sures which belong to the earth we live in, and the more we have to do with them the better satisfied we become to take our earthly life as the only life there is. Yet even here the invisible part interferes and mars our comfort, for by and by the pleasures of the body cease to please as they did at first; the bodily senses get dull and tired; and we, instead of taking it as a matter of course, and not minding, as we should do if our bodies only were concerned,-instead of that we grieve ourselves with the thought that what little happiness the world could give us is coming to an end, while the memory of what had been still reinains. For if we are to enjoy no happiness in the future it is a cruel and useless injustice to let us remember the happiness of the past. "Now, my young lady, these facts make us think three things. The first is, that mankind are the most unfortunate beings conceivable. The second is, that one way to render them happy would be to let the soul (if there is one) live apart from the body in freedom. The third is, that another way would be to let the body live apart from the soul in peace. The former of these alternatives is said to occur after death; but with that we have nothing to do at present. The other is said to have occurred on this earth a great many years ago. In that remote time their existed a race of beings called fairies. They inhabited the earth, the air, and the water, and had magical powers over the elements which they severally inhabited, and could transform themselves into it at will. A fairy of the earth, for instance, could appear as a stone or a tree or a blade of grass; an air fairy could transform himself into a whirlwind or a cloud; and a water-sprite could in a moment become a stream, a cataract, or a shower of rain. These fairies had no more soul than the elements from which they sprang, and their aspect was hideous or beautiful, terrible or charming, according to circumstances, as is the case also with water, earth, and air. But although they had no souls there was one way, and one way only, in which they could get a soul put into them. If a mortal man or woman loved a fairy so intimately and unreservedly as to communicate to it the very essence of human love and life, then the germ of a soul would be implanted in the fairy's heart, and it would become human like ourselves, and lose its thoughtless and unremembering happiness - which was merely like the flicker of sunshine, or the sparkle of water or gems, or the hum of insects, having no depth or meaningand on the other hand, it would live for ever after death, which other fairies do not." "Is all that in the book?" inquired the girl. Well, some of it is, I believe; and the rest was probably in the mind of the author when he wrote the story of Undine." "But it is about Undine that I wish to hear. Was she a fairy?" "She was a water-sprite; and her father, being ambitious that she should get a soul, as other fathers are ambitious that their children should get an education-not knowing how much harm it may do them-exchanged her for the mortal child of a certain pious old fisherman. In course of time a noble young knight came riding through the enchanted forest, and fell in love with her; for though she had no soul as yet, and was as changeable and wayward and thoughtless as a rivulet, yet she was extremely beautiful, and laughing, and lovely." "I am not laughing, so I am not like her," observed the listener; " and you are not like the noble young knight, are you? He couldn't have had hair like yours." "Probably not; but after all it is less a matter of hair than of feeling: and there have been times, I believe, when I have felt more like Huldbrand than you ever felt like Undine, as she was before her marriage. For they were married, and a strange, fantastic wedding it was, in the old fisherman's hut, with mysterious sounds and gleams in the night air, and the tall phantom of a stately man in a white flowing mantle peering in at the window while the priest pronounced them man and wife. And then comes one of the parts that makes me think about crying. For poor little Undine, who had all her life been so light of heart and careless, now began to feel the shadow of a soul stealing over her; and at one moment she shrank from it in bewilderment and dismay; and the next moment broke out in gambols and glancing smiles, as a brook gambols and glances just before it rushes for ever into the unknown shadow of a cavern. Poor little Undine! If I had been Huldbrand, I think I should have driven my dagger through her heart with one hand, while with the other I put on her finger the wedding-ring." "Did Huldbrand do that?" "No, not he. He gave her a soul, as if it had been a golden bracelet, to keep or to cast away; but a soul is a gift that can never be recalled. For my part, if falling in love with a fairy would cure me of my soul and all recollection of it, I would find her and fall in love with her this very afternoon. It's a humbug, young lady, depend upon it. If we have souls destined for heaven, why in heaven's name were they ever sent on earth? When I was about your age, I used to learn a thing called the catechism. This told me, among other things, that there were a great many things I must not do; such as murder, steal, lie, and so forth. But since then, on my way through the world, I have observed that the fairies do all these and worse things, and are never thought the less of for it. Earth, air, and water all commit murder upon occasion, and lie, and steal; and so do bears