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I desired to lead a full and complete life and yet to be in the forest, to be in the world and yet in society. But he who means to live thus, must remain in solitude. As soon as we become members of society, we cease to be mere creatures of nature. Nature and morality have equal rights, and must form a compact with each other; and where there are two powers with equal rights, there must be mutual concessions.

Herein lies my sin.

He who desires to live a life of nature alone, must withdraw himself from the protection of morality. I did not fully desire either the one or the other; hence I was crushed and shattered.

My father's last action was right. He avenged the moral law, which is just as human as the law of nature. The animal world knows neither father nor mother, so soon as the young is able to take care of itself. The human world does know them and must hold them sacred.

I see it all quite clearly. My sufferings and my expiation are deserved. I was a thief! I stole the highest treasures of all: confidence, love, honor, respect, splendor.

How noble and exalted the tender souls appear to themselves when a poor rogue is sent to jail for having committed a theft! But what are all possessions which can be carried away, when compared with those that are intangible!

Those who are summoned to the bar of justice are not always the basest of mankind.

I acknowledge my sin, and my repentance is sincere.

My fatal sin, the sin for which I now atone, was that I dissembled, that I denied and extenuated that which I represented to myself as a natural right. Against the Queen I have sinned worst of all. To me she represents that moral order which I violated and yet wished to enjoy.

To you, O Queen, to you-lovely, good, and deeply injured one do I confess all this!

If I die before you,- and I hope that I may, these pages are to be given to you.

I can now accurately tell the season of the year, and often the hour of the day, by the way in which the first sunbeams fall into my room and on my work-bench in the morning. My chisel hangs before me on the wall, and is my index.

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The drizzling spring showers now fall on the trees; and thus it is with me. It seems as if there were a new delight in store for me. What can it be? I shall patiently wait!

A strange feeling comes over me, as if I were lifted up from the chair on which I am sitting, and were flying, I know not whither! What is it? I feel as if dwelling in eternity.

Everything seems flying toward me: the sunlight and the sunshine, the rustling of the forests and the forest breezes, beings of all ages and of all kinds-all seem beautiful and rendered transparent by the sun's glow.

I am!

I am in God!

If I could only die now and be wafted through this joy to dissolution and redemption!

But I will live on until my hour comes.

Come, thou dark hour, whenever thou wilt! To me thou art light!

I feel that there is light within me. O Eternal Spirit of the universe, I am one with thee!

I was dead, and I live-I shall die and yet live. Everything has been forgiven and blotted out. There was dust on my wings.—I soar aloft into the sun and into infinite I shall die singing from the fullness of my soul. Shall

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I know that I shall again be gloomy and depressed and drag along a weary existence; but I have once soared into infinity and have felt a ray of eternity within me. That I shall never lose again. I should like to go to a convent, to some quiet, cloistered cell, where I might know nothing of the world, and could live on within myself until death shall call me. But it is not to be. I am destined to live on in freedom and to labor; to live with my fellow-beings and to work for them.

The results of my handiwork and of my powers of imagination. belong to you; but what I am within myself is mine alone.

* * *

I have taken leave of everything here; of my quiet room, of my summer bench; for I know not whether I shall ever return.

And if I do, who knows but what everything may have become strange to me?

(Last page written in pencil.) It is my wish that when I am dead, I may be wrapped in a simple linen cloth, placed in a rough unplaned coffin, and buried under the apple-tree, on the road that leads to my paternal mansion. I desire that my brother and other relatives may be apprised of my death at once, and that they shall not disturb my grave by the wayside. No stone, no name, is to mark my grave.

ÉMILE AUGIER

(1820-1889)

s AN observer of society, a satirist, and a painter of types and characters of modern life, Émile Augier ranks among the greatest French dramatists of last century. Critics consider him in the line of direct descent from Molière and Beaumarchais. His collected works (Théâtre Complet') number twenty-seven plays, of which nine are in verse. Eight of these were written with a literary partner. Three are now called classics: Le Gendre de M. Poirier (M. Poirier's Son-in-Law), 'L'Aventurière' (The Advent

ÉMILE AUGIER

uress), and Fils de Giboyer' (Giboyer's Boy). Le Gendre de M. Poirier' was written with Jules Sandeau, but the admirers of Augier have proved by internal evidence that his share in its composition was the greater. It is a comedy of manners based on the old antagonism between vulgar ignorant energy and ability on the one side, and lazy empty birth and breeding on the other; embodied in Poirier, a wealthy shopkeeper, and M. de Presles, his son-in-law, an impoverished nobleman.

