation soon dispersed to their different avocations. In this way tourists are so often deceived, when, coming in at a late hour, they find foreign churches empty.

I remember a Protestant lady who had passed three winters in Rome once asking me seriously if Catholics ever went to holy communion. I thought her mind must be wandering, but discovered on enquiry that she had never been inside a church, even in Rome, before eleven o’clock or later; therefore, though many were hearing Mass, she had noticed none at holy communion. It had never occurred to her that, contrary to her Protestant custom, Masses were begun, and devout Catholics received holy communion in those same churches, long before she probably was awake each morning. So in the present instance, the congregation, consisting of working‐men and women, might have been through half their daily occupations before any traveller at Gersau thought of looking in at the church, “wondering at its desolation!”

The sun was streaming in brightly through an open side‐door, inviting us to depart by that exit. What a beautiful sight met us on the threshold! The lake, placid and sunny, framed in by surrounding green slopes and peaks, lay close in front, separated only by the public road to Brunnen from a beautiful little cemetery belonging to the church. Here were a crowd of pretty monuments, the majority I in stone, but some in white marble, in excellent taste, bordered with flowers, or delicately twined round with creeping roses and ivy. The children’s corner lay to the right, and there an old woman was sprinkling holy water and arranging flowers on some of the poorer graves, which lay between them and the handsome tombs in the pathway from the church‐door to the road—a path that quite formed a “via sacra” of Gersau notabilities. Judging from these, the population would seem to consist of Camenzinds and Küttels. An occasional Müller figured on a tombstone, but otherwise it might safely be assumed that what was not Camenzind was Küttel—if not Küttel, Camenzind. The names, even if only seen once, would have attracted notice—Camenzind, especially, had a _non‐local_ sound, and we willingly jumped at the conclusion that it may be one of those which, according to Herr H——’s theory, still exist in these cantons, and are equally to be found in Swedish and Northern valleys to this day. That they are the living autocrats of Gersau admits of little doubt, for every house above the common run is certain on enquiry to prove the property of this family. The manufactory, too, at the end of the village belongs to them. A beautiful resting‐place they certainly have between their church and the lake, which every Camenzind and Küttel must have been looking upon from their tenderest years, for many centuries past.

When our party met at breakfast, it was amusing to see what a complete change the sun and general brightness had effected. All were equally bent on retracing our steps at once, the railroad being the only drawback in the foreground. The juniors would not consent to give that up on any account, but the elders still hesitated, daunted by yesterday’s recollections. Opportunely, a casual acquaintance proposed a solution that conquered all difficulties. He suggested that the younger folk should take the railway, and the timid, going on to the next steamboat station—Weggis—get horses there, and thence ascend by road in the old‐ fashioned style. What we (for I was among the latter class) should lose in “sensation” he asserted that we should gain in interest and picturesqueness, and his plan, suiting all parties, was at once adopted.

Having an hour to spare before the steamer was due, we strolled through the village. No wonder that Gersau has an individuality of its own, for it is a rare specimen descended almost to our own day of those village _communes_ Herr H—— had spoken to us of, which, taking advantage of the debts and embarrassments of their feudal lords, had purchased exemption from them early in the middle ages. Indeed, none of these small communities retained their independence down to late times with the exception of Gersau. “It was forgotten, hidden away in its beautiful retreat,” say some; “steady, self‐respecting, and not quarrelsome,” say others, with more likelihood of truth. At all events, the fact is undeniable that it owned obedience to none but its own local authorities. Tradition says, and the date is proudly recorded on the wall of the town‐ hall—a true peasant town‐hall, only one degree superior to the surrounding houses—that the peasants of Gersau, having put aside their savings for this purpose during ten years, bought their freedom from the Counts von Moos, for the sum of 690 “Pfund pfenninge,” in 1390. Years before, in 1359, they had made a treaty with the four Forest Cantons, and were acknowledged by them as confederates, which singular position this small community retained until the French invasion of 1798, since which time they have been incorporated with the Canton of Schwyz. The place is, literally, nothing more than a large village, said to contain only 2,276 inhabitants, but, seen from the lake with the animation given to it by the tourist life, and the manufactories of the Camenzinds along the shore, it makes the effect of a much larger population and of a very thriving town. Penetrating, however, as we did to the original background of houses, we found them of quite another character. Swiss peasant dwellings, in general, are more comfortable than those of almost any country, and so capacious as to be thoroughly patriarchal, often sheltering numberless children and grandchildren together under the one roof. These of Gersau look like true family strongholds; as if they contained in themselves the histories of many generations, and everything seemed so stationary, so unmoved and immovable, that we could not help thinking of Hawthorne’s description of an English country village, where he fancied he saw the grandfathers and grandmothers marrying over and over again in their descendants, so completely had the place and people a centenarian air about them. Pretty it was, too, to see these picturesque homes extending one above the other up the defile behind, amidst their orchards and fresh green pasture‐grounds, headed by the Rigi‐Scheideck Hotel, which crowns the summit and looks quite near, though it is not so in reality. The intercourse between the two now gives Gersau much stirring importance, but, as in the case of Weggis, the advance of “civilization” is likely to prove of permanent injury to it. Next year a railroad, branching off from Kaltbad, is to be finished along the brow to the Scheideck, when the stream of tourists will of course flow in that direction. And perhaps nowhere could there be more excuse for abandoning “picturesque old ways.” Although it seemed a short ascent, and we saw a merry party starting from the Pension Müller on horseback, intending to dine and sleep at the top, we found on enquiry that it would take them at least two and a half hours to reach the Scheideck, and between three and four hours for the unfortunate carriers who followed soon after laden with the ladies’ huge trunks. Nothing could be more painful than to see these men, some quite old, staggering under the weight, and to know what a stiff climb awaited them higher up. At present there is no road up the hill nor any other means of transport, and the whole supplies for that large establishment at the top have to be taken up by these carriers. It was fortunate for the ladies’ happiness that they had started before their luggage, for the sight would have completely spoiled the welcome one’s trunks always receive on their arrival when you are tempted to part with them even for a short time—tender‐hearted, as they certainly looked, the finery would doubtless have been left to repose quietly beside the lake below.

The thunder‐storm of which we had heard so much at Vitznau committed even greater mischief at Gersau this summer. Two small streams here unite, and an unusual mass of water rolling down from the hillside that night, increased them to a violent torrent, which broke down the strong embankment, carrying all before it—sweeping two houses into the lake and flooding the manufactory to the first floor. A poor woman and two children were also drowned; in fine, the damage done was very great. There had not been time for repairs when we visited it, and the broken walls and scattered stones told their own tale. “Appeals,” too, were hung up on all sides, but also many notices of “thanks” from the commune to every one who had helped on the occasion, worded in the same touching style we had noticed in the Lucerne papers—giving a most agreeable impression of the natural simplicity and dignity of this small community. As we steamed away back again round the Rigi‐Nase, the sun was resting on the pretty spot, inhabited by the descendants of the original hard‐working peasants, and it seemed as if the spirits of former Camenzinds, Küttels, and Müllers must look down approvingly on their posterity, who are not yet ashamed to profess their faith, nor unwilling to have their children still taught how to unite liberty with religion, and thus preserve the two treasures intact.

Certainly there is no magician like Apollo—and none who so well knows how to make himself valued by occasional fits of absence. Under his influence, Vitznau was to‐day another place, an ideal picture of the stir and movement of modern life, combined with a tranquil beauty which we could not have imagined, veiled in cloud and mist as it had been on the day before. It already looked like an old friend, though only the acquaintance of one day. There were the curious engines, showing themselves ready to brave the dangers of the ascent; the pretty station with its fruit and flower girls and photograph stall; the old church, and the two hotels, looking bright and clean—all standing out in relief against the precipitous cliff behind, and surrounded by luxuriant chestnut and walnut trees, and patches of green, freshened up by the recent rain. Even the Nase‐promontory was clothed with timber down to the shore, and the water reflecting the trees was only of another lighter shade, that beautiful transparent green which is now known as “Eau de Nil.” One felt too that the picture could never be much spoiled, there being no space for ugly buildings, or the factory life which, although it tells of employment with its own peculiar charms, rather mars the picturesque beauty of the landscape at Gersau. Moreover, the brightness was enhanced by the national flag of Switzerland floating over the hotel, looking more red and striking then ever against the green background. Yes! striking is the true word for it, not showy—nor flaunting its importance like the tricolor and many another particolored standard of our own days, but solemn and yet attractive, one quite impossible not to notice wherever or however seen. It had always suggested some history to my mind, with its white cross on the red ground, which could not have been adopted without a purpose, but since yesterday it had acquired a new and deep interest, for one of the pamphlets Herr H—— had bestowed on me in Lucerne treated of nothing but this same flag. It was a sermon preached before the “Pius‐Verein” or “Pius Union” of Switzerland, at the general meeting, which took place at Einsiedlen in the summer of 1872, entitled the “Wappenschild” or “coat‐of‐ arms” of the Swiss “Pius Union.” During the rain of yesterday I had read it through, and most interesting it was to note the very characteristics he had foretold that we should observe pervading all sermons in these parts: the constant allusions to their beautiful nature and uninterrupted reference to their past history.

