Chapter II: Front Matter (2)

Upon the grave, close by the church wall, a rose tree was planted;
it was full of roses, and the nightingale flew singing over the
flowers and the grave. Within the church, there resounded from the
organ the most beautiful hymns, which were in the old book under
the head of the dead one. The moon shone down upon the grave, but
the dead was not there; each child could go there quietly by night
and pluck a rose from the peaceful courtyard wall. The dead know
more than all of us living ones; they are better than we. The earth
is heaped up over the coffin, even within the coffin there is
earth; the leaves of the hymn book are dust, and the rose, with all
its memories. But above bloom fresh roses; above, the nightingale
sings, and the organ tones forth; above, the memory of the old
grandmother lives, with her mild, ever young eyes. Eyes can never
die. Ours will one day see the grandmother again, young and
blooming as when she for the first time kissed the fresh red rose,
which is now dust in the grave.'

'THE CELL PRISON.

'By separation from other men, by loneliness, in continual silence
shall the criminal be punished and benefited; on this account cell
prisons are built. In Sweden there are many such, and new ones are
building. I visited for the first time one in Marienstadt. The
building lies in a beautiful landscape, close by the town, on a
small stream of water, like a great villa, white and smiling, with
window upon window. But one soon discovers that the stillness of
the grave rests over the place; it seems as if no one dwelt here,
or as if it were a dwelling forsaken during the plague. The gates
of these walls are locked; but one opened and the jailor received
us, with his bundle of keys in his hand. The court is empty and
clean; even the grass between the paving stones is weeded out. We
entered the 'reception room,' to which the prisoner is first taken;
then the bath room, whither he is carried next. We ascend a flight
of stairs, and find ourselves in a large hall, built the whole
length and height of the building. Several galleries, one over
another in the different stories, extend round the whole hall, and
in the midst of the hall is the chancel, from which, on Sundays,
the preacher delivers his sermon before an invisible audience. All
the doors of the cells, which lead upon the galleries, are half
opened, the prisoners hear the preacher, but they cannot see him,
nor he them. The whole is a well-built machine for a pressure of
the spirit. In the door of each cell there is a glass of the size
of an eye; a valve covers it on the outside, and through this may
the warden, unnoticed by the prisoners, observe all which is going
on within; but he must move with soft step, noiselessly, for the
hearing of the prisoner is wonderfully sharpened by solitude. I
removed the valve from the glass very softly, and looked into the
closed room--for a moment the glance of the prisoner met my eye. It
is airy, pure, and clean within, but the window is so high that it
is impossible to look out. The whole furniture consists of a high
bench, made fast to a kind of table, a berth, which can be fastened
with hooks to the ceiling, and around which there is a curtain.
Several cells were opened to us. In one there was a young, very
pretty maiden; she had lain down in her berth, but sprang out when
the door was opened, and her first movement disturbed the berth,
which it unclasped and rolled together. Upon the little table stood
the water cask, and near it lay the remains of hard black bread,
farther off the Bible, and a few spiritual songs. In another cell
sat an infanticide; I saw her only through the small glass of the
door, she had heard our steps, and our talking, but she sat still,
cowered together in the corner by the door, as if she wished to
conceal herself as much as she could; her back was bent, her head
sunk almost into her lap, and over it her hands were folded. The
unhappy one is very young, said they. In two different cells sat
two brothers; they were paying the penalty of horse-stealing; one
was yet a boy. In one cell sat a poor servant girl; they said she
had no relations, and was poor, and they placed her here. I thought
that I had misunderstood, repeated my question, Why is the maiden
here? and received the same answer. Yet still I prefer to believe
that I have misunderstood the remark. Without, in the clear, free
sunlight, is the busy rush of day; here within the stillness of
midnight always reigns. The spider, which spins along the wall, the
swallow, which rarely flies near the vaulted window there above,
even the tread of the stranger in the gallery, close by the door,
is an occurrence in this mute, solitary life, where the mind of the
prisoner revolves ever upon himself. One should read of the martyr
cells of the holy inquisition, of the unfortunates of the Bagnio
chained to each other, of the hot leaden chambers, and the dark wet
abyss of the pit of Venice, and shudder over those pictures, in
order to wander through the galleries of the cell prison with a
calmer heart; here is light, here is air, here it is more human.
Here, where the sunbeam throws in upon the prisoner its mild light,
here will an illuminating beam from God Himself sink into the
heart.'

Last we have

'SALA.

