is enchanted when she arrives. Together they arrange and fix and improve, and are really happy. But soon there comes an end to that; they did not buy these beautiful things to look at them alore. The drawing-rooms are ready, they want society. Old friends come and call— very kind of them, indeed, quite nice, but-Ivan is now a man of importance, and must mix with a better class. It is unpleasant, but he must show to these people that they are no longer his equals. Why have they not enough knowledge of the world to see that themselves?

Knowledge of the world, that is an expression which Tolstoi hates. Knowledge of the world passes for the highest form of civilization, pleasure for happiness. Money only to enjoy it, talent only to display it, knowledge only to help self onward; everything on the outside, never to reach below the surface-that is unnecessary.

But Ivan reached the pinnacle of happiness. High officials appeared at his receptions; the nobility began to show themselves in his drawing-rooms. He began to think that all his wishes were gratified, when . .,

When that pain in his side began to bother him. While hanging the draperies Ivan had fallen down and hurt himself with a curtain rod. That was all. It would pass.

But it did not pass, and Praskovia had to suffer under his bad humor.

He went to see a doctor. The doctor undoubtedly saw something. What, he did not say. Coming home, he told

Ivan felt very anxious. his wife about it; she said he would have to take good care of himself, then went to dress, for they had to go out.

Take good care of himself. Yes, Ivan did that. He was constantly watching his pain, trying to trace its course. And it did not grow better. The moment he forgot about it, at the whist-table among his friends, suddenly there it came and filled his mouth with a bitter, awful taste. He threw down his cards. What did he care for whist and his splendid luck; what did he care for anything in the world?

With a disease like that, his temper did not improve, that is natural, and Praskovia had to suffer, At first she was angry, but afterwards she ascribed it to his ill-health and let him talk.

Ivan was fond of his wife and children, but he loved himself better. Why should he bother about others, when his pains constantly made him concentrate his thoughts on himself? Either I will grow better, thought Ivan, and then I will again be to them the same good, indulgent husband and father I was, or I will not grow better, and then, what is the use? It is the same to me, I must die!

Death! The thought, awful and oppressing, began to haunt him. It first entered his mind when his brother-in-law came to visit him. They had not seen each other in a long while, and his brother's face told Ivan the truth. Ashamed of his own misery he sat there, talking gaily in his despair. But after he had returned to his room, he took a mirror, and there, for the first time he saw that black shadow hovering over him, close, so close!

Iwan is a practical man, industrious and talented. Nobody can reproach him in this sober age that his views of life are practical too. But as he stands there before his looking-glass in mute despair, alone and without help or consolation, he deserves divine pity.

A respectable and pleasant life!

Respectability killed Iwan with a curtain-rod! The best years of his life pass in unbearable suffering. His friends shake their heads. His wife repeats that old, old story about his growing better. Her healthy looks seem to mock his misery! What does he care for friends and wife? Can they help him, console him?

And yet he wants to be consoled. There is no consolation to be offered . . . and in silence he craves for it.

But he must shake off these dark thoughts. He will resume his work. He goes to court and takes his old seat. Now he must apply himself He is not sick, he will not

with all his might. die. . . .

When suddenly that pain came back. And behind it there it stood, and threatened him, that dark shadow.

Iwan gave it up. He laid on the sofa, with his face to the wall, day after day. The world did not exist for him any more. His thoughts

took another course.

Ivan recalled his youth. First his youth, then all the rest, his marriage, so trivial, so full of disappointments; his troubles about money; thus it went on one, five, ten years. And the longer he thought, the more did it seem to him that his life had been death "Have I not lived as I should"? The thought arises again and again.

The death-struggle comes. Ivan retires within himself always deeper, deeper. And he sees that his life has been nothing but selfishness from beginning to end. Only himself has he loved in his wife and children. With no one else had he patience but with Ivan Iliitch alone. What he had called life was not life. Death does not take anything from him, then this . ., this is nothing. The true life comes. He feels it in him, the true, the eternal; at last it comes. Ivan Illiitch lives.

Selecter

RRENT

READING

"Selections, it is true, sometimes omit things we would have greatly liked, but who will pretend to say that he always finds everything that would have pleased or profited him even when he makes his own choice ?"-C. F. RICHARDSON.

