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[Left-most column]

Why Should the Spirit of Mortal be Proud?

Oh! why should the spirit of mortal be proud?
Like a swift, fleeting meteor, a fast-flying cloud,
A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave,
He passeth from life to his rest in the grave.

The leaves of the oak and the willow shall fade,
Be scattered around and together be laid;
And the young and the old, and the low and the high
Shall molder to dust and together shall lie.

The infant and mother attended and loved;
The mother that infant's affection who proved;
The husband that mother and infant who blessed,
Each, all, are away to their dwellings of rest.

The hand of the king that the sceptre hath borne;
The brow of the priest that the miter hath worn;
The eye of the sage and the heart of the brave,
Are hidden and lost in the depths of the grave.

The peasant, whose lot was to sow and to reap:
The herdsman, who climbed with his goats up the steep;
The beggar, who wandered in search of his bread,
Have faded away like the grass that we tread.

So the multitude goes, like the flower or the weed
That withers away to let others succeed;
So the multitude comes, even those we behold,
To repeat every tale that has often been told.

For we are the same our fathers have been;
We see the same sights our fathers have seen;
We drink the same streams and view the same sun,
And run the same course our fathers have run.

The thoughts we are thinking our fathers would think;
From the death we are shrinking our fathers would shrink;
To the life we are clinging they also would cling;
But it speeds for us all, like a bird on the wing.

They loved, but the story we cannot unfold;
They scorned, but the heart of the haughty is cold;
They grieved, but no wail from their slumber will come;
They joyed, but the tongue of their gladness is dumb.

They died, aye! they died; we things that are now,
That walk on the turf that lies over their brow,
And make in their dwellings a transient abode,
Meet the things that they met on their pilgrimage road.

Yea! hope and despondency, pleasure and pain,
We mingle together in sunshine and rain;
And the smile and the tear, the song and the dirge,
Still follow each other, like surge upon surge.

'Tis the wink of an eye, 'tis the draught of a breath,
From the blossom of health to the paleness of death,
From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroud,
Oh why should the spirit of mortal be proud?

William Knox.

Bliss's Last Hym.

[The last verses written by the Evangelist who
perished at the Ashtabula bridge.]

I know not what awaits me,
God kindly veils mine eyes;
And o'er each step on my onward way
He makes new scenes arise;
And every joy He sends me comes
A sweet and glad surprise.

CHORUS.
Where He may lead I'll follow,
My trust in Him repose;
And every hour, in perfect peace,
I'll sing "He knows, He knows."

One step I see before me;
'Tis all I need to see;
The light of Heaven more brightly shines
When earth's illusions flee,
And sweetly through the silence came
The loving "Follow Me."

O, blissful lack of wisdom,
'Tis blessed not to know;
He holds me with His own right hand,
And will not let me go,
And lulls my troubled soul to rest
In Him who loves me so.

So on I go, not knowing,
I would not if I might;
I'd rather walk in the dark with God
Than go alone in the light!
I'd rather walk by faith with Him
Than go alone by sight.

A Dedication.

The sea gives her shells to the shingle,
The earth gives her streams to the sea;
They are many, but my gift is single,
My verses, the first fruits of me.
Let the wind take the green and the gray leaf,
Case forth without fruit upon air;
Take a rose-leaf and vine-leaf and bay-leaf
Blown loose from the hair.

The night shakes them round me in legions,
Dawn drives them before her like dreams;
Time sheds them like snows on strange regions,
Swept shoreward on infinite streams;
Leaves pallid and sombre and ruddy,
Dead fruits of the fugitive years:
Some stained as with wine and made bloody,
And some as with tears.

Algernon Charles Swinburne,

[Center Column]

THE HOUSE WHERE JOSEPHINE DIED

Reminiscences of a Lovely Home—How Josephine
Caught Cold and Died.

