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For my soul was bared before him,

In that confiding kiss!

Then shuddering at my close embrace,
(More artless and sincere is none,)
He pushed me back. Imprudent one!
He said severely.

Ah! from that moment all hope vanished.

ence, though not without threats; but rage
gives place to energy. The courageous girl
listens to the voice which bids her live for
religion, liberty, duty. She makes a last
sacrifice and burns her dear treasure of let-
ters and withered flowers. Such is the first
and last page of her romance. Go, fly
abroad on the wings of the wind, light
ashes; go, touching verses, full of noble-
ness and sensibility! what matters it now
Transfigured by poetry, they will become
whether the sorrows you sing are real?
soul speak in verse.
reminders of those who fain would hear the

He forgot this scene and was even more attentive and eager than before. Soon, mother and daughter call at his countryhouse; the girl is received with open arms by his mother. He appears, never so young and handsome as now. He smiles, all seems to welcome her; even the dog, followAnd now that we have, in part at least, ing his master, utters a joyful bark. He emptied the coffer which held the precious talks and his conversation is charming; be she who she may, to tell the hopes conrelics of a girl's love, let us leave the heroine "for he talks so well! " They gather roses, the rarest, most precious of the year, ervations the sincerity of our praise comceived of the author's talent, with those resOctober roses; they make nosegays of lemon verbena, jasmine and pomegranate pels us to make. It is surprising that the blossoms; the garden is despoiled. They shown us her real self, Mme. Desbordes-Valone poetess of our age, who has most freely are not so gay as usual; but deep joy is always thoughtful. At the end, she is more, should also be the least busied about trembling, he almost timid. Who knows? flow from the original fountain. Side by side the question of art. Her fine verses always Perhaps he loves her, perhaps he is going with some the best writers need not hesitate to tell her so. The secret tear in his eye to own, are others trite or faint. Mlle. may have been a sign of hope. When she Leaves, he smiles calmly; still he says ten- Siefert, still more personal, has more of derly, "This evening, I'll see you!" she those self-sufficing traits which seem the sees him but once more, and then learns her natural outflow of feminine genius; but the misfortune: the love she hoped for is an- known to her. An abuse of epithets is one secrets of art are neither indifferent nor unother's. That nothing may be wanting to of her occasional imperfections; her rhymes the catastrophe and to the hero's success, three women's hearts depend on him. The are sometimes poor; in a girl of eighteen, calm serenity of the first is doubtless worthy these weaknesses, surprisingly few in numhis choice; the tomb has already closed ber, are but added graces. She is acquaintover the second, who could not endure her ed with the modern poets, she has studied grief. The third is left to sing a revenge-vented them. I cannot express my wonder new rhythms; we may even say she has inful song of suffering. She is too proud to die, too deeply wounded to be silent. Do you know many lines more frank than these showing her pride;

No, no, I am no meek girl to die
And do my murderer this last service
That he may live in peace, with no remorseful
sigh.

Such devotion is silly, 'tho' it seems fine.
Know that men are too ready, my dear,

that M. Victor Hugo should have had so marked an influence over her, while her predecessor found in Lamartine, if not a model, at least delightful tones which waked the music in her soul. The ardent note of "The Sorrow of Olympus was needed to bring forth this creation of unexpected type, a virgin passionate as well as pure. If we expressed all our ideas of Mlle. Siefert we should have something to say of her ten

With one foot on your coffin, to think they're di- dency to imitation. If we choose from "The

vine.

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Lost Sunbeams" all those pieces which recall well-known models, we may be sure in advance that the choice will fall upon the poorest bits in the book. The "Republican Year" is full of such reminders: Mlle. Siefert was never less herself. Perhaps she was too eager to return to the pure source of verse, and did not give herself time to fill her mind. Perhaps she opened her heart too completely the first time.

