would sometimes lose control of himself and burst out into a tempest of rage. When he did so he would use strong and even violent language, as he did at Kip's landing and at Monmouth. Well-intentioned persons in their desire to make him a faultless being have argued at great length that Washington never swore, and but for their argument the matter would never have attracted much attention. He was anything but a profane man, but the evidence is beyond question that if deeply angered he would use a hearty English oath; and not seldom the action accompanied the word, as when he rode among the fleeing soldiers at Kip's landing, striking them with his sword, and almost beside himself at their cowardice. Judge Marshall used to tell also of an occasion when Washington sent out an officer to cross a river and bring back some information about the enemy, on which the action of the morrow would depend. The officer was gone some time, came back, and found the General impatiently pacing his tent. On being asked what he had learned, he replied that the night was dark and stormy, the river full of ice, and that he had not been able to cross. Washington glared at him a moment, seized a large leaden inkstand from the table, hurled it at the offender's head, and said with a fierce oath: "Be off, and send me a man!" The officer went, crossed the river, and brought back the information.

But although he would now and then give way to these tremendous bursts of anger, Washington was never unjust. As he said to one officer, "I never judge the propriety of actions by after events; " and in that sound philosophy is found the secret not only of much of his own success, but of the devotion of his officers and men. He might be angry with them, but he was never unfair. In truth, he was too generous to be unjust or even over-severe to any one, and there is not a line in all his writings which even suggests that he ever envied any man. So long as the work in hand was done, he cared not who had the glory, and he was perfectly magnanimous and perfectly at ease about his own reputation. He never showed the slightest anxiety to writehis own memoirs, and he was not in the least alarmed when it was proposed to publish the memoirs of other people, like General Charles Lee, which would probably reflect upon him.

He had the same confidence in the judgment of posterity that he had in the future beyond the grave. He regarded death with entire calmness and even indifference not only when it came to him, but when in previous years it had threatened him. He loved life and tasted of it deeply, but the courage which never forsook him made him ready to face the inevitable at any moment with an unruffled spirit. In this he was helped by his religious faith, which was as simple as it was profound. He had been brought up in the Protestant Episcopal Church, and to that church he always adhered; for its splendid liturgy and stately forms appealed to him and satisfied him. He loved it too as the church of his home and his childhood. Yet he was as far as possible from being sectarian, and there is not a word of his which shows anything but the most entire liberality and toleration. He made no parade of his religion, for in this as in other things he was perfectly simple and sincere. He was tortured by no doubts or questionings, but believed always in an overruling Providence and in a merciful God, to whom he knelt and prayed

in the day of darkness or in the hour of triumph with a supreme and childlike confidence.

For many years I have studied minutely the career of Washington, and with every step the greatness of the man has grown upon me, for analysis has failed to discover the act of his life which, under the conditions of the time, I could unhesitatingly pronounce to have been an error. Such has been my experience, and although my deductions may be wrong, they at least have been carefully and slowly made. I see in Washington a great soldier who fought a trying war to a successful end impossible without him; a great statesman who did more than all other men to lay the foundations of a republic which has endured in prosperity for more than a century. I find in him a marvellous judgment which was never at fault, a penetrating vision which beheld the future of America when it was dim to other eyes, a great intellectual force, a will of iron, an unyielding grasp of facts, and an unequalled strength of patriotic purpose. I see in him too a pure and high-minded gentleman of dauntless courage and stainless honor, simple and stately of manner, kind and generous of heart. Such he was in truth. The historian and the biographer may fail to do him justice, but the instinct of mankind will not fail. The real hero needs not books to give him worshippers. George Washington will always receive the love and reverence of men because they see embodied in him the noblest possibilities of humanity.

Lucy White Jennison.

BORN in Newton, Mass.

A SIMILE.

[Love Poems and Sonnets. By Owen Innsly. 1882.]

AT

T sea, far parted from the happy shore,
The solitary rock lies all unmoved
By the caressing waves, though unreproved
Their constant kisses on its breast they pour.
So it stands witnessed by all human lore,

Where'er the wanton god of love has roved,
His shafts fell never equal; one beloved,
One lover, there must be forevermore.
Dear, if thou wilt, be thou that rock at sea,

But let me be the waves that never leave
Their yearning towards it through the ocean space;
And be thou the beloved, but let me

Be the fond lover destined to receive
And hold thee in love's infinite embrace.

A DREAM OF DEATH.

HELENA.

Du hast mich beschworen aus dem Grab
Durch deinen Zauberwillen,
Belebtest mich mit Wollustgluth,

Jetzt kannst du die Gluth nicht stillen.

Press deinen Mund auf meinen Mund,
Der Menschen Odem ist göttlich,
Ich trinke deine Seele aus,

Die Todten sind unersättlich.-Heine.

DIED; they wrapped me in a shroud,
With hollow mourning, far too loud,
And sighs that were but empty sound,
And laid me low within the ground.
I felt her tears through all the rest;
Past sheet and shroud they reached my
breast;

They warmed to life the frozen clay,
And I began to smile and say:

At last thou lov'st me, Helena!

I rose up in the dead of night;
I sought her window;-'twas alight.
A pebble clattered 'gainst the pane,-
"Who's there? the wind and falling
rain?"

"Ah! no; but one thy tears have led
To leave his chill and narrow bed
To warm himself before thy breath;
Who for thy sake has conquered death.
Arise, and love me, Helena!"