The famous property of Malmaison, purchased
by General Bonaparte in 1798 for the sum of
180,000 francs, and afterward the residence of
the Empress Josephine, has been sold at auction
by the French Government for $120,000. Thus,
one by one, are the old historical chateaux falling
under the acutioneer's hammer, or crumbling
away in ruins. Chenonceaux, the favorite residence
of Catherine de Medicis, is now owned by
a Radical Deputy; Foequet's palace at Vaux is
the property of a sugar-refiner; Luciennes, built
for Mme. Dubarry, is in the hands of a manufacturer;
the palace of Montomerency is owned by
Victorien Sardou, a play-writer; a linen draper
has bought Chamarande, a gift of Napoleon III.
to the Duke of Persigny; others have changed
hands, while Mendon, St. Cloud, and the Tuileries
are heaps of ruins.

It was at Malmaison that Josephine spent the
happiest and most sorrowful portions of her life.
Her Thursday receptions are famous in the history
of social events, and furnish us with a choice
picture of delightful repose in the midst of busy,
boisterous times. It was here that a small army
of the elite endeavored by elegance of language,
dress, and manners to stem the torrent of coarseness
and violence then set loose by the Revolution.
It was at the Malmaison that the eighteenth
Brumaire was prepared. It was there, too, that
LaMercier read his tragedy of "Charlemagne"
to the First Consul, who wanted him to change
the denoument so as to show the conquered
nations coming to Charlemagne to offer him in
great pomp the crown and empire of the East.
The Consulate raised Malmaison to its highest
splendor, but no sooner had Napoleon become
Emperor than Josephine's modest chateau was
abandoned for the palatial magnificence of St.
Cloud. Subsequently Josephine was divorced,
and then she returned to Malmaison. The allied
sovereigns invited themselves to dine with her,
and it was while showing the Emperor of Russia
the grounds that she caught the cold which
carried her to the grave three days later. After
Waterloo, and just before going on board the
Bellerophon, Napoleon paid a nocturnal visit to
the tomb of his once loved Josephine.

Soon afterward the palace was bought by the
banker Haguermann, and what remained of the
property in 1842 was purchased by Queen Christina
for $100,000. Napoleon III. repurchased it for
$300,000, from whose possession it naturally fell
into the hands of the nation. During the late
war it was occupied by the Prussians, who carried
off a greater part of the furniture, and spoiled a
considerable portion of the rest. A billiard table,
for instance, which was sold the other day for
one hundred francs, had had the green baize
stripped from it. The French declare that King
William's soliders employed the material to make
themselves cravats. By good fortune they left
one more interesting piece of furniture—no less
than the table in the library on which Napoleon
was wont to lay out his military maps, and seated
at which he may have planned more than one of
those campaigns which changed the history of
Europe. This relic the State has determined to
keep. The remainder of the broken furniture—
amounting to ten cartloads—was disposed of a few
days ago, the whole fetching the modest sum of
1,800 francs. As has been stated, Napoleon, after
Waterloo, revisited Malmaison. Till 1870 a small
pedestal supporting an eagle marked that spot of
the domain where the ex-Emperor's foot had
rested last. The inscription it bore contained
merely these words: "Dernier pas de Napoleon
partant pour Rochefort, le 29 Juin, 1815, a quatre
heures apres midi." Since the war nothing has
been seen of the memorial, which is supposed to
be now somewhere in Germany.

Vain Waiting

One waits and watches all his days away
For what may never come. So looks alone
Some man upon a desert island thrown
For sails that pass not, till, too faint to pray,
He folds his hands and waits the eventful day
When death unintercepted claims his own,
Bids hope lie down by fear, stills the long moan,
And bids the weary feet no more to stray.
None knew of the sad life and death, till, lo!
Men voyaging from afar, by fierce winds driven,
Cast anchor on that isle where, tempest-riven,
They see a tree-built house, by which they know
That one has lived and died there, hoped and striven.
They shed their unavailing tears and go.

Philip B, Marston in Harpers,

[Right-most column]

THE AUTHOR OF "JOHN HALIFAX, GENTLEMAN."