To see, to think, to feel, these three

words enclose the poetry of every age. We | mote the utility of science, but they seem to have met with men, in this hasty outline, confound the two, they do not rely sufficientgifted with the power of seizing the ly on sentiment. They are such as could forms of things and translating into verse not bear to live among men, and have found the bright colors of objects. They some- verses coming from the heart and returning times paint forcibly, they always describe to it. An ancient said that sacred groves carefully. They are the direct heirs of were the favorite home of the Muse; he those innovators who have given tone and doubtless spoke of the writers we range color to poetry, yet they return involunta- among descriptive or philosophic. Charles rily to the pettinesses of the art their pre- Lamb, a child of London thought on the decessors dethroned. Some, however, contrary, that poets should live in large natural idealists, or shrinking artists, see towns; he spoke of those we have called more than can be discovered by the eye human. Great or small there are always alone; their art is not limited to copying an such. All fades and passes away, but the admirable model. After these, we are, per- heart of man. The heart's one fault is haps, the first to disengage from the crowd loving too much; it imparts this to human of poets those who justly desire to be poetry and buries it in an excessive personreckoned thinkers; a product of the present ality. Perhaps perfection may be found in a time, as a desire for sincerity is produced just mixture of the different faculties of by artificial situations, some want modera- sight, thought and feeling. tion, others decision; they understand that LOUIS ETIENNE. poetry has hitherto done nothing to pro

Fortnightly Review.

As we on Christmas Eve deck our houses with | night, so do the Japanese on the 7th day of the holly and mistletoe and evergreens, so on the new year take down and stow away their deco28th or 29th day of the 12th month the Japan-rations, which on the 14th day are with all soese begin decorating their houses to greet the lemnity burnt as a sacrifice to Sai no Kami, new year. The proper decoration for each house the God of Roads and Protector of Travellers. is a fir tree on one side of the door and a bamboo on the other, between which is stretched a rope of straw, such as those which are hung up outside temples to keep out evil influences. To the centre of this rope is attached a sort of bouquet, made up of a boiled lobster, a piece of charcoal, a large orange, a dried persimmon, a frond of bracken, a leaf of the evergreen oak, and a piece of seaweed. Each of these has its special signification. The fir and bamboo are evergreen emblems of long life; the lobster, strong in spite of its crooked back, is a type of hale though bent old age; the undecaying charcoal represents imperishability; the name of the orange, dai-dai, means by a pun "from generation to generation," and the fruit itself, which hangs longer to the tree than any other, is a token of longevity; the dried persimmon, the sweetness of which is so lasting, is typical of the unchanged sweetness of conjugal love and fidelity; the bracken is slow to fade; the oak leaf, which is supposed not to fall off until the young leaf has put forth an appearance, signifies that parents shall not die until their children have grown up to take their place; lastly, the seaweed, kompu or kopu, stands for the last two syllables of the word yorokobu, to be happy. All these various emblems are hung up to pray the Year God to protect the house and its inmates from evil during the ensuing twelve months; and just as we take down our evergreens on twelfth

BUTTER FROM MUD. A fortnight ago we (South London Press) mentioned the fact that the butter of South London was adulterated with tallow, starch, manganese, salt, and water. We thought then that we had reached the Ultima Thule of adulteration, but an ingenious individual has since added another sophisticating agent. A friend has in his possession a specimen of a pure white fat, tasteless and perfectly inodorous which has been obtained by a clever analytical chemist from what do our readers suppose? Simply from a portion of the Thames mud, taken from the river at Battersea! And we are afraid that this new discovery of science is no longer a secret, for the owner of a small wharf on the banks of the Thames had an offer this week from a person desirous of becoming the tenant, and on asking the purpose for which the wharf was required he was told it was to be used for manufacturing butter, to be sold to the poor at a shilling per pound! No doubt it was the intention of this philanthropic individual to have supplied the public with dairy butter fresh from the bosom of old Father Thames.

From The Saturday Review. and consistent. It has aimed first at re

THE FRENCH LIBERALS AND THE PLEBIS

8

CITE.