and sharks and robin redbreasts. But if I do them, though they give me great pleasure and profit in the doing, I hear about my sins immediately, and get punished into the bargain, if any one is by to take the whip to me. But if these things are sins, why was I made to hanker after them, and why does all nature set me an example which I must not follow? And what man is there in this world who has the right to tell me that sin is one thing and virtue another. Where did he learn it? Why, from the catechism. And who wrote the catechism? Why, the Sunday-school teacher. And who taught the Sunday-school teacher? Oh, he found it in the Bible. And who wrote the Bible? Moses and the prophets. And from whom did Moses "Does Huldbrand say all this?" inquired the dark-eyed maiden. "No; Huldbrand said very little ; all he did was to fall in love with another woman and break Undine's heart. And then something happens. Ah! there is a scene for some great actress to make immortal." "Then tell me; because, when I am tired of being a great heiress, I mean to be the greatest actress that ever lived." "Well, then, act this!" said the pedlar, rising on one knee, while his face became singularly vivid and expressive. "Think of me as one who has known what is best and purest in the world, and has aspired to love it and call it his own. And you, who are the embodiment of that best and purest, love me, and spend the treasure of your heart on me; because the divine goodness that is in woman sees even in me the lovely image of itself, which itself has created there. Then, for a a time, we are happier than souls in heaven. But a day comes when I fall away from you, and descend to love the lying phantom of you that gives a flattering warmth to baser things. You grieve for me with a holy sorrow, and would fain forgive me, make good to me the evil happiness that I have chosen. But, by an awful and just law, those who have wilfully profaned the sacred innocence of their souls must suffer death; and that death must come through the very innocence they have profaned. So and "No-no! it shall not be, Huldbrand; I will not kill you with a kiss. I will save you—you shall live-or we will die together.' A pair of slender arms were round the pedlar's neck, and a small, blackhaired Undine was sobbing passionately on his shoulder. The actress had been carried away by her part; possibly the actor had been not unimpressed by his. Men sometimes seek strange times and methods for uttering with impunity the secrets that they never otherwise reveal even to themselves. After a moment, the pedlar rose to his feet, unclasping the impulsive arms, and laughing perfunctorily. "When you make your first appearance before the footlights, young lady," he said, "mind you look in the stage box on the left hand side, and there you will see me, red hair and all, with a bouquet as broad as you are long, all ready to throw at you. Ha, ha, ha! Why, that scene of ours would have brought down the house. What a pity there was no one to see it but my donkey!" The little maiden looked at him through her tears, with a puzzled, and, as it were, defrauded air. 66 "You must be a sort of fairy yourself," she said; you have seemed to be two or three different things since I met you. Which are you, really?" "Well, young lady, that's a secret; and it's the safest one in the world, for I don't know the answer to it myself. Good-bye, I must be off." "Shall I ever see you again?” "Not as you have seen me to-day," replied the pedlar. He climbed over the stile, harnessed up his donkey, and was out of sight before Madeleine discovered that he had left Undine behind him. (To be continued.) THE GEOLOGICAL INFLUENCES WHICH HAVE AFFECTED BRITISH HISTORY. PROBABLY few readers realise to how large an extent the events of history have been influenced by the geological structure of the ground whereon they have been enacted. I propose to illustrate this influence from some of the more salient features in the early human occupation of the British Islands, and in the subsequent historical progress of the English people. No better proof of the reality of the relation in question could be given than the familiar contrast between the heart of England and the heart of Scotland. The one area is a region of low plains, inhabited by an English-speaking race, richly agricultural in one part, teeming with a busy mining population in another, dotted with large cities; the air often foul from the smoke of thousands of chimneys and resonant with the clanking of innumerable manufactories, and the screams of locomotives flying hither and thither over a network of railways. The other region is one of rugged mountains and narrow glens tenanted by a Celtic race, which, keeping to its old Gaelic tongue and primitive habits, has never built towns, hardly even villages-a region partly devoted to pasture, and still haunted by the game and wild animals of primeval times, but with no industrial centres, no manufactures of any kind, and only a feeble agriculture struggling for existence along the bottoms of the valleys. Now, why should two parts of the same small country differ so widely from each other? To give a complete answer to the question would of course involve a detailed examination of the history of each area. But we should find that fundamentally the differences have arisen from the originally utterly distinct geological structure of the two regions. This diversity of structure initiated the divergences in human characteristics even in far pre-historic times, and continues, even