tell you. The influence of an enforced pause in clearing the mind may be great. How often does it happen that we fail to see because we look too hard. We look at the picture, or the landscape; we attack it, so to speak, with our eyes; and we miss the beauty of it. But another day, when we are a little relaxed in our will, the landscape or the picture is permitted to look at us, and the calm receptivity of a languor, enforced it may be by illness, takes in the loveliness we missed when we were at pains to see. the majority had answered themselves. Of course this might and would happen in more ways than one. For instance, the poor sick man's letter, begging the loan of a sovereign to buy food with, has clearly answered itself, if at the end of a week you find the sick man is dead and are quite sure the widow will not come to ask you for a Sovereign towards the funeral expenses. But, in the majority of the instances in which the letters no longer want answering, it is pretty certainly because the writers were over-urgent about things which have arranged themselves without interference. These things are commonplaces of huThe fact is, we get upon inclined planes in man experience, and to speak of them is our little affairs, and become heated with not to teach, but to recite what is known. the "wind of our own speed," and then of Not less familiar, and not less interesting as course we exaggerate the consequence of a topic of meditation, is the importance of our own efforts, and of what others can do placing a solid block of oblivion, if possible, for us. But we must not allow this sort of between any great shock of pain or disapreflection upon life to suggest the foolish and pointment, and our next effort. True or wicked paradox that indifference stands as not, that is a good story which relates how good a chance as energy. Nobody who some one, suddenly overthrown and baffled loves the truth ever pushes this suggestion in his career, told his valet to give him forty beyond a joke. Drunkards and fools do es- drops of laudanum, and let him sleep till cape strange pitfalls, and do fall into the laps he awoke of his own accord. That sounds of easy fortunes: but the very surprise the very like suicide; but the truth is, if short thing occasions is enough to indicate its enforced pauses could always be secured, place in the classification of events. the temptation to suicide would be removed. Believe it who please, I do not believe that the science of anæsthetics is even in its infancy, as yet. Not opium nor chloroform, not poppies nor mandragora, not drowsy syrups; but something, something has yet to be won from the secrets of the borderland upon which Psychology and Physiology knock their heads together in the twilight. It is, doubtless, a most shy and recondite something. The mesmerist, the hypnotist, and the magician have not hit it. Nor did that celebrated gentleman, an Indian officer I think, who had acquired the knack of stopping the beating of his own heart, and at last performed the experiment once too often. But when, upon my pronouncing the exquisite word anodyne, some rude fellow speaks of ether on lump-sugar, or an opium pill, I own I feel a little insulted. I did once begin a recipe - Take equal quantities of rippling water, true love, falling roseleaves, firm faith, sweet music, swan's down - ah! I shall never finish it till some enforced pause in my affairs gives me the requisite leisure. But that so beautiful a word as anodyne must have an equivalent in fact and nature, is so highly probable that one cannot easily relinquish all hope of finding it. Can it lie concealed in the crypt which hides the squared circle, the philosopher's stone, and the elixir of life? There was a charm -but Merlin told it to Vivien in Scarcely anything in life is so sweet to me as the repose of Sunday- the soothing suggestions of its devouter offices, its silence, its calm, its immunities. Defoe, when he was in difficulties, was called the Sunday gentleman, because he only went abroad upon the day on which bailiffs had no power; but others, not in difficulties, may be permited to rejoice in the certainty of being let alone on Sundays. For my part, I have never, since I can recollect at all, awoke on a Sunday morning without a sense of triumph in the quiet hours that were before me. Sunday was always the day on which I rose early, in order to have as much as possible of its peace and sweetness. It is still the same with me. No postman comes to-day, with his double knock. No butcher rings the bell for orders. No carts go clattering through the streets. Even the doctor seems to find less to do. And now, in these soft, unfretted moments, causes of irritation seem less than they did yesterday; we pause upon the momentous step: the bent bow of half-angry energy is relaxed the mist of passion has time to thin away a little we come to the end of the gentle day with a pang, and go to bed with a regretful thought that to-morrow is Monday. I say we, feeling sure that my own experience cannot be solitary-but it is mine, and much more keenly mine than the pen can "Well, were it not a pleasant thing To fall asleep with all one's friends; To pass with all our social ties To silence from the paths of men; And