PRE-EXISTENCE. them eight months together, in the minority of our present King. As in his time this barbarous variety of prisons was invented, so before he died he himself was in greater torment, and more terrible apprehension, than those whom he had imprisoned, which I look upon as a great mercy towards him, and part of his purgatory; and I have mentioned it here to show that there is no person, of what station or dignity soever, but is punished some time or other, either publicly or privately, especially if he has been the cause of other people's sufferings and misfortunes. The King, towards the latter end of his days, caused his castle of Plessis-les-Tours to be encompassed with great bars of iron, in the form of a grate, and at the four corners of the house four watch-towers of iron, strong, massy, and thick, to be built. The grates were without the wall, on the other side of the ditch, and went to the bottom. Several spikes of iron were fastened into the wall, set as thick by one another as possible. He placed likewise ten bowmen in the ditches to shoot at any man that durst approach the castle till the The gate was never opening of the gate. opened, nor the drawbridge let down, before eight in the morning, at which time the courtiers were let in; and the captains ordered their guards to their several posts, with a main guard in the middle of the court, as in a town upon the frontiers that was closely besieged. Nor was any person admitted to enter but by the wicket, and those only by the King's order, unless it were the steward of his household, and such officers as were not admitted into the pre not trust any of them, but shut himself up in those strange chains and enclosures. I have not recorded these things purely to represent our master as a suspicious and mistrustful prince, but to show that, by the patience which he expressed in his sufferings (like those which he inflicted on other people) they may be looked upon, in my judgment, as a punishment which God inflicted upon him in this world, in order to deal with him more mercifully in the next, as well in those things before mentioned as in the distempers of his body, which were great and painful, and much dreaded by him before they came upon him; and, likewise, that those princes who are his successors may learn by this example to be more tender and indulgent to their subjects, and less severe in their punishments than our master had been. I will not accuse him, or say I ever saw a better prince, for, though he oppressed his subjects himself, he would never see them injured by anybody else. Set to an air whose golden bars In sacred aisles I pause to share The blessings of a priestly prayer,— When the whole scene which greets mine eye: As one whose every mystic part At sunset, as I calmly stand, Familiar as my childhood's home One sails toward me o'er the bay, 352 VENETIAN LOVE-MAKING AND MARRYING. I can foretell. A prescient lore O swift, instinctive, startling gleams For aye ye vaguely dawn and die, Pierce through the dark, oblivious brain, Thoughts which perchance must travel back Across the wild, bewildering track Of countless æons; memories far, Unknown, scarce seen, whose flickering grace VENETIAN LOVE-MAKING AND MARRYING.1 [WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS, born at Martinsburg, Ohio, March 1, 1837. Learned the printer's trade, and after wards practiced journalism. Was U. S. Consul at Venice from 1861-65, and during his Italian residence obtained the ground-work and coloring of some of his best stories. In 1871 he became editor of the Atlantic Monthly. Among his works are Poems of Two Friends, Italian Journeys, Venetian Life, and A Foregone Conclu sion. We quote from " Venetian Life."] With the nobility and the richest commoners marriage is still greatly a matter of contract and is arranged without much refer ence to the principals, though it is now scarcely probable in any case that they have not seen each other. But with all other classes, except the poorest, who can not and do not exclude the youth of either sex from each other, and with whom, consequently, romantic contrivance and subterfuge would be superfluous, love is made to-day in Venice as in the capa y espada comedies of the Spaniards, and the business is carried on with all the cumbersome machinery of confidants, billets-doux, and stolen interviews. Let us take our nominal friends, Marco and Todaro, and attend them in their solemn promenade under the arcades of the Procuratie, or upon the Molo, whither they go every evening to taste the air and to look at the ladies, while the Austrians and the other foreigners listen to the military 1 Publishers: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston. Todaro. It is enough. Let us go. I follow