three! From northeast to east, from east to southeast, from southeast to south then from the south he came, whirling the Sea in his arms. . .

...

... Some one shrieked in the midst of the revels;-some girl who found her pretty slippers wet. What could it be? Thin streams of water were spreading over the level planking,-curling about the feet of the dancers.... What could it be? All the land had begun to quake, even as, but a moment before, the polished floor was trembling to the pressure of circling steps;— all the building shook now; every beam uttered its groan. What could it be? ...

There was a clamor, a panic, a rush to the windy night. Infinite darkness above and beyond; but the lantern-beams danced far out over an unbroken circle of heaving and swirling black water. Stealthily, swiftly, the measureless sea-flood was rising.

-"Messieurs-mesdames, ce n'est rien. Nothing serious, ladies, I assure you. . . . Mais nous en avons vu bien souvent, les inondations comme celleci; ça passe vite! The water will go down in a few hours, ladies; it never rises higher than this; il n'y a pas le moindre danger, je vous dis! Allons! il n'y a- My God! what is that ?"

For a moment there was a ghastly hush of voices. And through that hush there burst upon the ears of all a fearful and unfamiliar sound, as of a colossal cannonade-rolling up from the south, with volleying lightnings. Vastly and swiftly, nearer and nearer it came,-a ponderous and unbroken thunderroll, terrible as the long muttering of an earthquake.

The nearest mainland,-across mad Caillou Bay to the sea-marshes,—lay twelve miles north; west, by the Gulf, the nearest solid ground was twenty miles distant. There were boats, yes!-but the stoutest swimmer might never reach them now!...

Then rose a frightful cry,-the hoarse, hideous, indescribable cry of hopeless fear, the despairing animal-cry man utters when suddenly brought face to face with Nothingness, without preparation, without consolation, without possibility of respite. . . . Sauve qui peut! Some wrenched down the doors; some clung to the heavy banquet-tables, to the sofas, to the billiard-tables :during one terrible instant,-against fruitless heroisms, against futile generosities, raged all the frenzy of selfishness, all the brutalities of panic. And then-then came, thundering through the blackness, the giant swells, boom on boom!... One crash!--the huge frame building rocks like a cradle, seesaws, crackles. What are human shrieks now ?-the tornado is shrieking! Another chandeliers splinter; lights are dashed out; a sweeping cataract hurls in the immense hall rises,-oscillates,-twirls as upon a pivot,-crepitates, crumbles into ruin. Crash again!-the swirling wreck dissolves into the wallowing of another monster billow; and a hundred cottages overturn, spin in sudden eddies, quiver, disjoint, and melt into the seething.

... So the hurricane passed, -tearing off the heads of the prodigious waves, to hurl them a hundred feet in air,―heaping up the ocean against the land,-upturning the woods. Bays and passes were swollen to abysses; rivers regorged; the sea-marshes were changed to raging wastes of water. Before New Orleans the flood of the mile-broad Mississippi rose six feet above

highest water-mark. One hundred and ten miles away, Donaldsonville trembled at the towering tide of the Lafourche. Lakes strove to burst their boundaries. Far-off river-steamers tugged wildly at their cables,-shivering like tethered creatures that hear by night the approaching howl of destroyers. Smoke-stacks were hurled overboard, pilot-houses torn away, cabins blown to fragments.

And over roaring Kaimbuck Pass,-over the agony of Caillou Bay,-the billowing tide rushed unresisted from the Gulf,-tearing and swallowing the land in its course,-ploughing out deep-sea channels where sleek herds had been grazing but a few hours before,-rending islands in twain,—and ever bearing with it, through the night, enormous vortex of wreck and vast wan drift of corpses.

But the Star remained. And Captain Abraham Smith, with a long, good rope about his waist, dashed again and again into that awful surging to snatch victims from death,-clutching at passing hands, heads, garments, in the cataract-sweep of the seas,-saving, aiding, cheering, though blinded by spray and battered by drifting wreck, until his strength failed in the unequal struggle at last, and his men drew him aboard senseless, with some beautiful halfdrowned girl safe in his arms. But well-nigh twoscore souls had been rescued by him; and the Star stayed on through it all.

Long years after, the weed-grown ribs of her graceful skeleton could still be seen, curving up from the sand-dunes of Last Island, in valiant witness of how well she stayed.

Day breaks through the flying wrack, over the infinite heaving of the sea, over the low land made vast with desolation. It is a spectral dawn: a wan light, like the light of a dying sun.

The wind has waned and veered; the flood sinks slowly back to its abysses -abandoning its plunder,-scattering its piteous waifs over bar and dune, over shoal and marsh, among the silences of the mango-swamps, over the long low reaches of sand-grasses and drowned weeds, for more than a hundred miles. From the shell-reefs of Pointe-au-Fer to the shallows of Pelto Bay the dead lie mingled with the high-heaped drift ;-from their cypress groves the vultures rise to dispute a share of the feast with the shrieking frigatebirds and squeaking gulls. And as the tremendous tide withdraws its plunging waters, all the pirates of air follow the great white-gleaming retreat a storm of billowing wings and screaming throats.

