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tered the moon-lit apartment. The tenant, lying as if he had not moved, was sleeping heavily. And now the poor coward trembled so, that to kneel before the trunk, without falling, he did not know how. Twice, thrice, he was near tumbling headlong. He became as cold as ice. But the sleeper stirred, and the thought of losing his opportunity strung his nerves up in an instant. He went softly down upon his knees, laid his hands upon the lid, lifted it, and let in the intense moonlight. The trunk was full, full, crowded down and running over full, of the tickets of the Havana Lottery!

A little after daybreak, Kookoo from his window saw the orphan, pausing on the corner. She stood for a moment, and then dove into the dense fog which had floated in from the river, and disappeared. He never saw her again.

He cannot

'Sieur George is houseless. find the orphan. And she, her Lord is taking care of her. Once only she has seen 'Sieur George. She had been in the belvedere of the house which she now calls home, looking down upon the outspread city. Far

away southward and westward the great river glistened in the sunset. Along its sweeping bends the chimneys of a smoking commerce, the magazines of surplus wealth, the gardens of the opulent, the steeples of a hundred sanctuaries and thousands on thousands of mansions and hovels covered the fertile birthright arpents which 'Sieur George, in his fifty years' stay, had seen tricked away from dull colonial Esaus by their blue-eyed brethren of the North. Nearer by she looked upon the forlornly silent region of lowly dwellings, neglected by legislation and shunned by all lovers of comfort, that once had been the smiling fields of her own grandsire's broad plantation; and but a little way off, trudging across the marshy commons, her eye caught sight of 'Sieur George following the sunset out upon the prairies to find a night's rest in the high grass.

She turned at once, gathered the skirt of her pink calico uniform, and, watching her steps through her tears, descended the steep winding-stair to her frequent kneeling-place under the fragrant candles of the chapel-altar in Mother Nativity's asylum.

A SPIRITUAL SONG. X.

FROM THE GERMAN OF. NOVALIS.

WHO in his chamber sitteth lonely,

And weepeth heavy, bitter tears;

To whom in doleful colors only,

Of want and woe, the world appears;

Who of the past, gulf-like receding,

Would search with questing eyes the core, Down into which a sweet woe, pleading, From all sides wiles him evermore ;

'Tis as a treasure past believing

Heaped up for him all waiting stood, Whose hoard he seeks, with bosom heaving, Outstretched hands and fevered blood;

He sees the future, arid, meager,
In horrid length before him lie;
Alone he roams the waste, and, eager,
Seeks his old self with restless cry :—

Into his arms I sink, all tearful :

I once, like thee, with woe was wan; But I am well, and whole, and cheerful, And know the eternai rest of man.

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Thou too must find the one consoler
Who inly loved, endured, and died-
For those who wrought him keenest dolor,
With thousand-fold rejoicing died.

He died-and yet, fresh every morrow,
His love and him thine eyes behold:
Reach daring arms, in joy or sorrow,

And to thy heart him, ardent, fold.

From him new life-blood will be driven

Through thy dry bones that withering pine; And once thy heart to him is given,

Then is his heart for ever thine.

What thou didst lose, he found, he holdeth ;
With him thy love thou soon shalt see;

And evermore thy heart infoldeth
What once his hand restores to thee.

TOPICS OF THE TIME.

The Gentleman in Politics. WE do not doubt that many thousand readers of SCRIBNER have shared with us the pleasure of reading Mr. Whitelaw Reid's Dartmouth address, on "The Scholar in Politics," published complete in our September number. The programme of active influence which he spreads before the American scholar is sufficiently extensive, and the arguments by which he commends it for adoption sufficiently strong and sound. Yet the question has occurred to us whether, after all, Mr. Carlyle's " Able Man," and Mr. Herbert Spencer's "Thinker," and Mr. Reid's "Scholar," who are one and the same person, are quite sufficient for the just and satisfactory handling of the matters which this address spreads before us in detail. "How are you going to punish crime?" We do not quite see what scholarship has to do with the settlement of that question, or what the scholar has to do with it, specially, beyond other men. "How are you going to stop official stealing?" The question may interest the scholar, and he ought, indeed, to assist in settling it aright, but as a scholar, specially, we do not see what he can do, or may be expected to do, beyond other

men.

"How are you going to control your corporations?" Here cultivated brains may help us to do something to contrive something; yet, after all, what we want is not the way to control corporations, but corporations that do not need to be controlled. "What shall be the relations between capital and labor?" The scholar ought to be able to help us here. "What shall be done with our Indians?" "How may we best appoint our civil officers?" These questions, with others relating to universal suffrage and the un

limited annexation of inferior races, make up Mr. Reid's very solid and serious catalogue.