It commenced by recording how the “Pius‐Verein” had been founded in 1854 by some devout Catholics who could not stand by quietly noticing the evil tendencies of the age without protesting, and who had, in consequence, “assembled on the shore of the tranquil lake of the Forest Cantons, where 500 years previously their forefathers had met together in order to shake off the hated yoke of the Austrian governors and imperial Vogts.” It then proceeded in most eloquent language to give the reasons why, amongst a variety of flags, none could be found which corresponded so completely to the sentiments of the associates as the national standard of Switzerland—the white cross on the red ground.

“The white cross had originally been chosen,” said the preacher, “as being the emblem of purity and innocence,” and the honesty, uprightness, and union of their ancestors in that distant age were forcibly dwelt upon for the imitation of their descendants, whilst he drew a lamentable picture of the divisions and ineffective schemes of the present day. The second part explained that these ancestors had placed this white cross on a red field—first, because red, being the color of blood, was the symbol of bravery, and was justly claimed by those same ancestors, who had made Swiss courage a proverb, and who had so often shed their hearts’ blood in defence of liberty and of their faith; for through Christian liberty alone could civil liberty be attained. New “Vogts” or “governors,” continued the preacher, “threaten our land nowadays, but let us manfully resist, and conquer them. The Lardenberg(127) of avarice which formerly seized the oxen of a poor man, and put his eyes out, to‐day tries to blind the poor by a godless press and scandalous literature, robbing them of their most precious possessions—of their churches, convents, priests, and schools. Let us fight against this vice in ourselves, in our families and our communes. Sundays and holidays displease them, and instead of church‐ services and hymns they wish to hear of nothing but labor on these days. Let us then be more strict than ever in the sanctification of the Sunday, and give our enemies the example of disinterested love and charity! The ‘Wolfenschiess’ of sensuality and self‐indulgence is more likely to bring our beloved land under the slavery of Satan now than 500 years ago—a worthy undertaking, therefore, for the ‘Pius‐Verein’ would be the establishment of temperance societies.... And let us courageously fight the third ‘Landvogt’—the Gessler of luxury, wealth, and despotism.... Commerce and industry are the sources of public prosperity, but let not the golden calf of gain become the god of our XIXth century. Let not our factories become modern _Zwinglius_, nor their proprietors force others to bend the knee to the _hat_ of self‐interest, nor to offer up the sacrifice of their freedom and liberty of speech. The red field with its white cross will remind us in all this of our forefathers’ example.

“_Red_, too, is the color of fire, and symbolizes love of country. It reminds us of the fifty men of Schwyz, who decided the fate of that first fight for freedom, the great battle of Morgarten—of the love of fatherland shown by an Arnold von Winkelried, an Adrian von Bubenberg, a Nicholas von der Flue, and the many thousand others who left wife, children, trades, and home, to seek the death of heroes for love of country. Compare their conduct with the boastful toasts of the present day, and see the difference between deeds and words. They reproach us only because we do not boast with these boasters, and that we seek to give our ‘Union’ a religious character.... But history will judge us differently! Let us on our side show love and charity to all; to those also who differ from us in belief; love our confederates as fellow‐Christians; maintain every bond of union—and in this the red ground of the white cross may be the sign of fraternal love and harmony.”

Lastly, the preacher showed how “red typifies the aurora or the dawn of day,” alluding to the “battle near Murten, where, after a short prayer recited by the combatants, the sun broke through the heavy bank of clouds, lighting up the horizon in brilliant colors, and their leader, Hans von Hallwyl, exclaimed, Up, confederates, and forward, for God lights us to victory!—a prophecy which proved perfectly true. A firm trust and reliance on the Lord gave soul, courage, and strength to our ancestors, and never were they deceived. God has preserved our fatherland in a marvellous manner, and why should we despair? Great should be our hopes of a better future.... For every reason, then, ought we to choose the white cross on the red field as the flag of our Pius‐Verein. Let us show to our Lord and to the world that we seek nothing for ourselves, but, treading in the footsteps of our forefathers, only strive for the welfare of our fatherland.... God will be with us! and we shall have the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and of the patrons of our Union, S. Charles Borromeo and Nicholas von der Flue.... Let us hold firm to our glorious faith, and then, when the sign of the Son of God—our Holy cross, our ‘coat‐of‐arms’—shall appear amidst the clouds, may it lead us in triumph on that dreadful day into the eternal fatherland of heaven!”

Fresh from the impression of these eloquent words, it was impossible not to look on this beautiful flag to‐day with increasing admiration, nay affection. But my reveries were cut short by the young C——s, whose approaching railway ascent caused them intense excitement. George C——, the son, especially, became full of animation when he undertook to procure the tickets for his sisters at the office. Stationing himself close to the gangway, he bade them follow at their leisure, as he would jump on shore and put his experience of yesterday’s many long hours to profit. Accordingly, the instant the steamer came alongside the quay, he got ahead of all the other passengers, and giving one bound to the office, proudly flourished his tickets for the first carriage to us who remained on board, long before the untaught crowd thought of moving. A few who knew better, like himself, made a rush too, and one old man tripped and fell, whilst another leaped over him, without allowing himself time to help his companion—so selfish does excitement and locomotion make all ages and ranks! We likewise moved on, and so rapidly, that there was barely time to see the start of the first train containing our young friends, who were waving handkerchiefs to us, as their carriage seemed to creep above the church‐tower up the mountain, or to note the fruitful garden‐land stretching along the shore with the precipitous wall of rock above, extending the whole length of this side of the Rigi, when in a few minutes we reached our landing‐place at Weggis, and found ourselves sitting in the garden of the “Golden Lion.”

Odd Stories. VII. The Philosophers Of The Dragon’s Bower.

In the reign of King, and in the Dragon’s Bower of the beautiful tea‐ garden of the statesman Kung, had assembled the philosophers Tung, Bang, Sing, Lung, Wing, Hang, with the rich mandarins Bo and Sho. Sipping that exquisite beverage which, as yielded by a choice herb grown only in the flower‐sprinkled garden of Kung, has imparted to the Hi‐Tea philosophy the peculiar intellectual flavor which distinguishes it from the Lo‐Tea doctrine, they discussed the problems of existence. Only a vague, brief record has been preserved of that eventful meeting, so well called by Yung Sing, the poet, “the shock of minds,” and which, it was long maintained by the Hi‐Tea school, had solved the mysteries of preordained genesis and circumstantial fixture. The dialogue turned upon that profound saying of the old man of Chow, the wise Lautze—“The Tau which can be tau‐ed is not the eternal Tau.” Vainly having sought in his own poor wit the meaning of this sublime sentence, the mandarin Sho begged the six sages, in the grace of their princely hearts, and with the light of their shining minds, to make it clear to his benighted intelligence.

_Tung_: Tau is the unbounded entity.

_Bang_: Thunder without sound.

_Sing_: Unsung music of all things.

_Lung_: Breath of life without life.

_Hang_: Justice of accidents.

_Wing_: Eternal entity of non‐entity.

“In short,” added Tung, “the supreme principle Tau is the uncircumscribed limit of universes; the order of disorder; the contradiction which reconciles; the peace into which all storms subside; the mother and father of action; the source of the unworshipped unworshipping worship, and of power beyond dominion.”

The mandarin Sho acknowledged this to be a grand definition of Tau; but, being a collector of the imperial revenues, prayed to be informed of the use and value of Tau in the practical administration of the affairs of men; for to save his worthless life he could not see (begging the favor of the assembled wisdom) how Tau was of any use whatever. “It’s of no use,” said Wing; “and there’s the beauty of it.”

“Then what is the use of mentioning it?” tartly added Hang, a devoted admirer of the Tau theory. At this arose an admirable wrangle over the question of use and beauty, in that happy style of wit which only the great Hi‐Tea school of wisdom could boast. Its upshot was that matter resolved itself into the final irresponsibility of all things.

“But woe to that mortal,” said Tung, “who carries not about him the talisman of wisdom which imparts to everything its infinite magic, and who, groaning in the prison‐house of the senses, sees not the eternal day‐ beam in all things. With eyes he sees not; with life he lives not. He hath the six becloudings of Kungfootse.”

“The wise man,” said Bang, “fears no fate. Torrents, tempests, earthquakes, are but blustering fictions; nothing is true but his courage. Fixed in his will, his condition is victory; and if he falls, he finds in the elements his kindred, and in nature his home.”

Here the countenance of the philosopher Tung was observed to change from yellow to pale green, with signs of great agony caused by unknown interior workings; for, it was afterward told, his morning repast had been poisoned by an ignorant cook and a bad doctor. Lost in their thoughts, the sages heeded not his groans.

