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being neglected by himself. Many of us know Frankfurt pretty well, and can picture to ourselves exactly the kind of suburban spot which might have suggested this thought to the great pessimist :

"How æsthetic is Nature! Every corner of the world, no matter how insignificant, adorns itself in the tastefullest manner when left alone, proclaiming by natural grace and harmonious grouping of leaves, flowers and garlands that Nature, and not the great egotist man, has here had her way. Neglected spots straightway become beautiful."

And then he goes on to compare the English and French garden, with a compliment to the former,, which unfortunately it has ceased to deserve. The straggling, old-fashioned English garden Schopenhauer admired so much is now a rarity-the formal parterres, geometrical flower beds, and close-cropped alley's he equally detested, having superseded. the easy natural graces of former days. He adored animals no less than nature, and amid the intricate problems of his great work and the weighty questions therein evolved concerning the nature and destiny of human will and intellect, he makes occasion to put in a plea for the dumb things so dear to him. His pet dog, Atma, meaning, in Sanscrit, the Soul of the Universe, was the constant companion of his walks, and when he died, his master was inconsolable. The cynic, the misanthrope, the woman-hater was all tenderness here.

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penhauer found his kindred, may aptly close this little paper :

"What most directly and above every thing else makes us happy, is cheerfulness of mind, for this excellent gift is its own reward. He who is naturally joyous, has every reason to be so, for the simple reason that he is as he is. Nothing can compensate like cheerfulness for the lack of other possessions, whilst in itself it makes up for all others. A man may be young, well- favored, rich, honored, happy, but if we would ascertain whether or no he be happy, we must first put the question-is he cheerful? If he is cheerful, then it matters not whether he be young or old, straight or crooked, rich or poor: he is happy. Let us throw open wide the doors to Cheerfulness whenever she makes her appearance, for it can never be unpropitious: instead of which, we too often bar her way, asking ourselves-Have we indeed, or have we not, good reasons for being content? Cheerfulness is the current

coin of happiness, and not like other possession, merely its letter of credit."

We will close this paper with a few quotations culled here and there from the four volumes before us. It is alternately the sage, the artist, the satirist who is speaking to us.

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Poverty is the scourge of the people, ennui of the better ranks. The boredom of Sabba

tarianism is to the middle classes what weekday penury is to the needy.

Thinkers, and especially men of true genius without any exception, find noise insupportable. This is no question of habit. The truly stoical indifference of ordinary minds to noise is extraordinary: it creates no disturbance in ing or writing, whereas, on the contrary, the their thoughts, either when occupied in readintellectually endowed are thereby rendered incapable of doing any thing. I have ever been of opinion that the amount of noise a man can

support with equanimity is in inverse propor-
tion to his mental powers, and may be taken
therefore as a measure of intellect generally.
If I hear a dog barking for hours on the thres-
hold of a house, I know well enough what
kind of brains I may expect from its inhabi-
tants. He who habitually slams the door in-
stead of closing it, is not only an ill-bred, but
a coarse-grained, feebly-endowed creature.
"It is truly incredible how negative and insig-
nificant, seen from without, and how dull and

Was Schopenhauer happy or not? Who can answer that question for another? He was alone in the world, having never made for himself a home or domestic ties; he hated society-except, as we have seen, that infinitesimal portion of it suited to his intellectual aspirations, his favorite recreations being long country walks and the drama. It also amused him to dine at a table d'hôte, which he did constantly in the latter part meaningless, regarded from within, is the life of his lifetime. But that he understood what inner happiness was we have seen, and the secret of it he had discovered also. If joy of the intenser kind is born of thought and spiritual or intellectual beauty, no less true it is, that everyday enjoyment depends on cheerfulness, and with the following golden maxims, suited alike for the Normal Mensch and the Genialer, commonplace humanity and the choicer intellects among whom Scho

of by far the greater bulk of human beings!

"The life of every individual, when regarded in detail, wears a comic, when regarded as a whole, a tragic aspect. For the misadventures of the hour, the toiling and moiling of the day, the fretting of the week, are turned by freak of destiny into comedy. But the never-fulfilled desires, the vain strivings, the hopes so pitilessly shattered, the unspeakable blunders of life as a whole, with its final suffering and death, ever make up a tragedy.

'Mere clever men always appear exactly at the right time: they are called forth by the

spirit of their age, to fulfil its needs, being capable of nothing else. They influence the progressive culture of their fellows and demands of special enlightenment; thereby their praise and its reward. Genius flashes like a comet amid the orbits of the age, its erratic course being a mystery to the steadfastly moving planets around.

