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dation. This, I say, is the general superstition, and I hope that a few words of mine may serve in some sort to correct it. I ask you, if there is any other people who have confined their national self-laudation to one day in the year. I may be allowed to make one remark as a personal experience. Fortune had willed it that I should see as many--perhaps more--cities and manners of men as Ulysses; and I have observed one general fact, and that is, that the adjectival epithet which is prefixt to all the virtues is invariably the epithet which geographically describes the country that I am in. For instance, not to take any real name, if I am in the kingdom of Lilliput, I hear of the Lilliputian virtues. I hear courage, I hear common sense, and I hear political wisdom called by that name. If I cross to the neighboring Republic Blefusca--for since Swift's time it has become a Republic--I hear all these virtues suddenly qualified as Blefuscan.

I am very glad to be able to thank Lord Coleridge for having, I be

it, but I rather hate it for your own sake. Itisn't worthy of you, old boy. It's so--so ungentlemanly."

"So it is. But I do it because I'm bored. I am bored, you know.Desperately!" He stretched out his hand to her with such haggard,hunted eyes that Laura, reckless, threw herself down by him andkissed the heavy eyelids. Clowes put his arm round her neck,fondling her hair, and for a little while peace, the peace ofperfect mutual tenderness, fell on this hard-driven pair. Butsoon, a great sigh bursting from his breast, Clowes pushed heraway, his features settling back into their old harsh lines ofsavage pain and scorn.

"Get away! get up! do you want Parker to see you through thewindow? If there's a thing on earth I hate it's a dishevelledcrying woman. Write to Lawrence. Say I shall be delighted tosee him and that I hope he'll give us at least a week. Stop.Warn him that I shan't be able to see much of him because ofmy invalid habits, and that I shall depute you to entertainhim. Tha

company as believing in an Eternal life, and endeavour to draw any conclusions, from this assumed belief, as to their present business, they will forthwith tell you that what you say is very beautiful, but it is not practical. If, on the contrary, you frankly address them as unbelievers in Eternal life, and try to draw any consequences from that unbelief,--they immediately hold you for an accursed person, and shake off the dust from their feet at you. And the more I thought over what I had got to say, the less I found I could say it, without some reference to this intangible or intractable part of the subject. It made all the difference, in asserting any principle of war, whether one assumed that a discharge of artillery would merely knead down a certain quantity of red clay into a level line, as in a brick field; or whether, out of every separately Christian-named portion of the ruinous heap, there went out, into the smoke and dead-fallen air of battle, some astonished condition of soul, unwillingly released

l together
To the grey goose-feather
And the land where the grey goose flew.

What of the mark?

Ah, seek it not in England,
A bold mark, our old mark

Is waiting over-sea.

When the strings harp in chorus,
And the lion flag is o'er us,
It is there that our mark will be.

What of the men?

The men were bred in England:
The bowmen--the yeomen,

The lads of dale and fell.

Here's to you--and to you!
To the hearts that are true
And the land where the true hearts dwell.

CREMONA

[The French Army, including a part of the Irish Brigade, underMarshal Villeroy, held the fortified town of Cremona during thewinter of 1702. Prince Eugene, with the Imperial Army, surprised itone morning, and, owing to the treachery of a priest, occupied thewhole city before the alarm was given. Villeroy was captured,together with many of the French garrison. The Irish, however,consisting of the regime

or more were his own property inherited and acquired. Clearly, therefore, he was an excellent match for a girl in the position of Joan Haste, and when it is added that he had conceived a sincere admiration for her, and that to make her his wife was the principal desire of his life, it becomes evident that in the nature of things the sole object of hers ought to have been to meet his advances half-way. Unfortunately this was not the case. For reasons which to herself were good and valid, however insufficient they may have appeared to others, Joan would have nothing to do with Samuel Rock. It was to escape from him that she had fled this day to Ramborough Abbey, whither she fondly hoped he would not follow her. It was the thought of him that made life seem so hateful to her even in the golden afternoon; it was terror of him that caused her to search out every possible avenue of retreat from the neighbourhood of Bradmouth.

She might have spared herself the trouble, for even as she sighed and sought, a sha

e. Well, put it down and open the door. There's some things I want to say to you."