“Always should the sage rejoice,” said Sing. “His spirit should take part in the feast of events, the sublime comedy of life. Does fortune desert him? Let him be glad that it seeks another. Is his friend dead? Let him be glad that he is gone to joy. In every event we can as easily discover reason for cheer as for despair.”

Ere Sing had finished speaking, an ornamented tile from the roof of the Dragon’s Bower, loosened by one of those disturbances of the earth not unknown to the learned men of the East, fell upon the bare head of the philosopher Bang, who, after experience of a severe fright, was borne away helpless from the scene. Wing smiled, Sing laughed, and a perceptible scorn was on the lips of Hang.

Thus said Lung, he who had been called the gaunt thinker: “What think you? Is there anything better than life, friends? Here we live, responsible neither to be nor to do nor to die; life and fate stand pledged for us. Do we fall out of the charmed circle? We are caught up into another. Do we die? Then we live again; or, if we do not,” continued Lung, gasping, “so much the better. What so excellent as life; what so merciful as death?” Here a painful fit of coughing compelled the philosopher to pause.

But what now most drew the attention of the company was the entrance of the statesman Kung, who, in a voice of dignified emotion, informed the wise Sing that his brother had been suddenly seized and decapitated on a charge of conspiracy, and all his immense fortune confiscated to the state, save a portion awarded to his betrayer. Pangs and groans shook the bosom of the sage, as he left the tea‐table; for his brother’s bounty had been the mainstay of his life.

“O friends!” cried Kung, “the law is inexorable; it kills its child and devours its mother, and swallows the substance of its benefactors; but the state reigns and the king lives, and the land is happy. Praised be the king!”

“Praised be justice!” echoed Hang, who had counselled the astute Kung in the preparation of his criminal code. “Justice reigns in King, and acts through Kung. What is nature but justice, and what are her thousand‐fold accidents but executioners? Every man gravitates to his fate, and every fate is a judgment. The king makes death: he can do no wrong; let no man mourn.” Long after the piercing mind of Hang had perished under the terrors of that great instrument which his genius invented for the reform of mankind; long after the astute Kung had yielded up his life to the demands of state (for he had put to death by mistake the favorite dog of his imperial master), these sentences, which seem to tear to pieces the leading tenet of the Lo‐Tea doctrines as the dragon tears the bull, were remembered in the realm of King.

Spake at last that strange sage whose eyes are as starlight to the darkness of common minds, and whose vision seeks the abode of Tau. “Since we but dream we live,” said Wing, “let us live to dream well. In reason are the pillars of our temple; in imagination is its worship. Happy are ye who, out of the toils of vain science and hard action, take rest in the bower of fancy, the pavilion of dreams, the garden of poetry, or roam the royal hunting‐grounds of imagination to capture logic in the chase of pleasure, and find wisdom by seeking delight. Thrice fortunate ye,” continued the star‐eyed Wing, taking another whiff from his pipe of opium, “who, when the caprices of power have driven you from doctrine, can retreat upon your dreams. Life is a fiction; let us dream that it is the truth.” Such was the curious doctrine of that wonderful man, whose visions of demons and the powers of the air have so often filled the imperial stage, and who died in the frenzy of his powerful mind.

The refined mandarin Bo—he who, for his reticence, had been entrusted with so many affairs of state—heard all these words of the learned, and spoke not. “All men and things,” he said to himself, “serve him who listens, and resist him who talks. Shrewd is he who gains without giving.” Immersed in these thoughts, the silent mandarin could only nod his head to a remark of the mandarin Sho, that life was a business of profit and loss, and the best speculations were always practical. What man can foretell his fate? The frank and candid Sho, whose manners concealed his purpose, lost his head for speculating with the king’s money. The secret Bo, through his love of silence, forgot to send his kinsman Bang a physician who would have saved his life, and so was disinherited, and died a beggar.

The thinkers of Lo‐Tea, having taken the measure of these and other events subsequent to the great dialogue of the Dragon’s Bower, could not avoid the boast that their humble philosophy was better than a proud one; whereupon the infuriated statesman Kung sent a number of them into exile.

When the old philosopher of Chow heard of these sayings and doings, he murmured: “Half‐truths are contradicted, whole truths are verified. There is no courage without right fear; no good silence without true speech; no aspiration without reverence; no dignity without humility; no good without affection; and philosophy has no room for a cold heart and a vain mind. But life is not contradicted, though lives are slain. Tau reigns.”

O sages! how by thinking shall ye add a foot to your stature? And how shall it avail ye when a brick, as it were, dropped down by a tornado centre‐wise, so to speak, on a shaven head, shall fracture your systems of philosophy? What withstands the accidents of fate save the divine Truth, which is no accident?

New Publications.

LIFE AND DOCTRINE OF S. CATHERINE OF GENOA. Translated from the Italian. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1874. 1 vol. 12mo, pp. 418.

The Catherines are a wonderful group among the female saints. The one of Genoa was a married lady, and this circumstance will undoubtedly make her _Life_ doubly interesting to those who are in the same condition, and sometimes are tempted to envy those who live in the cloister. The remarkable _Life_ of this saint, accompanied by her _Spiritual Dialogues_, now first published in English, will have an additional interest, in the eyes of all its readers, on account of the introduction by F. Hecker, which is dated Annecy, Oct. 7, 1873. The translation was made several years ago, and left, in the state of a rough draught, by a lady well known for her high culture and virtues—the late Mrs. Ripley. It has been lately revised with care, and made as accurate as possible.

The work itself has long been very famous, and ranks next to the writings of S. Teresa among the spiritual treatises of female authors. Its spirituality is of a very high order, suited for those who, either from necessity or by their own free choice, are trying to climb the rugged heights of Mount Carmel.

THE CHRISTIAN CEMETERY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY; or, The Last War‐cry of the Communists. By Mgr. Gaume. Translated by the Rev. R. Brennan, A.M., with a preface by the Very Rev. T. S. Preston, V.G. New York: Benziger Bros. 1874.

Mgr. Gaume attacks, with his usual trenchant vigor and sarcasm, in this volume, the horrible travesty of funeral obsequies which atheists are wont to perpetrate at the burial of what they regard as mere clods of earth, the carcases of dead animals. These enemies of the human race are not content with the enjoyment of the civil right to live and die like beasts themselves, but they must needs attempt to desecrate the cemeteries of Christians, and to interfere with their right to live and die, and be buried like rational and immortal beings who expect a resurrection from the dead. It is highly important that the eyes of all men who have any glimmering of reason and religious belief left should be opened to the loathsome wickedness and brutality of the sect of atheists and communists who are everywhere conspiring for the destruction of society and the human race. This book will serve as an eye‐opener to all who read it attentively. We trust it will also act as an antidote to the heathenish and revolting notions respecting the burning of the bodies of the dead which have of late been so offensively presented in many newspapers.

The book has been well translated and neatly printed. We cannot, however, admire the grave‐yard view on the cover, which reminds us of the car‐doors on the Camden and Amboy Railway, with a grave‐stone and a weeping‐willow.

LIFE OF S. THOMAS OF VILLANOVA; with an Introduction by F. Middleton, O.S.A. Philadelphia: P. F. Cunningham & Son. 1874.

This is a reprint of one of the Oratorian Series, and gives a sufficiently good biography of the great Archbishop of Valentia, which is better translated than most of its companion volumes. The introduction is quite a learned and eloquently‐written paper, chiefly valuable on account of its information respecting learned and able members of the Augustinian Order who were champions of the faith against the modern heresies.

ON SOME POPULAR ERRORS CONCERNING POLITICS AND RELIGION. By the Right Hon. Lord Robert Montagu, M.P. London: Burns & Oates. 1874. (For sale by The Catholic Publication Society.)

The popular errors attacked and refuted in this collection of essays are such as relate to political ethics, the mutual bearings of religion and law, church and state, civil marriage, education—in a word, they are the errors of the party of revolution, the so‐called principles of 1789. Lord Robert Montagu has made a work by F. Franco, S.J., the basis of his own, which is neither, strictly speaking, original, nor yet a translation or compendium of F. Franco’s work. The Protestant and secular papers are just now peculiarly inquisitive about the doctrines of sound and instructed Catholics on these mixed questions. It is not very easy to satisfy them by mere newspaper and magazine articles written in haste and under the pressure of editorial labors. Here is a book where they may find the information they are in quest of, and where Catholics also may gain much instruction. We have no reason to wish to withhold the full, clear, and unreserved statement of our Catholic doctrines on any subject from our non‐Catholic fellow‐citizens. The great difficulty lies in the universal confusion of ideas on these subjects, and the general want of willingness to inquire and discuss thoroughly and fairly. The European Catholic press is fairly teeming with books and articles of the most consummate ability on these burning questions of the day, and we welcome every effort made by those who write in English to place these products of sound learning and thought before our own reading public. This book is an effort of that kind, and we hope it will be read by a great number of both Catholics and non‐Catholics who wish to inform themselves about the true issues between the church on one side, Cæsarism and revolution on the other.