Genius produces no works of practical value. Music is composed, poetry conceived, pictures painted-but work of genius is never a thing to use. Uselessness indeed is its title of honor. All other human achievements contribute towards the support or alleviation of our existence; works of genius alone exist for their own sake, or may be considered as the very flower and bloom of destiny. This is why the enjoyment of art so uplifts our hearts. the natural world also we rarely see beauty allied to usefulness. Lofty trees of magnificent aspect bear no fruit, productive trees for the most part being ugly little cripples. So, also, the most beautiful buildings are not useful. A temple is never a dwelling-place. A man of rare mental endowments, compelled by circumstances to follow a humdrum career

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fitted for the most commonplace, is like a costly vase, covered with exquisite designs, used as a cooking utensil. To compare useful people with geniuses is to compare building stones with diamonds.

"Could we prevent all villains from becoming fathers of families, shut up the dunderheads in monasteries, permit a harem to the nobly-gifted, and provide every girl of spirit and intellect with a husband worthy of her, we might look for an age surpassing that of Pericles.

Virtue, no more than genius, is to be taught. We might just as well expect our systems of morals and ethics generally to produce virtuous, noble-minded, and saintly individuals, as æsthetics to create poets, sculptors, and musicians."

[The above article gives a highly favorable view of the keen-witted, well-to-do cynic, who so carefully skimmed the daily cream of his readings and meditations during many years, producing many good remarks, but establishing no claim, in our humble opinion, to the character of a great teacher.-ED.]

-Fraser's Magazine.

MADEMOISELLE DE MERSAC.

CHAPTER XIII.

LOVE V. PRUDENCE.

LÉON'S non-appearance at breakfast did not give rise to any anxiety at the Campagne de Mersac. In that easygoing household no one was expected to give an account of him or herself before the dinner-hour; and, as for its master, if, as often happened, business or pleasure took him into the country for a day or two at a time, it was only by chance that he gave notice of his intended absence. Jeanne, therefore, when she heard from Fanchette that M. le Marquis had not returned on the previous evening, felt no misgivings as to her brother's safety, but only some slight disappointment; for the Duchess, who had aged a good deal of late, seldom showed herself now before three o'clock, and eating alone is dull work at the best of times. Jeanne, who was not of an age or temperament to care about food for its own sake, soon disposed of her solitary repast. She took a book into the dining-room with her, hastily swallowed, while she read, such amount of sustenance as seemed necessary to support life, and then stepped out on to the veranda.

It was a cloudless summer morning;

the town below was baking and sweltering in the heat, but here, on the breezy hill top, little puffs of cool wind rose and fell, bending the heads of the roses and the stiff white lilies, driving the spray of the fountain across the gravel walks, and rousing a soft sleepy whispering among the pine branches. The winter and spring were at an end; the rains were done with now till October at earliest, and soon the long, weary, hot season would set in, and the grass would grow browner day by day, and the leaves would wither on the trees, and the spikes of the aloes blacken and fall, and there would be no more roses, and every babbling stream would be silenced. But as yet the woods and meadows were still of a vivid green, the garden was ablaze with flowers, manycolored butterflies fluttered and poised themselves over the beds, little brighteyed lizards darted hither and thither upon the stone-walls. All nature was astir and rejoicing in the sunshine and warmth; and the heat was not too great for comfort, but only sufficient to afford a good excuse for idleness.

Jeanne, who was by no means an idle person, had got through her day's duties long ago. She had ordered the dinner, added up her accounts, visited the ani

mals, read aloud to the Duchess for an hour, and had now earned the right to drop into a rocking-chair and rest. She swayed gently to and fro, one foot resting on the ground, and presently her book slipped from her hand and she began to dream. Facing her, beyond the glittering blue bay and the sultry haze of the plain, rose the distant purple mountains behind whose shadowy folds and ridges Fort Napoléon lay hidden. Was M. de Saint-Luc still there? she wondered, or was he even now wending his way homewards, lonely and disconsolate? Poor M. de Saint-Luc! Jeanne had never known how much she really liked him till she had found herself obliged to deal him the cruellest blow that a woman can inflict upon a man. Remembering, with a pang of conscience, how unjust she had been to him, how she had snubbed him and tried to hurt his feelings, and with what quiet patience he had borne it all, she could almost have found it in her heart to wish that it had been possible to her to give him a different answer. But that could never have been; and since things were as they were, how much better it was that he should have spoken out and heard the truth. She would be able to treat him as a friend now; there would be no more misunderstanding; and probably, he on his side, would abstain from uttering those wearisome, labored compliments which had sometimes made his presence positively hateful to her.