Those who admire "John Halifax" and its companion
novels will be interested in knowing that
their authoress has quite a romantic history of her
own. She was born at Stoke-upon-Trent, Staffordshire,
in the year 1826, and was engaged to be married
in her youth to a gentleman whose business made it
necessary for him to leave England. On his return from
the voyage they were to be united. All promised
well, and when news came that the ship was
returning in safety, with joyful heart Miss Mulock
and her mother went to the wharf to welcome,
as in "My Mother and I," the successful merchant.
The vessel came into sight, and on the deck
stood the young man, who appeared overjoyed
to see awaiting him the beloved of his heart. They
exchanged greetings, and mingling with the crowd,
he hurried to be first to land; but as he was
on the plank his foot slipped and he fell into
the water and was drowned before her very eyes.
For a long time Miss Mulock could not occupy herself
with anything, but at last her friends induced
her to write for consolation in her great sorrow, and
she sent out "John Halifax," which established
her reputation and abosrbed her thoughts. Time
passed on, but she never swerved in her allegiance
to her drowned love; but after years had elapsed
there was a terrible railroad accident in her neighborhood,
and she was active in ministering to the
wounded, and one young man was brought to her
house, and for months she nursed him, and he recovered,
but lost one of his limbs, and also his
heart to his kind friend. All his entreaties made
no impression, as Miss Mulock said she should never
marry; but he replied that if he waited ten years
she should be his wife; so after a year she, in 1865,
became Mrs. George Lillie Craik, and a happy
wife she is, although twenty years older than her
husband. They have no children of their own,
but one morning Mrs. Craik was walking out, and
found a little baby lying in the eroadside forsaken
by its mother. A basket of linen was beside it
which indicated that it was not of poor parentage.
She stopped to look at it, and then began to long to
have it for her own. She ran home to her husband
and told him, and made him, though reluctantly, accompany
her back to where it still lay smiling and
crowing—and his heart was touched by the helpless
little child, and he was as eager as his
wife to take it. As foundling babies are not generally
the most coveted of possessions, there was
no opposition to their wishes, and they carried
the wee daughter home and christened her Theodora.
Mrs. Craik is devoted to her, and no party of
pleasure is so delightful that she does not see her
treasure safe in bed after saying her prayers before
she goes, and she seems to think that in the crowd
that surrounded the little stranger the mother was
looking to see who would take her little one.

Mrs. Craik still preserves a quaint old-fashioned
dress, with its body gathered at the shoulders to a
point at the waist. When asked to sing she complies
readily, and gives an old-time ballad, with a simple
accompaniment. In 1864 the Queen bestowed on the
gifted authoress a literary pension of sixty pounds
per annum.

The Baby's Drawer.

There's a little drawer in my chamber
Guarded with tenderest care,
Where the dainty clothes are lying,
That my darling shall never wear,
And there, while the hours are waning,
Till the house is all at rest,
I sit and fancy a baby
Close to my aching breast.

My darling's pretty, white garments!
I wrought them, sitting apart,
While his mystic life was throbbing
Under my throbbing heart,
And often my happy dreaming
Breaks in a little song,
Like the murmur of birds at brooding,
When the days are warm and long,

I finished the dainty wardrobe,
And the drawer was almost full
With robes of finest muslin,
And robes of the finest wool,
I folded them all together,
With a rose for every pair,
Smiling and saying, "Gem fragrant,
Fir for my prince to wear."

Ah, the radiant summer morning,
So full of mother's joy!
"Thank God, he is fair and perfect,
My beautiful new-born boy."
Let him wear the pretty, white garments
I wrought while sitting apart;
Lay him, so sweet and so helpless,
Here, close to my throbbing heart.

Many and many an evening
I sit, since my baby came,
Saying, "What do the angels call him?"
For he died without a name;
Sit while the hours are waning,
And the house is all at rest,
And fancy a baby nestling
Close to my aching breast.

Mrs. I. T. Bulls.