Arthur Thurman appeared on the scene in the spring of the year succeeding that of the Wallings' return, and to the utter consternation of his friends he yielded at once to the daughter's marks of favor, and conducted himself as her suitor. I knew him, probably, better than any one else in the world, and I became the recipient of his confidences. He was a man of wealth and position, and he possessed an unusually active and forcible mind. He was thirty-six years of age, handsome, in capital physical health, and he possessed an ambition that kept him alert and au courant with all that was moving in the world.

This ambition was to take part in politics, a sea of impurity that he was anxious to assist in clarifying, and I have no doubt that it was upon this matter that he and the farseeing Marion Walling struck their first sympathies.

I recall now that I have seen the two, arm-in-arm, walk up and down in the shrubbery-paths, talking of economic and diplomatic subjects for hours, her finely-cut and intelligent face actually glowing with enthu siasm and understanding, and the attitude of her slender form, clad in its splendid dress, betraying the most intense vitality.

Thurman, without question, knew of her arts abroad; and I, believing that he must have long since given them due weight in the consideration of his own case, did not presume to speak of them. I perceived, I thought, that they both had taken the highest ground, and that nothing but the conviction that they were fitted for each other in every sense had brought about the present state of affairs.

And that they were fitted for each other, and singularly so, did not admit of doubt. Had it been possible to obliterate the scores upon Miss Walling's record, marriage between the two would have been hailed with delight by society everywhere.

The significance of their relations grew stronger and stronger as the summer passed, and the formal announcement of their betrothal was daily expected. That there were some anxious ones among the friends I am not able to deny, and for my own part I confess that I felt great uneasiness.

September came, and Thurman was at "Labill." I received letters from him from time to time, mainly upon matters of business, yet he invested even the driest topics with a lightness and gayety that I, of course, knew well enough how to interpret.

On the evening of the 18th of the month I sat in my parlor in my bachelor quarters in the city, amusing myself with a terrier, when Thurman was announced. He followed the servant closely with a heavy, quick, and staggering step, and, pausing on my threshold, ixed upon me a pair of the wildest eyes that it has ever been my lot to see. He was as white as chalk, and his dress, disordered by a long carriage- ride, hung loosely about his

person.

I knew at a glance what had happened, and my heart sank like lead. I leaped up, and seizing his hand led him to a seat. He looked at me with painful inquiry in his

eyes.

"I think I understand," said I. He nodded quickly in response, and replied in a loud voice:

"Thank God! You spare me the humiliation of putting it in words!"

He had been rejected, without reason or qualification. The woman had refused him as she would have denied a favor to an impertinent servant. He had implored neither grace nor explanation, but had quitted the place within the hour, and had driven hither at the utmost speed.

"What shall I do?" demanded he, in the tone of one drowning in the ocean. 66 Talk," said I.

He obeyed, and may I be forgiven for bringing down upon the head of a human being the rage and bitterness that Thurman poured out upon Marion Walling! He went through with it as if he were summing up against a prisoner at the bar, and he ransacked the whole arsenal of invective to find words to suit his interpretation of her act.

This

His language appalled me. I did not attempt to stop it; but, closing all the doors and windows, in order that he might not be heard by other ears than mine, I permitted the mad stream to flow on to its end. end did not come until five o'clock the next morning. Thurman was a widely-read, widely-traveled, and widely-cultivated man, and every emotion that he felt had a thousand points of contact with his mind. This sudden and cruel unseating of his desires, desires based upon all that was pure and manly, awoke a multitude of resentments that I could not comprehend, but which filled me with awe as I witnessed their manifestation.

He remained, half secreted, in my chamber for three days. At the end of that time he had begun to analyze his disappointment, and to resolve it into its ingredients. He made me one short speech that contained this passage:

"I have searched the world for ten years to find a woman that possessed the talents that God has given to Marion Walling. When I met her there came that divine flash of intelligence that told me that my search was at an end.

