THE EPILOGUE, FROM (NERTO'

From the Atlantic Monthly. By permission of Houghton, Mifflin & Co.

I'

F HAPLY Some day, reader bland,

Thou voyagest through St. Gabriel's land,
Caring for aught that might avail

To prove the truth of this my tale,
There in the levels fair with corn
Thou shalt behold my nun forlorn,
Bearing upon her marble brow
Lucifer's lightning mark.
Mute as a milestone. All these years
The murmur of budding life she hears;
And the white snails for coolness hide

But now,

Her rigid vesture folds inside,
Mint-perfumed; while about her feet.
The shadow turns, the seasons fleet,
And everything beneath the sun
Changes, except the lonely nun.
Mute, said I? nay, the whisper goes

That here, when high midsummer glows,
There breathes at noon a dulcet tone.

Lay then thine ear against the stone,
And if thou hearest aught at all,
"Twill be the hymn angelical.
St. Gabriel hath, not far away,
An ancient, small basilica;
Sorrowful, as it would appear,
Because for now so many a year
No Christian footstep thither goes;
But there the guardian olive grows,
And in the archivolt of the door,
St. Gabriel - kneeling as of yore-
Says Ave to Our Lady, while
The snaky author of all guile,
Twining around the knowledge-tree,
Lures from their primal innocency
Adam and Eve. A silent place:
The careless hind upon his ways
Mayhap salutes the Queen Divine,
But sets no candle at her shrine.
Only the blessed plants of God,
Among the court-yard stones untrod,

In fissures of the massy wall,
Between the roof tiles, over all
Take root and beauteously bloom,
And in the heat their wild perfume
Rises like altar incense. There
God's tiny living creatures fare;
Flutter the chickens of St. John;
Butterflies light and waver on;

Among the grass blades, mute and lean
The mantis kneels; the rifts between
Of the high roof-ridge, hides the bee
His honey hoard right busily;

'Neath gauzy wings, the livelong day
The innocent cicadas play

One only silver tune; - and these

Are as the parish families

Who throng the door, and tread the choir
Evermore gilt by sunshine. Higher

And I,

In window niches, with the wind
For organ bass, the sparrows find
Their place, and emulously swell
The lauds of that good Gabriel
Who saves them from the hawk.
Maillano's minstrel, passing by
Thy widowed church, this very day,
Did enter in, and softly lay-
O Gabriel of Tarascon!-
Upon thy altar this my song:
A simple tale, new come to light,
And only with thy glory bright.

Translation of Harriet Waters Preston.

THE ALISCAMP

From 'Nerto,' in the Atlantic Monthly. By permission of Houghton, Mifflin & Co.

This is the legend ever told:-
When good St. Trophimus of old

The ground would consecrate, not one
Of all the congregation

Of fathers met, so meek they were,

Dared sprinkle the holy water there.
Then, ringed about with cloud and flame
Of angels, out of heaven came

Our Lord himself to bless the spot,
And left- if the tale erreth not-
The impress of his bended knee
Rock-graven. Howso this may be,
Full oft a swarm of angels white
Bends hither, on a tranquil night,
Singing celestial harmonies.
Wherefore the spot so holy is,

No man would slumber otherwhere;
But hither kings and priests repair,
And here earth's poor; and every one
Hath here his deep-wrought funeral stone
Or pinch of dust from Palestine:
The powers of hell in vain combine
'Gainst happy folk in slumber found
Under the cross, in that old ground.

And all along the river clear,

With silver laid upon the bier

For burial fees, men launched and sped
Upon the wave their kinsfolk dead
Who longed in Aliscamp to lie;
Then, as the coffins floated by,
Balancing on the waters bright,
All sailors turned them at the sight,
And helped the little skiffs ashore,
And signed the cross the sleepers o'er,
And kneeling under the willow-trees,
Piously prayed for their souls' peace.

Translation of Harriet Waters Preston.