'Sweden's great king, Germany's deliverer, Gustavus Adolphus,
caused Sala to be built. The small enclosed wood in the vicinity of
the little town relates to us yet traditions of the youthful love
of the hero king, of his rendezvous with Ebba Brahe. The silver
shafts at Sala are the largest, the deepest and oldest in Sweden;
they reach down a hundred and seventy fathoms, almost as deep as
the Baltic. This is sufficient to awaken an interest in the little
town; how does it look now? 'Sala,' says the guide book, 'lies in a
valley, in a flat, and not very agreeable region.' And so it is
truly; in that direction was nothing beautiful, and the highway led
directly into the town, which has no character. It consists of a
single long street with a knot and a pair of ends: the knot is the
market; at the ends are two lanes which are attached to it. The
long street--it may be called long in such a short town--was
entirely empty. No one came out of the doors, no one looked out of
the windows. It was with no small joy that I saw a man, at last, in
a shop, in whose window hung a paper of pins, a red handkerchief,
and two tea cans, a solitary, sedate apprentice, who leaned over
the counter and looked out through the open house door. He
certainly wrote that evening in his journal, if he kept one;
'To-day a traveller went through the town; the dear God may know
him, I do not!' The apprentice's face appeared to me to say all
that, and he had an honest face.

'In the tavern in which I entered, the same deathlike stillness
reigned as upon the street. The door was indeed closed, but in the
interior of the house all the doors stood wide open; the house cock
stood in the midst of the sitting room, and crowed in order to give
information that there was some one in the house. As to the rest,
the house was entirely picturesque; it had an open balcony looking
out upon the court--upon the street would have been too lively. The
old sign hung over the door and creaked in the wind; it sounded as
if it were alive. I saw it from my window; I saw also how the grass
had overgrown the pavement of the street. The sun shone clear, but
as it shines in the sitting room of the solitary old bachelor and
upon the balsam in the pot of the old maid, it was still as on a
Scottish Sunday, and it was Tuesday! I felt myself drawn to study
Young's 'Night Thoughts.'

'I looked down from the balcony into the neighbor's court; no
living being was to be seen, but children had played there; they
had built a little garden out of perfectly dry twigs; these had
been stuck into the soft earth and watered; the potsherd, which
served as watering pot, lay there still; the twigs represented
roses and geranium. It had been a splendid garden--ah yes! We
great, grown-up men play just so, build us a garden with love's
roses and friendship's geranium, we water it with our tears and our
heart's blood--and yet they are and remain dry twigs without roots.
That was a gloomy thought--I felt it, and in order to transform the
dry twigs into a blossoming Aaron's-staff, I went out. I went out
into the ends and into the long thread, that is to say, into the
little lanes and into the great street, and here was more life, as
I might have expected; a herd of cows met me, who were coming home,
or going away, I know not--they had no leader. The apprentice was
still standing behind the counter; he bowed over it and greeted;
the stranger took off his hat in return; these were the events of
this day in Sala. Pardon me, thou still town, which Gustavus
Adolphus built, where his young heart glowed in its first love, and
where the silver rests in the deep shafts without the town, in a
flat and not very pleasant country. I knew no one in this town, no
one conducted me about, and so I went with the cows, and reached
the graveyard; the cows went on, I climbed over the fence, and
found myself between the graves, where the green grass grew, and
nearly all the tombstones lay with inscriptions blotted out; only
here and there, 'Anno' was still legible--what further? And who
rests here? Everything on the stone was effaced, as the earth life
of the one who was now earth within the earth. What drama have ye
dead ones played here in the still Sala? The setting sun threw its
beams over the graves, no leaf stirred on the tree; all was still,
deathly still, in the town of the silver mines, which for the
remembrance of the traveller is only a frame about the apprentice,
who bowed greeting over the counter.'

Silence, stillness, quiet, solitude, loneliness, far-away-ness; hushed, calm, remote, out of the world, un-newspapered, operaless, un-gossipped--was there ever a sketch which carried one so far from the world as this of 'Sala'? That _one_ shopboy--those going or coming cows--the tombs, with wornout dates, every point of time vanishing--a living grave!

Contrast again, dear reader. Verily she is a goddess--and I adore her. Lo! she brings me back again in Sala to the busy streets of this city, and the office, and the 'exchanges,' and the rustling, bustling world, and the hotel dinner--to be in time for which I am even now writing against time--and I am thankful for it all. Sala has cured me. That picture drives away longings. Verily, he who lives in America, and in its great roaring current of events, needs but a glance at Sala to feel that _here_ he is on a darting stream ever hurrying more gloriously into the world and away from the dull inanity--which the merest sibilant of aggravation will change to insanity.

Reader, our Andersen is an artist--as most children know. But I am glad that he seldom gives us anything which is so _very_ much of a monochrome as Sala.

I wonder if Sala was the native and surnaming town of that _other_ Sala whose initials are G. A. S., and whose nature is 'ditto'? Did its dulness drive him to liveliness, even as an 'orthodox' training is said to drive youth to dissipation? It may be so. The one hath a deep mine of silver--the other contains inexhaustible mines of brass--and the name of the one as of the other, when read in Hebrew-wise gives us 'alas!'

But I am wandering from the Northern pictures and fresh nature, and must close.

THE NEW RASSELAS.

... And Joseph, opening the drawing room, told me the postchaise was ready. My mother and my sister threw themselves into my arms.

