Cras amet qui nunquam amavit, quique amavit | whose very hum seems to catch some in cras amet. The sunlit waves came to me with a startling and happy message that the outer world was fair, whether I saw it or no; but the sweetbriar among the prickles challenged me to own a spiritual truth the world was lovable, whether I saw why or no, and whether its sweetness was belovedas by me to-day - or left unseen, undreamt of, through the lonely years. My brain was tired and the thoughts wandered wildly; snatches of old hymns mixed with the "Pervigilium Veneris," and my last thought was a dreamy wonder, whether the love of God was something like my love of earth just now? A wave of love sweeps over us just when we feel the one thing needed given, and the love that seeks its object will own none but the imagined giver, and to the imagined object of our love we give a name-our God, kind earth, or mother nature-and such naming is in itself a prayer, a blessing, and a thanksgiving for the good God's gift. Thoughts like these rose questioningly, and pleased with asking, ere the question pressed for answer I was asleep con dio. termediate sense more felt than heard? Noon was past and the south sun had travelled two hand-breadths towards the right before I woke, rested, hopeful, and refreshed. The sound that woke me was the tinkle of a sheep-bell, following an old crone, who was tethering the family cow to graze on the common just above. I called to her, and though our friendly speech was mutually unintelligible, like two children of nature we arranged And when the sea was breaking I could friendly terms of barter, and she brought do no other than draw near to watch it me a cup of creamy milk and a stale crust break. The old spell drew me on to the of home-baked bread. I rose invigor- furthest accessible point of rocky projecated, and before leaving my warm lair tion; by clambering beyond the broad, bent for one more draught of the mixed, level slab, along a kind of promontory, sweet scent. Alas! the island is enchant-covered at high water by the sea, but now ed! the gorse was sweet and so was the briar, with their several known and pleasant sweetness, but the unearthly fragrance of those two moments came back to me no more. It may be that, as slight sounds are distressing to a feeble brain that would pass unnoticed else, so a more than normal keenness of the other senses goes with moments of excited feebleness. Basking in the sunshine I had felt a dim intuition of ancient kinship with the many-colored zoophytes of the shallow dry save for a few pools in the spray-worn hollows, and bare of all maritime life because of the violence of the waves, one reached a secure, low pinnacle, round which the waves were breaking in all their glory. The noise was deafening, the sea a clear sea-green, the sky and sunlight bright and clear. Chance fixed my eye at once upon a certain rock over which each wave broke, burying the summit beneath a flood of foam; then as the wave retreated and the rock rose from its immersion, still waterfalls fell as if from some secret reservoir, from ledge to ledge of the rock, into the still seething, surg ing surf below, and ere one could dis- as the silvery glitter of the gull's white cover whence these little cataracts pro- wings differs from the dazzling whiteness ceeded, another wave submerged the of the sunlit foam. The sea-gulls were whole bed of rocks, and again retired, swooping through the air and skimming leaving unaccountable waterworks to play for a moment the surface of the waves, for a moment and vanish again. It was but one seemed to have made her nest a giddy sight, like watching the revolu- upon the very rim of the boiling cauldron tions of a water-wheel, and that, too, in of Charybdis, and it was only on a closer doubt as to what the designers of the look that I saw at moments just a speck of machinery had meant to compass by its black rock showing momentarily through motions. A great wave broke, and a the surf. The sea-bird was perched upon shower of spray rose up against the sky, the rock, and the waves washed round it, where the fickle wind caught it and sent and the silver wings shone like moona cool handful lightly in my face. I was beams, like the moon resting on a cushion dazzled for a moment, and as I recovered of snowy moonlit clouds. And again and sight my eyes were bent a yard or two again, as I looked from the swirling wafurther out to sea, upon the right. ters to the still flight of the circling gulls, the two spirits of brightness would meet for a joyous moment as the sea-bird nestled among the foam. Here, when the wave had burst, the sea was level with thick, white, smooth foam, but as the waters rushed back, sucked down as if by a great passion of The cheerful voice of our host roused remorse; then, instead of black rocks me at length from reveries in which it showing sharp teeth