DONALD G. MITCHELL

(IK MARVEL)
(1822-)

T IS almost half a century since the 'Reveries of a Bachelor' - far the most popular of Mr. Mitchell's books-made its public appearance, and instantly won for "Ik Marvel » the kindly feeling of the young people of the land,- of the young of all ages. It retains its place as securely to-day.

There is always a new generation coming forward, to the members of which the brightness of the sunshine, and the freshness of the air, and the greenness of the woods and fields, appeal; whose hearts are

DONALD G. MITCHELL

full of romance, and whose minds are full of hope and enthusiasm: and even when mayhap youth has taken flight, there is with some-it is to be hoped with many-a kindly response to the thoughts, the dreams, the hopes, and the ambitions of the days of youth:

"A boy's will is the wind's will, And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.»

A certain French professor once said, referring to 'Evangeline, "What have I to do with that cow?" The 'Reveries of a Bachelor' and 'Dream Life' were not written for such as he, nor do they appeal to the taste which is gratified by much of the French and not a little of the English school of to-day; but they are true to youth in every age, and grateful to the unspoiled appetite to which they appeal.

They are exuberant. They are books of sentiment-some would say even of sentimentalism. Yet the sentiment is as eternal as the race; and deep down in his heart the critic responds to it, unless his lost youth be not only lost but forgotten - buried in Lethe. The love that is the theme of these books may be vealy; but he is to be pitied who has no chord far within which vibrates in response to its portrayal, with a feeling which is pure, positive, and intense. And the nature of the life which they depict may be simple, but it is never

theless based upon the eternal verities. It is a comfort to the reader, and sets him up a little in his own esteem, that after knocking about this world for forty years, - this world which each sometimes thinks that he could reconstruct upon a better plan,- he can again take up the Reveries of a Bachelor,' and read it with much the same feelings with which he read it when he, it, and the world were young. And it speaks well for the book itself that this can be; for only a book which is sound at the core, and which appeals to a true and abiding sentiment in the race,- only a book which also has definite literary merit,- could endure this test.

In the preface to an edition printed in 1863, its author said:

"My publisher has written me that the old type of this book of the 'Reveries' are so far worn and battered that they will bear no further usage; and in view of a new edition, he asks for such revision of the text as I may deem judicious, and for a few lines in way of preface.

"I began the revision. I scored out word after word; presently I came to the scoring out of paragraphs; and before I had done, I was making my scores by the page.

"It would never do. It might be the better, but it would not be the same. I cannot lop away those twelve swift, changeful years that are gone.

"Middle age does not look on life like youth; we cannot make it. And why mix the years and the thoughts? Let the young carry their own burdens and banner; and we- ours.

"I have determined not to touch the book. A race has grown up which may welcome its youngness, and find a spirit or a sentiment in it that cleaves to them, and cheers them, and is true. I hope they will.»

The instinct of the author was sound. The printer's types may have been worn and battered, but the types of youth were still fresh and true and clear cut. They were types of American-of New England - humanity, but also of universal humanity as well; and so the books were appreciated when translated into another tongue.

In later years Mr. Mitchell published a novel more ambitious in intention, 'Dr. Johns,' in which the motif is the contrast between the life of a retired village of Puritan Connecticut and that of the South of France. It is full of carefully drawn pictures of the former,— pictures drawn by one whose early life had been spent amid just such scenes. A different life—that of the metropolis in the days of the 'Potiphar Papers' and Mr. Brown of Grace Church—is depicted with a satiric pen in the Lorgnette, which was issued anonymously, and periodically, after the manner of the Spectator; and in 'Fudge Doings,' a slight novel of New York society (which appears in the 'Grand Dictionnaire Universel du XIXe Siècle, par Pierre Larousse,' as 'Aventures de la Famille Doings'). He also rewrote for children a number of familiar tales, under the title About Old Story-Tellers,' and did other work of a similar character. He has