NIGHTFALL.

BY JOSIAH ALLEN'S WIFE.

Soft o'er the meadow, and murmuring mere;
Falleth a shadow, near and more near;
Day like a white dove floats down the sky;
Cometh the night, love, darkness is nigh,
So dies the happiest day.

Slow in the dark eye riseth a tear,
Hear I thy sad sigh, Sorrow is near;

Hope smiling bright, love, dies on my breast,
As day like a white dove flies down the West;
So dies the happiest day.

-Poems.

TROLLOPE ON AMERICANS.

Looking back to those Cincinnati days, I have to say that I liked the Americans, principally, I think, at that time, as far as my remembrances serve, because some quality in their manners and behavior had the effect of making me less shy. Shyness proceeds in almost all cases, I should say probably in all, from diffidence. Did any one ever see a vain man shy? I do not think the Americans are an especially vain people; but there are specialties of their social condition which lead to every American citizen's estimate of himself, from the cradle upwards, being equal to his estimate of any other man. And one consequence of this is a certain frank and unconstrained manner in their intercourse with strangers or new acquaintances which is invaluable to a shy man.

There were very few formal meetings among the notabilities of the little Cincinnati world of that time, but there was an amount of homely friendliness that impressed me very favorably and there was plenty of that generous and abounding hospitality which subsequent experience has taught me to consider an especially American characteristic. I have since that time shared the splendid hospitality of splendid American hosts, and I have been under American roofs where there was little save a heartfelt welcome to offer. But the heart-warming effect produced by the latter was the same in both cases. How often have we all sat at magnificent boards where the host's too evident delight consisted in giving what you could not give him,

and in the exulting manifestation of his magnificence. This is very rarely the feeling of an American host. He is thinking not of himself, but of you; and the object he is striving at when giving you of his best is that you should enjoy yourself while under his roof; that you should have, as he would phrase it, "a good time." And, upon my word, he almost invariably succeeds.

There is another point on which Americans, both men and women, are very generally called over the coals by English people, as I think somewhat unreasonably. They are, it is said, everlastingly talking about the greatness and grandeur of their country, and never easy without extorting admissions of this. All this is to a great extent true; at least to this extent, that an American is always pleased to hear the greatness of his country recognized. But when I remember the thoroughness with which that cardinal article of an Englishman's faith (Sixty years ago!), that every Englishman could thrash three Frenchmen, was forced with entire success on my youthful mind, I can hardly find it in my conscience to blame an American's pride in his country. Why, good heavens! what an insensible block he would be if he was not proud of his country, to whose greatness, it is to be observed, each individual American now extant has contributed in a greater degree than can be said to be the case as regards England and every extant Englishman; inasmuch as our position has been won by the work of, say a thousand years, and his by that of less than a century. Surely the creation of the United States as they now exist within that time is such a feat of human intelligence and energy as the world has never before seen, and is scarcely likely to see again. I confess that the expression of American patriotism is never offensive to me. I feel somewhat as the old Cornish wrestler felt, who said, with immense pride, when he was told that his son had whopped" the whole parish, Ay, I should think so! Why, he has whopped me before now!"

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Yes, I liked the Americans as I first made acquaintance with them almost among the backwoods at Cincinnati sixty years ago; and I like them as I have since known them better. For I have seen a great deal of them; far more than an Englishman living at home would be likely to do, during my many years' residence in Italy. The American "colony," to use the common, though incorrect phrase, is large both at Florence and in Rome; of late years fully as large, I think, as that from England, and not only do the two bodies associate indiscriminately with each other in perfect neighborliness and good-fellowship, but they do so, forming one single oasis in the

midst of the surrounding Continental life, in a manner which makes one constantly feel how infinitely nearer an American is to an Englishman in ideas, habits, ways, and civilization than either of them are to any other denizen of earth's surface.-THOS. A. TROLLOPE, in What I Remember.

STEAM.