There is work enough, legitimate work, for the American scholar, in the study and intelligent handling of these questions; but the fact that there is a considerable number of American scholars mixed up with every scheme of iniquity in the country leads us to suspect that the country is not to be saved by scholarship alone. There are two sides to the matter, as there are to most matters. In our late civil war, it was West Point pitted against West Point, each side being actuated by its own independent ideas of duty and patriotism. Military scholarship had a very important office to perform in settling the question between the two sections of the country, but it had to struggle with military scholarship in order to do it. We do not know why we are not quite as likely to find the scholar on the wrong side as on the right side of politics. Mr. Bancroft and Mr. Everett were neighbors once. They represented the height of scholarly culture, and the two extremes of political opinion. They certainly assisted in making respectable whatever was bad in the party to which they respectively belonged, whatever else they did or failed to do. All that we wish to say, in dissent from Mr. Reid, or rather, in addition to him, is that scholarship does not necessarily lead to any common good conclusion in politics, and that it may be, or may become, as base as any other element.

What we really want is gentlemen in politics. If our political men were only gentlemen, even if they were no more than ordinarily intelligent, we should find our political affairs in a good condition, and the

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great questions that stand before us in a fair way of being properly adjusted. A gentleman is a person who knows something of the world, who possesses dignity and self-respect, who recognizes the rights of others and the duties he owes to society in all his relations, who would as soon commit suicide as stain his palm with a bribe, who would not degrade himself by intrigues. There are various types of gentlemen, too, and the higher the type the better the politician. If his character and conduct are based on sound moral prin- | ciple-if he is governed by the rule of right—that is better than mere pride of character or gentlemanly instinct. If, beyond all, he is a man of faith and religion a Christian gentleman-he is the highest type of a gentleman; and in his hands the questions which Mr. Reid has proposed to the scholar would have the fairest handling that men are capable of giving them. The more the Christian gentleman knows, the better politician he will make, and in him, and in him only, will scholarship come to its finest issues in politics. We do not think that the worst feature of our politics is lack of intelligence in our politicians. There is a great deal of cultivated brain in Congress. Public questions are understood and intelligently discussed there. Even there, it is not always that scholarship shows superior ability. Men who show their capacity to manage affairs are quite as apt to come from the plainly educated as from the ranks of scholarship. Congress does not suffer from lack of knowledge and culture half as much as it does from lack of principle. It is the men who push personal and party purposes that poison legislation. If Congress were composed of gentlemen, we could even dispense with what scholars we have, and be better off than. we are to-day.

In

In the government of our cities, we could very well afford to get along without scholars, if we could have. only modestly educated gentlemen. If the heavyjawed, florid-faced, full-bellied, diamond-brooched bully who now typifies the city politician were put to his appropriate work of railroad-building, or superintending gangs of ignorant workmen, and there could be put in his place good, quiet business men, of gentiemanly instincts and of sound moral principle, we could get along very comfortably without the scholar, though there would not be the slightest objection to him. brief, we want better men than we have, a great deal more than we want brighter or better educated men. Scholarship is a secondary, rather than a primary consideration: the gentleman first, the scholar, if he is a gentleman, and not otherwise. If Christian gentlemen were in power, many of the questions that appeal to us for settlement would settle themselves. should not be called upon, for instance, to stop official stealing. Instead of trying to ascertain how we shall punish murder, we should dry up the fountains of murder. Instead of seeking a mode of controlling corporations, we should only need to find some mode of putting only gentlemen into corporations. Our laws are good enough in the main: we want them executed, and in order that they may be executed, we need a

We

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judiciary of Christian gentlemen, with executive officers, loyal to the law. As long as notorious scamps, scholarly or otherwise, are in power, not much headway can be made in politics. Until we demand something more and something better in our politicians than knowledge or scholarship, until we demand that they shall be gentlemen, we shall take no step forward. George Washington got along very well as a politician on a limited capital of culture, and a very large one of patriotism and personal dignity. Aaron Burr was a scholar, whose lack of principle spoiled him for any good end in politics, and made his name a stench in the nostrils of his country.

Moderate Prices.

It seems to be admitted, on all sides, that the past season was not a prosperous one for the summer hotels. Various reasons are assigned for the factamong others, that multitudes of those who usually frequent them went to Europe in the spring. Still, if this be true, the question remains undecided whether they did not go to Europe in order to get more pleasure and profit out of the same amount of money that they would be obliged to spend here,-nay, whether they did not go to save money. Indeed, we are inclined to think that the lack of patronage at the hotels, and the enormous deportation of our wealthy popula tion, are both owing to the high prices demanded at our watering-places for genteel fare and accommodation. If a man can have the benefit of a sea-voyage and a delightful summer in Switzerland, for what it would cost him to make a tour of our principal watering-places, he will be very apt to pack his trunks for the foreign trip; and we must honor his good taste and good judgment in the matter.

