foreign ideas and to act like foreigners. Luckily, the American characters of "The Banker's Daughter," with one exception, could be twisted into very fair Englishmen, with only a faint suspicion of our Yankee accent. Mr. James Albery, one of the most brilliant men in England, author of “The Two Roses," was engaged to make them as nearly English as he could. I learned more about the various minor differences of social life in England and America while we were thus at work together than I could have learned in a residence there of five years. I have time to give you only a few of the points. Take the engagement of Lilian, broken in act first. An engagement in England is necessarily a family matter, and it could neither be made nor broken by the mere fiat of a young girl, without consultation with others, leaving the way open for the immediate acceptance of another man's hand. In the English version, therefore, there is no engagement with Harold Routledge. It is only an understanding between them that they love each other. Then the duel-it is next to impossible to persuade an English audience that a duel is justifiable or natural with an Englishman as one of the principals. So we played a rather sharp artistic trick on our English audience. In the American version, I assume that, if a plucky young American in France insults a Frenchman purposely, he will abide by the local customs, and give him satisfaction, if called upon to do so. So would a young Englishman, between you and me; but the laws of dramatic construction deal with the sympathies of the audience as well as with the natural motives and actions of the characters in a play; and an English audience would think the French count ought to be perfectly satisfied if Routledge knocked him down. How did we get over the difficulty? First, we made Routledge a British officer returning from India, instead of an artist on his way from Rome-a fighting man by profession: and then we made the Count de Carojac pile so many sneers and insults on this British officer, and on the whole British nation, that I verily believe a London audience would have mobbed Routledge if he hadn't tried to kill him. The English public walked straight into the trap, though they abhor nothing on earth more than the duelling system.

The peculiar history of the play is my only justification for giving you all these details of its otherwise unimportant career. I only trust that I have shown you how very practical the laws of dramatic construction are in the way they influence a dramatist. The art of obeying them is merely the art of using your common sense in the study of your own and other people's emotions. All I now add is, if you write a play, be honest and sincere in using your common sense. The public often condescends to be trifled. with by mere tricksters, but, believe me, it is only a condescension, and very contemptuous. In the long run, the public will judge you, and respect you, according to your artistic sincerity.

Thomas Stephens Collier.

BORN in New York, N. Y., 1842.

SACRILEGE.

ESIDE the wall, and near the massive gate

BES

Of the great temple in Jerusalem,

The legionary, Probus stood elate,

His eager clasp circling a royal gem.

It was an offering made by some dead king
Unto the great Jehovah, when the sword
Amid his foes had mown a ghastly ring,

Helped by the dreaded angel of the Lord.

There, on his rival's crest, among the slain,
Through the red harvest it had clearly shone,
Lighting the grimness of the sanguine plain
With splendors that had glorified a throne.

Above the altar of God's sacred place,

A watchful star, it lit the passing years,
With radiance falling on each suppliant's face,
Gleaming alike in love's and sorrow's tears,

Till swept the war-tide through the sunlit vales
Leading from Jordan, and the western sea
And the fierce host of Titus filled the gales

With jubilant shouts and songs of victory.

Then came the day when over all the walls

The Romans surged, and Death laughed loud and high,
And there was wailing in the palace halls,
And sound of lamentations in the sky.

Torn from its place, it lay within the hand

Of Probus, whose keen sword had rent a way,

With rapid blows, amid the priestly band

Whose piteous prayers moaned through that dreadful day.

And there, beside the wall, he stopped to gaze
Upon the fortune, that would give his life

The home and rest that come with bounteous days,
And bring reward for toil and warlike strife.

There was no cloud in all Heaven's lustrous blue,
Yet suddenly a red flash cleft the air,
And the dark shadow held a deeper hue,-

A dead man, with an empty hand, lay there.

The Youth's Companion. 1883.

WHE

Charles Monroe Dickinson.

BORN in Lowville, Lewis Co., N. Y., 1842.

THE CHILDREN.

[The Children, and Other Verses. 1889.]

HEN the lessons and tasks are all
ended,

And the school for the day is dismissed,
The little ones gather around me,

To bid me good night and be kissed;
O, the little white arms that encircle

My neck in their tender embrace!
O, the smiles that are halos of heaven,
Shedding sunshine of love on my face!

And when they are gone, I sit dreaming
Of my childhood too lovely to last,-
Of joy that my heart will remember,

While it wakes to the pulse of the past,
Ere the world and its wickedness made

me

A partner of sorrow and sin,
When the glory of God was about me,
And the glory of gladness within.

All my heart grows as weak as a woman's,
And the fountain of feeling will flow,
When I think of the paths steep and
stony,

Where the feet of the dear ones must
go,-

Of the mountains of sin hanging o'er them,

Of the tempest of fate blowing wild ;O, there's nothing on earth half so holy As the innocent heart of a child!

They are idols of hearts and of households;

They are angels of God in disguise; His sunlight still sleeps in their tresses, His glory still shines in their eyes; Those truants from home and from heav

en,

They have made me more manly and
mild;

And I know now how Jesus could liken
The kingdom of God to a child.

VOL. X.-9

I ask not a life for the dear ones,
All radiant, as others have done,
But that life may have just enough
shadow

To temper the glare of the sun;

I would pray God to guard them from evil,

But my prayer would bound back to
myself;-

Ah! a seraph may pray for a sinner,
But a sinner must pray for himself.

