to come into the atmosphere of one of leaving the house behind him, and trackthose souls in which Truth stands out ing the voice till he reached the singer. bold and beautiful in itself, and needs no Isaura was seated within an arbour idealization through fiction? Oh, how towards the further end of the gardennear we should be to heaven could we an arbour which, a little later in the year, live daily, hourly, in the presence of one must indeed be delicate and dainty with the honesty of whose word we could nev-lush exuberance of jessamine and wooder doubt, the authority of whose word we could never disobey! Mr. Vane professes not to understand music-not even to care for it, except rarely- and yet he spoke of its influence over others with an enthusiasm that half charmed me back once more to my destined calling-nay, might have charmed me wholly, but that he seemed to think that I that any public singer must be a creature apart from the world the world in which such men live. Perhaps that is true. CHAPTER II. IT was one of those lovely noons towards the end of May in which a rural suburb has the mellow charm of summer to him who escapes awhile from the streets of a crowded capital. The Londoner knows its charm when he feels his tread on the softening swards of the Vale of Health, or, pausing at Richmond under the budding willow, gazes on the river glittering in the warmer sunlight, and hears from the villa-gardens behind him the brief trill of the blackbird. But the suburbs round Paris are, I think, a yet more pleasing relief from the metropolis; they are more easily reached, and I know not why, but they seem more rural, perhaps because the contrast of their repose with the stir left behind of their redundance of leaf and blossom, compared with the prim effloresence of trees in the Boulevards and Tuileries is more striking. However that may be, when Graham reached the pretty suburb in which Isaura dwelt, it seemed to him as if all the wheels of the loud busy life were suddenly smitten still. The hour was yet early; he felt sure that he should find Isaura at home. The garden-gate stood unfastened and afar; he pushed it aside and entered. I think I have before said that the garden of the villa was shut out from the road, and the gaze of neighbours, by a wall and thick belt of evergreens; it stretched behind the house somewhat far for the garden of a suburban villa. He paused when he had passed the gateway, for he heard in the distance the voice of one singing-singing low, singing plaintively. He knew it was the voice of Isaura; he passed on, bine; now into its iron trellis-work leaflet and flowers were insinuating their gentle way. Just at the entrance one white rose -a winter rose that had mysteriously survived its relations-opened its pale hues frankly to the noonday sun. Graham approached slowly, noiselessly, and the last note of the song had ceased when he stood at the entrance of the arbour. Isaura did not perceive him at first, for her face was bent downward musingly, as was often her wont after singing, especially when alone. But she felt that the place was darkened, that something stood between her and the sunshine. She raised her face, and a quick flush mantled over it as she uttered his name, not loudly, not as in surprise, but inwardly and whisperingly, as in a sort of fear. "Pardon me, Mademoiselle," said Graham, entering; "but I heard your voice as I came into the garden, and it drew me onward involuntarily. What a lovely air! and what simple sweetness in such of the words as reached me! I am so ignorant of music that you must not laugh at me if I ask whose is the music and whose are the words? Probably both are so well known as to convict me of a barbarous ignorance." "Oh no,' ," said Isaura, with a still heightened colour, and in accents embarrassed and hesitating. "Both the words and music are by an unknown and very humble composer, yet not, indeed, quite original; they have not even that merit—at least they were suggested by a popular song in the Neapolitan dialect which is said to be very old." "I don't know if I caught the true meaning of the words, for they seemed to me to convey a more subtle and refined sentiment than is common in the popular songs of southern Italy." "The sentiment in the original is changed in the paraphrase, and not, I fear, improved by the change." "Will you explain to me the sentiment in both, and let me judge which I prefer?" "In the Neapolitan song a young fisherman, who has moored his boat under a rock on the shore, sees a beautiful face below the surface of the waters; he imagines it to be that of a Nereid, and casts in his net to catch this supposed nymph of the ocean. He only disturbs the water, loses the image, and brings up a few common fishes. He returns home disappointed, and very much enamoured of the supposed Nereid. The next day he goes again to the same place, and discovers that the face which had so charmed him was that of a mortal girl reflected on the waters from the rock behind him, on which she had been seated, and on which she had her home. The original air is arch and lively; just listen to it." And Isaura warbled one of those artless and somewhat meagre tunes to which light-stringed instruments are the fitting accompaniment. "That," said Graham, "is a different music indeed from the other, which is deep and plaintive, and goes to the heart." "But do you not see how the words have been altered? In the song you first heard me singing, the fisherman goes again to the spot, again and again sees the face in the water, again and again seeks to capture the Nereid, and never knows to the last that the