d'exil et je suis seul, tout seul au monde. Après tout cela vaut peut-être mieux, car toute affection est la source de plus de douleurs que de joies. Rien n'est plus dur que de voir souffrir ceux qu'on aime. Nil amare est encore meilleur que nil admirari.

Je partirai la semaine prochaine pour la France. La République y est solidement établie, toutes les places sont à prendre, tout est à la portée des hommes de cœur et d'intelligence. Pour peu que la chance me favorise, vous entendrez parler de moi dans quelques années. En Amérique j'ai appris une bonne chose, c'est: go ahead. Believe me, sir, yours truly,

1 July 8, 1879 [LONDON].

SIR, — I had hoped to see you on my way back to Paris. I was aware you had left, but I did not know your address; or else I should have written to inform you of the heavy blow which struck me last year: my mother died on August 16, 1878. She sleeps in the land of exile, and I am alone, all alone, in the world. After all, perhaps it is better thus, for from our affections spring more sorrows than joys. To see the sufferings of those we love is the hardest lot of all. Nil amare is even better than nil admirari.

I shall leave next week for France. The Republic is firmly established; every post is open to him who can seize it; everything is within the grasp of men of courage and understanding. If fortune gives me but a small share of her favors, before many years have passed my name shall be known. One good thing I learnt in America- to go ahead.

Believe me, sir, yours truly,

59 RUE DES FEUILLANTINES [PARIS], 4-7bre, 1879.

DEAR SIR,- Me voilà installé.

Dès mon arrivée j'ai appris que j'étais amnistié. Je l'ignorais, et j'étais parti à tout hasard, j'en avais assez de l'exil.

J'en ai assez aussi de l'instruction, et je veux vivre de ma plume. Déjà quelques articles ont été acceptés et vont paraître incessamment. Je me suis arrangé avec l'éditeur d'un journal, qui m'a demandé de lui traduire quelques petites nouvelles de l'Anglais. . . . Mais ce que j'aimerais surtout à traduire ce serait un grand et bel ouvrage scientifique ou historique.

Et vous, quand viendrez-vous à Paris? J'ai trouvé la grande ville bien belle. C'est là que la vie est, je ne dis pas bonne-elle ne l'est hulle part mais supportable. Elle passe si vîte qu'on a presque pas le temps de souffrir.

Mais vous êtes, vous, un optimiste qui, j'en suis sûr, ne goûtez pas les charmes de l'anéantissement final. Et puis vous avez à faire sur la terre, tant d'affections vous y rattachent. J'ai vu Miss Let N, j'ai retrouvé une jeune fille et un jeune homme où j'avais laissé des enfants. C'est à cela qu'on voit que l'on a vieilli. Miss M- doit être une femme et E- - déjà un gaillard. Tout ce petit monde en grandissant

la tombe. La place

semble nous pousser vers
est restreinte à l'airée de la vie.

Croyez moi

Yours truly

1

My gloomy correspondent made one or two additions to my collection of autographs. The following letter was written to him in English by 1 59 RUE DES FEUILLANTINES [PARIS], September 4, 1879.

On my arrival I learnt
In ignorance of this I

DEAR SIR, Here I am settled down. that I had been included in the amnesty. had set out ready to run every risk, for I had had enough of exile. I have had enough of teaching, too, and I mean to live by my pen. Some of my articles have already been accepted, and are to appear at once. I have come to an understanding with the publisher of a journal, who has asked me to translate for him some short stories from the English. But what I should like above all to translate is some important work on science or history.

But when are you coming to Paris? I have found the great city beautiful indeed. There, if anywhere, life is — I will not say good, for it is good nowhere, but endurable. It passes by so swiftly that time is scarcely left for suffering.

and

But as for you, you are an optimist, with not the least taste, I am sure, for the charms of that annihilation which ends everything. And then you have your work to do on this earth; you are bound to it by so many ties of affection. I have seen Miss LN; I have found on my return a young girl and a young man where I had left children. It is changes such as these which show us that we have ourselves grown old. Miss M— is, no doubt, a woman, and E― must be by this time a fine young fellow. All this little world, in growing big, seems to thrust us towards the grave. On this threshing-floor of the world there is only room for the sheaves of a single harvest.

one of his comrades, who had, he told me, held the post of "intendant" during the Commune. It shows how these exiles had their purses in

common.

Monday morning.

DEAR: When you come at London next Wednesday bring me please 2 or 3 pounds, because I have no more money.

Your in Friendship

Another letter which he gave me is a strange piece of patchwork, for no two words in it-and there are more than twenty-are in the same language. It was written by Napoléon La Cecilia, a man who spoke eight languages fluently, and read twenty-five easily. Through how many more he could have groped his way with the help of a dictionary and grammar I do not know. It was not only languages that he knew; for some years he had taught mathematics at Jena. Frenchman though he was by birth and education, nevertheless he joined the army with which Garibaldi invaded Sicily, and rapidly rose to the rank of colonel. For his skill and gallantry he was publicly thanked by Victor Emmanuel. He would not, however, serve under a king, and resigned his commission. He was in Paris when the war with Germany broke out, and he at once offered

his services to the imperial government. So sturdy a republican was as much distrusted as a German by Napoleon's ministers, and his offer was declined. He enlisted in the Franc-tireurs, and once more was made a colonel. When the republic was established, he was transferred, with the same rank, to the regular army, in which he distinguished himself by his defense of Châteaudun-on-the-Loire. Unhappily, he was swept away by the mad frenzy of the Commune. By the insurgents he was promoted to the rank of general. How he escaped to England I do not know. To disguise himself would have been almost impossible, so peculiar were his large goggle eyes. For five years he taught French in the Royal Naval School at New Cross. His health, which had suffered greatly from exposure in the FrancoGerman War, began to fail, and he left England for the milder climate of Egypt. "Here," as I learn from one who knew him well, "he never spoke of the Commune, never uttered a single Communistic opinion. Though his convictions remained the same, he effaced the past in his talk, and seemed to find content in earning a meagre livelihood by teaching French and Italian in a few English families. His erudition and keen intellect were, however, much valued by a small circle of friends; and it is pleasant to think that almost his last words were, 'France is at last in