her. Such is the force of the passion in southern hearts. They follow that beautiful blonde, who, marching demurely in front of the gray-moustached papa and the fat mamma, after the fashion in Venice, is electrically conscious of pursuit. They follow her during the whole evening, and, at a distance, softly follow her home, where the burning Todaro photographs the number of the house upon the sensitized tablets of his soul. This is the first great step in love. He has seen his adored one, and he knows that he loves her with an inextinguishable ardor. The next advance is to be decided between himself and the faithful Marco, and is to be debated over many cups of black coffee, not to name glasses of sugar-and-water and the like exciting beverages. The friends may now find out the caffè which the Biondina frequents with her parents, and to which Todaro may go every evening and feast his eyes upon her loveliness, never making his regard known by any word, till some night, when he has followed her home, he steals speech with her as he stands in the street under her balcony, and looks sufficiently sheepish as people detect him on their late return from the theatre. Or, if the friends do not take this course in their courtship (for they are both engaged in the wooing), they decide that Todaro, after walking back and forth a sufficient number of times in the street where the Biondina lives,shall write her a tender letter to demand if she be disposed to correspond his love. This billet must always be conveyed to her by her serving-maid, who must be bribed by Marco for the purpose. At every juncture Marco must be consulted and acquaint The love-making scenes in Goldoni's comedy of Il Bugiardo are photographically faithful to present usage in Venice, ON A PAINTING OF VENUS. ed with every step of progress; and, not doubt, the Biondina has some lively Moretta for her friend, to whom she confides her part in the love affair in all its intricacy. It may likewise happen that Todaro shall go to see the Biondina in church, whither, but for her presence, he would hardly go, and that there, though he may not have speech with her, he shall still fan the ardors of her curiosity and pity by persistent sighs. It must be confessed that if the Biondina is not pleased with his looks, his devotion must assume the character of an intolerable bore to her; and that to see him everywhere at her heels-to behold him leaning against the pillar near which she kneels at church, the head of his stick in his mouth, and his attitude carefully taken with a view to captivation-to be always in deadly fear lest she shall meet him in promenade, or, turning round at the caffè, encounter his pleading gaze-that all this must drive the Biondina to state bordering upon blasphemy and fingernails. Ma, come si fa? Ci vuol pazienza! This is the sole course open to ingenuous youth in Venice, where confessed and unashamed acquaintance between young people is extremely difficult; and so this blind pursuit must go on, till the Biondina's inclinations are at last laboriously ascertained. a Suppose the Biondina consents to be loved? Then Todaro has just and proper inquiries to make concerning her dower, and if her fortune is as pleasing as herself, he has only to demand her in marriage of her father, and after that to make her acquaintance. One day a Venetian friend of mine who spoke a little English, came to me with a joyous air and said: "I am in lofe." 353 Is not this love at first sight almost idyllic? Is it not also a sublime prudence to know the lady's fortune better than herself, before herself? These passionate, headlong Italians look well to the main chance before they leap into matrimony, and you may be sure Todaro knows, in black and white, what the Biondina has to her fortune before he weds her. After that may come the marriage, and the sonnet written by the next of friendship, and printed to hang up in all the shop-windows, celebrating the auspicious event. O unseen Spirit! now a calm divine Comes forth from thee, rejoicing earth and air! And cloudless brightness opens wide and high The chime of bells remote, the murmuring sea, of flash and shadow stirs like inward life; The ship's white sail glides onward far away, Unhaunted by a dream of storm or strife. ON A PAINTING OF VENUS BY As Venus from her mother's bosom rose "O Jove! we own that we are vanquished now." LEONIDAS of Tarentum. 