While the mammoth hotels and the high-priced places have mourned over their slender patronage, the secondclass houses have very generally been full. At Saratoga, the small hotels and boarding-houses have had guests in plenty. The boarding-houses and farmhouses in all directions about the country have had an abundance of summer visitors. The truth is, we suppose, that business has not been good, money has been scarce, and the people have studied economy. The expensive hotels can only be supported during periods of easy and large money-making, and the moment there comes a pinch, they feel it. They are keyed too high, even for the average American high life. They never make too much money in the best seasons; and when the bad seasons come, they either make none at all, or lose. Who it is that goes on building from year to year these expensive ęstablishments, we do not know, for nearly everybody who meddles with them loses by them. They cost immense sums, they burn up, or they fail to pay rent and dividends.

The permanent hotels of the great cities are built and furnished at the cost of millions, in which families pay from five thousand to ten thousand dollars a year

for board. We may say here that much of the economy practiced in the summer is owing to the absolute impossibility of living at a reasonable price in the win

ter.

Whether one live at a hotel or buy or rent a house, it matters not. The reason why the great hotels are prosperous in the city is because a family can live cheaper in them than at housekeeping. If we seek for the reason of this, we find that only certain localities and only a certain grade of building and furniture are considered respectable. Respectable lifegenteel life is all on an expensive scale. A man with an income of less than ten thousand dollars a year cannot support his family and entertain his friends in a style that would be considered genteel-much less, generous.

Our whole American life is keyed too high. If a man go into business, he will not be content with either a moderate business or moderate profits. Everything must be on a large scale-business, living, hospitality -everything. The hotels are like the rest, and their proprietors expect to make fortunes in ten years, and many of them do it. There really seems to be no respectable place for a respectable family of moderate means. The low-priced hotels are not genteel; the low-priced houses are either unfit to be lived in or are in mean localities; and thus the great need of the time-respectable homes for respectable men of moderate incomes-is unprovided for. If the Saratoga hotels should reduce their prices to $2.50 or $3.00 per day, and give their guests plain, wholesome fare, minus the splendor and the music, they would not only be crowded, but they would make money. If a nice three-dollar hotel could be established in a respectable quarter of New York, it would be crowded from year's end to year's end, and give a remunerative income to all connected with it. If plain, comfortable houses could be built in districts now unoccupied, for what their owners were willing to take a fair rent, people would not be driven by thousands, as they are now, either into hotels or into the suburban towns. We have now in New York only the rich and

the poor.

The middle class, who cannot live among the rich, and will not live among the poor, and take the risk of living among the vicious, as all do here who live among the poor, go out of the city to find their homes. So the words "To Let" stare upon us from the windows of a multitude of houses, which many would take at a fair rent, but which nobody can afford to hire. Real estate is very high, and considering the scarcity of money, wonderfully firm; but a change will come sooner or later. Our greatest fear is that it can only come through a great commercial disaster, involving the overthrow of all existing prices, and another beginning at the bottom of the ladder.

A New Woman's College.

THERE is to be a new Woman's College at Northampton, Mass. It will be founded on a generous bequest made by Miss Sophia Smith, of Hatfield-a

town adjoining Northampton-who, very sensibly, took it upon herself to appoint the Board of Trustees. This Board embraces the names of Professors Tyler and Julius Seelye, of Amherst College; Professor Park, of Andover; Joseph White, of Williamstown; B. G. Northrop, of New Haven; and Governor Washburn, of Massachusetts. Such a board of trustees " means business," and the business is, in fact, begun. A site for the college has been purchased, and is everything that it ought to be. Professor L. Clark Seelye, of Amherst, has been elected the President of the institution, and has accepted the place. What remains to be done is to erect the buildings and determine upon the scheme to be pursued. Exactly here we wish to offer a few suggestions.

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man.

The Board of Trustees of Smith College have in their hands the power to solve some very grave questions in connection with the higher education of woThey know just what Mount Holyoke Seminary is, and whether an institution constituted like that will answer their purpose. If Mount Holyoke is perfect, all they will wish to do will be to duplicate it as nearly as possible. They know what Vassar is; are they satisfied with Vassar? If so, they will repeat Vassar in Smith, and that will be the end of it. It is, however, only fair to state that there is in the public mind a feeling or conviction, that, with all their acknowledged excellencies, neither Mount Holyoke nor Vassar is the ideal Woman's College. We share in this conviction, and for this reason we write.