every hundred years to rise, And leave the world, and sleep again, To sleep thro' terms of mighty wars, And wake on science grown to more, On secrets of the brain, the stars, As wild as aught of fairy-lore; And all that else the years will show, The Poet-forms of stronger hours, The vast Republics that may grow, The Federations and the Powers; So sleeping, so aroused from sleep Thro' sunny decads new and strange, Or gay quinquenniads, we would reap The flower and quintessence of change." From the Examiner. English Travellers and Italian Brigands. A MR. MOENS tells, in this book, of his life among the brigands in the mountains near Salerno, as their prisoner until the payment of the heavy ransom asked for himself and his friend, Mr. Aynsley. The captors having abated of their first demands, the ransom finally paid, in equal shares by himself and Mr. Aynsley, was 5100l. Mr. Aynsley, as everybody knows, was the one released to find the gold, for payment of which to the banditti, Mr. Moens was retained as hostage. Here then is a man with a good story to tell. It does not follow as a common law of nature that he happens to know how to tell it; but for the comfort of all who would like to make an honest story about robbers, full of adventure, recent and quite true, part of their Christmas reading, be it known that Mr. Moens does know how to tell his tale. He tells it faithfully and simply. There is a too-daring luxury in all this! There is an excess of certainty about it; and yet a terror of uncertainty. As for me, I should never sleep if I knew I was wound His preface wins the reader by a reality up, like an alarum, to wake at a given time. of tone free from all fanfaronnade of the On the other hand, there might be a mis- bookmaker. He disclaims literary pretentake the prince might never find his way sions of every sort, only he has something to the palace. No my anodyne must be to tell, and has endeavoured, he says, to something far simpler. It must be uncertain tell it" as simply as possible." But he has in the duration of its effects, but it must not also friends to thank for sympathy and aid, last longer than while one might stay in an and these he thanks in his preface genialeasy-chair, or in bed, with decency, and ly, adding naturally: "When I calmly rewithout exciting the coroner to hold an in- flect upon the truly noble and unselfish acts quest. As for sleeping a century, or five that have been done in my behalf by so centuries a "gay quinquenniad it many persons, I feel inclined to rejoice in seems absurd to go to bed for that: one my past sufferings and misfortunes." The sufought to have a proper vault in a cemetery. ferings were at the time often sore and perLet us, as Sydney Smith said, take short ilous, but Mr. Moens tells his story without views. Nathaniel Hawthorne maintained any feeble self-commiseration. His account that what the world at present needed was has the fulness necessary to the giving of a a nap; and that moderate expression just true impression, but there is not a line hits off the purpose for which I want some- in the book of fine writing. He has body to discover an anodyne. In the meanwhile, I am not always thankful to those who, in their anxiety to "save time," are skilful in shortening the enforced pauses of life. I am by no means always desirous to make a journey short; on the contrary, I often wish it to last as long as possible; and as for Sunday-if anybody could succeed in turning the one which will dawn to-morrow into a sabbatic year, I should thank him with every pulse of my being. something to say, and says it without waste of energy upon digression into irrelevant facts or far-fetched ideas; and that is the only way to make a good book, whether one do, or whether one don't, lay claim to special literary skill. Mr. Moens is joined in the telling of his story by the wife, who in her suspense during his days of peril, shared his suffering, and was at the centre of the efforts made for his release. First, then, it is Mrs. Moens, who tells in a chapter or two how their Italian travel was begun in Sicily. She records what she had heard in Palermo, of the audacity of the Sicilian Banditti, and tells how on the very day after their trip to Monte Pelegrino, a Sicilian gentleman driving with a friend on the same road, was carried off by brigands. From Palermo the travellers went to Messina, Mr. Moens amusing himself with photographing. While they were at Messina there was an eruption of Etna, and Mr. Moens becomes now the diarist of two ascents of Etna. On the second ascent while taking, from Monte Crisimo, an old crater, some photographic views of the two craters that were belching steam and smoke, Mr. and Mrs. Moens were accosted by Sicilian bandits. Seven or eight of them armed with guns, says Mr. Moens," came and stood close behind me as I had my head under the black cloth, while developing the view of the lava I had just taken; and I do not think a photograph was ever taken under more disturbing influences." However, they preferred learning the travellers' route, and catching them when they had more profitable luggage than a photographic box. Warned next day of the ambush prepared for them, Mr. and Mrs. Moens changed their route, carefully concealing