192 354 DR. SCHLIEMANN'S COURTSHIP. MAN'S DESTINATION. pose this circle which perpetually returns into itself; this game forever re-commen everything is born but to perish, and perishes but to be born again as it was? This monster which forever devours itself, that it may produce itself again, and which produces itself that it may again devour itself? Never can this be the destination of my (JOHANN GOTTLIEB FICHTE was born in Upper Lusa-cing, after the same manner, in which tia, May 19, 1762. He ranks next to Kant among the great German philosophers. Comparing him with Schelling and Hegel, F. H. Hedge observes: "Among the illustrious four whose names are most intimately associated with the recent movement in German philosophy, his [Fichte's] function is that of a moralist; a preacher of righteousness. As a character, he is in-being and of all being. There must be comparably the most interesting of them all; as a writer, incomparably the most able and impressive." Among his most important works are The Destination of Man (1800); The Sun-Clear Report to the Public upon the True Nature of the Latest Philosophy (1801); and The Way to the Blessed Life (1806).] When I contemplate the world as it is, independently of any injunction, there manifests itself in my interior the wish, the longing, no! not a longing merely, the absolute demand for a better world. I cast a glance at the relations of men to each other and to Nature, at the weakness of their powers, at the strength of their appetites and passions. It cries to me irresistibly from my innermost soul: "Thus it cannot possibly be destined always to remain. It must, O it must all become other and better!" I can in no wise imagine to myself the present condition of man as that which is designed to endure. I cannot imagine it to be his whole and final destination. If so, then would everything be dream and delusion, and it would not be worth the trouble to have lived and to have taken part in this ever-recurring, unproductive Am I only to eat and to drink that I may hunger and thirst again, and again eat and drink, until the grave, yawning beneath my feet, swallows me up, and I myself spring up as food from the ground? Am I to beget beings like myself, that they also may eat and drink and die, and leave behind them beings like themselves, who shall do the same that I have done? To what pur something which exists because it has been brought forth, and which now remains and can never be brought forth again, after it has been brought forth once. And this, that is permanent, must beget itself amid the mutations of the perishing, and continue amid those mutations, and be borne along unhurt upon the waves of time. DR. SCHLIEMANN'S COURTSHIP. (HEINRICH SCHLIEMANN, the celebrated archeologist and explorer (born at Kalkhorst, Mecklenburg-Schwerin, in 1822, died in 1890), thus briefly recounts the circumstances of his marriage:] [his wife] in the house of her parents in It is now twelve years since I met her Athens. It was on a Saturday. In the course of the conversation, I made an astonishing discovery. The young eighteenIliad, recited for me a long piece from that year-old girl, as the talk turned upon the work with literal accuracy. We were soon absorbed in the subject, and on the same day I was able to tell her: "Next Thursday will be our wedding day." And Thursbusiness called me at once to Paris. We day was our wedding day, for important made our wedding journey thither. Then came the time for learning. I recited Homer to her, and she repeated it after me. During our married life, we have not had a single falling out-not even over Agamemnon and his sister. The only dispute we ever had was when we had different ideas about the rendering of a passage in Homer. HOSPITALITY. Freedom in drinking always is the best: ON ESTES. ON A DECLAMATORY PLEADER. THE CLOSING YEAR. [GEORGE DENISON PRENTICE, born at Preston, Conn., Dec. 18, 1802. From 1830 till his death he edited the Louisville Journal (daily newspaper.) He wrote a Life of Henry Clay, and his witticisms have been gathered in a volume entitled Prenticiana. He was the author of many fugitive poems, some of which are of superior excellence. Died in 1870.] "T is midnight's holy hour,—and silence now Is brooding like a gentle spirit o'er The still and pulseless world.-Hark! on the winds Is sweeping past; yet, on the stream and wood, And faded like a wreath of mist at eve; Remorseless Time! He presses, and forever. The proud bird, Through heaven's unfathomable depths, or bravo And bathe his plumage in the thunder's home, Revolutions sweep O'er earth, like troubled visions o'er the breast Of dreaming sorrow; cities rise and sink Young Spring, bright Summer, Autumn's solemn form, Spring blazing from the ocean, and go back And Winter with its aged locks,-and breathe, Like the far wind-harp's wild and touching wail, "T is a time For memory and for tears. Within the deep, On the dead waste of life. That specter lifts The year Has gone, and with it, many a glorious throng It passed o'er The battle-plain where sword and spear and shield To their mysterious caverns; mountains rear 355 |