This is the first volume of “S. Joseph’s Theological Library” Series, edited by the Fathers of the Society of Jesus, and is to be followed by several others.

THE SACRED ANTHOLOGY. A Book of Ethnical Scriptures Collected and Edited by Moncure Daniel Conway. New York: Henry Holt & Co. 1874.

As a specimen of the typographical art, this book is superb. The literary taste and skill exhibited in its preparation are also of a high order. Its contents are, moreover, specimens of the productions of genius and wisdom gathered from all time and all cultivated nations, including many passages from the inspired writings. So far, the book is one which may be valuable to one who knows how to use it, and is competent to discriminate between the truth and the error which it contains. Nevertheless, the intention of the author and the real scope of the volume are radically anti‐Christian and anti‐theistic. The very idea of presenting a conglomeration of the Divine Scriptures and of the sacred writings, legends, and philosophical works of heathens, is to place all religions on a common level. In the index the author, with the pert assumption of a neological sciolist, takes care to assert as a fact the want of genuineness and authenticity of a great part of the books of the Bible. As a mere opinion, this is in defiance of sound criticism, and has been often exploded. To put forward such an opinion, in defiance of the learning of the whole Christian world, as something certain and unquestionable, is simple impudence, and is as unscientific as it is irreligious. In the extracts on theism the author has adroitly given the whole a pantheistic issue.

The ignorant, the unwary, and those who wish to escape from the sense of responsibility to God may be deceived by this kind of art. But really, and in the view of a true and comprehensive science, all that can be gathered from false religions and imperfect philosophies, both in those things which resemble, and those which are partly or wholly dissimilar to, the divine philosophy of revelation and Christian theology, confirms and proves the divine truth of the Old and New Testaments and the concurrent religious tradition of the church of God from the creation of man. Proudhon was right when he said that a man who is logical must be an atheist or an ultramontane. Whoever stands by what is positive, and is ready to follow it to its consequences, belongs logically to the Catholic side. Whoever takes the negative belongs with atheists and materialists. One sad and startling proof that the great mass of those who reject the Catholic Church, and yet are not ready to renounce the name of Christian, are sliding downward, is the multiplication of books like this one, and much worse than this, published by our principal firms, and everywhere advertised along with works professedly Christian and pious. We suppose that most of these gentlemen profess to be Christians. Where is their conscience, then, when, for the sake of money, they disseminate the works of Renan, Strauss, Büchner, and other infidels and atheists, which are sapping the foundations of religion and morality, and poisoning the public mind? Where is the public conscience which tolerates this? And why do not the Protestant periodicals, newspapers, synods and conventions, pulpits and lecturing rostrums, resound with a cry of alarm, warning and denunciation? Have they lost all interest and all courage in the matter, or are they going over to the enemy?

DIALOGUES OF ST. GREGORY. London: Burns & Oates. 1874. (For sale by The Catholic Publication Society.)

Gregory the Great is illustrious among the popes, and even among the doctors of the church, for his genius. There is an exquisite flavor in his writings which is peculiar to them. Edited and published with the utmost care and the most perfect literary taste, like all the books of this series, this volume adds one more gem to the treasury of English Catholic literature which is now so rapidly filling up. The publication of entire works of the fathers presents the evidences of the Catholic religion in the most convincing form, and is therefore a way of propagating the faith in some respects superior to the ordinary method of controversy. It is also most valuable for Catholics as a means of increasing and deepening their knowledge of our holy faith. It is to be hoped that a taste for books of this description will become more general among reading Catholics, and that all who have the means of doing so will in every way promote their general circulation.

TIGRANES: A TALE OF THE DAYS OF JULIAN THE APOSTATE. Translated from the Italian of F. John Joseph Franco, S.J. Philadelphia: P. F. Cunningham & Son. 1874.

This historical romance, which is not literally translated, but condensed and abridged—judiciously, we think, for it is plenty long enough as it is—is much superior to the most of similar works of fiction founded on early Christian history. It is full of information which only a learned man could give with accuracy, and the events it describes are of thrilling interest. The _Messenger of the Sacred Heart_, from whose pages the translation is reprinted, we have already had occasion to say, is as distinguished for its literary excellence as it is for its edifying piety. We hope to see much more frequent and more important contributions to sacred literature in future from the learned and accomplished group of professors at the Woodstock College.

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN ITS RELATIONS TO HUMAN PROGRESS. A Lecture by the Rev. J. J. Moriarty, A.M., Chatham Village, N. Y. Albany: Van Benthuysen.

This pamphlet, which has as neat an appearance as if it had been printed in London or Boston, is a good specimen of a well‐written popular lecture, of just the sort to please and instruct an ordinary audience. Our familiar friend, the New Zealander, who is an indefatigable traveller, and whom we last saw in a French costume in the columns of a Paris newspaper, turns up again in the lecture. Lord Macaulay would have been astonished, when he drew the picture of this venerable personage sitting on a broken arch of London bridge, if he could have foreseen how many would make use of it to adorn their discourse. We can say nothing, however, to F. Moriarty, which does not recoil upon ourselves; for have we not done the same thing?

CATHOLICS AND ROMAN CATHOLICS. By an Old Catholic (Bishop Coxe). Buffalo: Martin Taylor.

This reply to Dr. Ryan’s pamphlet seems to have elated the spirits of our Episcopalian friends no little. It is receiving due attention at present in the columns of the Catholic paper at Buffalo, and no doubt the articles published in that paper will appear in a pamphlet form when they are completed. Etiquette will not allow us to interfere in this controversy until the principals have done with it. If anything is left for us to say after that, we may pay our respects to Dr. Coxe in this magazine.

THE BALTIMORE GUN CLUB. From the French of Jules Verne. Freely translated by Edward Roth. Philadelphia: King & Baird, Publishers, 607 Sansom St.

It is a daring attempt to improve on Jules Verne, but Mr. Roth has, on the whole, been successful in making his celebrated story of the great Columbiad and the shot fired from Florida to the moon even more American and more interesting to Americans than before. _De la Terre à la Lune_ has been translated previously, but Mr. Roth has introduced some little points of his own, and local traits which it would have been almost impossible for a foreigner to seize.

THEOLOGIA MORALIS NOVISSIMI ECCLESIÆ DOCTORIS S. ALPHONSI, IN COMPENDIUM REDACTA, ET USUI VENERABILIS CLERI AMERICANI ACCOMMODATA. Auctore A. Konings, C.SS.R. Pars Prima. Bostoniæ: Typis Patricii Donahoe. 1874.

This is the first instalment of what promises to be a valuable work, and one which has been much needed. The treatises on moral theology hitherto in use in this country are, with the exception of Archbishop Kenrick’s, which is not in a very convenient form for a text‐book, of European origin, and are unsatisfactory in America both by excess and defect. In this first part of F. Koning’s work, containing the treatises, “De Actibus Humanis, de Conscientia, de Legibus, de Peccatis, de Virtutibus,” there is not, of course, so much opportunity for the introduction of matter peculiar to this country as in those which will follow. The objection may be made to the book that the various opinions of theologians are not always given on controverted points; but this is unavoidable in a treatise merely intended as an exponent of S. Alphonsus. The system advocated is that of equiprobabilism.

CHILDREN OF MARY. Baltimore: Kelly, Piet & Co.

Seven simple and interesting biographies of young pupils of the Maison des Oiseaux, Paris. The book is nicely bound and suited for a premium.

TWELVE TALES FOR THE YOUNG. London: Burns & Oates. (For sale by The Catholic Publication Society.)

This is the second volume of Mrs. Parsons’s “Twelve Tales for the Young,” the first volume having appeared several years ago. They are what the title indicates, and we may add are very good and instructive.

SILVIA, AND OTHER DRAMAS. By a Sister of Charity. New York: P. M. Haverty.

The plays performed by the young ladies in our convent schools are often very pretty and entertaining spectacles to those who can appreciate the charm of innocence and simplicity. Of course there is a great demand for dramas which are suitable for such occasions, and the supply is not always easy. It is a great flavor to those concerned in preparing these plays when the managers of the convent theatres publish some good dramas. Those before us are from Mt. St. Vincent. The author has shown a great deal of judgment and good taste, and no little dramatic and poetic talent. The publisher has brought them out in a pretty dress. They will do well for private family theatricals, as well as for schools, and make also a nice little volume for a present.

THE LETTER‐BOOKS OF SIR AMIAS POULET, KEEPER OF MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. Edited by John Morris, Priest of the Society of Jesus. London: Burns and Oates. (For sale by The Catholic Publication Society).