THAT section of French Liberals which still believes, or makes believe, in the Parliamentary Empire naturally dwells with much satisfaction on the difference in the numbers of the Opposition in June, 1869, and May, 1870. In the former year 3,362,580 votes were given against the Government, in the latter only 1,560,706. In Paris the returns tell the same tale. In 1869 the Opposition votes amounted to 229,123; in 1870 they have fallen to 184,246. The moral drawn from this comparison of course is that the majority of the Liberal party have accepted the plébiscite in the sense of "consecration" of the Liberal Empire. We should attach more weight to this inference if there was anything to show that it is the inference drawn by Napoleon III. If he bad meant the plébiscite to be so regarded, and knew that as a matter of fact it had been so regarded, the results of the voting would be sufficiently decisive. Instead of this he has all along treated the late appeal to the people as designed to extract a fresh vote of confidence in himself. The language of his proclamation was utterly incompatible with any other interpretation, and this interpretation is fatal to the version of the event which is in favour with the Liberals of whom we are speaking. The sense in which the Emperor will accept a favourable answer to his appeal will be the sense in which he meant that the appeal itself should be understood. If the Noes to the plébiscite had been as numerous as the votes given to the Opposition candidates last year, he would have been forced to understand that the Liberals of France are still resolute in their repudiation of Personal government. His deduction from the actual numbers will be the direct contrary of this. He will argue with perfect truth that the majority of them have accepted the apparent compromise with which he has been pleased to amuse them, and are content to see Parliamentary legislation ratified by an act which is destructive of Parliamentary authority. The Republicans were agat him in 1869, and they are against him in 1870. Of that fact he has all along, and so long as it stands alone he can pretty well measure its significance. The terrors of the election of 1869 were due to the unexpected disclosure that the whole Liberal party had made common cause with the Republicans, and had shown for the first time a common front against the official candidates. From that day the Imperial policy has been ingenious VOL. XVII. 776

been awa.

LIVING AGE.

placing the Opposition in the old position of a house divided against itself, and, secondly, at restricting the concessions necessary for this object within the limits of Personal government. By the active assistance of M. Ollivier, and the passive assistance of those numerous Liberals whose fear of disorder is greater than their love of liberty, the design has for the time succeeded. Napoleon III. is still the absolute sovereign of France, and the active opposition to his Government is once more identified with the avowed enemies of his dynasty.

The advantages the Emperor must be supposed to see in this result will not be easily discerned by unbiassed observers. The extreme section of the Liberals are morally strengthened by the unexpected overthrow of Parliamentary government just at the moment when it seemed to have made good its victory. They have preached from the beginning that no trust can be placed in Napoleon III. Their disbelief in him had not been removed by the concessions which induced the rest of the party to abandon their attitude of hostility, and finally to accept office at his hands. But though it had not been removed it had been shaken, and there began to be signs that the Left might shortly break up, one part of it giving a general support to the Ollivier-Daru Cabinet, the other part avowing that in their eyes Parliamentary government was no less hateful than Personal. Now this disintegrating process is more than checked. The event has fully justified the original incredulity of the Republican minority, and they may claim credit for superior foresight and a truer instinct in holding aloof from all active participation in the pretended transformation of the Empire into a Constitutional Monarchy. The Left is again united, and united on the basis of the proved incompatibility of the Napoleonic Empire with liberty in any form. But it may easily turn out that it is strengthened as well as united. The Liberals who have been betrayed will by and by recover from the stupor into which the plébiscite has thrown them, and will begin to form new combinations in the country and the Corps Législatif. Some of them may possibly be won over to the Republic as the best government for France, while Republicanism regarded simply as an anti-dynastic movement can hardly fail to be the gainer. The partisans of Constitutional Monarchy cannot form any permanent alliance with the partisans of a Democratic Republic, but they may prudently make common cause with them for a time. They have one point upon which they agree