until the last moment the fact that they designed to do so. Now it is Mr. Moens who tells how they went to Catania, and thence by steamer to Syracuse, where they first met the Rev. J.C. Murray Aynsley and his wife. From Syracuse, by the weekly boat, Mr. and Mrs. Moens and Mr. and Mrs. Aynsley went together to Girgenti. Soon afterwards they left Sicily for Naples, and thence on the 14th of May went by rail to Salerno, for a visit to the ruins of Pæstum, Mr. and Mrs. Murray Aynsley being still in their company. It was between Salerno and Pæstum in a carriage with three horses and jingling bells, and on a road traversed daily by parties visiting the temples, that Mr. Moens and Mr. Aynsley fell among brigands. Two Italian gentlemen had been captured on the same road only a week before, and on the way to Pæstum some Italian soldiers, without giving any warning of a special danger, joined the carriage and rode by its side. One of the soldiers remained with them during the day while Mr. Moens amused himself in taking photograghs of the temples. The carriage came, nearly two hours later than it had been ordered, to take the party back to Salerno, and by that time the soldiers were all gone. So they drove homeward, jesting about brigands, and af fecting terror at all gloomy corners of the road till they were weary of the subject. Then Mrs. Moens, who is journalist here, fell asleep, and was roused by Mrs. Aynsley's exclamation, "Here really are the brigands at last!" A band of thirty of them pointing their guns, were closing round the carriage from the fields on both sides of the road. They required the two gentlemen in the carriage to come down, and when they had done so gathered about them and marched off with them. Then we read of the anguish of the wives. The brigands had promised to restore their husbands to them in a quarter of an hour. Sometimes, having extorted promises of money, they had soliberated captives. The carriage remained on the spot. At the end of a quarter of an hour, there came up a troop of thirty mounted soldiers, to whom the forlorn wives cried, "The Brigands have taken our husbands!" Having learnt which way to go, the soldiers galloped off in hot pursuit. Time passed and the ladies took refuge in a room over the stables of a wretched house, from the curious crowd of excited peasantry; among whom was the village doctor-true Galen of Italy - vehement in his desire that they should let him bleed them. The diary of Mr. Moens is continued then to the deadly disappointment of seeing Mr. Aynsley return unaccompanied. What story he had to tell is told in the first pages of the diary of Mr. Moens, which now follows, and which begins the very interesting tale of life among Italian banditti. The captain of the band was Gaetano Manzo, and it was not till next day, when he had marched his prisoners, with two others caught in the fields almost at the same time, far from the place of their capture that there was a council held upon the subject of ransom. Says Mr. Moens When we heard the sum demanded, we looked at each other with horror-100,000 ducats, equal to 17,000l. After a few minutes' conwith black eyes, hair, and beard, Manzo reduversation with Sentonio, a tall clumsy ruffian ced it to 50,000 ducats, or 8,500l. This sum, we said, was ridiculous, out of the question; but we were told, in spite of our protestations to the contrary, that we had 2,000,000 ducats each, and that we were great lords. We declared it was no use to trust to our wives to raise the money, as they did not speak the language, and that there were few English people at Naples, and no one would trust them as foreigners. They then agreed to let one of us go for the money, and wanted us to decide which it should be; but we, knowing that whichever offered himself would be kept back, were silent. At last we proposed to draw lots, so I took a small twig | and broke it in two pieces, a short and a long piece, and we arranged that the holder of the short one was to remain with the band, and the holder of the longer piece was to go and get the money for both. I took the pieces of wood, and holding out my hand before me, I said to Mr. Aynsley, "Draw." He drew one, and left the other (which was the shorter of the two) in my hand. I must confess I felt as if I had been drawing for my life, and I had lost. I had to make up my mind to my fate at once. Mr. Aynsley told me he did not know whether he could pay so much. I told him that I could, and that I would advance his half for him till arrangements could be made. I told him to apply to a friend whom I named, a member of the Stock Exchange, for 2,500l., which I had left in his hands. I gave him other little directions, and told him to do all he could for my wife, placing her under his care. Our conversation was interrupted by the captain being called by the sentinel to come and look at about 100 soldiers walking along the road below. After a few minutes Mr. Aynsley and two men, to whom the letters of Luzzo and the other captive were given, were hurried away, Mr. Aynsley having to write to Luzzo's house. men, I was put under the charge of four or five and ordered off to the rear. I turned round and saw Mr. Aynsley and his two guides walking down the hill. It was a trying