'It is still time,' said they, 'to abandon this scheme. Stay with us.'

'Mother, I am of noble birth, I am now twenty, I must have a name, I must be talked about in the country, I must be getting a position in the army or at court.'

'Oh! but, Bernard, when you have gone, what will become of me?'

'You will be happy and proud when you hear of your son's success.'

'But if you are killed in some battle?'

'What of that! What's life? Who thinks about being killed? When one is twenty, and of noble lineage, he thinks of nothing but glory. And, mother, in a few years you shall see me return to your side a colonel, or a general, or with some rich office at Versailles.'

'Well, and what then?'

'Why, then I shall be respected and considered about here.'

'And then?'

'Why, everybody will take off their hat to me.'

'And then?'

'I'll marry Cousin Henrietta, and I'll marry off my young sisters, and we'll all live together with you, tranquil and happy, on my estate in Brittany.'

'Now, why can't you commence this tranquil and happy life to-day? Has not your father left us the largest fortune of all the province? Is there anywhere near us a richer estate or a finer chateau than that of La Roche Bernard? Are you not considered by all your vassals? Doesn't everybody take off their hat when they meet you? No, don't quit us, my dear child; remain with your friends, with your sisters, with your old mother, whom, at your return, perhaps you may not find alive; do not expend in vain glory, nor abridge by cares and annoyances of every kind, days which at the best pass away too rapidly: life is a pleasant thing, my son, and Brittany's sun is genial!'

As she said this, she showed me from the drawing-room windows the beautiful avenues of my park, the old horse-chestnuts in bloom, the lilacs, the honeysuckles, whose fragrance filled the air, and whose verdure glistened in the sun. In the antechamber was the gardener and all his family, who, sad and silent, seemed also to say to me, 'Don't go, young master, don't go.' Hortense, my eldest sister, pressed me in her arms, and Amélie, my little sister, who was in a corner of the drawing room looking at the pictures in a volume of La Fontaine, came up to me, holding out the book:

'Read, read, brother,' said she, weeping....

She pointed to the fable of the Two Pigeons!... I suddenly got up, and repelled them all. 'I am now twenty, I am of noble blood, I want glory and honor.... Let me go.' And I ran toward the courtyard. I was about getting into the postchaise, when a woman appeared on the staircase. It was Henrietta! She did not weep ... she did not say a word ... but, pale and trembling, it was with the utmost difficulty that she kept from falling. She waved the white handkerchief she held in her hand, as a last good-by, and she fell senseless on the floor. I ran and took her up, I pressed her in my arms, I pledged my love to her for life; and as she recovered consciousness, leaving her in the hands of my mother and sister, I ran to my postchaise without stopping, and without turning my head.

If I had looked at Henrietta, I should not have gone.

In a few moments afterward the postchaise was rattling along the highway. For a long time my mind was completely absorbed by thoughts of my sisters, of Henrietta, of my mother, and of all the happiness I left behind me; but these ideas gradually quitted me as I lost sight of the turrets of La Roche Bernard, and dreams of ambition and of glory took the entire possession of my mind. What schemes! What castles in the air! What noble actions I performed in my postchaise!! I denied myself nothing: wealth, honors, dignities, success of every kind, I merited and I awarded myself all; at the last, raising myself from grade to grade as I advanced on my journey, by the time I reached my inn at night, I was duke and peer, governor of a province, and marshal of France. The voice of my servant, who called me modestly Monsieur le Chevalier, alone forced me to remember who I was, and to abdicate all my dignities. The next day, and the following days, I indulged in the same dreams, and enjoyed the same intoxication, for my journey was long. I was going to a chateau near Sedan the chateau of the Duke de C----, an old friend of my father, and protector of my family. It was understood that he was to carry me to Paris with him, where he was expected about the end of the month; he promised to present me at Versailles, and to give me a company of dragoons through the credit of his sister, the Marchioness de F----, a charming young lady, designated by public opinion as Madame de Pompadour's successor, whose title she claimed with the greater justice as she had long filled its honorable functions. I reached Sedan at night, and at too late an hour to go to the chateau of my protector. I therefore postponed my visit until the nest day, and lay at the 'France's Arms,' the best hotel of the town, and the ordinary rendezvous of all the officers; for Sedan is a garrison town, and is well fortified; the streets have a warlike air, and even the shopkeepers have a martial look, which seems to say to strangers, 'We are fellow countrymen of the great Turenne!' I supped at the general table, and I asked what road I should take in the morning to go to the chateau of the Duke de C----, which is situated some three leagues out of the town. 'Anybody will show you,' I was told, 'for it is well known hereabouts: Marshal Fabert, a great warrior and a celebrated man, died there.' Thereupon the conversation turned about Marshal Fabert. Between young soldiers, this was very natural; his battles, his exploits, his modesty, which made him refuse the letters patent of nobility and the collar of his orders offered him by Louis XIV, were all talked about; they dwelt especially on the inconceivable fortune which had raised him from the rank of a simple soldier to the rank of a marshal of France--him, who was nothing at all, the son of a mere printer: it was the only example of such a piece of fortune which could then be instanced, and which, even during Fabert's life, had appeared so extraordinary, the vulgar never feared to ascribe his elevation to supernatural causes. It was said that from his youth he had busied himself with magic and sorcery, and that he had made a league with the devil. Mine host, who, to the stupidity inherent in all the natives of the province of Champagne, added the credulity of our Brittany peasants, assured us with a great deal of sangfroid, that when Fabert died in the chateau of the Duke de C----, a black man, whom nobody knew, was seen to enter into the dead man's room, and disappear, taking with him the marshal's soul, which he had bought, and which belonged to him; and that even now, every May, about the period of the death of Fabert, the people of the chateau saw the black man about the house, bearing a small light. This story made our dessert merry, and we drank a bottle of champagne to the demon of Fabert, craving it to be good enough to take us also under its protection, and enable us to win some battles like those of Collioure and La Marfee.

