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to which love urged Ulrich von Lichenstein now excite as much ridicule as they formerly did admiration. Ulrich's lady-love demanded of him once that he should prove his love, and though he cut off one of his fingers, inclosed it in a book with a clasp in the suggestive form of two hands joined together, this singular present was not enough to satisfy her. So for years Ulrich performed other eccentric deeds only to have the capricious dame at length reject him. Extravagances so quixotic as Ulrich's, however, so far from being looked upon as ludicrous, were hailed with applause, and Ulrich had many zealous imitators.

Such were the days of the Minnesingers, but even before the close of the thirteenth century a new force was beginning to make itself felt in Germany. Bohemianism was fast losing its charm for the hitherto nomadic Germans, and civilization demanded permanent centers of life. At once the cities sprung into power, and their sturdy burgers soon caused even the nobles to shrink from them. With the renewed growth of the cities, the stimulus to commerce, and the development of industry, there was little place for romance. So little by little the picturesque Minnesingers were forced out of existence, and with their death was ushered in the first era of German prose.

G. H. N.

-There is a noticeable tendency in some American journals, particularly those of New York, toward the encouragement of impersonal personalities. Formerly a newspaper article which pretended to speak in the first person singular was signed by the author. The well established use of the editorial "we" in anonymous matter has always been considered perfectly legitimate, because the author, if not individually known to his readers, is known as one in the comparatively small group comprising an editorial staff. He is therefore not entirely without identity. But of late years the public has been confronted by the paradox of an ego without a distinct personality behind it.

The business man picks up his morning paper to post himself on the happenings of the last few hours. Perhaps the first thing he chances upon is an interview. "I saw Mr. Brown at his residence last evening," he reads, and queries who it was that saw Mr. Brown. He glances at the foot of the

article and is puzzled at finding no name.

Then he resumes

his reading with a vague sense of dissatisfaction,-of baffled curiosity. It seems to him that the article is somehow "out of gear." A little farther down he is informed that "I asked him" thus and so, and "he told me" this and that, and the inclination to know who this strange nonentity may be, who dares to say "I" and yet is nobody, becomes a tantalizing desire. Sometimes the Unknown seems to have met with difficulties. "I was unable to find the gentleman" reads the business man, and he mentally pictures a sort of nameless phantom with note-book and pencil, treading the city's deserted streets at dead of night on that unsuccessful quest. He would like to hunt up the phantom, and know him, and ask him all about failures and successes; but only that vague picture of the imagination remains to him,-the reality, the personality, behind it all, being lost in the great swarm of city reporters who are flitting here and there and everywhere at all hours of the day and night.

Perhaps Mr. Brown, the gentleman interviewed, could give the nameless wanderer a name,—that is, if the latter sent in his card, and Mr. Brown noticed or remembered the inscription thereon. But the chances are that the average reader of the morning paper is not a personal acquaintance of Mr. Brown, and cannot easily secure the information desired. Had the article been worded in the old style, " Mr. Brown was seen by a reporter last evening," little or no curiosity would have been aroused. It may be that the signature was originally appended to the piece, and was dropped when it had been duly credited with a "penny a line," before arriving at the printing press. However that may be, the newspaper reader is quite certain to come upon that flaunting "I" day after day, and to glance. absent-mindedly twice or thrice to the foot of the article, where the question he would ask is never answered. A. R. t.

-The Father Superior was worried about Fra Sabantine. Twice of late he had come upon him dreamily lounging in his cell, when he should have been down on his knees before the altar. Another time he had seen him absently telling his beads with one hand, and looking cautiously from the corner of his eye to direct the other hand in cleaning a paint brush.

Old Fra Sabantine was an artist monk and many were the painters whom he had trained while novices, and then sent

out from the cloister walls to become famous artists. Through all these years he had kept his soul as pure as any in the monastery, and none had been more attentive to their devotions than he. But now in his old age, when his long beard was white, and his round face had many deep wrinkles, he had given the reverend father cause for suspicion. The walls of the cloister were rich in the paintings of Fra Sabantine, and now he was putting his grandest efforts, his whole artist soul, into the one picture which he felt would be his last. He wanted it his masterpiece. All his life had he looked to the time when he could give the world his conception of the Virgin. During all these years he had nursed this one ambition, and with time it had grown upon him, until now it was his only thought. The work had been begun a long time and was near its completion when the Father noticed the change that had come over the holy friar.

ture.

Late one afternoon old Fra Sabantine was seen kneeling before his picture and gazing up at it with unconcealed rapThen he came down and passed quickly through the stone corridors to his cell. His face fairly shone, and his eyes were brighter than anyone had ever seen them before. He had finished his picture.