face was that of the mortal on the rock close behind him, and which he passed by without notice every day. Deluded by an ideal image, the real one escapes from his eye." "Is the verse that is recast meant to symbolize a moral in love?" "In love? nay, I know not; but in life, yes at least the life of the artist." "The paraphrase of the original is yours, Signorina - words and music both. Am I not right? Your silence answers, 'Yes.' Will you pardon me if I say that, though there can be do doubt of the new beauty you have given to the old song, I think that the moral of the old was the sounder one, the truer to human life. We do not go on to the last duped by an illusion. If enamoured by the shadow on the waters, still we do look around us and discover the image it reflects." Isaura shook her head gently, but made no answer. On the table before her there were a few myrtle-sprigs, and one or two buds from the last winter rose, which she had been arranging into a simple nosegay; she took up these, and abstractedly began to pluck and scatter the rose leaves. deed, but she felt the touch, shrank from it, coloured, and rose from her seat. "The sun has left this side of the garden, the east wind is rising, and you must find it chilly here," she said, in an altered tone; "will you not come into the house?" 66 'It is not the air that I feel chilly," said Graham, with a half-smile; "I almost fear that my prosaic admonitions have displeased you." "They were not prosaic; and they were kind and very wise," she added, with her exquisite laugh laugh so wonderfully sweet and musical. She now had gained the entrance of the arbour; Graham joined her, and they walked towards the house. He asked her if she had seen much of the Savarins since they had met. "Once or twice we have been there of an evening." "And encountered, no doubt, the illustrious young minstrel who despises Tasso and Corneille ?" "M. Rameau ? Oh yes; he is constantly at the Savarins'. Do not be severe on him. He is unhappy — he is struggling he is soured. An artist has thorns in his path which lookers-on do not heed." "All people have thorns in their path, and I have no great respect for those who want lookers-on to heed them whenever they are scratched. But M. Rameau seems to me one of those writers very common nowadays, in France and even in England; writers who have never read anything worth studying, and are, of course, presumptuous in proportion to their ignorance. I should not have thought an artist like yourself could have recognized an artist in a M. Rameau who despises Tasso without knowing Italian.” Graham spoke bitterly; he was once more jealous. "Are you not an artist yourself? Are you not a writer? M. Savarin told me you were a distinguished man of letters." "M. Savarin flatters me too much. I am not an artist, and I have a great dislike to that word as it is now hackneyed and vulgarized in England and in France. A cook calls himself an artist; a tailor does the same; a man writes a gaudy melodrame, a spasmodic song, a sensaDespise the coming May flowers if tional novel, and straightway he calls himyou will, they will soon be so plentiful," self an artist, and indulges in a pedantic said Graham; "but do not cast away the jargon about 'essence and form,' asfew blossoms which winter has so kindly suring us that a poet we can understand spared, and which even summer will not wants essence, and a poet we can scan give again ;" and, placing his hand on the wants form. Thank heaven, I am not winter buds, it touched hers — lightly, in- | vain enough to call myself artist. I have written some very dry lucubrations in periodicals, chiefly political, or critical upon other subjects than art. But why, à propos of M. Rameau, did you ask me that question respecting myself?" "Because much in your conversation," answered Isaura, in rather a mournful tone, "made me suppose you had more sympathies with art and its cultivators than you cared to avow. And if you had such sympathies, you would comprehend what a relief it is to a poor aspirant to art like myself to come into communication with those who devote themselves to any art distinct from the common pursuits of the world; what a relief it is to escape from the ordinary talk of society. There is a sort of instinctive freemasonry among us, including masters and discíples, and one art has a fellowship with other arts; mine is but song and music, yet I feel attracted towards a sculptor, a painter, a romance-writer, a poet, as much as towards a singer, a musician. Do you understand why I cannot contemn M. Rameau as you do? I differ from his tastes in literature; I do not much admire such of his writings as I have read; I grant that he overestimates his own genius, whatever that be, — yet I like to converse with him he is a struggler upward, though with weak wings, or with erring footsteps, like myself." "Mademoiselle," said Graham, earnestly, "I cannot say how I thank you for this candour. Do not condemn me for abusing it— if "he paused. "If what?" While they had thus conversed, mechanically they had turned away from the house, and were again standing before the arbour. Graham, absorbed in the passion of his adjuration, had not till now looked into the face of the companion by his side. Now, when he had concluded, and heard no reply, he bent down and saw that Isaura was weeping silently. His heart smote him. "Forgive me," he exclaimed, drawing her hand into his; "I have had no right to talk thus; but it was not from want of respect; it was it was The hand which was yielded to his pressed it gently, timidly, chastely. "Forgive!" murmured Isaura; "do you think that