moment. I was now driven on at a fast pace, and in a minute heard the report of a gun, the bullet whizzing over my head. This was from the soldiers whom Mr. Aynsley met almost immediately after leaving us. The brigands answered this, and there was a brisk fire. I tried to go off to the right, thinking an escape possible, but was turned immediately; my foot slipped, and I fell down some depth, for the mountain was very steeɔ, and all the stones loose. I was very much shaken, and I thought my arm was broken. I could hardly move it, but I was made to get up, and to the cry "Corre, corre," on we went. The hill was very high, the base of it covered with fir-trees. I looked up, and saw the rest of the band lining the top of the hill in skirmishing order, firing as fast as they could. The shots of the soldiers now came rattling round us as we passed from bush to bush one by one; and for a quarter of an hour we had to run the gauntlet. At last we got to the bottom of the mountain, where we found a rushing torrent ten yards wide; the fire was too hot for hesitation, so one by one the brigands waded over. I had to follow; on I went, the water up to my waist, rushing, foaming over the stones, and the bullets splashing into it on all sides of me. I do believe the soldiers took special aim at me, the tallest of the party. My death would no doubt have saved them considerable trouble. Had it not been for my stick, I should have been carried away by the force of the stream; as it was, I had to cross in an oblique direction, landing on the other side only two yards above a waterfall of some height. The brigand who followed me was washed down, and went head over heels over the fall, but he was not much hurt, and scrambled out below. The others passed over safely, and we hurried up the steep ascent over the other side for some considerable distance till we were concealed among the trees, and safe from the fire of the troops. I thanked God for my escape from my rescuers, and felt anything but charitably disposed towards their rulers, who ought years ago to have cleared their country from these ruffians, instead of leaving them alone till they carried off an Englishman. We rested among the trees until nightfall. At sunset we saw about two hundred soldiers in a body ascending the opposite bank by a path from the stream. They cheered as they marched along. I turned to the brigands and said, "You have lost some comrades." They did not choose to admit this. After dark some more shots were heard, and the band was surprised again. The other prisoners managed to escapelucky fellows- they were but small fry, and were forgotten in the excitement of the fight; but the greatest care was taken of me. I was never allowed a chance for a moment. by telling the adventures and experiences it We shall not spoil the interest of the book relates so well. One illustration we may give of the degree of hardship endured. The first week we were supplied at intervals of two or three days with a small quantity of meat half cooked. I came in for the under-done portions, for nothing an Italian dislikes so much as crudely cooked meat. No bread was procurable, with the exception of a very small piece of rye bread. This tasted to me most delicious, for with the exception of two mouthfuls of maize bread, we had had none for a fortnight. There was great grumbling at the diet, for we only had enough just to keep us from starving. I thought that here I might manage to wash a little, and commenced by taking off my boots in order to begin with my feet. I had washed one and was doing the same to the other, when that wretched Scope rushed at me and began hitting me with a stick he picked up, because I did not immediately put my sock on to my wet foot. I did not pay the slightest attention to him, and wiped my foot dry, and then put on my sock and boot, he continuing to strike me all the time. I told him that it did not hurt me, and I supposed it amused him (remembering an anecdote told once by a noble earl in the House of Lords with excellent effect), and I recommended him to take care what he did or I should complain to the captain The others took my part, and though he did not repeat the offence he often threatened me, and I really was frequently in fear of my life by reason of his brutal disposition. One blow raised the skin on my forefinger, and I suppose the stick must have been in contact with some decayed matter. The wound became troublesome, and did not heal for three weeks, when I got some bread and made a poultice for it. The captain did not return at the end of the week, as he had promised; all the money was gone, and no food came for three days. I was so hungry that I begged for some of the raw fat, three weeks old, that they had kept for the. purpose of greasing their boots! This I forced down my throat, after masticating for a quarter-of-an-hour, but at the end of that time it was just as clammy as at first. I three times ate a little of this fearfully rancid stuff. At last one night, half a sheep was sent up to me, which four of the men took down again to cook, for Pavone, who stopped with me, would not have a fire made where we were. The greedy wretches cooked and ate nearly all of it, putting a quantity away in their