I rose early the next morning, and went to the chateau of the Duke de C----, an immense gothic manor-house, which perhaps at any other moment I would not have noticed, but which I regarded, I acknowledge, with curiosity mixed with emotion, as I recollected the story told us on the preceding evening by the host of the 'France's Arms.' The servant to whom I spoke, told me he did not know whether his master could receive company, and whether he could receive me. I gave him my name, and he went out, leaving me alone in a sort of armory, decorated with the attributes of the chase and family portraits.

I waited some time, and no one came. 'The career of glory and of honor I have dreamed commences by the antechamber,' said I to myself, and impatience soon possessed the discontented solicitor. I had counted over the family portraits and all the rafters of the ceiling some two or three times, when I heard a slight noise in the wooden wainscoting. It was caused by an ill-closed door the wind had forced open. I looked in, and I perceived a very handsome boudoir, lighted by two large windows and a glazed door opening on a magnificent park. I walked into this room, and after I had gone a short distance, I was stopped by a scene which I had not at first perceived. A man was lying on a sofa, with his back turned to the door by which I came in. He got up, and without perceiving me, ran abruptly to the window. Tears streamed down his cheeks, and a profound despair was marked on his every feature. He remained motionless for some time, keeping his face buried in his hands; then he began striding rapidly about the room. I was then near him; he perceived me, and trembled; I, too, was annoyed and confounded at my indiscretion; I sought to retire, muttering some words of excuse.

'Who are you? What do you want?' he said to me in a loud voice, taking hold of me by my arms.

'I am the Chevalier Bernard de la Roche Bernard, and I come from Brittany.'...

'I know, I know,' said he; and he threw himself into my arms, made me take a seat by his side, spoke to me warmly about my father and all my family, whom he knew so well that I was persuaded I was talking with the master of the chateau.

'You are Monsieur de C----?' I asked him.

He got up, looked at me wildly, and replied, 'I was he, I am he no longer, I am nothing;' and seeing my astonishment, he exclaimed, 'Not a word more, young man, don't question me!'

'I must, Monsieur; I have been the involuntary witness of your chagrin and your grief, and if my attachment and my friendship may to some degree alleviate'----

'You are right, you are right,' said he; 'you cannot change my fate, but at the least you may receive my last wishes and my last injunctions ... it is the only favor I ask of you.'

He shut the door, and again took his seat by my side; I was touched, and tremblingly expected what he was going to say: he spoke with a grave and solemn manner. His physiognomy had an expression I had never seen before on any face. His forehead, which I attentively examined, seemed marked by fatality; his face was pale; his black eyes sparkled, and occasionally his features, although changed by pain, would contract in an ironical and infernal smile. 'What I am going to tell you,' said he, 'will surprise you.' You will doubt me ... you will not believe me ... even. I doubt it sometimes ... at the least, I would like to doubt it; but I have got the proofs of it; and there is in everything around us, in our very organization, a great many other mysteries which we are obliged to undergo, without being able to understand.' He remained silent for a moment, as if to collect his ideas, brushed his forehead with his hand, and then proceeded:

'I was born in this chateau. I had two elder brothers, to whom the honors and the estates of our house were to descend. I could hope nothing above the cassock of an abbé, and yet dreams of ambition and of glory fermented in my head, and quickened the beatings of my heart. Discontented with my obscurity, eager for fame, I thought of nothing but the means of acquiring it, and this idea made me insensible to all the pleasures and all the joys of life. The present was nothing to me; I existed only in the future; and that future lay before me robed in the most sombre colors. I was nearly thirty years old, and had done nothing. Then literary reputations arose from every side in Paris, and their brilliancy was reflected even to our distant province. 'Ah!' I often said to myself, 'if I could at the least command a name in the world of letters! that at least would be fame, and fame is happiness.' The confidant of my sorrow was an old servant, an aged negro, who had lived in the chateau for years before I was born; he was the oldest person about the house, for no one remembered when he came to live there; and some of the country people said that he knew the Marshal Fabert, and had been present at his death'--

My host saw me express the greatest surprise; he interrupted his narrative to ask me what was the matter.