I, an orphan, have never longed for a friend who would speak to me thus ?" And so saying, she lifted her eyes, streaming still, to his bended countenance-eyes, despite their tears, so clear in their innocent limpid beauty, so ingenuous, so frank, so virgin-like, so unlike the eyes of " any other woman he had encountered and admired." “Alas !” he said, in quick and hurried accents, "you may remember, when we have before conversed, how I, though so uncultured in your art, still recognized its beautiful influence upon human breasts; how I sought to combat your own depreciation of its rank among the elevating agencies of humanity; how, too, I said that no man could venture to ask you to renounce the boards, the lamps-resign the fame of actress, of singer. Well, now that you accord to me the title of friend, now that you so touchingly remind me that you are an orphan-thinking of all the perils the young and beautiful of your sex must encounter when they abandon private life for public - I think that a true friend might put the question, ‘Can you resign the fame of actress, of singer?" "If I, so much older than yourself — I do not say only in years, but in the experience of life I, whose lot is cast among those busy and 'positive 'pursuits, which necessarily quicken that unromantic faculty called common-senseif, I say, the deep interest with which you must inspire all whom you admit into an acquaintance, even as unfamiliar as that now between us, makes me utter one caution, such as might be uttered by a friend or brother. Beware of those artistic sympathies which you so touchingly confess; beware how, in the great events of life, you allow fancy to misguide your reason. In choosing friends on whom to rely, separate the artist from the human being. Judge of the human being for what it is in itself. Do not worship the face on the waters, blind to the image on the rock. In one word, "I will answer you frankly. The pronever see in an artist like a M. Rameau fession which once seemed to me so althe human being to whom you could in- luring began to lose its charms in my trust the destinies of your life. Pardon eyes some months ago. It was your me, pardon me; we may meet little here- | words, very eloquently expressed, on the ennobling effects of music and song upon | speaks to me as if he were so much older a popular audience, that counteracted the growing distaste to rendering up my whole life to the vocation of the stage. But now I think I should feel grateful to the friend whose advice interpreted the voice of my own heart, and bade me relinquish the carcer of actress." Graham's face was radiant. But whatever might have been his reply was arrested; voices and footsteps were heard behind. He turned round and saw the Venosta, the Savarins, and Gustave Rameau. Isaura heard and saw also, started in a sort of alarmed confusion, and then instinctively retreated towards the arbour. Graham hurried on to meet the Signora and the visitors, giving time to Isaura to compose herself by arresting them in the pathway with conventional salutations. than I so kindly, so tenderly, yet as if I were a child, and much as the dear Maestro might do, if he thought I needed caution or counsel. Do not fancy, Eulalie, that there is any danger of my deceiving myself as to the nature of such interest as he may take in me. Oh no! There is a gulf between us there which he does not lose sight of, and which we could not pass. How, indeed, I could interest him at all I cannot guess. A rich, high-born Englishman, intent on political life; practical, prosaic - no, not prosaic; but still with the kind of sense which does not admit into its range of vision that world of dreams which is familiar as their daily home to Romance and to Art. It has always seemed to me that for love, love such as I conceive it, there must be a deep and constant symA few moments later Isaura joined pathy between two persons-not, inthem, and there was talk to which Gra- deed, in the usual and ordinary trifles of ham scarcely listened, though he shared taste and sentiment, but in those essenin it by abstracted monosyllables. He tials which form the root of character, declined going into the house, and took and branch out in all the leaves and leave at the gate. In parting, his eyes blooms that expand to the sunshine and fixed themselves on Isaura. Gustave shrink from the cold, that the worldRameau was by her side. That nosegay which had been left in the arbour was in her hand; and though she was bending over it, she did not now pluck and scatter the rose-leaves. Graham at that moment felt no jealousy of the fair-faced young poet beside her. As he walked slowly back, he muttered to himself, "But am I yet in the position to hold myself wholly free? Am I, am I? Were the sole choice before me that between her and ambition and wealth, how soon it would be made! Ambition has no prize equal to the heart of such a woman; wealth no sources of joy equal to the treasure of her love." CHAPTER III. FROM ISAURA CICOGNA TO MADAME DE GRANTMESNIL. ling, should wed the worldling, the artist answer me P. S. I have now fully made up my mind to renounce all thought of the stage. From Madame de Grantmesnil to Isaura Cicogna. MY DEAR CHILD, How your mind has grown since you left me, the sanguine and aspiring votary of an art which of all arts brings the most immediate reward to divine in its immediate effects upon hua successful cultivator, and is in itself so man souls! Who shall say what may THE day after I posted my last, Mr. be the after-results of those effects which Vane called on us. I was in our little the waiters on prosperity presume to