"The warmth of our intercourse had a spontaneity that filled me with assurance that all was well. I have never had my confidence disturbed, I have never felt the slightest trace of doubt, I have never held any attitude toward her than that of suitor, for our affection sprung into life at full bloom; and that I should ever hold myself toward her as a friend never occurred to me. What, then, condemned me to so much pain? Perhaps her vanity required just one more victim. Ah, how bitter it is to find that one has fallen by such a sting as that!"

On the 22d I was summoned to Lahill. I said nothing to Thurman, but went quickly. I left him writing a political treatise, but with the pallid face and wasted form of a monk who had suffered a lengthened fast. His eyes were large and excessively bright, and his hand trembled like a leaf.

At Lahill I was ushered at once into the office-parlor. The father and daughter were both there. I conducted myself with circumspection, for I perceived that both felt as

sured that I had a knowledge of Thurman's story.

It appeared that it had been deemed necessary for me to go to the western part of Ohio to examine personally the condition of the grape-plantations there, in which the Wallings possessed large interest. The season had promised but poorly, and the mortgagees were desirous of gaining exact information. This was natural, no doubt, but why was I sent on this particular year? I looked, perhaps incautiously, at Marion. She was standing erect by a small table a few yards off, holding between her hands an ebony whist-counter, which, when turned, gave forth a rattle. Her light hair was brushed high from her white forehead, her head was raised, and her dress, which was of a delicate muslin, was gathered about her figure in such a way that she was made to seem taller than she was. Her keen face was turned toward me, and her clear-blue eyes were fastened steadfastly upon my face. There is a manner of delivering a look that almost pries open the lips, and this look was just such a one. I made up my mind that it was at her suggestion that I was sent to foreign parts.

Mr. Walling gave me numberless instructions. The whist-counter began to rattle. Marion broke in upon her father, saying:

"Is it not very simple? If the grapes will not ripen, the farmers must fail. If we give Mr. Weymouth discretion, we cannot give him advice."

The venerable gentleman bowed his white head in respect to this plain truth, and the other glanced at me again, as if to say, "Now speak of what I would have you."

I declined to do so. I pursued matters of pure business, and kept Thurman in the background. The whist-counter began its whirring a third time. I arose to go.

"And do you come from town, and yet fail to bring us the news, sir?" said the daughter, flushing with anger, yet smiling most sweetly.

"What news would please you best, Miss Marion ? "

"Oh, the news that one's ears burn for. What do the men say about our dinner to the literati?"

She tried three times to lead me thus. I refused to follow, and I thought at last that she would catch me by the arm as I turned away. Her color came and went like a girl's, and two or three times she tripped in her speech. I would have wagered all I owned that Marion Walling had never made two such exhibitions of her anxiety in all her life.

I got into the carriage and rode away alone. The path to the gate was somewhat devious, and the day was stormy-two reasons why the driver proceeded slowly. Just as we reached the last turn of the drive, I heard the clatter of the wicket that opened from the wood-path. The carriage stopped. I looked out and beheld Marion. She was covered with a cloak, and she panted heavily for breath. She was drenched with water, and her face was pale. She must have run like a deer to have caught us. She came forward two or three uncertain steps, and then missed her footing.

She stretched out her arm to save herself, and she caught the rim of the muddied wheel with her beautiful hand. She drew it back soiled to the wrist. Her hair had fallen over her face, and the shock had made her speechless.

In an instant she started as if with an electric shock. The indignity of her position brought back her dignity. She drew back like lightning, and cried to the driver to go on. She bent upon me a swift look of rage and hauteur, and raised her head and figure to their full height. I left her standing thus in the rain.

Should I tell Thurman of this? I own that I debated long, and that I was disposed to keep the matter to myself. My sense of justice, however, got the better of my will, and I presumed that I had been but the accidental discoverer of the something that belonged to him.