"What about?" asked Hamlin, suspiciously. Overwhelming every other thought in his mind was the conviction that Davies and Harris had apprised Lawler of what had happened the night before, and that Lawler had come to capture him, single-handed.

"About Ruth."

The wild gleam in Hamlin's eyes began to dull. However, he was still suspicious.

"You seen any of your men this mornin'--Davies or Harris?" he asked.

"Davies and Harris went to town last night. I reckon they didn't get back yet. What's Davies and Harris got to do with me visiting you?"

"Nothin'." There was relief in Hamlin's voice. The muzzle of the rifle wavered; the weapon was withdrawn and the slide closed. Then the door slowly opened, and Hamlin appeared in it, a six-shooter in hand.

"If you're foolin' me, Kane Lawler, I'll sure bore you a-plenty!" he threatened.

"Shucks!" Lawler advanced to the door, ignoring the h

f Nero!" thought Walden, as his eyes wandered from the thrush on the almond tree, back to the volume in his hand,--"With all our teaching and preaching, we can hardly do better. I wonder---"

Here his mind became altogether distracted from classic lore, by the appearance of a very unclassic boy, clad in a suit of brown corduroys and wearing hob-nailed boots a couple of sizes too large for him, who, coming suddenly out from a box-tree alley behind the gabled corner of the rectory, shuffled to the extreme verge of the lawn and stopped there, pulling his cap off, and treading on his own toes from left to right, and from right to left in a state of sheepish hesitancy.

"Come along,--come along! Don't stand there, Bob Keeley!" And Walden rose, placing Epictetus on the seat he vacated--"What is it?"

Bob Keeley set his hob-nailed feet on the velvety lawn with gingerly precaution, and advancing cap in hand, produced a letter, slightly grimed by his thumb and finger.

"From Sir Morton, please

ave spoilt his physiognomy for life; and, depend upon it, as long as life lasts, he will neither forget nor forgive that. I shall also come in for a share of his spite, and it behoves both of us to beware of him."

"But what can he do to us?"

"Caballero, that question shows you have not been very long in this country, and are yet ignorant of its customs. In Mexico we have some callings not congenial to your people. Know that stilettoes can here be purchased cheaply, with the arms of assassins to use them. Do you understand me?"

"I do. But how do you counsel me to act?"

"As I intend acting myself--take departure from Chihuahua this very day. Our roads are the same as far as Albuquerque, where you will be out of reach of this little danger. I am returning thither from the city of Mexico, where I've had business with the Government. I have an escort; and if you choose to avail yourself of it you'll be welcome to its protection."

"Colonel Miranda, again I know not how to thank yo

surely, afford one of the obvious conditions for theimpulse to art. The hand-clapping and thigh-smiting of primitive savagesin a state of crowd-excitement, the song-and-dance before admiringspectators, the chorus of primitive ballads,--the crowd repeating andaltering the refrains,--the rhythmic song of laboring men and of women attheir weaving, sailors' "chanties," the celebration of funeral rites,religious processional and pageant, are all expressions of communalfeeling, and it is this communal feeling--"the sense of joy in widestcommonalty spread"--which has inspired, in Greece and Italy, some of thegreatest artistic epochs. It is true that as civilization has proceeded,this communal emotion has often seemed to fade away and leave us in thepresence of the individual artist only. We see Keats sitting at his gardentable writing the "Ode to Autumn," the lonely Shelley in the Cascine atFlorence composing the "West Wind," Wordsworth pacing the narrow walkbehind Dove Cottage and mumbling verses, Bee

Come, thy fleet sparrows
Beating the mid-air
Over the dark earth. 15Suddenly near me,
Smiling, immortal,
Thy bright regard asked

What had befallen,--
Why I had called thee,-- 20What my mad heart then
Most was desiring.
"What fair thing wouldst thou
Lure now to love thee?

"Who wrongs thee, Sappho? 25If now she flies thee,
Soon shall she follow;--
Scorning thy gifts now,
Soon be the giver;--
And a loth loved one 30

"Soon be the lover."
So even now, too,
Come and release me
From mordant love pain,
And all my heart's will 35Help me accomplish!

VI

Peer of the gods he seems,
Who in thy presence
Sits and hears close to him
Thy silver speech-tones
And lovel