console him. For some minutes I stood in contemplation, gazing upon the stone pavement beneath my feet. "And this," I ejaculated, "is a city inhabited by the ghosts of the future, who believe men and women to be phantoms and specters?" She bowed her head. "But how is it," I asked, "that you discovered that you are spirits and we mortal men ?" "There are so few of us who think of such things," she answered, "so few who study, ponder, and reflect. I am fond of study, and I love philosophy; and from the reading of many books I have learned much. From the book which I have here I have learned most; and from its teachings I have gradually come to the belief, which you tell me is the true one, that we are spirits and you men." "And what book is that?" I asked. "It is "The Philosophy of Relative Existences,' by Rupert Vance." "Ye gods!" I exclaimed, springing upon the balcony, "that is my book, and I am Rupert Vance." I stepped toward the volume to seize it, but she raised her hand. "You cannot touch it," she said. "It is the ghost of a book. And did you write it?" "Write it? No," I said; I am writing it. It is not yet finished." "But here it is," she said, turning over the last pages. "As a spirit book it is finished. It is very successful; it is held in high estimation by intelligent thinkers; it is a standard work." I stood trembling with emotion. "High estimation!" I said. "A standard work!" "Oh, yes," she replied with animation; "and it well deserves its great success, especially in its conclusion. I have read it twice." "But let me see these concluding pages," I exclaimed. "Let me look upon what I am to write." She smiled, and shook her head, and closed the book. "I would like to do that," she said, "but if you are really a man you must not know what you are going to do." "Oh, tell me, tell me." cried Bentley from below, "do you know a book called 'Stellar Studies,' by Arthur Bentley? It is a book of poems." The figure gazed at him. "No," it said presently; "I never heard of it." I stood trembling. Had the youthful figure before me been flesh and blood, had the book been a real one, I would have torn it from her. "O wise and lovely being!" I exclaimed, falling on my knees before her, "be also benign and generous. Let me but see the last page of my book. If I have been of benefit to your world; more than all, if I have been of benefit to you, let me see, I implore you-let me see how it is that I have done it." She rose with the book in her hand. “You have only to wait until you have done it," she said, "and then you will know all that you could see here." I started to my feet, and stood alone upon the balcony. "I AM Sorry," said Bentley, as we walked toward the pier where we had left our boat, "that we talked only to that ghost girl, and that the other spirits were all afraid of us. Persons whose souls are choked up with philosophy are not apt to care much for poetry; and even if my book is to be widely known, it is easy to see that she may not have heard of it.” I walked triumphant. The moon, almost touching the horizon, beamed like red gold. "My dear friend," said I," I have always told you that you should put more philosophy into your poetry. That would make it live." "And I have always told you," said he, "that you should not put so much poetry into your philosophy. It misleads people." "It did n't mislead that ghost girl," said I. "How do you know?" said he. "Perhaps she is wrong, and the other inhabitants of the city are right, and we may be the ghosts after all. Such things, you know, are only relative. Anyway," he continued, after a little pause, "I wish I knew that those ghosts were now reading the poem I am going to begin to-morrow." Frank R. Stockton. TEARS. NOT in the time of pleasure Hope doth set her bow; But in the sky of sorrow, Over the vale of woe. Through gloom and shadow look we The soul would have no rainbow John Vance Cheney. BEACHED. According to a superstitious observance among certain fisher-folk, the recovered boat of a drowned fisherman has ended its sphere of usefulness, and is beached, with curses and solemn imprecations by the assembled neighbors. A reference to the custom is made in "A Daughter of Fife," by Amelia E. Barr. HEY have left her all alone, with her keel turned to the sun; Even little children pause and grow silent, with great eyes, The laden boats go by, with their snowy sails outspread; Not a thought from those who prized her, that she knew well, face to face; They have left her all alone, with her keel turned to the sun; And her strong heart-timbers shrink through the quivering summer day, They have left her all alone, with her keel turned to the sun; Oh, the pity in the fisher's hut, where lights burn dim and low! Oh, the empty platters waiting, when the oaken board is spread! In the roar and in the tempest, she had weathered through the gale, ARCHITECTURE AT THE WORLD'S COLUMBIAN T EXPOSITION.