Therefore, upon my return to my chambers, I detailed every jot and tittle of the talk and its contingencies. I laid great stress upon the last scene-the scene at the gate.

Thurman, who was standing, raised his hand in a truly grand fashion, and cried in a deep voice-a voice that thrills me to this day

"Too late!"

Then he walked to his table like a paralytic, and, sitting down, pretended to write, but never was there a sadder pretense. In a moment, he was bent over the table convulsed with emotion.

On the next day I proposed that he should travel with me to Ohio.

"Yes," he replied, "I will go."
Those were his words, but their sense

was

"I will determinedly cut myself loose from this infernal witchery: God guide my hand!"

I did not delay an hour. My task was plain.

Our destination was one of the islands in the famous group that lie at the western end of Lake Erie, a few miles north of Sandusky City. I was obliged to spend three days among the shore plantations before crossing to these islands, and I persuaded Thurman to go on before me and arrange for quarters at the hotel at Middle Bass. Having finished my business, I followed in due time. I discovered, by-the-way, that the Concord grape, which is the staple crop of these farms, was growing unevenly; and that the Catawbas, in consequence of the lack of rains, had not filled out, and would not, in all likelihood, bring good prices from the wine-men. The farmers (most of them were Germans) were despondent, and, while making all allowances for the business tenet which demanded that they look upon the dark side of all things, I could not but perceive that their ways were to be hard for that season at least.

The Wallings had hitherto been lenient with their debtors, but, having become impatient of slow and scant returns, they had determined, of late, to pursue a more rigid policy. I was the unhappy medium by which this policy was carried out, but I contrived to do my duty and to speak my harsh words with sufficient grace to ward off all ill-feeling.

At the hour of my arrival at Middle Bass, a flat, low-lying island, Thurman was out walking. I gained a hint of the direction he had taken, and I followed him. I came, after half an hour, to the gate-way of the Reinhart farm, and, as it was one of those in which my principals had an interest, it occurred to me to stop for a moment to find out how matters were going there. I walked down a long lane between two wide fields of ripening fruit, thinking far more, I admit, of the beauty of the day and the delicious warmth of the air than I did of profit and loss. All was as quiet and sunny as the heart could wish, and a sweet fragrance filled the air almost to repletion. At the distance of a quarter of a mile lay the sparkling waters of the placid lake, and at the edge of the land there stood a thin line of tall old oaks, the giant branches of which, half naked and half dressed in a gloomy verdure, reached upward toward the sky like human arms. Reinhart's house was old, and it was painted red. It was surrounded by low willows, and its yard and its high-pitched roof were in shade.

As I turned out of the grape-field I saw, sitting side by side, upon a bench beneath the rugged bole of one of these trees, Thurman and a sweet-faced girl of eighteen. She was bareheaded, and her golden hair was plaited and bound up in a tight knot behind. Her dress was of a dark-brown stuff, and from beneath her skirts there projected two pretty feet, crossed and composed. She was knitting a blue sock, and she was listening at the same time, with her head cast down, and inclined slightly upon one side, to what my friend was saying, and he was saying it most earnestly, though by no means secretly.

I recognized at once the daughter of Reinhart, for I had seen her there years before, and she was then a most lovable child. She was now a woman, and I have never seen a more innocent face than that which she raised when I first made my presence known.

Thurman showed no signs of discomfiture, but he welcomed me warmly. Seibelthat was the girl's name-led us about the place, showing us all the sights. "These are the old-country wooden panniers that we gather grapes in. These are the pipes that the wine runs into. This is the wine-pressah, I do so long to see it run again! I press the grapes myself sometimes. Did you ever hear the stream of red wine flow into the empty pipes? it makes such a little roar !" and she laughed and showed her white teeth.

I did not see Reinhart. He was absentin Toledo, I think.

When we were about to go, Thurman put out his hand. Seibel put hers into it fairly, and looked him in the face-not with that abominable sham frankness that knows its own name, but with natural thoughtlessness.