Aristotle and Seneca seem to have been the first to suspect the expansive force of steam, for they attributed earthquakes to the transformation of water into steam by the subterranean fires, a theory which quite fits in with the present teachings of science. Seneca, more explicit still than Aristotle, compares the volcanoes to boiling water running over the sides of a vessel under the action of fire. Four hundred years after Aristotle, Seneca, in chapter VI. of his Natural Questions, wrote:

"Certain philosophers, while attributing earthquakes to fire, also ascribe to the latter another action. Fire, they say, when lighted in several places at once, carries with it abundant vapors, which, having at first no outlet, communicate to the air with which they mingle, a great expansive force. If the air, thus charged, acts with great energy, it breaks down all obstacles; if it is more moderate in its power, it merely causes the ground to quake.

"We see water boiling upon the hearth, and we may be sure that if this limited phenomenon takes place inside a vessel, it assumes tremendous proportions when vast fires are acting upon vast masses of water. These vaporised waters overcome all obstacles and overturn everything upon their passage."

Hero, of Alexander, surnamed the Ancient, who lived about 200 B. C., composed several works on physics, only three of which are extant. The reacting engine is defined and represented in the treatise entitled Spiritalia seu Pneumatica.

It is probable that he imitated the procedure of the priests of Ancient Egypt, who, it is said, caused inanimate objects to move, or doors to open and shut at their bidding, by means of tubes let into the passages. Many tourists have seen the colossal statue of Memnon, which emitted sounds when struck by the sun's rays in the burning plain of Thebes. The escape of the vapour caused by the damp which had found its way in through the interstices, and had been produced by the radiation of the cold at night as well as by the abundant morning dews, quite explains this phenomenon.- FERDINAND DE LESSEPS, in Recollections of Forty Years.

A VOICE FROM THE GRAVE.

Before Heurtan had convinced himself that David was no longer in the cavern, the old man had already struggled far up the steep hillside.

At last, bruised and torn in every limb, but as yet conscious of no pain, he reached the summit, and at that instant a great banner of lightning flamed out upon the darkness and waved wildly whilst a man might have counted three. Every fissure in the grey cairn, every outline of the uneven stones, and every blade of grass and patch of moss and leaf of fern that nature's hand had fostered there since the queen had been laid down to rest stood clear and distinct before him. It was as if the light of heaven had cried to him with a living voice-Behold!

He made his way to the foot of the cairn. The funeral fire, unextinguished but half blackened by the rain, winked redly in its crevices and hissed. He stumbled upon a branch that lay beside it, and seizing this he stirred the fire until it blazed again in defiance of the dense rain, and then drawing a great brand from it he ascended to the top of the cairn and knelt upon the edge. Another flaming banner floated out over all the heavens, and looking down whilst everything was clearer to sight than at broad noonday, he saw the tarnished gold and shining gems inch-deep in rain-spotted water amidst a few soaked rags of silk. He saw the bare stones black with the water that filtered between their interstices, but not a remnant of the frame that the soul of Vreda the queen had worn was there.

As he looked the swift light died swiftly, and he was left in the pitchy darkness of the night again. He waved the hissing brand he carried until it flamed, and by its light examined the open tomb anew. The gems were there, and the tatters of the funeral robe and the darkened circles of gold-but these were all.

A great and terrible awe seized upon him, and he knelt in expectation of some unknown terror. But no voice spoke from within or without, and when he had strengthened his heart in prayer he descended from the cairn. And when he was but a little way from it the awe that he had felt came back upon him with tenfold power, and the sense of a near presence smote him with an extreme dread. In this trembling of the soul he could not tell whether the presence were of good or evil, but he cried out upon it with a loud and hollow voice, demanding to know what it might be.

And a voice answered him from the darkness: "I am Vreda!'-DAVID CHRISTIE MURRAY and HENRY HERMAN, in One Traveller Returns.

HEROINES.