The heart of our late friend, Mr. Meline, would have leapt up at sight of this book, and his pen would have given our pages another racy article, had it appeared while he was still in this mortal coil. The letters in this collection are many of them newly discovered and now first published. They throw new light on the villainy of Walsingham, and thus really add something to the already numerous documents in the Marian controversy.

SCHOOL HYGIENE. By Dr. R. J. O’Sullivan. New York: D. Appleton & Co.

Dr. O’Sullivan’s pamphlet is a paper which all persons having the oversight of schools will find worthy to be carefully read and preserved.

BRIC‐A‐BRAC SERIES—PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. By Chorley, Planché, and Young. Edited by Richard Henry Stoddard. New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co. 1874.

An agreeable volume of chat, gossip, and anecdote about many well‐known persons, with other miscellaneous bric‐a‐brac, very well printed, and having an uncommonly pretty binding. In this last department of art the recent efforts of publishers are enough to fill one with astonishment; but success is rare, unless they may be regarded as attempts to illustrate the metaphysical definition of _ens rationis_. Something really pretty is therefore always doubly welcome.

THE CATHOLIC WORLD. VOL. XIX., NO. 113.—AUGUST, 1874.

Matter.

Much as has been written on matter by ancient and modern philosophers, the last word about its constitution has not yet been said. The old school of metaphysicians, in spite of its high intellectual attainments, could not unravel this perplexing subject, because it had not a sufficient knowledge of natural facts. The modern scientist, on the other hand, in spite of his vast knowledge of facts, can never reach the ultimate consequences implied in them, because he is too little acquainted with the old principles of philosophical speculation. For, as all the questions connected with the constitution of matter are of a metaphysical character, purely experimental science cannot answer them; it can only supply materials to the philosopher for their solution. In the study of natural philosophy observation picks up the spontaneous revelations of nature, experiment verifies and controls the results of observation by compelling nature to act under definite conditions, and speculation discovers the relations intervening between effects and effects, as also between effects and causes, thus paving the way to the determination of the nature of causes from the nature of their effects.

We are of opinion that the scientific materials gathered from observation and experiment since the discovery of universal attraction are quite sufficient for the purpose of determining the constitution of matter; and we presume that, under the guidance of positive science, we may safely engage in a full philosophical investigation of this interesting subject. We are not ignorant that the treatment of this great question has always presented, and still presents, many difficulties and dangers, against which proper precautions are to be taken. Sometimes the phenomena on which our reasonings must be based are so complex that it might be doubted whether they reveal more than they mask the truths which we aspire to discover. Again, we are very easily misled by the outward appearance of things, and blinded in a measure by deep‐rooted prejudices of our infancy, which, besides being shared by all classes of persons, have in their favor the almost irrefragable sanction of the popular language. Moreover, many conflicting hypotheses have been advanced by philosophers of different schools in their attempt at solving the questions concerning the nature of material things; and thus the subject of our discussion comes before us with an accompaniment of many elaborate theories, old and new, which it becomes our duty to subject to a careful criticism, lest they overcloud the intellect and obstruct our vision of truth. Fortunately, however, as we shall see in the sequel, only three of those theories can be considered to have a real claim to the attention of the modern philosopher, and each of them, by proper management, can be made to yield a fair portion of truth.

We propose to commence with the consideration of those natural facts from which the true nature and the essential constitution of material substance can be most easily ascertained. We shall then determine accurately the essence of matter, examine its constituents in particular, and point out their necessary relations, according to the scholastic method. And, lastly, we shall inquire what, in the light of modern science, must be the philosophical theory of the generation and corruption of material compounds.

I.

Existence of matter.

The first foundation of what we shall say hereafter is that matter, or material substance, really exists. By “matter” we mean a being which is the proper subject of local motion, or _Ens mobile_, as the ancient philosophers define it. Hence, if there is local motion, there is matter. And since local motion is undeniable, the existence of matter is equally undeniable.

It is all very well for the idealist to say that we perceive nothing but phenomena. Local movement, of course, is only a phenomenon; but evidently such a phenomenon would be impossible, if nothing existed which could receive local motion. But that which can receive local motion we call matter. And therefore what we call matter is something real in the world.

Origin of matter.

Democritus, Epicurus, and other pagan philosophers taught that matter is eternal and uncreated. This old error has been utterly dispelled by the light of Christian philosophy; yet it has been lately revived, and is studiously propagated in our own days by a set of infidel scribblers, who pretend, in the name of science, to do away with what they call the obsolete notion of a Creator. It may therefore be useful to say here a few words about the contingency and the creation of matter. We have already shown, in an article on the extrinsic principles of being,(128) that the changeableness of a thing is a sufficient proof of its coming out of nothing, inasmuch as nothingness is the true extrinsic principle of passivity and potentiality. As matter is evidently passive and potential, it directly follows that matter has come out of nothing.

But since unbelievers are not philosophers, though they call themselves so, and may not be able to realize the value of an argument based on metaphysical grounds, and since we hear them repeat without end that science—their degraded science—has done away with the old dream of creation, we deem it expedient to appeal to science itself, and bring forward from it a clear proof of the fact of creation. This proof is to be found in the very constitution of the primitive molecules of bodies, as Prof. Clerk‐Maxwell has recently shown in a very remarkable lecture on molecules.(129) His scientific argument is contained in the following passage:

“The molecule, though indestructible, is not a hard, rigid body, but is capable of internal movements, and, when these are excited, it emits rays, the wave‐length of which is a measure for the time of vibration of a molecule. By means of the spectroscope the wave‐length of different kinds of light may be compared to within one ten‐thousandth part. In this way it has been ascertained not only that molecules taken from every specimen of hydrogen in our laboratories have the same set of periods of vibration, but that light having the same set of periods of vibration is emitted from the sun and from the fixed stars. We are thus assured that molecules of the same nature as those of our hydrogen exist in those distant regions, or at least did exist when the light by which we see them was emitted.... Light, which is to us the sole evidence of the existence of these distant worlds, tells us also that each of them is built of molecules of the same kind as those which we find on earth. A molecule of hydrogen, for example, whether in Sirius or Arcturus, executes its vibrations in precisely the same time. Each molecule, therefore, throughout the universe, bears impressed on it the stamp of a metric system as distinctly as does the metre of the Archives of Paris or the double royal cubit of the temple of Karnac. No theory of evolution can be formed to account for the similarity of molecules; for evolution necessarily implies continuous change, and the molecule is incapable of growth or decay, of generation or destruction. None of the processes of nature, since the time when nature began, have produced the slightest difference in the properties of any molecule. We are therefore unable to ascribe either the existence of the molecules or the identity of their properties to the operation of any of the causes which we call natural. On the other hand, the exact equality of each molecule to all others of the same kind gives it, as Sir John Herschel has well said, the essential character of a manufactured article, and precludes the idea of its being eternal and self‐existent. Thus we have been led, along a strictly scientific path, very near to the point at which science must stop. Not that science is debarred from studying the internal mechanism of a molecule which she cannot take to pieces, any more than from investigating an organism which she cannot put together. But in tracing back the history of matter science is arrested when she assures herself, on the one hand, that the molecule has been made, and, on the other, that it has not been made by any of the processes we call natural. Science is incompetent to reason upon the creation of matter itself out of nothing.(130) We have reached the utmost limit of our thinking faculties when we have admitted that, because matter cannot be eternal and self‐ existent, it must have been created. That matter, as such, should have certain fundamental properties, that it should exist in space and be capable of motion, that its motion should be persistent, and so on, are truths which may, for anything we know, be of the kind which metaphysicians call necessary. We may use our knowledge of such truths for purposes of deduction, but we have no data for speculating as to their origin. But that there should be exactly so much matter and no more in every molecule of hydrogen is a fact of a very different order.... Natural causes, as we know, are at work, which tend to modify, if they do not at length destroy, all the arrangements and dimensions of the earth, and of the whole solar system. But though, in the course of ages, catastrophes have occurred, and may yet occur, in the heavens; though ancient systems may be dissolved, and new systems evolved out of their ruins, the molecules out of which those systems are built, the foundation‐stones of the material universe, remain unbroken and unworn. They continue to this day as they were created, perfect in number and measure and weight, and from the ineffaceable characters impressed on them we may learn that those aspirations after accuracy in measurement, truth in statement, and justice in action, which we reckon among our noblest attributes as men, are ours because they are essential constituents of the image of Him who, in the beginning, created not only the heaven and the earth, but the materials of which heaven and earth consist.”

Such is the verdict of true science as interpreted by the eminent English mathematician and natural philosopher. The whole is so instructive and interesting that we think we have no need of apologizing for the length of the quotation.

Essential properties of matter.