-the impossibility of Napoleon III. be- | can only be explained on the theory we have coming anything different from what he has more than once insisted on - that Napoleon been since the coup d'état; and, though this III. is too profound a disbeliever in constiagreement may not carry them very far, it tutional sovereignty to care about seeing may give birth before it is dissolved to prac- either himself or his son in the position of tical consequences of no little importance. constitutional sovereign. That France shall have an opportunity of That the alienation of the Parliamentary deciding how she will be ruled, without the Liberals is as complete as we have assumed incubus of the Empire being there to deter-it to be may perhaps be contested. In that mine the decision beforehand, may be case we can but point to the recent Minisequally desired by men who cherish very terial changes. The only perceptible differdifferent hopes as to the use to which the ence between the Cabinet as it is and as it opportunity will be turned. Before the was in the days of avowed Personal govern plébiscite the Parliamentary Liberals had ment is that there has been a marked loss of ceased to wish for any such opportunity. administrative ability. MM. Rouher and de The Empire seemed to be fast becoming all Forcade la Roquette may have been only that they could wish to see it, and if the clerks, but at all events they were first-class material force it exercised could be used for clerks. With the single exception of M. constitutional liberty instead of against it, Ollivier, the present Ministers can claim no they were far from unwilling to profit by its such praise, and they certainly have no aid. If the cause which they had hitherto political merits to counterbalance their peridentified with the family of Orleans could sonal insignificance. They will be as much be better served by the conversion of the the obedient tools of M. Ollivier as M. Emperor than by his dethronement, to hold Ollivier himself is the obedient tool of the any longer aloof from public life would have Emperor. It pleases the Imperial fancy to been to subordinate the victory of political bid his subjects play at Ministerial responsiprinciple to the maintenance of a politicalbility and Parliamentary institutions, and party. These doubtless were the considerations which led Count Daru and M. Buffet to take office in the late Cabinet, and it is obvious that if they had been able to take the same view of their duty for the remainder of the Emperor's reign, they would have been bound to his son alike by honour and interest. There would have been a tacit understanding that Napoleon III. had consented to become a constitutional sovereign in order to ensure the recognition of Napoleon IV. in the same capacity, while the necessary dependence of a young Emperor on the advisers bequeathed to him by his father would have enabled them to remedy any defects in the Constitution which had survived the surrender of 1869. Whatever support the succession of the Prince Imperial might have derived from this source has now been thrown away. There is not a consistent Liberal in the country who will be bound or inclined to further it. The one way in which such a succession could have been peaceably secured would have been the growth of a conviction on the part of the moderate Liberals that everything they really cared for had been obtained, and that the conduct of affairs being already in the right hands, the best thing that could be done was to leave it there. In finally alienating the Parliamentary Liberals from the Empire, the Emperor has thrown away his son's prospects in order to retain his own personal power. In a man whose dynastic ambition is so pronounced, such conduct

Napoleon III. has taken care to surround himself with servants who, whether from subservience or from simplicity, can be trusted to carry out the jest. It is impossible to regard this second triumph of Bonspartism over liberty as anything less than a great calamity to France and Europe. The transformation of the Empire seemed to offer a fair prospect of putting an end to that series of revolutions which it has been the fate of France to undergo since 1789. If, on the death of the Emperor, the Prince Imperial could have had the united support of the Imperialists and the Parliamentary Liberals, the Republican party might have declined the unequal contest, and contented themselves with looking forward to a future which every year of freedom and order would have tended to make more remote. As it is, the death of Napoleon threatens to plunge France into wild confusion. The Bonapartists, ths Parliamentary Liberals, the Republicans, will all have their several plans; and though the two latter may for a time be found acting in a sort of provisional union, the truce can be but of short duration, and their triumph over the common enemy would inevitably be the signal for its dissolution. Such are the miserable results of the vanity and finesse of one man. If ever a mother had reason to curse the day on which her child was born, it is the unfor tunate country which brought forth M. Emile Ollivier.