'Nothing,' said I; but I could not help thinking of the black man the innkeeper had mentioned the evening before.

Monsieur de C---- went on with his story: 'One day, before Juba (such was the negro's name), I loudly expressed my despair at my obscurity and the uselessness of my life, and I exclaimed: '_I would give ten years of my life_ to be placed in the first rank of our authors.' 'Ten years,' he coldly replied to me, 'are a great deal; it's paying dearly for a trifle; but that's nothing, I accept your ten years. I take them now; remember your promises: I shall keep mine!' I cannot depict to you my surprise at hearing him speak in this way. I thought years had weakened his reason; I smiled, and he shrugged his shoulders, and in a few days afterward I quitted the chateau to pay a visit to Paris. There I was thrown a great deal in literary society. Their example encouraged me, and I published several works, whose success I shall not weary you by describing. All Paris applauded me; the newspapers proclaimed my praises; the new name I had assumed became celebrated, and no later than yesterday, you, yourself, my young friend, admired me.'

A new gesture of surprise again interrupted his narrative: 'What! you are not the Duke de C----?' I exclaimed.

'No,' said he very coldly.

'And,' I said to myself, 'a celebrated literary man! Is it Marmontel? or D'Alembert? or Voltaire?'

He sighed; a smile of regret and of contempt flitted over his lips, and he resumed his story: 'This literary reputation I had desired soon became insufficient for a soul as ardent as my own. I longed for nobler success, and I said to Juba, who had followed me to Paris, and who now remained with me: 'There is no real glory, no true fame, but that acquired in the profession of arms. What is a literary man? A poet? Nothing. But a great captain, a leader of an army! Ah! that's the destiny I desire; and for a great military reputation, I would give another ten years of my life.' 'I accept them,' Juba replied; 'I take them now; don't forget it.''

At this part of his story he stopped again, and, observing the trouble and hesitation visible in my every feature, he said:

'I warned you beforehand, young man, that you could not believe me; this seems a dream, a chimera to you!... and to me, too!... and yet the grades and the honors I obtained were no illusions; those soldiers I led to the cannon's mouth, those redoubts stormed, those flags won, those victories with which all France has rung ... all that was my work ... all that glory was mine.'...

While he strode up and down the room, and spoke with this warmth and enthusiasm, surprise chilled my blood, and I said to myself, 'Who can this gentleman be?... Is he Coligny?... Richelieu?... the Marshal Saxe?'...

From this state of excitement he had fallen into great depression, and coming close to me, he said to me, with a sombre air:

'Juba spoke truly; and after a short time had passed away, disgusted with this vain bubble of military glory, I longed for the only thing real and satisfactory and permanent in this world; and when, at the cost of five or six years of life, I desired gold and wealth, Juba gave them too.... Yes, my young friend, yes, I have seen fortune surpass all my desires; I became the lord of estates, of forests, of chateaux. Up to this morning they were all mine; if you don't believe me, if you don't believe Juba ... wait ... wait ... he is coming ... and you will see for yourself, with your own eyes, that what confounds your reason and mine, is unhappily but too real.'

He then walked toward the mantlepiece, looked at the clock, exhibited great alarm, and said to me in a whisper:

'This morning at daybreak I felt so depressed and weak I could scarcely get up. I rang for my servant. Juba came. 'What is the matter with me this morning?' I asked him. 'Master, nothing more than natural. The hour approaches, the moment draws near!' 'What hour? What moment?' 'Don't you remember? Heaven allotted sixty years as the term of your existence. You were thirty when I began to obey you!' 'Juba,' said I, seriously alarmed, 'are you in earnest?' 'Yes, master; in five years you have dissipated in glory twenty-five years of life. You gave them to me, they belong to me; and those years you bartered away shall now be added to the days I have to live.' 'What, was that the price of your services?' 'Others have paid more dearly for them. You have heard of Fabert: I protected him.' 'Silence! silence!' I said to him; 'you lie! you lie!' 'As you please; but get ready, you have only half an hour to live.' 'You are mocking me; you deceive me.' 'Not at all; make the calculation yourself. You have really lived thirty-five years; you have lost twenty-five years: total, sixty years.' He started to go out.... I felt my strength diminishing; I felt my life waning away. 'Juba! Juba!' said I, 'give me a few hours, only a few hours,' I screamed; 'oh! give me a few hours longer!' 'No, no,' said he, 'that would be to diminish my own life, and I know better than you the value of life. There is no treasure in this world worth two hours' existence!' I could scarcely speak; my eyes became obscured by a thick veil, the icy hand of death began to freeze my veins. 'Oh!' said I, making an effort to speak, 'take back those estates for which I have sacrificed everything. Give me four hours longer, and I make you master of all my gold, of all my wealth, of all that opulence of fortune I have so earnestly desired.' 'Agreed: you have been a good master, and I am willing to do something for you; I consent to your prayer.' I felt my strength return; and I exclaimed: 'Four hours are so little ... oh! Juba! ... Juba ... oh! Juba! give me yet four hours, and I renounce all my literary glory, all my works, everything that has placed me so high in the opinion of the world.' 'Four hours of life for that!' exclaimed the negro with contempt.... 'That's a great deal; but never mind; you shan't say I refused your last dying request.' 'Oh! no! no! Juba, don't say my last dying request.... Juba! Juba! I beg of you, give me until this evening, give me twelve hours, the whole day, and may my exploits, my victories, my military fame, my whole career be forever effaced from the memory of men!... may nothing whatever remain of them!... if you will give me this day, only to-day, Juba; and I shall be too well satisfied.' 'You abuse my generosity,' said he, 'and I am making a fool's bargain. But never mind, I give you until sundown. After that, ask me for nothing more. Don't forget, after sundown I shall come for you!'