The constituents of things are revealed to us by their properties. For, as every being acts according as it is in act, and suffers according as it is in potency, from the activity and the passivity with which a being is endowed we can easily find out the special nature of the act and of the potency which constitute its metaphysical essence. Hence, if we wish to ascertain the essential constitution of material substance, we must first ascertain and thoroughly understand the properties which are common to all material substances, and without which no material substance can be conceived. In doing this we must guard against confounding, as many scientists do, the essential properties of matter with the general properties of bodies. Extension, impenetrability, divisibility, porosity, etc., are general properties of bodies; but it does not follow that they are essential properties of material substance as such, as they may arise from accidental composition. Those properties alone are essential which are altogether primitive, unchangeable, and involved in the principles of the substance; and such properties, as we shall see, are, so far as material substance is concerned, the three following: _active power_ to produce local motion, _passivity_ for receiving local motion, and _inertia_. These three properties correspond to the three constituents of material substance.

There are philosophers who deny that material things have any active power. They know that matter is inert, and they cannot see how activity can be reconciled with inertia. There are others, on the contrary, who, for a similar reason, being unable to deny the activity of bodies, deny their inertia. From what we are going to say it will be manifest that these philosophers have never known exactly what is meant in natural science by the inertia of matter.

Other writers, especially those of the old school, while admitting the three essential properties of matter which we have just mentioned, contend that material substance has a fourth important and connatural, if not essential, property—viz., _continuous extension_—without which, they say, nothing material can be conceived. They further teach, and would fain have us believe, that all material substance is endowed with extension and resistance; and many of them think that extension and resistance constitute the essence of matter. This last opinion is very common among philosophical writers, and deserves the most careful examination, as it bears very heavily on an essential point of the controversy in which we have to engage.

Let us see, then, first, what we have to think regarding the activity, the passivity, and the inertia of matter; and, when we have done with these, we shall take up the question of material continuity, of which we hope to give a full analysis and a satisfactory solution.

Activity, passivity, and inertia.

The special character by which the phenomena of the material world are recognized consists in their being brought about by local motion. For it is a well‐known fact that in things purely material no change takes place but through local movements; so that we cannot even conceive a change in the material world without a displacement of matter. Hence all the actions of matter upon matter tend to produce local movement, or to modify it; and all passion of the matter acted on is a reception of movement.

That all material substances possess activity, passivity, and inertia is quite certain on experimental grounds. No conclusion is better established in science than that all the particles of matter act on one another according to a fixed law, and receive from one another their determination to move from place to place, while they are incapable of setting themselves in movement or modifying the movement received from without. Now, it is clear that they cannot act without being _active_, nor receive the action without being _passive_, nor be incapable of modifying their own state without being _inert_.

This shows that activity and inertia do not exclude one another. A particle of matter is said to be active inasmuch as it has the power of causing the movement of any other particle; and is said to be inert inasmuch as it has no power of giving movement to itself. It is plain that these two things are very far from being contradictory. Those philosophers, therefore, who have apprehended an irreconcilable opposition between the two, must have attached to the term “inertia” a meaning quite different from that recognized by physical science.

Balmes remarks, in his _Fundamental Philosophy_,(131) that there is nothing perfectly still either on earth or in the heavens; and for this reason he expresses the opinion that all bodies have a constant tendency to move. And as he cannot see how such a tendency can be reconciled with the inertia of matter, he comes to the conclusion that bodies are not inert. But it is scarcely necessary to remark that the constant tendency to move which we observe in bodies is the result of universal attraction, and not of a self‐acting power inhering in the matter of which the bodies consist; and therefore such a tendency does not in the least interfere with the inertia of matter. A simple reference to the laws of motion suffices to convince the most superficial student that such is the case.

Malebranche goes to the other extreme. He supposes that bodies have no activity of any kind, and that accordingly all the phenomena we witness in the physical world are produced by God alone. This theory, as every one will acknowledge, is supremely extravagant and unphilosophical. It leads to idealism and to pantheism. To idealism, because, if bodies do not act, there is no reason why they should exist; as nothing can be admitted to exist throughout creation which has no aptitude to manifest in its own reality a reflex of the Creator’s perfections. And since manifestation is action, no created being can be destitute of active power. This argument drawn from the end of creation may be supplemented by another drawn from the impossibility of our knowing the existence of bodies if they do not act. For, if bodies do not act on our senses, we cannot refer to bodies for the causality of our sensations; and thus the only link by which we have the means of connecting our subjective impressions with exterior objects will be destroyed.

Hence, if bodies are not active, there is no reason why they should be admitted to exist, and we are accordingly condemned to an absurd idealism. Nor can we escape pantheism. For, if the impressions we receive from outside are caused by God alone, we cannot but conclude that whatever we see outside of us has no other objectivity than that of the divine substance itself appearing under different forms. Now, this is a pantheistic doctrine. Therefore the theory which denies the activity of bodies leads to pantheism. We will say nothing more about this preposterous doctrine and its absurd consequences. Plain common sense, without need of further argument, condemns whatever calls in question the reality and objectivity of our knowledge concerning the exterior world.

But, while we admit with all the physicists, and indeed with all mankind, that material substance is competent, through its natural activity, to cause local motion, we must guard against the opinion of the materialists, who pretend that the active power of matter is also competent, under certain conditions and through certain combinations, to produce thought. Nothing, perhaps, can be more inconsistent with reason than this assumption. Were matter not inert, the hypothesis might deserve examination; but an _inert_ thinking substance is such an enormity that it cannot, even hypothetically, be entertained. The thinking faculty evidently implies self‐acting power, whereas inertia evidently excludes it; and therefore, so long as we keep in mind that matter is inert, we cannot, without evident inconsistency, extend the range of its activity to immanent operations, but must confine it to the extrinsic production of local motion. Let us here remark that, of all the arguments usually employed in psychology against the materialistic hypothesis, this one drawn from the inertia of matter is the most valuable as it is the most simple and incontrovertible.

The inertia of matter is so universally admitted that it is hardly necessary to say a word about it. No fact, indeed, is more certain in science than that matter, when at rest, cannot but remain so until it receive from without a determination to move; and likewise that, when determined to move with any velocity and in any direction, it cannot but move with that velocity and in that direction until it receive some other determination from without. This incapability of changing its own state constitutes, as we have already stated, the inertia of matter, and is the very foundation of mechanical science.

As to the natural passivity of material substance, we need only say that it consists in its capability of receiving, when it is acted on, any accidental determination to move in any direction and with any velocity. That matter has this passivity is an obvious experimental truth; and that matter has no other passivity except this one we shall prove in another place.

Meanwhile, it is evident from the preceding considerations that all matter is active, passive, and inert. The principle of activity, in every being, is its essential act, and the principle of passivity its essential term, which is a real passive potency;(132) hence the activity and the passivity of matter are a necessary result of the essential constitution of material substance, and are therefore _essential_ properties of the same. The inertia of matter is also a necessary result of the essential constitution of material substance; for the only reason why an element of matter cannot give motion to itself is to be found in the mutual relation of its essential principles, which is of such a nature that the principle of passivity cannot be influenced by any exertion of the active principle, of which it is the intrinsic term. Now, this relation, for which we shall fully account hereafter, belongs to the essence of the substance as truly and as necessarily as the essential principles themselves. Hence the inertia of matter is an _essential_ property of matter no less than its activity and passivity.

Action at a distance.

The activity of material substance is a very interesting subject of investigation; its nature, its mode of working, the law of its exertion, and the conditions on which the production of its effects depends, give rise to many important questions, which, owing to philosophical discords, have not yet received a satisfactory solution. The first of these questions is: _Does material substance act at a distance, or does it require, as a condition sine qua non for acting, a mathematical contact of its matter with the matter acted upon?_

Philosophers and scientists have often examined this grave subject, but their opinions are still divided. Those philosophers who form their physical views from the scholastic system, commonly hold that a true material contact is an indispensable condition for the action of matter upon matter, and think it to be an evident truth. But physicists, “with few exceptions,” as Prof. Faraday remarks, admit that all action of matter upon matter is an _actio in distans_, and he himself supports the same doctrine, although suggesting that it should be expressed in somewhat different terms. We propose to show that this latter solution is the only one consistent with the principles both of science and of philosophy. And as the opposite view owes its origin, and in a great measure its plausibility, to the known theory of kinetic forces as deduced from the impact of bodies, we shall argue from the same theory in support of our conclusion.

Here is our argument. When a body impinges upon another body, if any communication of movement is made by a true and immediate contact of matter with matter, its duration must be limited to that indivisible instant of time in which the distance between the struggling particles of matter becomes = 0. But in an indivisible instant of time no finite velocity can be communicated. And therefore no real movement can be caused in the impact of bodies by a true and immediate contact of matter with matter.