From The Saturday Review.
THE BALLOT.

farmers are sometimes biassed by considerations of fear, or more often of hope, bearIr was perfectly understood that the ap-ing on their relation to their landlords. It pointment of a Committee on Parliamentary is unhappily true that property and station and Municipal Elections was intended to have not been altogether inoperative on facilitate the transition or official adhesion English elections. In the last Parliament, of the Government to the Ballot. Mr. Lord Hartington and three other members Bruce had, with that extraordinary innocence of the great family to which he belongs repwhich characterizes proselytes, been con-resented counties or divisions of counties. vinced by his defeat at Merthyr Tydvil of They were all useful and accomplished mema necessity for change which had not been bers of the House of Commons, but it may impressed on his understanding by any ex-perhaps have occurred to Lord Hartington traneous testimony of bribery or intimida-that it would have been a remarkable cointion. Mr. Gladstone underwent a different cidence if three sons and a brother of a process of conversion, becoming simulta-powerful nobleman had been selected excluneously aware that the electors ought to sively for their personal merits. If the Balconceal their votes, and that widowers lot substitutes higher motives for the modes should be permitted to marry the sisters of of influence which it will repress, the protheir deceased wives. In these as in similar posed change will of course be justifiable, cases the adoption of a new faith is due to and it may perhaps be beneficial; but it is other causes than inquiry or logical deduc- possible that a farmer who has voted for a tion. Mr. Gladstone and the section of his good candidate to please his landlord may colleagues which had formerly professed henceforth vote for a bad candidate to please Whig opinions found it natural and conve- himself. The representative system in Engnient to conform to the doctrines held by land was long anterior in time to any theory the active majority of the party. Mr. Glad-about representation. Alone among ancient stone himself is perhaps more open to extreme or revolutionary suggestions than the bulk of his followers; and he is naturally inclined to discard any exceptional relics of Conservative prejudice. It is incredible that politicians long accustomed to Parliament and to public affairs should have discovered any theoretical arguments for secret voting with which they had not long been familiar. The controversy has for an entire generation been conducted with conventional reticence, by disputants who perfectly understood that they were respectively con-ciety and with the state of public opinion. tending for the promotion or for the dis- Some of them, including bribery and threats, couragement of democratic influence. Since have been definitively condemned, and of the last Reform Bill, which enormously in- the remainder, which are to be extirpated creased the power of the poorer classes, the by the Ballot, all are perhaps not wholly educated minority has had less to fight for, bad. The deference of the poorer to the although its remaining share in the control richer classes was not altogether disinterestof elections may have become proportion-ed, but it tended to the security of property. ally more valuable as it was reduced in It is not inconceivable that votes exempt amount. The adoption of the Ballot will from all external influence may nevertheless exclude the Conservatives and the moderate be given for selfish reasons. Liberals from numerous seats, although here and there it may deprive demagogues and Mr. Leatham as to the machinery of of any advantage which they derive from secret voting is of the smallest possible inriots. Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Bruce, and terest. If one contrivance fails, nothing Lord Hartington, whatever reasons for their can be easier than to substitute another by change of opinion they may present to them- an expenditure of ingenuity which would be selves or to the House of Commons, have thought trifling by any clever mechanist. in substance conformed to the Ballot be- Parliament has every right to legislate on cause they have made up their minds to ally the assumption that an impenetrable ballotthemselves without reserve to the advanced box or voting-paper may easily be devised, section of the Liberal party. The investi- and candid opponents of the change ought gations of the Committee have convinced further to admit that it will effect many of Lord Hartington and others that tenant- the objects for which it is designed. The

and modern institutions it has both established and secured freedom, and it has accomplished the still more difficult task of conferring power on persons of conspicuous ability. It is but idle pedantry to deduce arbitrary propositions and maxims from the experience of Parliamentary government, and then conversely to remodel practice into accordance with abstract doctrines. The nature of the complicated kinds of influence which may affect voters has varied from time to time with the condition of so

The dispute between Lord Hartington

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