garden at the time. Our conversation despise because they are immediate? A was brief, and soon interrupted by visit- dull man, to whose mind a ray of that ors-the Savarins and M. Rameau. I vague starlight undetected in the atmoslong for your answer. I wonder how he phere of workday life has never yet travimpressed you, if you have met him; elled; to whom the philosopher, the how he would impress, if you met him preacher, the poet appeal in vain - nay, now. To me he is so different from all to whom the conceptions of the grandest others; and I scarcely know why his master of instrumental music are incomwords ring in my ears, and his image prehensible; to whom Beethoven unrests in my thoughts. It is strange alto-locks no portal in heaven; to whom Rosgether; for though he is young, he sini has no mysteries on earth unsolved by the critics of the pit, — suddenly hears the human voice of the human singer, and at the sound of that voice the walls which enclosed him fall. The something far from and beyond the routine of his commonplace existence becomes known to him. He of himself, poor man, can make nothing of it. He cannot put it down on paper, and say the next morning, "I am an inch nearer to heaven than I was last night;" but the feeling that he is an inch nearer to heaven abides with him. Unconsciously he is gentler, he is less earthly, and in being nearer to heaven, he is stronger for earth. You singers do not seem to me to understand that you have to use your own word, so much in vogue that it has become absurd and trite a mission! When you talk of missions, from whom comes the mission? Not from men. If there be a mission from man to men, it must be appointed from on high. Think of all this; and in being faithful to your art, be true to yourself. If you feel divided between that art and the art of the writer, and acknowledge the first to be too exacting to admit a rival, keep to that in which you are sure to excel. Alas, my fair child! do not imagine that we writers feel a happiness in our pursuits and aims more complete than that which you can command. If we care for ame (and, to be frank, we all do) that tame does not come before us face to face -a real, visible, palpable form, as it does -o the singer, to the actress. I grant that it may be more enduring, but an endurance on the length of which we dare not reckon. A writer cannot be sure of immortality till his language itself be dead; and then he has but to share in an uncertain lottery. Nothing but fragments remains of the Phrynichus, who rivalled Eschylus; of the Agathon, who perhaps excelled Euripides; of the Alcæus, in whom Horace acknowledged a master and a model; their renown is not in their works, it is but in their names. And after all, the names of singers and actors last perhaps as long. Greece retains the name of Polus, Rome of Roscius, England of Garrick, France of Talma, Italy of Pasta, and more lastingly than posterity is likely to retain mine. You address to me a question, which I have often put to myself" What is the distinction between the writer and the reader, when the reader says, 'These are my thoughts, these are my feelings; the writer has stolen them, and clothed them with his own words'?" And the more the reader says this, the more wide is the audience, the more genuine the renown, and, paradox though it seems, the more consummate the originality, of the writer. But no, it is not the mere gift of expression, it is not the mere craft of the pen, it is not the mere taste in arrangement of word and cadence, which thus enables the one to interpret the mind, the heart, the soul of many. It is a power breathed into him as he lay in his cradle, and a power that gathered around itself, as he grew up, all the influences he acquired, whether from observation of external nature, or from study of men and books, or from that experience of daily life which varies with every human being. No education could make two intellects exactly alike, as no culture can make two leaves exactly alike. How truly you describe the sense of dissatisfaction which every writer of superior genius communicates to his admirers! how truly do you feel that the greater is the dissatisfaction in proportion to the writer's genius, and the admirer's conception of it! But that is the mystery which makes — let me borrow a German phrase — the cloudland between the finite and the infinite. The greatest philosopher, intent on the secrets of Nature, feels that dissatisfaction in Nature herself. The finite cannot reduce into logic and criticism the infinite. Let us dismiss these matters, which perplex the reason, and approach that which touches the heart-which in your case, my child, touches the heart of woman. You speak of love, and deem that the love which lasts - the household, the conjugal love - should be based upon such sympathies of pursuit that the artist should wed with the artist. This is one of the questions you do well to address to me; for whether from my own experience, or from that which I have gained from observation extended over a wide range of life, quickened and intensified by the class of writing that I cultivate, and which necessitates a calm study of the passions, I am an authority on such subjects, better than most women can be. And alas, my child! I come to this result: there is no prescribing to men or to women whom to select, whom to refuse. I cannot refute the axiom of the ancient poet, "In love there is no wherefore." But there is a time-it is often but a moment of time-in which love is not yet a master, in which we can say, "I will love - I will not love." Now, if I could find you in such a mo |