The season was most charming, and I did not hesitate to make up my mind to spend a month on the island. The greater number of the summer visitors had long since departed, and the long walks and the shady groves were almost entirely deserted. Now and then, in a long walk, one caught a glimpse of a city dress, or heard the ring of a city

-

"Listen: I admit that there is ruin somewhere. I observe myself from without myself, and I see that I am ill, that I am purposeless, that I am full of sorrow and regret. I go through a slight calculation, and I perceive that I must recover myself in order to be of any further use in the world. You admit that. Very well. Then, instead of taking usual measures- - by usual measures I mean the slow processes of time and travelI take a heroic measure. I force upon my attention an object whose nature is such that my distracted spirit and outraged sensibilities must soom assimilate with it. I find in Seibel a creature of absolute purity, elevated moral sense, ardent disposition, and unquestioning trust. I am as certain that my heart will entertain her at some time in the future as I am that we now talk together. I do not say that the memory of my real position does not agitate me at times even before her face, but I am resolved to hold her to my breast until her nature does its healing, purifying work, and then I shall hold her forever."

This was his idea, and faithfully did be labor to carry it into execution. It touched me to the quick to see him go out pale and languid fresh from some new realization of his pain, and seek in the grape-fields this fairfaced, simple-hearted child, and walk beside her hour after hour, bending his intelligence with an iron will upon the things that gave her interest and gratification. Reinhart and his wife took my word for it that they need have no fear, and so Thurman found a welcome from both at their house. He dined with them often, ate of their rough dishes, and looked pleased at their simple surroundings. On these occasions Seibel was gay and unaffected, and she would sit beside him happy at his contentment.

Meanwhile, the grapes ripened poorly, and the buyers who were abroad shook their heads. I sent intelligence to the Wallings through the office, and proposed to wait until the gathering-season came, for it would

then be easier to judge of the financial prospects of the farmers.

From a friend who wrote, I learned that the news of Thurman's rejection by Miss Walling had produced a fierce indignation against her among the people who knew the parties, and that she had gone into a semiretirement. It also appeared that it was not generally known where Thurman had flown to an ignorance that I had no wish to dissipate.

Week after week in October went by, and still the song of love was sung without let or hinderance. I saw the two sitting beside the shore in the long, sweet afternoons, idly listening to the waves, or devoutly listening to each other. Thurman was succeeding. I noted signs of returning strength in his manner, and an increased vigor in his method of talking. These proofs were slight, to be sure, but they were positive as far as they went.

On the 23d of October, at a late hour in the afternoon, I received a note by messenger who came from a club-hotel at the lower part of the island.

It invited me to call at once on a matter of pressing importance, and it was signed by Marion Walling.

"Possibly he has told you that it is.-Yes? -Then can you repeat what he said?"

I did so. I did not convey any of my own feeling, but I think that I gave Thurman's in full. It was a hard task, for I could see the listener shudder and droop under the successive assurances that all was lost to her.

After I had finished there was a long silence. I looked downward, not caring to witness the perturbation of my companion. After a minute I was aroused by a movement on her part. I looked up.. A great change had come over her. Her cheeks were flushed with color, her eyes had lost their mournfulness and were now bright and piercing. She stood erect, and faced me with an air of aggression.

"Knowing your aptitude for business, I have no doubt that, in spite of the demands that friendship has made upon your time and | attention, you have observed the condition of the Reinhart farm?

I indicated that I had.

"It is clear to you, I suppose, then, that its tenant will again fail to meet his engagements with us?"

"I have not seen enough yet to warrant such a decision."

"Ah-then you are troubled with blind

Miss Walling received me in a private parlor, one of those poor rooms scantily furnished with the cheap material of wateringplace grandeur.