We think that this argument admits of no reply. Its major proposition is the statement of an obvious geometric truth. Nor can it be gainsaid by assuming that the duration of the action can be prolonged; for the action, in the opinion of those against whom we now are arguing, is supposed to require true material contact; and it is plain that two particles of matter coming into contact cannot remain in contact for any length of time, however inappreciable, unless in the very first instant of their meeting their velocities have become equal; it being evident that two particles of matter animated by different velocities cannot preserve for any length of time the same relation in space. To assume, therefore, that the contact can be prolonged, is to assume that from the very first instant of the collision the unequal velocities of the struggling particles have been equalized, or, in other terms, that the velocity imparted has been communicated in the very first instant of the impact. But if so, then the assumption of a prolonged contact, as a means of communicating the velocity, is altogether useless, and involves an evident contradiction. It is therefore necessary to concede that, if the velocity is communicated by a true and immediate contact of matter with matter, the communication must be made in an indivisible instant of time.

The minor proposition of our syllogism is equally evident. For it is one of the fundamental axioms of mechanics that actions, all other things being equal, are proportional to their respective duration; whence it is plain that an action of which the duration is infinitesimal cannot produce more than an infinitesimal effect. And therefore no finite velocity can be produced by true material contact.

Against this argument four objections may be advanced: First, that although in the contact of one point with another point no finite velocity can be communicated, yet in the case of a multitude of material points coming into collision the effect might be appreciable. Secondly, that a particle of matter may be carried straight away by another particle which impinges upon it with sufficient velocity. Thirdly, that a distinction is to be made between continuous and instantaneous actions, and that, although a continuous action produces an effect proportional to its duration, as in the case of universal attraction, yet instantaneous actions, as in the case of impact, may not necessarily follow the same law. Lastly, that even admitting the impossibility of producing finite velocity in an infinitesimal unit of time, yet finite velocity might still be _communicated_ in an infinitesimal unit of time without any new production, as modern scientists assume.

To the first objection we answer that, if each material point cannot, in the instant of the contact, acquire more than an infinitesimal velocity, the whole multitude will have only an infinitesimal velocity; and thus no movement will ensue.

To the second we answer that a particle cannot be carried straight away unless it receives a communication of finite velocity; and such a communication, as we have already shown, cannot be made in the instant of the contact.

The third objection we answer by denying that there is any rigorously instantaneous action. When physicists speak of “instantaneous” actions, they mean actions having a finite duration, which, however, is so short that it cannot be appreciated or measured by our means of observation. And therefore what is called an “instantaneous” action is nothing but a continuous action of a short duration. Now, a difference of duration is not a difference in kind; and accordingly, if actions are proportional to their duration when their duration is longer, they are no less so when their duration is shorter.

The last objection takes for granted that there can be a communication of velocity without production of velocity; which amounts to saying that the velocity of the impinging body is transmitted _identically_ to the body impinged upon. This is, however, a mere delusion. The velocity acquired by the body impinged upon has no previous existence in the impinging body; and accordingly its communication implies its real production, as we have proved in one of our past articles.(133)

The _actio in distans_ can also be proved from the very nature of material activity. It is generally admitted that the active power of matter is either attractive or repulsive; for all men of science agree that the movements of the material world are brought about by attractions and repulsions. Now, attraction and repulsion do not imply a material contact between the agent and the patient, but, on the contrary, exclude it; and therefore all the movements of the material world are due to actions at a distance. That attraction excludes material contact is quite evident, for attraction produces movement by causing the approach of one body to another; and it is evident that no approach will be possible if the bodies are already in immediate contact. It is therefore an essential condition for the possibility of attraction that the agent be not in immediate contact with the patient. And as for repulsion, it is known that it serves to keep the molecules of a body distant from one another, and consequently it is exercised at molecular distances. This is especially evident in the case of elastic fluids. For repulsion obtains among the molecules of such fluids, whether the said molecules be pressed nearer or let further apart. And therefore repulsion, too, is exercised without material contact.

Some modern physicists try to do away with repulsion, and explain the pressure exercised by a gas against the vessel in which it is confined by saying that the gaseous molecules are continually flying about in all directions, and continually impinging on the interior surface of the recipient, where their excursions are intercepted, and that this continuous series of impacts constitutes what we call the pressure of the gas on the vessel.

But this new theory cannot bear one moment’s examination. It is wholly gratuitous; it disregards mechanical principles by admitting that the movement of the molecules can go on unabated in spite of repeated impacts, and it assumes that the momentum of a moving molecule is its active power; which is utterly false, as we will show later.

Other physicists have tried to get rid of attraction, also, by assuming that those effects which we ascribe to attraction are to be attributed to ethereal pressure. This hypothesis has no better foundation than the preceding one, and is equally untenable for many reasons which we shall explain hereafter.

The _actio in distans_ can also be directly proved by the consideration of statical forces. We know that the action which tends to communicate movement in a given direction cannot be frustrated or neutralized, except by an action of the same intensity applied in an opposite direction. It is evident, on the other hand, that, if the first requires an immediate contact of matter with matter, the second also must be subject to the same condition. Now, this latter is altogether independent of such a condition. Accordingly, the former also—that is, the action which tends to communicate the movement—is independent of a true material contact.

The minor proposition of this syllogism may be proved as follows: Let a small cube of hard steel be placed on a smooth, horizontal plate of cast‐ iron lying on a table. The cube will remain at rest on the plate, notwithstanding the action of gravity upon it, because, while the cube tends to fall and presses the plate, the action of the plate frustrates that tendency, and keeps the equilibrium. Now, the cube and the plate do not immediately touch one another with their matter; for we know that they can be brought nearer than they are. We may place, for instance, a second cube on the top of the first, and thus increase the pressure on the plate, and cause the plate itself to react with an increased intensity. But it is obvious that neither of the two actions can become intenser, unless the cube is brought nearer to the plate; for the resistance of the plate cannot be modified, unless some of the previous conditions be altered; and since the two surfaces have remained the same, no other condition can be conceived to be changed except their relative distance. It is therefore a change, and in fact a diminution, of the distance between the cube and the plate that entails the change of the action. Whence we see that, even in the case of the so‐called _physical_ contact, bodies do not touch one another with their matter. This shows that physical contact does not exclude distance; and therefore, when we say that two bodies touch one another, the fact we express is that the two bodies are so near to one another that _they cannot approach nearer __ without their molecular arrangement being disturbed by their mutual actions_. Therefore the hypothesis that a true material contact of matter with matter is needed for causing or for hindering movement is irreconcilable with fact.

As a further development of this proof, we may add that one of the necessary conditions for the equilibrium of the cube on the plate is, that the action of the plate have a direction opposite to the action of the cube. Now, no direction whatever can be conceived but between two distinct, and therefore distant, points. Accordingly, there cannot be the least doubt that all the points belonging to the surface of the plate are really distant from those of the neighboring surface of the cube. Whence we conclude again that their mutual action is exercised at a distance.

Other proofs of the same truth might be drawn, if necessary, from other considerations. Faraday, from the phenomena of electric conduction, was led to the conclusion that each atom of matter, though occupying a mere point in space, has a sphere of action extending throughout the whole solar system.(134) Boscovich,(135) from the law of continuity, demonstrates that movement is not communicated through material contact. And mechanical writers generally consider all dynamical forces—that is, all accelerating or retarding actions—as functions of distances; which shows that all motive actions depend on distance, not only for their direction, but also for their intensity. We have no need of developing these proofs, as we think that the preceding arguments are abundantly sufficient to convince all intelligent readers of the truth of our conclusion, viz.:

1. That distance is a necessary condition of the action of matter upon matter;

2. That the contact between the agent and the object acted on is not material, but virtual, inasmuch as it is by its active power (_virtus_), and not by its matter, that the agent reaches the matter of the object acted upon;

3. Hence that any material substance, which is anywhere by reason of its matter, has within itself a power prepared to act where the substance itself is not present by its matter.

As the _actio in distans_ shocks vulgar prejudices, and has therefore many decided adversaries, it is plain that we must be ready to meet a great number of objections. For the present we respectfully invite those who consider the action at a distance as an obvious impossibility to examine carefully the arguments by which we have established the impossibility of the action by material contact. As to their own reasons for a contrary opinion, we hope to answer them satisfactorily as soon as we have done with the explanation of a few other preliminaries.

Power and velocity.

The question which now presents itself is the following: _Is velocity the active power of material substance?_ This question has some importance in the present state of science, on account of the confusion generally made by physical writers between powers, forces, actions, and movements. We answer that, although active power and velocity are now generally considered as synonymous, they are quite different things. Here are our reasons:

In the first place, it is philosophically evident that the result of an action and the principle of the action cannot be of the same nature. But velocity is certainly the result of an action, whilst the active power is the principle of the action. And therefore velocity and active power cannot be of the same nature. But surely, if velocity has not the nature of an active power, it is not an active power, as every one must admit.

In the second place, the active power of creatures, be they material or immaterial, is the power by the exertion of which they manifest themselves and their natural perfection, thus leading us to the knowledge of the existence and the perfections of our Creator, such a knowledge being the end of creation. Active power is therefore not an accidental and changeable affection, but an essential, primitive, and permanent appurtenance of all created substances; nor does it come from interaction of creatures, but only from creation itself; so that we might well apply to it what S. Paul says of the power of kings and rulers: “There is no power except from God.” And accordingly velocity, which is an accidental and changeable affection of matter, cannot be the active power of the material substance.