And swift in the wake of gull and frigate-bird the Wreckers come, the Spoilers of the dead,-savage skimmers of the sea,-hurricane-riders wont to spread their canvas-pinions in the face of storms; Sicilian and Corsican outlaws, Manilamen from the marshes, deserters from many navies, Lascars, marooners, refugees of a hundred nationalities,-fishers and shrimpers by name, smugglers by opportunity,-wild channel-finders from obscure bayous and unfamiliar chénières, all skilled in the mysteries of these mysterious waters beyond the comprehension of the oldest licensed pilot. . . . .

There is plunder for all-birds and men. There are drowned sheep in mul

VOL. X.-36

titude, heaped carcasses of kine. There are casks of claret and kegs of brandy and legions of bottles bobbing in the surf. There are billiard-tables overturned upon the sand;-there are sofas, pianos, footstools and music-stools, luxurious chairs, lounges of bamboo. There are chests of cedar, and toilettables of rosewood, and trunks of fine stamped leather stored with precious apparel. There are objets de luxe innumerable. There are children's playthings: French dolls in marvellous toilets, and toy carts, and wooden horses, and wooden spades, and brave little wooden ships that rode out the gale in which the great Nautilus went down. There is money in notes and in coin -in purses, in pocket-books, and in pockets: plenty of it! There are silks, satins, laces, and fine linen to be stripped from the bodies of the drowned,— and necklaces, bracelets, watches, finger-rings and fine chains, brooches and trinkets. . . . "Chi bidizza!-Oh! chi bedda mughieri! Eccu, la bidizza!" That ball-dress was made in Paris by- But you never heard of him, Sicilian Vicenzu. . . . "Che bella sposina!" Her betrothal ring will not come off, Giuseppe; but the delicate bone snaps easily: your oyster-knife can sever the tendon. . . . "Guardate! chi bedda picciota!" Over her heart you will find it, Valentino-the locket held by that fine Swiss chain of woven hair—“ Caya manan!" And it is not your quadroon bondsmaid, sweet lady, who now disrobes you so roughly; those Malay hands are less deft than hers,-but she slumbers very far away from you, and may not be aroused from her sleep. "Na quita mo! dalaga!-na quita maganda!"... Juan, the fastenings of those diamond ear-drops are much too complicated for your peon fingers: tear them out!" Dispense, chulita!”...

... Suddenly a long, mighty silver trilling fills the ears of all there is a wild hurrying and scurrying; swiftly, one after another, the overburdened luggers spread wings and flutter away.

Thrice the great cry rings rippling through the gray air, and over the green sea, and over the far-flooded shell-reefs, where the huge white flashes are,sheet-lightning of breakers,—and over the weird wash of corpses coming in. It is the steam-call of the relief-boat, hastening to rescue the living, to gather in the dead.

All looked, none spake; the chimney The dim light lit the topmost card,

Henry Cabot Lodge.

BORN in Boston, Mass., 1850.

THE REAL GEORGE WASHINGTON.

[George Washington.—American Statesmen Series. 1889.]

O no man in our history has greater injustice of a certain kind been done, or more misunderstanding been meted out, than to Washington, and although this sounds like the merest paradox, it is nevertheless true. From the hour when the door of the tomb at Mount Vernon closed behind his coffin to the present instant, the chorus of praise and eulogy has never ceased, but has swelled deeper and louder with each succeeding year. He has been set apart high above all other men, and reverenced with the unquestioning veneration accorded only to the leaders of mankind and the founders of nations; and in this very devotion lies one secret at least of the fact that, while all men have praised Washington, comparatively few have understood him. He has been lifted high up into a lonely greatness, and unconsciously put outside the range of human sympathy. He has been accepted as a being as nearly perfect as it is given to man to be, but our warm personal interest has been reserved for other and lesser men who seemed to be nearer to us in their virtues and their errors alike. Such isolation, lofty though it be, is perilous and leads to grievous misunderstandings. From it has come the widespread idea that Washington was cold, and as devoid of human sympathies as he was free from the common failings of humanity.

Of this there will be something to say presently, but meantime there is another more prolific source of error in regard to Washington to be considered. Men who are loudly proclaimed to be faultless always excite a certain kind of resentment. It is a dangerous eminence for any one to occupy. The temples of Greece are in ruins, and her marvellous literature is little more than a collection of fragments, but the feelings of the citizens who exiled Aristides because they were weary of hearing him called "just" exist still, unchanged and unchangeable. Washington has not only been called "just," but he has had every other good quality attributed to him by countless biographers and eulogists with an almost painful iteration, and the natural result has followed. Many persons have felt the sense of fatigue which the Athenians expressed practically by their oyster shells, and have been led to cast doubts on Washington's perfection as the only consolation for their own sense of injury. Then, again, Washington's fame has been so overshadowing, and his greatness so immutable, that he has been very inconvenient to the admirers and the biographers of other distinguished men. From these two sources, from the general jealousy of the classic Greek variety, and the particular jealousy born of the necessities of some other hero, much adverse and misleading criticism has come. It has never been a safe or popular amusement to assail Washington directly, and this course usually has been shunned; but although the attacks have been veiled they have none the less existed, and they have been all the more dangerous because they were insidious.