When all was still, she began with slow speech, and a quiet voice:

"My heart is very full to-day, and I wish I could speak to you as I feel. I am often moved, when I turn my mind to this common phenomenon of life,—the great that lies in the small. Viewed in one way, nothing could seem more practical, less heroic, more devoid of sentiment, than housekeeping, and carried on as it is by many women, it certainly looks petty; but all this is wrong. When we view it in its true light, when we pierce to the centre, we are almost startled. To-day the past rises in my mind. Perhaps I have given you the impression that after a short period of study I thoroughly mastered my household, and henceforth knew no back-sets or trials. But this would be untrue; for long after I had apparently learned every detail of housekeeping, I was often overwhelmed with such a sense of failure as I cannot express to you, but which your own lives will enable you to understand without the aid of weak words. A woman's work is infinitely harder than a man's, because more comprehensive. Let her be the best of housekeepers,-if she be a wife, if she be a mother, she will still see behind her many failures, and before her niany difficult and almost impossible duties. A woman's work involves ethical even more than practical questions. Beyond and above her actual housekeeping, there arises in her mind a vision of an ideal housekeeping. She has, perhaps, a perfect ideal, and to this she clings, in hope sometimes, but more often in sorrow, and it may be in despair. It is better to face the truth; no man in this world-this world that is but the threshold of another-is going to fully understand the greatness and the beauty of your aspiration, nor the meaning of your failures. My heart is so often stirred within me by these thoughts. I look abroad, and I hear one deed after another called noble. I hear the word 'hero,' and then my eyes turn to some of the humblest and simplest homes in our land; there I see some tired mother-face, and I say, 'heroine.'"

"Do you think, Mrs. Hughes, that a woman can be a heroine in a quiet home?" asked the Pale Lady.

"I know it!" Mrs. Hughes answered, and her face and words fairly glowed, "and God knows it too! Oh, how He looks upon this! How far He sees! A woman has been tried beyond her physical strength. She is impatient with servants, children, and husband; they call her ugly. She had meant to do so different, and

she is broken with a sense of failure. But God looks at her and He says, 'You are tired, my child; you have nobly tried aud you have won. You do not know it yet, but you have won.' Right in some of the humblest homes of our land there are women whose daily life is one long thought for others, one sacrifice of self. They are, perhaps, impatient at times, despondent, utterly discouraged; but God is watching them, and His hand is full of laurels. Some day they will know all. Some day; some day. I believe that many a woman lies down here to sleep, feeling that her work is all undone, her life a failure, and in that other world, where light is so abundant, she is awakened by the touch of a crown,-a victor's crown. I beg you, dear friends, to think of all this when your hearts are ready to sink within you; believe it with all your souls, and it will bring a calm and lofty peace into your discouraged lives. You are keeping homes, not houses; do you think of that? To husband, children, and servants your influence goes out continually, and in the next world you shall see the fruits of your work. Do not think of it as small. It is the noblest on earth; there is nothing, I am persuaded, in office, hall, or senate-chamber, which in God's sight can equal this work which is appointed unto woman in her own little home. And it is not always the work itself, it is the fitness of the worker which results in perfection. Look at Christ; I have often thought He only assumed man's form, because of the greater facility it afforded Him for commingling with all. His nature was that of a strong, noble, loving woman, and I cannot help believing that every such woman can come nearer unto Him in her daily life and work than it is possible for any man to approach. It is the physical, the weak, tired physical alone, which gives the impression of failure. Remember that. Often when you think you are lacking in skill you are simply lacking in sleep; often when you think you need more patience, more virtue of every kind, you only need rest. It is pleasant, more than that, it is helpful and stimulating, to receive an appreciative sympathy from those for whom one toils; but do not live upon the hope of this, for it will often be withheld. And do not let this denial break you. Look up, when there is nothing of encouragement below,-look up, and you will see tender eyes and outstretched arms; such pity, sympathy; such marvellous, perfect understanding and love leaning down to you from out of heaven. 'Be ye strong therefore, and let not your hands be weak, for your work shall be rewarded.' Remember that. Forget all else if you will, but oh, remember that!" -GRIFFITH A. NICHOLAS, in The Biddy Club,

MUSCULAR CHRISTIANITY.

"I shall first stick a pin right thar, sir, whar you names the preachin' o' the blessed Gospel, er ruther the tryin' to do it. You names it meanness an' foolishness, an' I'll now ast you your name, although I hain't a doubt but what it's Rogers. That so?"

"My name's none o' your business, sir. Answer my question."