I was astonished, nay, shocked at the change that had taken place in Miss Walling's appearance. She had become wasted in face and person, and her features, always serious in expression, were now most sad. Her large, dark eyes turned upon me with a look of appeal that I had never beheld before, and her voice, at this somewhat important moment, almost escaped her mastery. She was alone, and she received me without formality.

"You see that I am here," she said, with a faint smile. I bowed. "We have been here, father and I, for three days."

I did not conceal my surprise. She hesitated a moment, and then said, with painful deliberation- -a deliberation which enabled her to compose herself before the utterance of each word:

"Mr. Weymouth, you know why I am here. I feel that I could not deceive you even if I would, for it has been your ill-fortune to discover that I am weak-or rather, perhaps, that I am strong-for I have come at last to count it a strength to be able to love. Tell me, is what I have seen true?"

that nothing has escaped me. I request you to take steps for the foreclosure of its mortgage."

The motive of this was only too plain. A sudden revolution in her temper had made it possible for her to conceive this fierce but feeble plan to gain her object. I, of course, could not be instrumental in the transaction of business that arose from such sources, and I said so in as many words.

She gave me an angry reply.

This enabled me to address to her a speech which treated, I think, of every phase of her conduct in the matter with Thurman, and every sentiment that had been evolved from the outrage. I did not spare her. The indignation that I felt found ready words, and, I think, if I recall these words with any degree of accuracy, they must have told keenly upon her.

Weymouth," cried he, suddenly, "give me your word that you have not interfered against me over there." He nodded in the direction of Seibel's house.

"I give you my word that I have not." "Good! I knew that. May God bless and keep you, my dear, good friend!"

In an instant he was gone. He descended the stairs, crossed the hall, crossed the echoing piazza, and then his footsteps were lost upon the lawn.

I cannot say what stupidity kept me wondering, as I did, for fifteen minutes about the reason and force of both his act and words. I sat like a mummy, and with my wits as dead as if I were asleep. I had not made up my mind what to do, and it was not until the clock struck the hour of five that I divested myself of the mist that involved me.

Then I leaped to my feet with the question in my mouth, "What did he take from his trunk?" I ran into his room, and found the box locked and the key gone.

I had once seen a hall-porter spring a lock with a well-placed, vigorous kick. I tried this kick. It succeeded; the lid flew up, and I seized it. I looked for Thurman's pistol-case. As I now fully expected, one of the glittering weapons was gone.

I

Now, then, for Reinhart's house! caught up my hat, and was out-of-doors in an instant. It was not a time for roads and corners, and I took a straight line over fences, through yards, and across vineyards, and never halted for an instant. And well I might not. I had upon my shoulders the blame for this crisis. I ran like a fox.

I came up to the old red house with its clumped wood by a side-path that, being

caught glimpses, while I was yet thirty yards away, of figures moving in the little courtyard.

I uttered the last words in the colloquy. I left Miss Walling trembling between rage and remorse, unable to gainsay me, yet beholding, in far higher colors than I had painted it, the picture of the error she had made. I left the room and the house, and returned to the hotel, where I cast myself down to puzzle out the course that it was best for me to pursue.

It was then three o'clock in the afternoon. The day was cloudless and warm, and I vaguely remembered that I had seen the grape-pickers in the teeming fields, and that the day was like a day of heaven.

At five o'clock I heard Thurman's steps in the corridor. They were hurried, and I had hardly time to raise myself to my feet before he came into the room.

He terrified me a second time by his wild

I was about to burst in upon them, when their positions and behavior deterred me.

There were present Thurman, Seibel, and Reinhart. Thurman, almost facing the covert where I was, was standing beside the bole of one of the willows. The girl was locked close in his arms, with her head turned sideways and upward upon his breast. Her eyes were closed, but between their lids there trickled a few tears-not a hot current that denoted a turbulent passion, but those scant drops that utter woe sometimes wrings from one whom it has paralyzed.