in spite of the blending influences of modern civilization, to maintain them down to the present day. Let us first briefly consider what was the probable condition of Britain at the time when the earliest human beings appeared in the country. At that ancient epoch there can be no doubt that the British Islands still formed part of the mainland of Continental Europe. There is reason to believe that the general level of these islands may have been then considerably higher than it has been since. From the shape of the bottom of the Atlantic immediately to the west of our area, as revealed by the abundant soundings and dredgings of recent years, it is evident that if the British Islands were now raised even 1,000 feet or more above their present level, they would not thereby gain more than a belt of lowland somewhere about 200 miles broad on their western border. They stand, in fact, nearly upon the edge of the great European plateau which, about 230 miles to, the west of them, plunges rapidly down into the abysses of the Atlantic. It is perfectly certain, therefore, that though our area was formerly prolonged westwards beyond its present limits, there has never been any important mass of land to the west of us in recent geological times, or within what we call the human period-probably never at any geological epoch at all. Every suc cessive wave of migration, whether of plant or of animal, must have come from the other or eastern side. But though our country could never have stretched much beyond its present westward limits, it once undoubtedly The Geological Influences which have affected British History. 365 spread eastward over the site of what is now the North Sea. Even at the present day, an elevation of less than 600 feet would convert the whole of that sea into dry land from the north of Shetland to the headlands of Brittany. At the time when these wide plains united Britain to the mainland, the Thames was no doubt a tributary of the Rhine, which, in its course northward, may have received other affluents from the east of Britain before it poured its waters into the Atlantic somewhere between the heights of Shetland and the mountainous coasts of Southern Norway. There is evidence of remarkable oscillations of climate at the epoch of the advent of man into this part of Europe. A time of intense cold, known as the Ice Age or Glacial period, was drawing to a close. Its glaciers, frozen rivers and lakes, and floating icebergs, had converted most of Britain, and the whole of Northern Europe, into a waste of ice and snow, such as North Greenland still is; but the height of the cold was past, and there now came intervals of milder seasons, when the wintry mantle was withdrawn northwards, so as to allow the vegetation and the roaming animals of more temperate latitudes to spread westwards into Britain. From time to time a renewal of the cold once more sent down the glaciers into the valleys, or even into the sea, froze the rivers over in winter, and allowed the Arctic flora and fauna again to migrate southwards into tracts from which the temperate plants and animals were forced by the increasing cold to retreat. At last, however, the Arctic conditions of climate ceased to reappear, and the Arctic vegetation, with its accompanying reindeer, musksheep, lemming, Arctic fox, glutton, and other northern animals, retreated from our low grounds. Of these ancient chilly periods, however, the Arctic plants still found on our mountain tops remain as living witnesses, for they are doubtless descendants of the northern vegetation which over spread Britain when still part of the Continent, and before the arrival of our present temperate flora and fauna. Previous to the final retreat of the ice, the alternating warmer intervals brought into Britain many wild animals from milder regions to the south. Horses, stags, Irish elks, roe deer, wild oxen, and bisons roamed over the plains; wild boars, three kinds of rhinoceros, two kinds of elephant, brown bears and grizzly bears, haunted the forests. The rivers were tenanted by the hippopotamus, beaver, otter, water-rat; while among the carnivora were wolves, foxes, wild cats, hyenas, and lions. Many of these animals must have moved in herds across the plains, over which the North Sea now rolls. Their bones have been dredged up in hundreds by the fishermen from the surface of the Dogger-Bank. Such were the denizens of southern England when man made his first appearance there. It seems not unlikely that he came some time before the close of the long Ice Age. He may have been temporarily driven out of the country by the returning cold periods, but would find his way back as the climate ameliorated. Much ingenuity has been expended in tracing a succession of civilization in this primeval human population of Britain. Among the records of its presence there have been supposed to be traces of an earlier race of hunters of a low order, furnished with the rudest possible stone implements; and a later people, who, out of the bones of the animals they captured, supplied themselves with deftly-made, and even artistically decorated weapons. All that seems safely deducible from the evidence, however, may be summed up in saying that the palaeolithic men, or men of the older stone period, who hunted over the plains and fished in the rivers, and lived in the caves of this country, have left behind them implements, rude indeed, but no doubt quite suitable for their purpose; and likewise other weapons and tools of a more finished kind, which bear a close |