The midnight lauds were over, and the silent monks were sleeping soundly, but Fra Sabantine had not appeared. Then the Father Superior crept softly down to the old studio. The faint light from the taper revealed a platform of rough-hewn logs strewn with pots of paint and turpentine, and above this a dark curtain which hid the new painting. He had rather expected to find the artist there, but the place was deserted. Then he crept cautiously up on the scaffolding and shading the light with his hand gently drew back the curtain. The moment his holy eyes rested upon the picture he dropped to his knees. The figure seemed almost to live, to breathe, to be about to speak. Ah, how infinitely sweet and tender must be the voice of such an one! But the holy father suddenly came to his senses. It was not the spirit of the Holy Virgin that had wrought this spell. It was the almost living form of a beautiful woman, and it was this wholly human conception that had worked such havoc with poor Fra Sabantine.

The father steadied himself, grasped a brush, thrust it into a pot of turpentine, and in another moment that work of years was destroyed, and the world was the loser.

Old Fra Sabantine died that night, happy in the completion of his work, and on his unmarked grave the Father Superior prayed for forgiveness for the one moment in his life, when he too, was held captive by the beautiful face and figure of a painting.

M. G.

-The brook runs in granite channels whose polish and variety of pattern rival Venetian mosaics. Nature has encased her mosaic-work in mountain water more transparent than glass, and only showing its own beauty where a jutting rock dashes it into foam. The trout can be easily seen as he leisurely takes the hook and then, feeling the barb, turns with a swirl for his hiding-place. The rod-tip bends, the reel sings, a flash of opal colors, and then the measure, the fisherman's sober second thought tells the length, always two inches less than we supposed.

The stream grows smaller and the ascent steeper until we stand beside the cataract. A fall of thirty feet sends the water thundering like a giant's song, into the pool beneath. On either side the shallower stream trickles down the cliff like “drizzling rain upon the loft." A rainbow quivers in the floating spray and smiles into the dark pool.

We are silent till an inquisitive squirrel begins his impertinent chatter and a lonely blue-jay scolds us from a pine.

W. D. M.

On the far coast of Labrador, nestling under the bleak rocky hills that surround Cape Charles Harbor, stands a little fishing village. In the summer it is a scene of busy life and work, while in winter, deserted by the transient Newfoundland fishermen and inhabited only by one or two families, it is desolate enough in its garb of ice and snow. The mail steamer, which calls once in a fortnight during the summer months, keeps the fisher folk in occasional touch with the world at large, but for the most part life in the little settlement is monotonous in the extreme.

The village is like a hundred others that are scattered along those coasts, a dozen little houses, whitewashed, painted, or weather-stained, as the case may be, grouped at the head of a cove near the water's edge. In a conspicuous position on a hill stands a tiny church, whose outward appearance calls to

mind the tiniest summer cottages of a Long Island seashore resort. A flag staff near it serves as spire and bell, the display of the flag being the signal that some stray preacher is at hand to conduct service. Rude wooden benches without backs serve for seats, and the communion set in the little cupboard behind the platform is hardly more elaborate than a set of doll's dishes.

Down on the wharves, lightly but strongly built of timbers hewn from the inland forests, stand the fish-houses where the cod and salmon are cleaned, salted, and temporarily stored. Curious anchors constructed of wood and weighted by stones lie here and there. On the roofs of the houses or on frames made for the purpose are stretched the skins of seals, which, being of a kind whose fur is worthless, are saved for the leather. A few of the houses are flanked by little gardens where rhubarb and cabbages struggle for a brief existence. The only animals in sight are a few goats and a great many dogs, the latter being of various colors, but showing some characteristics of both the Eskimo and Newfoundland breeds. Their enforced idleness in the summer season leads them to fight almost continually among themselves, and every dog is plentifully supplied with scars and scratches. A few lonesome-looking hens complete the live stock of the village.

The only vegetation which the seacoast hills will support consists of grass, moss, a few hardy flowers, and dwarfed trees not over two feet high. In the ravines the winter's snowdrifts lie all summer long, and looking seaward from the summit of the hill one may often count a hundred icebergs in sight at

once.

Day after day while the season lasts the work of the fishermen goes steadily on. No sooner are their little black dories unloaded at the wharves than the unpleasant work of splitting and cleaning the fish begins. Women and men work together by the yellow glare of lanterns well into the evenings, and gradually the long rows of salted cod rise higher and higher. One wonders that people are willing to come from pleasanter lands to this drudgery in a chill and desolate region, where, though the songs of children and the twitter of birds are sometimes heard as in the more genial South, there is yet lacking so much that makes life sweet and endurable. But if you express such feelings to the venerable, white-bearded fisherman,

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