The father, who had instinctively bared his head, grasped the skirt of his daughter's dress with his gnarled hand, and, with the rim of his hat half covering his trembling lips, sought to draw her away.

For one splendid instant they stood thus. All was absolutely silent. Even the rustle of the leaves was hushed, and the failing

a poet, and fills the mind of him who contemplates it with ineffable sadness.

When, in 1844, signs of an insurrection among the colored population of Cuba began to appear, the captain-general resolved to meet them by military action. Hordes of brutish troopers were let loose in the island; and one after another of the suspected leaders was made a victim of cruelty. In the campaign, "numbers of free persons of color and of slaves died under the lash "-another account says three thousand-"many others were summarily shot, and such infamous excesses were committed by the fiscals as beggar belief."

The victims of this dreadful persecution were stripped of their property, and the crown officers-with a few honorable exceptions-soon converted their system of terror into a grand financial expedient. White creoles and foreigners were not exempted from the pestilence of power, and the planters were compelled to ransom their slaves at great cost from a tribunal which arrested without accusation and condemned without inquiry.

It is impossible to state whether Placido was in any way concerned in the conspiracy or not. For a long time previous, however, he had won a fair reputation as a poet, and was highly respected by his class. This fact alone was enough to convict him in the eyes of the government, and certain it is that be was of the number of those who were first arrested, and, being adjudged guilty, was sentenced to be shot.

While sinking beneath the weight of his prison-chains, and awaiting the preparations for his departure from this world, Placido composed one of the finest of his poems. We give a version of it entire, forewarning the reader that it falls far beneath the beauty and pathos of the original. The poem is entitled "Prayer to God."

"O God of love unbounded! Lord supreme!
In overwhelming grief to thee I fly;
Rending this veil of hateful calumny,
Ob, let thine arm of might my fame redeem!

Wipe thou this foul disgrace from off my brow,
With which the world hath sought to stamp it

now.

"Thon King of kings, my fathers' God and mine,
Thou art my sure and strong defense;
The polar snows, and tropic fires intense,
The shaded sea, the air, the light, are thine;

The life of leaves, the waters' changeful tide,
All things are thine, and by thy will abide.
"Thou art all power; all life from thee goes forth,
And fails to flow obedient to thy breath;
Without thee all is naught; in endless death
All Nature sinks, forlorn and nothing worth.
Yet even the void obeys thee, and from
naught,

By thy dread word, the living man was wrought.

"Merciful God! how should I thee deceive? Let thy eternal wisdom search my soul ! Bowed down to earth by falsehood's base control,

Her stainless wings not now the air may cleave. Send forth thine hosts of truth, and set her free !

Stay thou, O Lord, the oppressor's victory! "Forbid it, Lord, by that most free outpouring

Of thine own precious blood for every brother
Of our lost race, and by thy holy Mother,
So full of grief, so loving, so adoring,

Who, clothed in sorrow, followed thee afar,
Weeping thy death like a declining star.

"But if this lot thy love ordains to me

To yield to foes most cruel and unjust, To die, and leave my poor and senseless dust The scoff and sport of their weak enmitySpeak thou! and then thy purposes fulfill; Lord of my life, work thou thy perfect will.” Sad letters Placido wrote to his wife and mother before the last dread hour had come. On the 28th of June nineteen victims, along with the poet, were led into the Plaza of Matanzas. Like a chieftain leading on his warriors, like an Indian chanting his deathsong, Placido passed to his end, singing his own noble prayer. Writes the historian of the scene: He was to suffer first, stepped into the square, knelt with unbandaged eyes, and gave the signal to the soldiers. When the smoke rolled away, it was seen that he had only been wounded, and had fallen in agony to the ground. A murmur of pity and horror ran through the crowd; but Placido, slowly rising to his knees, drew up his form proudly, and cried, in a broken voice: 'Farewell, world! ever pitiless to me! Fire here!' raising his hand to his temples."