pockets, and brought up a little to Pavone, but only gave to me a scraped legbone which Scope threw in my face, hurtting me a good deal, it was perfectly raw, and had but very few signs of meat about it. I gnawed at this in the dark like a dog, eating as much of the sinewy appendages as I could manage to find and to bite; I then put it by also after the manner of dogs, till the morning, being too famished to lose so precious a morsel; but that dear brute Scope seeing it, took it away to see if he could make anything of it, though he had plenty of meat in his pocket, and finding nothing on it threw it at my head again. Not a morsel would the others give me; for two more days I had to go without food, or to take the raw and stinking fat again! Each day I had been getting weaker, and weaker, tillat last my voice failed me, and I could only speak in the lowest whisper, as at last I lay stretched on the ground praying for death. On the morning of the 30th July Malone and Vicenzio were sent to get food at all hazards, for they saw I was in a bad state, and they all (particularly Pavone) were getting very queer for want of something to eat, but no one was so ill as I was. At about ten o'clock we heard a low whistle above us, and I saw Antonio coming down with something in his handkerchief slung on his gun. When he came to where Pavone was sitting he turned two loaves and a number of pears out of his pocket. I was so excited at the sight of this that I burst into tears at the goodness of God in sending food when I had quite given up hopes of life. I was too weak to go to the bread, and Antonio brought me three pears. I tried to say pane,' but I could not manage it, so pointed at the bread, which they gave me immediately; and by eating a small quantity at a time I soon felt better, and by the evening recovered my voice. And here is an account of the passing of the prisoner out of the hands of his captors: did not know whether he was called by a nickname or not. All at once, at about half-past seven, to my intense joy, Tedesco, Visconti's old shepherd, walked up from the place where Manzo and the others were. He was so pleased to see me that he would kiss me, and I had not the heart to refuse him. My first question was to inquire all about my wife, and I was deeply thankful to learn that she was quite well and had escaped all malaria fever, which is so prevalent in Naples in summer. He told me that he had been hunting everywhere for the band since the night of Sunday, the 20th, when the 3,000l. were paid. He had a companion to help him to carry the money, which weighed nearly forty pounds, and was as much as they could carry up the mountains; and that it was a most dangerous task, although they had been promised the protection of both the Italian and English Governments. They had run the greatest danger from the troops, who would certainly, he said, have shot them had they caught them carrying money to the brigands. He told me that he was worn out with the fatigue and hunger he had undergone during the last six days, not having slept once in a house all that time; and that he would have given up the search for the band had he not fallen in with them this morning, though he had vowed not to return without me. Last night he had slept on the other side of the mountain opposite us, not having the slightest idea that we were so close to him. He now went back to Manzo, and sent an old woman, who proved to be Manzo's mother, to me; she had brought a small loaf of white bread and a little omelette for me, which luxuries seemed to be most delicious after the coarse fare I had been subjected to lately. It seemed very curious seeing any one in woman's dress, to which I had been a stranger for so long a time. When the old lady went away, Manzo came to me, and sitting down, asked me what I should say to the Prefect when he questioned me about his band. I told him that I should tell him that he and his band of about thirty men had been a match for an army of 10,000 men, and that he had proved himself the cleverer of the two. This pleased him immensely, and he quite rubbed his hands with glee, and immediately gave me two rings, which I put on my fingers in brigand fashion. Contrary to his usual practice, he did not caution me against telling about the band and their proceedings, which greatly surprised me, for the Viscontis had been cautioned and threatened in the most violent manner should they say a word. He now returned to his men, and I heard the chinking sound of their counting money, which suppose was the sum he was to receive, which I heard mentioned the day before. At about eleven o'clock Manzo asked me if I should like to go; so I threw away all the warm clothing I had been carrying about with me so long, tied up in a handkerchief, and which had served me as a pillow at night since the 19th June. In Though I had been promised that the guides would come at daybreak to take me away, five, six, seven o'clock came without their appear-I ance, and I was in despair. Guange and Catane were with me, the former asking me not to speak of him at Naples, for he was well known there. I told him he need not fear my saying anything that would hurt him, for the authorities knew much more of him than I did, as I |