'He went away,' added my companion, with a tone of despair I can never forget, 'and this is the last day of my life.' He then walked to the glazed door looking out on the park (it was open), and he exclaimed:

'Oh God! I shall see no more this beautiful sky, these green lawns, these sparkling waters; I shall never again breathe the balmy air of the spring! Madman that I was! I might have enjoyed for twenty-five years to come these blessings God has showered on all, blessings whose worth I knew not, and of which I am beginning to know the value. I have worn out my days, I have sacrificed my life for a vain chimera, for a sterile glory, which has not made me happy, and which died before me.... See! see there!' said he, pointing to some peasants plodding their weary way homeward; 'what would I not give to share their labors and their poverty!... But I have nothing to give, nothing to hope here below ... nothing ... not even misfortune!'... At this moment a sunbeam, a May sunbeam, lighted up his pale, haggard features; he took me by the arm with a sort of delirium, and said to me:

'See! oh see! how splendid is the sun!... Oh! and I must leave all this!... Oh! at the least let me enjoy it now.... Let me taste to the full this pure and beautiful day ... whose morrow I shall never see!'

He leaped into the park, and, before I could well comprehend what he was doing, he had disappeared down an alley. But, to speak truly, I could not have restrained him, even if I would.... I had not now the strength; I fell back on the sofa, confounded, stunned, bewildered by all I had seen and heard. At length I arose and walked about the room to convince myself that I was awake, that I was not dreaming, that....

At this moment the door of the boudoir opened, and a servant announced:

'My master, Monsieur le Duc de C----.'

A gentleman some sixty years old and of a very aristocratic appearance came forward, and, taking me by the hand, begged my pardon for having kept me so long waiting.

'I was not at the chateau,' said he. 'I have just come from the town, where I have been to consult with the physicians about the health of the Count de C----, my younger brother.'

'Is he dangerously ill?'

'No, monsieur, thank Heaven, he is not; but in his youth visions of glory and of ambition had excited his imagination, and a grave fever, from which he has just recovered, and which came near proving fatal, has left his head in a state of delirium and insanity, which persuades him that he has only one day longer to live. That's his madness.'

Everything was explained to me now!

'Come, my young friend, now let us talk over your business; tell me what I can do for your advancement. We will go together to Versailles about the end of this month. I will present you at court.'

'I know how kind you are to me, duke, and I have come here to thank you for it.'

'What! have you renounced going to court, and to the advantages you may reckon on having there?'

'Yes.'

'But recollect, that aided by me, you will make a rapid progress, and that with a little assiduity and patience ... say in ten years.'

'They would be ten years lost!'

'What!' exclaimed the duke with astonishment, 'is that purchasing too dearly glory, fortune, and fame?... Silence, my young friend, we will go together to Versailles.'

'No, duke, I return to Brittany, and I beg you to accept my thanks and those of my family for your kindness.'

'You are mad!' said the duke.

But thinking over what I had heard and seen, I said to myself: 'You are the same!'

The next morning I turned my face homeward. With what pleasure I saw again my fine chateau de la Roche Bernard, the old trees of my park, and the beautiful sun of Brittany! I found again my vassals, my sisters, my mother, and happiness, which has never quitted me since, for eight days afterward I married Henrietta.

THE CHAINED RIVER.

Home I love, I now must leave thee! Home I love, I now must go
Far away, although it grieve me, through the valley, through the snow.

By the night and through the valley, though the hail against us flies,
Till we reach the frozen river--on its bank the foeman lies.

Frozen river, mighty river!--wilt thou e'er again be free
From the fountain through the mountain, from the mountain to the sea.

Yes; though Freedom's glorious river for a time be frozen fast,
Still it cannot hold forever--Winter's reign will soon be past.

Still it runs, although 'tis frozen--on beneath the icy plain,
From the mountain to the ocean--free as thought, though held in chain.

From the mountain to the ocean, from the ocean to the sky,
Then in rainy drops returning--lo the ice-chains burst and fly!