The best criticism of Placido's poetic genius lies in the "Prayer to God." He who could so feel and speak requires no vainworded eulogy. "I know no Cuban poet," says Sálas de Queroga, "Heredia included, who approaches him in genius, in polish, and in dignity."

And yet this man Placido was only a mulatto, who might have stood behind a lady at table, and thought himself only too fortunate to listen to the twaddle of pretty sentimentalism! Is it not truly wonderful to hear a poet, esteemed humble by the society in which he lives, addressing himself to the Queen-Regent of Spain in language like this? "Some one there is who, with his golden lyre, Worthier thy sovereign ear, shall chant To the vibrations of its jeweled strings More grateful songs, perchance, but not more free!"

Other poets belong to Cuba than those whose names we have already written. It cannot be said, however, that as works of art the poems which have achieved the most unbounded popularity in the island deserve high commendation. The student of Spanish literature need not be told of the superabundance of bad models that have sprung up since the days of Cervantes and Calderon. But it may be said that the study of the French romanticists has somewhat relieved the Cuban poets from Spanish thralldom. New secrets of composition have been disclosed by Victor Hugo and Lamartine (was there ever a Cuban that would not fall worshiping at the feet of the latter?), while materialism in morals and philosophy has been taught by Volney and De Tracy. Yet the prevailing temper of the tropics is as hostile to the highest forms of poetry as to incessant labor.

Everywhere the voice, equally with the mind, grows languid in summer; and more especially is this true in a land where summer is almost eternal. "Out of their few warm days," says Landor, "the English, if the produce is not wine and oil, gather song and garner sensibility. Out of their unchanging heats and splendors, the sons of the tropics gather tears and garner sentimentalism."

If we have refrained from presenting to the reader the names of all the Cuban poets, those rich, sonorous Spanish names, which one cannot utter without an unconscious inflation of the voice and an involuntary wave of the hand, perhaps the titles of some of their works will convey a sufficient idea to the judicious reader of the school to which they should be referred: "Passion-flowers," "Heart-beats," ," "Leaves of my Soul," "Soulechoes,"

," "Whirlwinds of the Tropics," such are the phrases which most delight. Scarcely, if ever, do we find in these poems the lack of a true respect for what is truest in womanhood; and Milanes only bespeaks the faith of his fellows when he says:

"Still in woman's heart the true Eden lingers, Bearing fruit of Loving, Feeling, and Belief."

As yet but little may be said of the prose literature of Cuba. One reason for this may be found in the exclamation of Jacques de Molay to his judges. "How can we speak," said he, "who have no freedom to will; for, with the loss of freedom to will, man loses every thing-honor, courage, eloquence!"

There are bookstores in Havana in which there are worthy and readable volumes. But it would be difficult to point out any thing in these books which should indicate that the University of Havana has borne any more fruit than the Oxford of the Arabs-El Azhar. Cuban newspapers are exceedingly trashy; there are no magazines of any value; and whatever is published in them is certain to lack vigor and earnestness, because wholly under the surveillance of the Spaniards. The days when the Inquisitors sought out heretics to their death were not more terrible than some of the days of Spanish oppression in Cuba.

If a lady wishes to read a novel, she may either take down from the shelf a tale of one of the ancient romancers, or content herself with a translation of some recent French novel. As in the Parisian press, one often beholds a feuilleton occupying a large space in an Havana newspaper. Publishers can

better afford to make use of this means of pleasure than to pay large sums for more important services. The leading articles are often able; but the body of the paper is filled with very poor miscellaneous matte".

Such a personage as a "reporter" is almost unknown in Cuba. Very nearly all of the current news is picked up only by hearsay, and, being passed from ear to ear among the merchants who congregate on the crowded quay, gains in size and interest by the time that it reaches the journal office. In Havana, especially, it is possible for a few lines to attain the length of a column in the course of GEORGE L. AUSTIN. a couple of hours.