"Umph, humph! Well, you know, MisterRogers-I'll call you that jes' for the sake o' the argument, so to speak, that when one man astes a question, sometimes before he can git his answer he's liable to have more'n one question ast of him hisself. I'll put you another. Wern't you or wern't you not the one that chawed paper an' rolled it in a wad, and looked at me, an' flipped it from your fingers, an' a leetle more an' it would have struck one o' the female persons o' the congregation; an, done it more'n wunst at that?"

"I sha'n't answer that question, sir, neither. None o' your business, nor the business o' no other clodhopping, deceitful old cuss."

The preacher's eyes moistened as he said, in low, measured tone,

"Young man, when I see you a-standin' out yonder at one o' the back cornders, I knowed whut you wus arfter, an' I let Sister Aikens go 'long on home by herself, so as me an' you could settle it betwix' ourselves; jes' you an' me, us two."

Here Mr. Gunn made a brief pause, in order, it seemed, to snuff the air. Then he proceeded: "I come back in here determin'd in my mind to ast you, like Abner ast Asahel, to turn to the left, or turn to the right, anyway you choosen, so as to not be a follerin' arfter me; and I've jes' a minute ago made my pra'ar to Godamighty to not let me cry 'ithout were His will, an' ef it were to let me cry good, and, bless His holy name, He have heerd me, an' I feel 'em a-comin'."

They were, indeed, coming drop by drop, quicker and quicker, though his face was wreathed with smiles.

"Now I ain't o' keerin' not so mighty much about the names you named me, but did you mean to say, sir, that the preachin' o' the blessed Gospel is meanness and foolishness?"

"I did, you old-"

These were the last wards of the chieftain then and there. The preacher took a step rearward, doubled his fist and dealt upon the assailant's breast a blow that prostrated him upon his back at the foot of the pulpit. Snatching his cane as he was falling, he raised it aloft.

"Now try to rise if you dare," cried Mr. Gunn,

whose eyes were floods of tears, "an' I'll scatter that pulpit with your brains."

"My God!" cried Rogers.

"Them's the words, sir; them's the very words. Before I let you up I'm going' to make you beg Godamighty's pardon; an' ef you don't do it 'ithout, I'm goin' to git down on you an' choke you tell you do."

"You got the advantage of me, sir."

"I know I has, an' I'm goin' to keep it. Come, sir. I got no time to tarry long. Out 'ith it! You sorry for your impudence to Godamighty in His own house? No mealy-mouthin' about it. Out 'ith it. Sorry or not sorry, whach?"

The prostrate man looked up, and he afterwards declared that if he had ever seen the Bad man, it was on that occasion, in the weeping eyes that were bent upon him.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Gunn."

"All right, so fur, sir; but tell me, now, is it a godly sorrow, or is it you're sorry because you're knocked flat on your back, an' ain't quite shore you ain't going' to be beat into sassage meat ?” "I-I-I-reckon, Mr. Gunn, it's-it's-asome o' both."

"That's jes' what I 'spicioned. Howb never, I'm thankful you got on that gainin' ground. Know the Lord's pra'ar?"

"Of course I do, Mr. Gunn."

Say it."

Rogers hesitated.

'Say it, I tell you."

"Won't you give a man time to think it up?" "I thought you knowed it. Said you did." "I do, Mr. Gunn, but its been so long since-" "Blaze away, and go as fur as you ken." "Now I lay me down to sleep." "Stop it, sir, cried the preacher, with almost a shriek. "Call that the Lord's pra'ar? My goodness of gracious of merciful Heavens! Look at me, Tom Rogers; I heerd o' you some time back. You 'an your gang betwixt you driv Br'er Pilcher away from the pastorship in this church, an' shaved his horse's tail off."

"I didn't, Mr. Gunn, God knows I didn't."

"Very well, maybe you didn't; but you know who done it, and you know you could ov perwented it. But let that go. You ain't goin' to shave my horse ner let him be shaved. I got no anexity on that pint o' the case. But now you look at me. Look straight at me. I ain't goin' to tell 'bout this here fracus here perwidin' I hear that you've broke up them Arabs, as you call yourselves, or done your level best a-tryin', and arfterwards you'll try to behave yourself when you are in the House of God."-RICHARD M. JOHNSTON, in Mr. Absalom Billingslea, and Other Georgia Folk.