The twig is so easily bended,

I have banished the rule and the rod; I have taught them the goodness of knowledge,

They have taught me the goodness of

God:

My heart is the dungeon of darkness
Where I shut them for breaking a rule;
My frown is sufficient correction;

My love is the law of the school.

I shall leave the old house in the autumn,
To traverse its threshold no more;
Ah, how I shall sigh for the dear ones

That meet me each morn at the door! I shall miss the "good nights" and the kisses,

And the gush of their innocent glee, The group on the green, and the flowers That are brought every morning for

me.

I shall miss them at morn and at even,
Their song in the school and the street;
I shall miss the low hum of their voices,
And the tread of their delicate feet.
When the lessons of life are all ended,

And death says "The school is dis-
missed!"

May the little ones gather around me,

To bid me good night and be kissed!

MR

Ellen Warner Olney Kirk.

BORN in Southington, Conn., 1842.

HIS WIFE'S RELATIONS.

[A Daughter of Eve. 1889.]

RS. BARRYMORE often said that she was before all things a mother. Her maternal instinct was fully developed, and she loved to tear her own breast to line the nest for her young, and make it soft and downy. Still, when Valerie had come to her with tears, and implored her to get some money for her dear Benno, who was in the state of mind in which men commit suicide, not even Mrs. Barrymore could have enjoyed the role imposed upon her. But does any one suppose that the mother bird finds her best personal comfort in making provision for her ravenous offspring? When you watch a robin fly back to her brood with a wriggling worm, have you so little imagination as to take it for granted that it was her real choice to run the risks of cats and shotguns?

However, necessities like the baron's have always governed circumstances, and, accordingly, some two minutes after Patty had left Mr. Litchfield, Mrs. Barrymore rang at his door, was admitted, and, walking along the hall majestically, waved the servant away, and said that she herself would find her son-in-law, and accordingly Bunce drew back and retreated to his pantry.

Accordingly, now putting every thought behind her of any possible unpleasantness in the coming interview, she tiptoed along the hall, opened the door of her son-in-law's book-room, and looked in, meeting him face to face as he was pacing the room, thinking over his talk with Patty. "Here I am," said Mrs. Barrymore, in her sprightliest manner. "Dear David, I am so glad to see you!" And she put up her still fresh cheek to be kissed.

He did not evade the caress-shook hands, besides-placed a chair for her, and gave her the end of his tube to talk into.

What do you suppose I have come for, David?" she asked, in her pretty, playful way, her head a little on one side, smiling, arch, all her face laughing but her eyes, which always seemed on the watch.

"I never guess," said Mr. Litchfield; "you will have to tell me.”

"I came to ask a favor-just a little favor," said Mrs. Barrymore. "Now, promise me you will grant it. It is nothing to you, literally nothing; yet to me it is everything."

"If it is anything for yourself-anything for your individual self-consider it granted."

Here was Mrs. Barrymore's opportunity; she might have filled up this carte blanche in a way to make her comfortable for many a day to come, but we all have our ideal of character to live up to, and, fond of substantial gains although Mrs. Barrymore was, her consistency was dearer. She knew her

own disinterestedness, and stood aghast at times at the world's ingratitude towards such unrecorded virtues.

"For myself?" she shrieked into the tube. "Did you ever know me to make a personal request? None! I can suffer; I can go without; I can resign. My only thought is for my family, and I am a mother before all things. You have heard how the pelican ”.

"You are a good mother, no doubt," said Mr. Litchfield; "but you must reflect that all good mother birds, when the young ones are fully fledged, push them out of the nest, to teach them to fly alone."

"Oh, but, dear David, we have not only the devotedness of birds; we need far more. We have to be patient even when our young ones stay in the nest. It is so important, indeed," she pursued, carrying on the metaphor, "that they should not fly until the right time. David, my dear son, you are a selfmade man."

She glanced into his face winningly, and he looked back at her with his serene, meditative gaze.

66

"A self-made man!" he repeated. "I always supposed God made me, like the rest of his creatures."

"I mean," said Mrs. Barrymore, "that you began as a poor boy. You came to New York with a few dollars in your pocket.'

"The truth is," said Mr. Litchfield, with a faint chuckle, "I came to New York without a penny in my pocket. I was born here."

Mrs. Barrymore may have been impatient with this mild joke; at least she did not seem to discover any humor in it.

"Your success has been amazing-amazing," she said, with animation, but with the most solemn emphasis. "You began at the very bottom of the ladder, but now you have reached a really proud position."

"Still, I try not to be proud."

"But you may well be proud," insisted Mrs. Barrymore, "connected as you now are with the Careys, the Dorseys, the Barrymores, and not only with the first families of New York, but the very highest aristocracy of Europe." "But am I?" asked Mr. Litchfield, as if in consternation.

"You are brother-in-law to Baron Benno von Lindholm!" shouted Mrs. Barrymore, whose nerves began to feel the strain of this demand upon her voice and her patience. It was at such moments that a conviction flashed a clear illumination into the recesses of her inmost soul that her son-in-law was not deaf; that he was not even so innocent as he seemed to be.

"There is no better family in Germany than the Lindholm-Gatzbergs. They have forty quarterings and they live in a schloss."

"A schloss, good Heavens!" said Mr. Litchfield, holding his tube with an air of the most sedulous attention.

"Yes, a schloss. Benno's father, the baron, his mother, the baroness, and his brothers, and their wives, all live in this schloss."

"It needs to be of good size," suggested Mr. Litchfield; then, with a brightening eye, as if on the threshold of a new idea, he added: "I suppose the reason our baron does not take Valerie to the ancestral schloss is because there is no room."