And the ice makes great the river. Breast the spring-flood if you dare!
Rivers run though ice be o'er them--GOD and Freedom everywhere!

HOW THE WAR AFFECTS AMERICANS.

At the outbreak of the present terrible civil war, the condition of the American people was apparently enviable beyond that of any other nation. We say apparently, because the seeds of the rebellion had long been germinating; and, to a philosophic eye, the great change destined to follow the rebellion was inevitable, though it was then impossible for human foresight to predict the steps by which that change would come. Unconscious of impending calamity, we were proud of our position and character as American citizens. We were free from oppressive taxation, and enjoyed unbounded liberty of speech and action. Revelling in the fertility of a virgin continent, unexampled in modern times for the facilities of cultivation and the richness of its return to human labor, it was a national characteristic to felicitate ourselves upon the general prosperity, and boastingly to compare our growing resources and our unlimited and almost spontaneous abundance, with the hard-earned and dearly purchased productions of other and more exhausted countries. Our population, swollen by streams of immigration from the crowded continents of the old world, has spread over the boundless plains of this, with amazing rapidity; and the physical improvements which have followed our wonderful expansion have been truly magical in their results, as shown by the decennial exhibits of the census, or presented in still more palpable form to the eye of the thoughtful and observant traveller. Since the fall of the Roman empire, no single government has possessed so magnificent a domain in the temperate regions of the globe; and certainly, no other people so numerous, intelligent, and powerful, has ever in any age of the world enjoyed the same unrestricted freedom in the pursuit of happiness: accordingly, none has ever exhibited the same extraordinary activity in enterprise, or equal success in the creation and accumulation of wealth. It was unfortunately true that our mighty energies were mostly employed in the production of physical results; and although our youthful, vigorous, and unrestricted efforts made these results truly marvellous, yet the moral and intellectual basis on which we built was not sufficiently broad and stable to sustain the vast superstructure of our prosperity. The foundations having been seriously disturbed, it becomes indispensable to look to their permanent security, whatever may be the temporary inconvenience arising from the necessary destruction of portions of the old fabric.

When the war began, the South was supplying the world with cotton--a staple which in modern times has become intimately connected with the physical well-being of the whole civilized world. At the same time, the Northwest was furnishing to all nations immense quantities of grain and animal food, her teeming fields presenting a sure resource against the uncertainty of seasons in those regions of the earth in which capital must supply the fertility which is still inexhaustible here. While such were the occupations of the South and the West, the North and East were advancing in the path of mechanical and commercial improvement, with a rapidity beyond all former example. Agricultural and manufacturing inventions were springing up, full grown, out of the teeming brain of the Yankees, and were fast altering the face of the world. New combinations of natural forces were appearing as the agents of the human will, and were multiplying the physical capacity of man in a ratio that seemed to know no bounds. Commercial enterprise kept pace with these magnificent creations, and never failed, with liberal and enlightened spirit, to avail itself of all the resources which industry produced or genius invented. Our tonnage surpassed that of the greatest nations; the skill of our shipbuilders was unsurpassed; and the courage, industry, and perseverance of our seamen were renowned all over the world. On every ocean and in every important harbor of the earth were daily visible the emblems of our national power and the evidences of our individual prosperity. But in one fatal moment, from a cause which was inherent in our moral and political condition, all this prodigious activity of thought and work was brought to a complete stand. Such a shock was never before experienced, because such a social and material momentum had never before been acquired by any nation, and then been arrested by so gigantic a calamity. It was as if the earth had been suddenly stopped on its axis, and all things on its surface had felt the destructive impulse of the centrifugal force.

War itself is, unhappily, no uncommon condition of mankind. Wars on a gigantic scale have often heretofore raged among the great nations, or even between sundered parts of the same people. It is not the magnitude of the present contest which constitutes its greatest peculiarity. It is rather the magnitude and importance of the interests it involves and the relations it sunders, which give it the tremendous significance it bears in the eyes of the world. Never has any war found the contending parties engaged in works of such world-wide and absorbing interest, as those which occupied both sections of our people at the commencement of this rebellion. No two people, connected by so many ties, enjoying such unlimited freedom of intercourse, so mutually dependent each upon the other, and occupying a country so utterly incapable of natural divisions, have ever been known to struggle with each other in so sanguinary a conflict. All the circumstances of the case have been unexampled in history. Accordingly the influence of the contest upon affairs on this continent, and indeed upon human affairs generally, has been great and disastrous in proportion to the magnitude of the peaceful works which have been suspended by it, and to the closeness of those brotherly relations which have heretofore existed between the contending parties, now violently broken, and perhaps forever destroyed.