— III. O the building for the department of Electricity was assigned an area 350 feet on the court and 700 feet long, the major axis running north and south. Though peculiarly fortunate in its site, having an important frontage on the lagoon as well as on the court, it was the smallest building of the principal group. It thus became incumbent on its architects, Messrs. Van Brunt & Howe of Kansas City, so to design this building that it should not be overwhelmed by the superior mass of its neighbors, and that, if possible, it might have such characteristics as should at once conceal and justify its inferiority of size; which inferiority, however, is only comparative, the actual area to be occupied being considerably in excess of that covered by the Capitol at Washington. Its purposes seemed to suggest a playful animation of outline, somewhat like that of the early French Renaissance in the châteaux, approaching even the fantastic joyousness of Chambord, combined with a certain delicacy or preciousness of detail, which might legitimately differentiate it from the rest in regard to expression, while, in respect to general style and feeling, and in loyalty to scholastic types, it should still belong to the same architectural family. The area is conveniently divisible into 23foot squares by two systems of parallel lines crossing at right angles. Upon the intersection of these lines the columns and piers of the exterior and interior are placed. This module of 23 feet, being somewhat less than that adopted for the other buildings, assists in carrying into execution that more delicate scale of design, that nervousness of movement and avoidance of massiveness, which, as we have intimated, seem to be suggested by the idea of electricity. It soon became evident that the space set aside for this department of the Exposition, though covering 4.85 acres, would be insufficient to meet the demands of exhibitors, unless the largest possible amount of floor-space which could be gained within it should be made available to them. This at once suggested a second story of flooring, covering as large a space as the necessary openings for the admission of day light from the roof into the central parts of the first story would admit. To obtain the obvious advantages of grand central avenues in both directions, it was clear that the building should be crossed by longitudinal and transverse naves, open from floor to roof and free from columns. The module of 23 feet enters fifteen times into the width of the building. Five of these modules, or 115 feet, are taken for the width of the naves, and they are covered with pitched roofs, supported by steel arched trusses, set 23 feet on centers, and lofty enough to permit a line of clearstory windows to be elevated above the rest of the building, which, for its part, is divided into five aisles on each side of the longitudinal nave, each one module wide, and these are covered with continuous flat roofs, with a series of skylights over the central aisles corresponding with openings in the second floor. Access to these galleries is obtained by grand staircases, one on each side of each of the four main central porches. The main exterior architectural expression depends upon these simple primary conditions. Where these high naves abut against the center of each of the four façades, an important entrance pavilion is naturally established. As for the inclosing architectural screen walls around the rest of the building, the interior module of 23 feet naturally produces a corresponding series of divisions into bays, which must be 60 feet high to the cornice for the sake of that unity of style agreed upon for all the court buildings. These screen walls are hardly long enough to permit the arrangement of the bays in groups or large divisions, without by this means drawing attention to that comparative inferiority of size which it appeared to be the obvious duty of the architects to conceal or condone; nor do the conditions of the plan suggest such groups or divisions anywhere except in the center of each front. Each bay, therefore, is made complete in itself, and is so devised as to admit of repetition all around the building, interrupted only by such slight breaks, with variations of motif, as are essential to illustrate the plan, to furnish bases for frequent towers, and to prevent the monotony from becoming mechanical and fatiguing, but not of sufficient emphasis to clash with that expression of continuity which is recognized as an important element in noble architecture, and which, in the present case, is an echo of the plan. 8 feet high, which is made continuous to prevent the composition from becoming disjointed, but having the cornice and the paneled attic above the cornice broken around them. Each pilaster, so emphasized anddetached, is finished with a pedestal upholding a staff for banners and for a constellation of electric lights, thus carrying the vertical line lightly to the sky, and securing an effect somewhat similar to that of a pinnacled buttress. This order of piers, or pilasters, is adjusted to the proportions and details of the highly enriched Corinthian of Vignola. Between each pair of pilasters the bay is divided horizontally, on the line of the gallery floor, by a subordinate Ionic entablature, supported by two jamb pilasters and by a central column of that order, the space above being treated with an arch deeply embayed. Behind this architectural screen are placed the windows, set in bronze frames. These openings occupy an unusually large proportion of the wall-veil, because of the necessity of throwing abundant light across the five ranges of aisles in both stories. Near each end of the façades this continuity of similar open bays is relieved, or punctuated as it were, by a solid bay of the same width, but of slightly increased projection, pierced with a small window in each story, the upper one having a balcony supported by sculptured brackets. The narrow pavilions thus formed are finished on the attic line with highly enriched pediments, and form the basis of a more emphatic expression of vertical energy by supporting in each case a slender open campanile of the Composite order, rising suddenly from behind the balustrade of a platform, on the corners of which are planted tall candelabra with groups of electric globes. On the long fronts, midway between each end pavilion and the central |