We do not believe in bringing large bodies, either of young men or young women, under a single roof, and keeping them there for a period of four years. Young men can be managed in a college because they can be parceled out in families. They are able to be out in all kinds of weather, and are kept healthy in body and mind by being constantly in contact with the world. Young women cannot be managed in this way. They must live within the college walls, and thus they must be confined to each other's society. The mischiefs that are bred by circumstances like these none know so well as those who have had charge of large bodies of girls under any circumstances. We. are free to say that no consideration would induce us to place a young woman-daughter or ward-in a college which would shut her away from all family life for a period of four years. The system is unnatural, and not one young woman in ten can be subjected to it without injury. It is not necessary to go into particulars, but every observing physician or physiologist knows what we mean when we say that such a system is fearfully unsafe. The facts which substantiate their opinion would fill the public mind with horror if they were publicly known. Men may "pooh! pooh!" these facts if they choose, but they exist. Diseases of body, diseases of imagination, vices of body and imagination-everything we would save our children from-are bred in these great institutions where life and association are circumscribed, as weeds are forced in hot-beds.

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Can we have a college for women and save ourselves and them from these dangers and damages? We believe it is possible; and, furthermore, we believe that if it is not possible, we had better throw our money into the river, and stop building Women's Colleges altogether. Women, as a rule, are better educated for their positions than men are, now. There are no great exigencies in the case, and there is no reason for exposing hundreds of girls to the perils of college life as they at present exist. If we can have a college in which these perils are mainly avoided, let us have it; if we cannot, the quicker the buildings burn down, and the longer they remain burned down, the better.

Smith College will do a great thing for America and woman if it can furnish a college education and avoid the college perils. We can think of only one way in which this can be accomplished, and that is, instead of having the girls all under one roof, to bring them under twenty. Let the college consist of one central building, for class and assembly rooms, and of tasteful dwelling-houses, each capable, say, of boarding twenty girls. Let each dwelling-house be conducted by a professor, who, with his wife and children, shall form the center of the family. Insist that there shall be a real family in every house, and it will not be hard for every young woman to feel that, for the time, she is a member of it. Do not shut out men from the daily conduct of school affairs. Have no church or chapel on the place. Smith College is located almost in the center of one of the most thriving and beautiful of New England villages.

There are, within easy walking distance of the college grounds, Baptist, Methodist, Congregational, and Episcopal churches, into which the pupils should all go according to their varied predilections, and in which they should be encouraged to engage in active work. The Sunday Schools of Northampton, every one, should be enriched by these young workers. The girls would thus become a blessing to the town, and the effect upon themselves would be eminently healthful. We regard this matter as of prime importance. Don't shut the girls up on Sunday to one another. Don't undertake to run any theological machine in connection with the institution. Wherever it is safe to do so, let the girls come into vital contact with society, and if they can do so at all they can do so on Sunday, and in connection with the work of the church.

We do not know whether the Trustees of Smith College have settled upon their plans or not, but we can safely say to them that the country expects of them something which it has not had. It expects a bold, original move in the right direction. It expects some plan that shall not shut up three hundred women together, away from all family influence and beyond the possibility of family sentiment and feeling, -some plan that will connect the college with the world. If there is any plan better than that which we have outlined, let us have it; but if we must have the same over again, that has already been done too often, we shall wish that Sophia Smith had had less money, and had left that to-well-to us.

THE OLD CABINET.

I FEEL inclined to speak only with the most profound respect of the Stagey Person. I am chagrined to find that the adjective here applied to him, while thoroughly descriptive, is at the same time somewhat jaunty to the ear and savorous of disesteem. I would wish my language, while conversant with such a theme as this, to move with fit and becoming stateliness, expressive not only of the character and bearing of the person alluded to, but of my appreciation of his many virtues and my awe of his deportment.

For he is as eminent in manners as he is in morals. In a word, he never forgets himself. More than that, he never forgets his part nor his audience. It is, moreover, one of his most characteristic traits that the complexion, social grade, appreciativeness, and numbers of his audience are all alike indifferent to him. He is a true artist. He plays to well-nigh empty benches with the same lofty standards in view as ever animate his action before a full and enthusiastic house. The applause of the pit, let it be said to his credit, is received with the same flattering assumption as that of the private boxes.

Of course my gentle reader has not allowed this seductive simile of the stage, so easily suggested by the

circumstances, to mislead him as to the object of my tribute. He is not a professional at all. Indeed, I never heard of his indulging even in the amusement popularly known as "private theatricals," although this phrase might be with propriety selected as illustrating his entire method of life.

He never forgets himself, I said;-he never forgets his costume, his pose, his movement, his voice, his phrases, his background. Each is not only fine in itself, but has the proper relation to all the rest, as well as to the present situation-which includes occupation, time of day, and other minutiæ. A studied negligence in dress, diction, or surrounding, forms, of course, a legitimate part of the adaptation of everything to the intended effect. I can hardly find language sufficiently subtile by which to convey an impression of the fine modulations of his art. For though a lock of hair may have strayed, as if by accident, from its apparently legitimate position-mark you, it is with no coy or coquettish design, but merely a grave simulation of that in a spirit purely artistic-and in such a manner that no one is deceived. She would not have you for a moment suspect that her motives were anything but aesthetic, and you do not so suspect; her

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