She oped the door, she drew me in.
Her mouth was pale, her cheek was
thin;

Her eyes were dim; its length unrolled,
Fell loosely down her hair of gold.
My presence wrought her grief's eclipse;
She pressed her lips upon my lips,
She held me fast in her embrace,
Her hands went wandering o'er my
face:

At last thou lov'dst me, Helena!
The days are dark, the days are cold,
And heavy lies the churchyard mould.
But ever, at the deep of night,
Their faith the dead and living plight.
Who would not die if certain bliss
Could be foreknown? and such as this
No life-away! the hour is nigh,
With heart on fire she waits my cry:
Arise, and love me, Helena!

A

CHAUCER.

LIMPID source, a clear and bubbling spring,
Born in some wooded dell unknown of heat,
Above whose breast the leafy branches meet
And kiss, and earthward wavering shadows fling;
Upon whose brink the perfumed flower-cups swing
'Neath the light tread of hurrying insect feet;
Such, Chaucer, seems the sturdy note and sweet
In thine unfettered song reëchoing.

Hence they who sometimes weary of the play

Of fountains and the artificial jets

Which in gay parks and gardens dance and leap,

Turn back again into that forest-way

Where thy fresh stream the grass and mosses wets

That slumber on its margin cool and deep.

I

Arlo Bates.

BORN in East Machias, Me., 1850.

A BRIDE'S INHERITANCE.

[A Wheel of Fire. 1885.]

had been Damaris's wish to be married in a dark travelling-dress, but she

had deferred to the desire of Elsie and of Sherlock, and consented to be what the former called " a real bride" in white. The gown which her cousin and old Hannah assisted her in donning was a perfectly plain robe of creamy Ottoman silk, heavy and soft, relieved with no trimming but some time-yellow lace which Elsie declared made her willing to break all the commandments at once through envy. She was pale as ever, seeming doubly so from the darkness of her thick hair, which, plainly arranged, showed well the shape of her head; but she had never been more beautiful.

"It is all a trick, Maris," Elsie declared, "you look pale on purpose, because it is becoming. You look as distinguished as Mary Queen of Scots going to be executed."

"Executed!" repeated Hannah Stearns under her breath, with the indignation of a superstitious woman who regards the speaking of baleful words. upon a wedding-day as of ill omen.

"Oh, a wedding is a sort of execution," ran on Elsie, laughing. "There's an end of all your independence now, my lady, let me tell you that. Have you got on something borrowed ?"

"Yes," Damaris answered smilingly. "I have them all :

Is there anything else absurd you can think of ?”

"There's something about which foot to put over the threshold, but I can't remember which it is, so perhaps it's better to leave it to luck. It is such a pity you wouldn't have bridesmaids, at least me."

"You may come after me, if you like, and carry my train."

"No, I thank you. Oh, Maris, you are just perfect. It is such a shame that you are not going to be married in Trinity Church. You'd be such a credit to the family, and Kate West would be so enraged. She's the last one of our class left single but myself, and I never let a chance slip of reminding her of it. She takes every wedding in our set as a personal insult.” "Is everything ready down-stairs ?"

66

Everything. They are all sitting about in the parlor with the cheerfully solemn air of chief mourners. Mother has her handkerchief all ready to weep, and father is wondering how much he can lose by possible changes in the stock market before he gets back to State street."

Hannah Stearns regarded the excited girl with an air of serious disfavor, but she contented herself with setting her lips together in an expression of

firm disapproval and laying her hands over her wrists in that attitude which is so much more expressive of virtuous indignation than even the most aggressive folding of the arms.

"Go into the front chamber," pursued Elsie, no more observing the effect of her words than if the housekeeper had been a piece of the furniture, “and I'll send him up. It's a great pity you can't have a wedding without having a great, horrid man mixed up in it."

She walked laughing to the door, but turned back impulsively to clasp her cousin in her arms, the quick tears in her eyes.

"Oh, Maris, Maris," she whispered, kissing the bride fervently. "There," she went on, springing away and wiping her eyes. "I hope I didn't muss you, but I couldn't help it. You look so white and so still and so blessed. Bah! What a goose I am!"

Hannah Stearns looked after the girl as she ran hastily away with a softening of her rigid old features.

"She isn't so bad at heart," she commented.

Damaris smiled faintly and passed through alone into the other chamber. It was the room which Dr. Wilson had occupied during his stay at Ash Nook, and the antique mirror before which Damaris sat down to wait her bridegroom was the same in which Chauncy had admired the reflection of his handsome features, glowing with youth and vigor. It was the same mirror in which once Damaris, passing the half-open door of the chamber, had seen a picture of her lover's beautiful, manly hand, and she had more than once smiled to herself before the old glass as if she could at will invoke from it the vanished image. Over the secrets of its depths brooded the quaintly carved bird, brave in the glory of time-tarnished gilding, a guardian genius uncommunicative and impassive. Generations of fair women and brave men had seen their fleeting shadows in the antique surface, but never shape more beautiful and sad had passed before it than the lovely white-robed creature who now gazed intently at the picture it gave back.

It seemed to Damaris as if a hand of ice clutched her heart. Since the question of her right to marry had been the problem which had tortured her, the ceremony itself had come illogically but naturally to seem the awful crisis, and she was possessed by a vague feeling that if she could so far evade the vigilance of malevolent fate as to get past the actual rite, she might yet escape. She felt as if she could not bear the delay of an instant, so strongly was she oppressed with a horrible sense that her doom was approaching with swift feet, and that if she were not Lincoln's wife before the horror could reach her she must fall a victim to its fury. The moments she waited seemed to her endless. She heard Hannah moving in the next room, unwilling to go down stairs until her mistress did, and it was with difficulty Damaris restrained herself from calling out to bid her inquire why the groom did not

come.

Then she smiled with a painful sense of her folly, and endeavored to be reasonable. She knew it had in reality been but a moment since Elsie left her, and she tried to give her whole attention to the details of her toilet. She looked into the mirror to see if the lace at her throat was graceful in its folds,