Guillaume Victor Émile Augier was born in Valence, France, September 17th. 1820, and was intended for the law; but inheriting literary tastes from his grandfather, Pigault Lebrun the romance writer, he devoted himself to letters. When his first play, 'La Cigue' (The Hemlock),- in the preface to which he defended his grandfather's memory,-was presented at the Odéon in 1844, it

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made the author famous. Théophile Gautier describes it at length in Vol. iii. of his 'Art Dramatique,' and compares it to Shakespeare's 'Timon of Athens.' It is a classic play, and the hero closes his career by a draught of hemlock.

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Augier's works are:-'Un Homme de Bien' (A Good Man); 'L'Aventurière' (The Adventuress); 'Gabrielle'; 'Le Joueur de Flute' (The Flute Player); 'Diane' (Diana), a romantic play on the same theme as Victor Hugo's 'Marion Delorme,' written for and played by Rachel; La Pierre de Touche' (The Touchstone), with Jules Sandeau; Philberte,' a comedy of the last century; 'Le Mariage d'Olympe' (Olympia's Marriage); Le Gendre de M. Poirier (M. Poirier's Son-in-Law); Ceinture Dorée (The Golden Belt), with Edouard Foussier; 'La Jeunesse (Youth); Les Lionnes Pauvres' (Ambition and Poverty), - a bold story of social life in Paris during the Second Empire, also with Foussier; 'Les Effrontés' (Brass), an attack on the worship of money; 'Le Fils de Giboyer' (Giboyer's Boy), the story of a father's devotion, ambitions, and self-sacrifice; Maître Guérin (Guérin the Notary), the hero being an inventor; 'La Contagion' (Contagion), the theme of which is skepticism; 'Paul Forestier,' the story of a young artist; 'Le Post-Scriptum (The Postscript); Lions et Renards' (Lions and Foxes), whose motive is love of power; Jean Thommeray,' the hero of which is drawn from Sandeau's novel of the same title; 'Madame Caverlet,' hinging on the divorce question; 'Les Fourchambault' (The Fourchambaults), a plea for family union; 'La Chasse au Roman' (Pursuit of a Romance), and 'L'Habit Vert' (The Green Coat), with Sandeau and Alfred de Musset; and the libretto for Gounod's opera 'Sappho.' Augier wrote one volume of verse, which he modestly called 'Pariétaire,' the name of a common little vine, the English danewort. In 1858 he was elected to the French Academy, and in 1868 became a Commander of the Legion of Honor. He died at Croissy, October 25th, 1889. An analysis of his dramas by Émile Montégut is published in the Revue des Deux Mondes for April, 1878.

M

A CONVERSATION WITH A PURPOSE

From Giboyer's Boy'

ARQUIS- - Well, dear Baroness, what has an old bachelor like me done to deserve so charming a visit?

Baroness-That's what I wonder myself, Marquis. Now I see you I don't know why I've come, and I've a great mind to go straight back.

Marquis-Sit down, vexatious one!

Baroness-No. So you close your door for a week; your servants all look tragic; your friends put on mourning in anticipation; I, disconsolate, come to inquire—and behold, I find you at table!

Marquis-I'm an old flirt, and wouldn't show myself for an empire when I'm in a bad temper. You wouldn't recognize your agreeable friend when he has the gout; - that's why I hide. Baroness-I shall rush off to reassure your friend. Marquis-They are not so anxious as all that. thing of them.

Tell me some

Baroness-But somebody's waiting in my carriage.
Marquis-I'll send to ask him up.

Baroness But I'm not sure that you know him.
Marquis His name?

Baroness-I met him by chance.

Marquis― And you brought him by chance. [He rings.] You are a mother to me. [To Dubois.] You will find an ecclesiastic in Madame's carriage. Tell him I'm much obliged for his kind alacrity, but I think I won't die this morning.

Baroness-O Marquis! what would our friends say if they heard you?

Marquis-Bah! I'm the black sheep of the party, its spoiled child; that's taken for granted. Dubois, you may say also that Madame begs the Abbé to drive home, and to send her carriage back for her.

Baroness-Allow me

Marquis-Go along, Dubois.- Now you are my prisoner. Baroness-But, Marquis, this is very unconventional. Marquis [kissing her hand]-Flatterer! Now sit down, and let's talk about serious things. [Taking a newspaper from the table.] The gout hasn't kept me from reading the news. you know that poor Déodat's death is a serious mishap? Baroness - What a loss to our cause!

Marquis-I have wept for him.

Baroness Such talent! Such spirit! Such sarcasm!

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Marquis - He was the hussar of orthodoxy.

history as the angelic pamphleteer.

settled his noble ghost

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He will live in

And now that we have

Baroness-You speak very lightly about it, Marquis.

Marquis I tell you I've wept for him.- Now let's think of

some one to replace him.

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