"If he had only known," thought Jeanne, "what a foolish thing flattery is, and how it disgusts all sensible people! How different Mr. Barrington is! With him one can talk and feel at one's ease; he does not sigh and roll his eyes, and nauseate one with silly speeches."

But when Jeanne reached this point in her soliloquy, a slight conscious smile rose to her eyes and lips, and the faintest flush in the world appeared upon her cheeks. For the truth was that Mr. Barrington had spent the greater part of the preceding day with her, and had said some very flattering things indeed. But then, to be sure, they had not been silly —or she had not thought so. Alas! one man may steal a horse and another must not look over a hedge. Who gets justice in this world? And, for the matter of that, who wants it? If some peo

ple rate us below our proper value, others, no doubt, think of us more highly than we deserve; and were it possible to strike a balance and induce everybody to view our failings and merits with the same eyes, all the sunshine would fade out of life, and a dull business become duller yet. As for Barrington, he has been over-estimated on all hands throughout his life, and will doubtless continue to be so to the end of the chapter. Here was Mademoiselle de Mersac, who was worth a thousand of him, thinking over his wise and witty sayings, dwelling upon his many accomplishments, mentally recapitulating the long talks she had had with him during that Kabylian excursion and since, and finding so much pleasure in this employment that she failed to note the passage of time, and was quite startled when a clock in the room behind her struck two. Then, remembering that she had some work to take to the sisters at the neighboring convent, she rose, with a half sigh, fetched her hat and a huge white umbrella, and whistling to Turco, moved slowly away in the hot sunshine.

Five minutes' walk across the dusty high road and through a cornfield brought her to the vast, white, dreary building, with its long rows of small windows and its arched gateway surmounted by an iron cross. One of the sisters peered at her through a lattice, and then opened the door and let her into the cool gloom of the hall. Turco stretched himself out upon the doorstep, and panted, and snapped at the flies

When Jeanne emerged, half an hour afterwards, and gazed with dazzled eyes into the blinding glare without, she became aware of somebody on a chestnut horse who dismounted as she drew nearer to him, and took off his hat, exclaiming, "So you have come at last! I saw your dog at the door, and I thought I would wait for you; but you were such a long. long time in appearing that I began to be afraid that you were not in the convent after all."

"How do you do, Mr. Barrington ?" said Jeanne, holding out her hand in her grave, composed way. "I am sorry that you waited in the heat."

"Why are you sorry? For my sake, or for your own? If I am a bore, I will go away."

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Isn't it a little like a prison ?" asked Barrington, glancing back at the cold, bare structure. He had passed his arm through his horse's bridle, and was walking beside Jeanne towards the high road.

I do not find it so," she answered. Often I think that I shall end by taking the veil."

"Good gracious, how horrible!" exclaimed Barrington aghast. "What can have put such an idea into your head? You, of all people? Why, you would not be able to bear the life for a week." "How can you tell that?" asked Jeanne, raising her grave eyes to his for a moment. "You have not seen the life, and perhaps you do not know very well what would suit me. I think I could be happy enough in a convent; all the sisters are contented. I do not speak of the present, of course; I have other things to do-Léon to look after, and Madame de Breuil. But changes will come; Léon will marry, and the Duchess is very old. One must think

of the future sometimes.

"I hope," said Barrington, "that the future has some brighter destiny than that in store for you.

She made no reply, and the pair walked on silently side by side for another hundred yards or so. Barrington, when he alluded to the possibility of some bright future destiny for his companion, had a very distinct idea in his own mind of what he wished that destiny to be, but he had not yet quite decided that he would offer it to her. Or rather, though he believed his decision to be firm, and, indeed, had declared to himself more than once during the past four-and twenty hours that it was so, he was not quite sure that he would take the present opportunity of revealing it. He was generally considered to be an impetuous, enthusiastic, romantic sort of fellow; but those who knew him best were aware that his character contained, by way of counterpoise, a strong under