In the third place, if velocity were the active principle of matter, matter would have no definite nature of its own. For “nature” is defined as the principle of motion; and material substance would be destitute of such a principle; for velocity, by which it is assumed that it would cause movement, has no part in the constitution of the substance itself. Hence we must conclude that either material substance has no definite nature of its own, or, if this cannot be admitted, the active power of matter is not its velocity.

In the fourth place, a mass of matter at rest acts on the body by which it is supported, and exercises a pressure against it; and therefore matter is active independently of actual movement; which conclusively shows that the active power of matter has nothing common with its velocity.

Lastly, velocity is an accidental mode; and nothing accidental possesses active power, as has been shown in one of our philosophical articles.(136)

Thus it appears that the active power of material substance is not its velocity. Those physicists who acknowledge no other powers but “masses multiplied by velocities” are therefore wholly mistaken. The product of a mass into its velocity does not represent an active power, and not even a dynamical force, but simply the quantity of an effect produced by a previous action. It is true that a mass animated by velocity can _do work_, which a mass at rest cannot do. But we have shown in the article just mentioned that such a work is done, not by velocity, but by the natural powers inherent in the body, the velocity being only a condition _sine qua non_. Nor does it matter that the work done by a body is a function of its velocity. This only proves that the greater the velocity of the body, the greater is the resistance required to exhaust it.

Sphere of action.—The next question is: _Has matter a sphere of action? That is, Does a primitive element of matter act around itself with equal intensity on all other elements equally distant from it?_

The answer must be affirmative.

And first, since the active principle of material substance is destined, as above stated, to produce _local_ movement, it is evident that its action must proceed from a term marking a point in space, and reach other terms marking other similar points. Local movement, in fact, cannot be produced, unless the term acted on be determined by the agent to follow a certain direction; for the direction of the movement must be imparted by the agent which imparts the movement. Now, the direction of the movement, and of the action which causes it, cannot evidently be conceived without two distinct points, the one marked in space by the agent, the other by the patient. Hence the exertion of the active power of matter necessarily proceeds from a point in space to other points in space. Whether such points be rigorously unextended and mathematically indivisible we shall inquire in another article; our object at present is only to show the necessity of a local term from which the direction of the action has to proceed towards other local terms.

This being understood, we can now show that the point from which the action of a material element is directed is the centre of a sphere of activity, or, in other terms, that the primitive elements of matter act in a sphere of which they occupy the centre. This proposition implies that material elements not only act all around, or in every direction, but also that they act with equal intensity at equal distances. This we show in the following manner.

The earth, the planets, and the sun act in all directions, and the intensity of their respective actions, all other things being equal, depends on their distance from the bodies acted on; so that, all other things being equal, to equal distances equal actions correspond. That such actions really proceed from the earth, the planets, and the sun respectively there can be no doubt. For to no other sources can the actions be referred than to those bodies from which both their direction and their intensity proceed. Now, the action by which a planet is attracted is directed to the centre of the sun, and the action by which a satellite is retained in its orbit is directed to the centre of the planet to which it belongs. On the other hand, the intensity of all such actions varies only with the distance of the planet from the sun, and of the satellite from the planet. Whence we conclude that the actions which we attribute to these bodies are really their own.

Now, if such great bodies as the sun, the earth, and all the planets act thus in a sphere, it is manifest that every particle of matter in their mass acts in a sphere. For the action of the whole mass, being only a resultant of the particular actions of all the component elements, cannot but follow the nature of its components; and therefore, from the fact that the action of the whole mass is directed in a sphere, and has equal intensity at equal distances, we must conclude that all the component actions are similarly directed, and have equal intensities at equal distances. Hence every element of matter has a sphere of action, and acts all around itself with equal actions on all other elements equally distant from it.

This conclusion applies to all matter. For we have proved, on the one hand, that matter cannot act except at a distance, and, on the other, we can show by a general argument that the actions themselves must be equal at equal distances around each centre of activity. It is evident, in fact, that the actions of any material element on any other must be equal when the local relation between the elements is the same. But whatever be the position in space of the element acted on, its local relation to the other element remains the same whenever the distance between them is not altered; for so long as we consider two elements only, no other local relation can be conceived to exist between them than that of distance; and therefore a change of position in space which does not alter the distance of the two elements leaves them in the same relation with one another, however much it may alter their relation to other surrounding matter. Since, then, the elements which are arranged spherically around a given element are all equally distant from it, they are all equally related to it, and are all acted on in the same manner. And therefore all material element acts with equal intensity on all other elements equally distant from it.

The truth of this proposition being very generally acknowledged by astronomers and physicists, we need not dwell on it any longer. We must, however, mention and solve two objections which have been advanced against it. The first is, that the cohesion of the molecules in a certain number of bodies is more energetic in some directions than in others; as in crystals, which are cleavable only in definite planes. This would tend to show that material elements do not always act in a sphere. The second objection is, that the action of the sun and of the planets, on which the demonstration of our proposition is grounded, can be denied. Some modern physicists, in fact, hold that what we persist in calling “universal attraction” is not attraction, but only an ethereal pressure exercised on the celestial bodies; and if this be the real case, the action of matter in a sphere will be out of the question.

In answer to the first objection, we say that elements of matter and molecules of bodies are not to be confounded. The molecule is capable of internal movements, as we have already remarked; and therefore every molecule consists of a number of primitive elements having a distinct and independent existence in space. Hence the action of a molecule is not a simple action, but is the resultant of the actions proceeding from those distinct elements; and it is plain that, if such elements are made to approach the centre of the molecule in one direction more than in another, the resultant of their actions will be greater in one direction than in another, and the neighboring molecules will adhere to each other more firmly in one direction than in another. This inequality of molecular actions does not, however, extend beyond the limits of molecular distances; for, when the distance is great (and we can call _great_ those distances in comparison with which the diameter of a molecule is of no account), all the distinct centres of elementary action may be admitted to coincide with the centre of the molecule, and all their spheres to coalesce into one sphere. And thus at such greater distances all molecules, no less than all primitive elements, act in a sphere.

The second objection rests on the singular assumption that the universal ether, owing to the centrifugal force called into existence by the rotation of the celestial bodies, is reduced, around each of them, to a density directly proportional to the distance from the centre of the rotation. Hence they suppose that the ether which surrounds and presses the earth must be denser on the hemisphere where there is night than on that where there is day, because the former is more distant from the sun than the latter; and they infer that on the former hemisphere the pressure of the ether must be greater than on the latter; which brings them to the conclusion that the earth must move towards the sun with a velocity proportional to the difference between the two pressures. Such is the theory by which some modern thinkers tried to supplant universal attraction. We need not go far to show the utter absurdity of this rash conception, as the most common phenomena and the most elementary principles of mechanics supply us with abundant proofs of its falsity. Centrifugal force is necessarily perpendicular to the axis of the rotation, and is proportional to the radius of the circle described. Hence its intensity, which is a _maximum_ on the equator of the revolving body, diminishes from the equator to the poles, where it becomes = 0. If, then, the ether surrounding the earth (or any other celestial body) acquires by centrifugal force a greater density at a greater distance from the earth, the effect must be greater at the equator than in any latitude from the equator to the poles, and bodies must accordingly have a greater weight, and fall with greater impetus, at the equator than in any latitude. Moreover, all bodies should fall in the direction of the pressure—that is, perpendicularly to the axis of rotation, and not perpendicularly to the horizon. Then, also, the pressure of the ether being proportional to the surface of the falling body, of two equal masses having different surfaces, the one whose surface is greater should fall with a greater impetus. Now, all this is contrary to fact.

The preceding remarks suffice to annihilate the theory. We might add that centrifugal forces are not active powers, as the theory assumes, but only components of the rotatory movement, and affections of the rotating matter. Hence, if the ether surrounding the earth does not rotate with it, its condensation through centrifugal force is a patent impossibility; while, if the ether rotates with the earth, its condensation through centrifugal force will again be impossible, inasmuch as its centrifugal force will be greater and greater in proportion as its distance from the earth is greater. It is rarefaction, not condensation, that would take place in this latter hypothesis. One word more. If the mere _difference_ of the pressures exercised by the ether on the two hemispheres of a planet is sufficient to communicate to it a considerable centripetal velocity, as the theory asserts, how can we escape the conclusion that all progress of a planet in its orbit should have been checked long ago by the _total_ pressure of the same ether on its advancing hemisphere?

It is strange indeed that a theory so preposterous in its assumptions and so absurd in its consequences can have found favor with scientific writers in the full light of this nineteenth century!

Antar And Zara; Or, “The Only True Lovers.” IV.

An Eastern Romance Narrated In Songs.

By Aubrey De Vere.