Almost the entire industry and commerce of the United States have been diverted into new and unaccustomed channels. The most active and enterprising people in the world, in the midst of their varied occupations, suddenly find all the accustomed channels of business blocked up and the stream of their productions flowing back upon them in a disastrous flood, and stagnating in their workshops and storehouses. They are compelled to find new issues for their enterprise and to make a complete change in their habits and works. It is not merely in the cessation of all intercourse between the two vast sections, North and South, that this mighty transformation has taken place; but an equal alteration has been suddenly effected in the character of the business and the nature of the occupations which the people have heretofore pursued in the loyal States of the Union. Great branches of business, employing millions of capital, have been utterly annihilated or indefinitely suspended. Vast amounts of capital have been sunk and utterly lost in the deep gulf of separation which temporarily divides the States; or if they are ever to be recovered, it will be only after the storm shall have completely subsided, when some portions of the wrecks, which have been scattered in the fearful commotion, may be thrown safely on to the shores of reunion. It was anticipated, especially by the rebels themselves, that these incalculable losses, these tremendous shocks and sudden changes, would utterly overwhelm the North with ruin and tear her to pieces with faction and disorder. But this anticipation of accumulated disasters, in which the wish was father to the thought, has not been realized to any appreciable extent. The pecuniary losses have been in a great measure compensated by the immense demands of the war; and when faction has attempted to raise its head, it has been compelled to retire before the patriotic rebuke of the people. And although the vast expenditures of the war give present relief; by drawing largely on the resources of the future, yet the strength we acquire is none the less real or less effectual in overthrowing the rebellion.

But this sudden and grand emergency, with all its appalling concomitants of lives sacrificed, property destroyed, commercial disaster, and social derangement, has given a rare opportunity for the testing of our national character, and of our ability to meet and overcome the most tremendous difficulties and dangers. Perhaps the versatility of American genius and its ready adaptation to the new circumstances, are even more wonderful than any other exhibition made by our people in this great national crisis. There has never been any good reason to doubt the capacity of any portion of American citizens for warlike occupations, nor their possession of the moral qualities necessary to make them good soldiers. The long period of peace which has blessed our country, with the industrial, educational, and moral improvement produced by it, has rendered war justly distasteful to the Free States of the Union. They were slow to recognize the necessity for it; and nothing but the most solemn convictions of duty would have aroused them to the stern and unanimous determination with which they have entered on the present struggle. Swift would have been our degeneration, if the spirit of our fathers had already died out among us. But our history of less than a century since the Revolutionary war has fully maintained the self-reliant character of Americans and demonstrated their military abilities; and if the commercial and manufacturing populations of particular sections were supposed to have become somewhat enervated by long exemption from the labors and perils of war, it was certain that our large agricultural regions and especially our frontier settlements were peopled with men inured to toil and familiar with danger, constituting the best material for armies to be found in any country. Nor was it in fact true that any considerable portion of our people, even those drawn from the stores and workshops of the cities, had become so far deteriorated in vigor of body, or demoralized in spirit, as to be unfit for military service. The Southern leaders looked with scorn upon our volunteer army only until they encountered it in battle. They were then compelled to alter their preconceived opinions of the Yankee character, and to change their contempt, real or pretended, into respect, if not admiration. Even when superior numbers or better strategy enabled them to beat us, they have seldom failed to bear honorable testimony to the unflinching courage and endurance of our troops. Nor do we need the admissions of the enemy to establish this character for us; our own triumphs, on many glorious fields, are the best evidences of our ability in war, and of themselves sufficiently attest the valor and energy of our noble volunteers. In this aspect of the matter, we must not forget the peculiar character and constitution of our vast army. It is indeed worthy to be called the wonder of the world. It is virtually a voluntary association of the people for the purpose of putting down a gigantic rebellion and saving their own government from destruction. This is a social phenomenon never before known in history on a scale approaching the magnitude of our combinations--a phenomenon which could only take place in a popular government, where the unrestricted freedom of individual action promotes the virtues of personal independence, self-respect, and manly courage. Even the Southern people, fighting on their own soil, in a war which, though actually commenced by them, they now affect to consider wholly defensive--even they, with all their boasted unanimity, and with the fierce passions engendered by slavery, have been compelled to maintain their armies by a conscription of the most unexampled severity; while the loyal States, fighting solely for union and nationality--interests of the most general nature, and offering little of mere personal inducement--have so far escaped that necessity, and are now just preparing to resort to it. After all, it must be acknowledged by every just and generous mind, whether that of friend or foe, that there is a substratum of noble sentiment and manly impulses at the foundation of the Yankee character. The vast movements of the Northern people plainly show it. Their contributions for the support of soldiers' families and for the relief of the wounded and disabled, are upon a gigantic scale. They raise immense sums for the payment of bounties to volunteers, and thus, in every way, the burdens of the war are voluntarily assumed by the people, and to some extent distributed among them, so that every one may participate in the patriotic work. Nor is this large-hearted liberality confined solely to our own country. The sufferers in other lands, who have felt the disastrous effects of our great civil war, have not been forgotten. In the midst of a life-and-death struggle among ourselves, we have found time and means to assist in relieving their wants--an exhibition of liberality peculiar, and truly American in character.