lying vein of prudence; and, moreover, that this prudence had a way of coming forward just in the nick of time, and had on many occasions snatched back its favored possessor from the very brink of some rash action. He was very much in love with Jeanne de Mersac-more so, he thought, than he had ever been with any woman; but then he was also very much in love with himself, and the latter attachment, being of longer standing, was probably more deeply seated than the former. He would not, of course, have admitted this-indeed, he considered himself to be a man of singularly 'unselfish proclivities—but he had always looked upon marriage as a very serious step indeed, and one not to be taken without much forethought and deliberation. Without having given the subject any very profound consideration, he had nevertheless been, for some years past, pretty firmly convinced that, when the time should come for him to take a wife, his wisest course would be to select a lady for whom he could feel a sincere respect and esteem without having any romantic affection for her. The eldest Miss Ashley might do, or Lady Jane East, or one of the Fetherston girls. Any one of these ladies, and a good many others too, would, as he was aware, be persuaded without difficulty to share his humble lot, and dispense the hospitalities of Broadridge Court. The very best kind of wife obtainableso Barrington had thought was a woman neither above nor beneath her husband in rank, neither strikingly handsome nor absolutely plain, neither too clever nor too stupid-a woman who would dress well and manage her household properly, and keep on good terms with the neighbors, and raise no objection if her husband proposed to leave her for a few months at a time while he sought a relaxation in a yachting or shooting trip. Such had been his not very lofty ideal, and to it he had remained faithful through many a desperate flirtation. And was he now to throw all prudence to the winds for the sake of this pale, stately girl, whom he knew to be proud and fond of her own way, who might not improbably prove exacting, and who was a Frenchwoman and a Roman Catholic? He had put this question to himself, with some anxiety,

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the night before, and had answered it in the 'affirmative. love, he thought, should be strong enough to survive sacrifices, and if any such should be called for from him, was she not worth them? He would find an opportunity of seeing her the next day, and would tell her all. A tinge of uncertainty as to what her reply might be contributed to strengthen this heroic determination. And yet, now that the propitious moment had come, he found himself doubting, hesitating, weighing the old pros and cons over again. The upshot of it all was that when he broke the silence, it was only to say :

"I suppose you will be at the Governor-General's ball to-night ?"

"Yes, I think so. Madame de Vaublanc has offered to take me. And you ?"

"I shall certainly go if you do." Then there was another pause, which lasted until the gates of the Campagne were reached.

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May I come in?" asked Barring ton. "I want to consult your brother about my horse, who has not been feeding properly for the last day or two. I fancy the heat affects him.'

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The pretext was a sufficiently shallow one, but it answered its purpose.

"Yes, pray do," answered Jeanne. "I am not sure whether Léon is at home, but I will find out."

She lifted a small silver whistle which she carried at her belt, and blew a shrill summons upon it, in answer to which one of the Arab grooms presently came running out.

"Yes," the man said, in answer to his mistress's inquiry, "M. le Marquis had returned, and had asked for mademoiselle; but, hearing that she was out, he had ridden away again."

"I daresay he will be back before long," Jeanne remarked. "Shall we go into the house and wait for him? It is too hot to sit out of doors."

Barrington followed her into the cool, darkened drawing-room, and, sinking into an easy-chair by her side, let his eyes roam abstractedly over the glazed tiles, the Persian rugs, the low divans, the nooks and recesses which had become so familiar to him. The piano had been left open, with a piece of music on the desk; his own picture of Jeanne

on the balcony stood on an easel in one corner; on every table were vases and bowls filled with roses.

"What a charming room this is!" he exclaimed.

"Yes, it is a nice room," said Jeanne. Barrington had made the same remark so many times before that the subject appeared to her to be pretty well exhausted.

"How commonplace and vulgar English houses will look to me after this!" he went on. "My own drawing-room is tastefully furnished with white and green-striped satin; the carpet is white, with gigantic ferns and cabbage-roses sprawling over it, and the paper, which also has a white ground, exhibits a series of wonderful green birds sitting in gold. cages. I often think it is the most appallingly hideous room I ever beheld.

"Why do you not re-furnish it then ?'' asked Jeanne, laughing.

"I suppose I shall one of these days. Just now it would be hardly worth while, for nobody ever enters it. The rest of the house is well enough, and I have an affection for the old place, though it is dreary work living there all alone. I wonder whether you would like it?"

Jeanne not feeling herself called upon to hazard any conjecture as to whether Mr. Barrington's house were likely to please her or not, be resumed presently,

I am sure you would like the garden. People tell me that the turf at Broadridge is the oldest in the county, and we have always been famous for our roses. There are some fine old trees in the park too. I should like you to see it all. Isn't there a chance of your pay. ing your cousins a visit some time or other?"

"Not very much, I am afraid,” answered Jeanne. "They have asked me several times, and I have always wished to go to England; but it is difficult for me to get away, especially in the summer, for then I go to Switzerland with the Duchess, and, as Léon does not accompany us, it would be impossible for me to leave her."

To Switzerland? Dear me! I was thinking of going to Switzerland myself this summer," said Barrington, who had not until that moment had any intention of the sort. "I wonder whether we are likely to meet."

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