above the surf, the seemed possible that a world should be waves, as they sank back, disclosed a with only differences between one and deepening, widening, whirling abyss, with another right, between the new creations walls of whirling foam, a funnel-shaped of wisely loving souls and the different vortex, boring down as it revolves into glories of consistent truths. I followed deeper and deeper recesses of the sea, him, silently thinking too that it made a with foaming sides, seeming to recede change in the memory of sad and gloomy from the intent gaze. The snowy white-hours to think that through them all the ness of the whirling billows, the seeming gulls had hovered in still circles over the softness of the sea all foam, have a strange unchanging sea. But that evening, as I fascination for the giddy senses; there read a Frenchman's letters, I took to are clouds on which one would choose to heart what he says to a friend of such rest if they were in reach, and no cloud walks as these of mine with the island could promise a softer, cooler, sweeter spirits: "La mémoire de ces promenades resting-place than the very heart of this est à la fois un plaisir et une douleur. foaming whirlpool. Wave upon wave C'est pour moi une sensation qu'il faut spent itself, and I could not cease from renouveler sans cesse pour qu'elle ne dewatching the returning, ever-varying face vienne pas triste." This is partly true of of the whirling hollow, down which creamy all pleasures, and wholly true of the pleascataracts poured over the shifting watery ures of love. I was in love with these walls. The sun shone upon the foam, it sweet spirits, and love grows sad without glittered like snow, and one might have daily renewal of the one joy of meeting said there was no purer whiteness in the the beloved. I had felt this already, and world than this, when all at once there knowing life could not be spent in the infloated across the foam another bright- cessant renewal of solitary delights, hence ness, of white, glancing, sunlit wings. I forward I sought the company of my remembered as a child having wondered fellows, and went cliffing, shooting, boathow in heaven we should know one angeling, swimming, with my host and the isl from another if they all wore the same and fishers. white robes, and had wings of just one shape; it would have strengthened my young faith much if they had shown and told me that one white radiance might differ from another as far as blue and crimson. And still to this day one hears the shallow saying a thing is either right or wrong-it must be black or white; whereas the glory of one rightness may differ from the radiance of another It was not till the last evening of my stay that I ventured upon a solitary farewell stroll. The impression had been gaining strength in my mind that my first thoughts of despair had been premature and exaggerated. If the Arctic expedition had started without me, that might be a loss, but the other misfortune was the less irreparable in consequence; might see the -s in less than two I years; nay, I was beginning to think that was silenced: no thought of God or man, it would be possible, without indiscretion, angel or faery magic, crossed my mind. to let Mrs. know that it was not by The view was of pure, sober, lovely earth, choice I had failed in attentive, nay, as- and the eyes were glad to rest unthinksiduous, respect. I did not know their ad-ingly on its stillness. From the grass dress, but they were going to be at Venice bank on which I leaned the land sloped in June, and the English banker there gradually to the seaward. There was not was an old school friend of mine, to whom much difference in the level, but enough I could easily entrust a circumstantial to show far round on either side a narrow message, with a hint that he should de- strip of dark blue glittering sea: in front, liver it in the hearing of both ladies at and as far round as the eye readily saw at once. I was thinking of these things, once, between me and the sea, there and not looking where I went, when sud- showed a low thin belt of firs; and as I denly I was brought up against one of had seen the sky through the branches of the rough stone walls, crowned with a the one fir-tree by the farm, so now the stubby hedge, which served to divide the blue sea showed through the wood befarms of different proprietors on the isl-tween the tree stems, and the dark green and. I had been landed before in a similar impasse. A path led into the field for its owner's use, but none led through, as the farmers did not trespass on each other's land. I had no such scruple, and scaled the wall, walking along the top of it to find a gap in the hedge, where I could drop down on the other side. At the convenient spot I sat down for a moment to rest in sight of a still blue patch of sea; the curving down framed it as in a hollow, and on the left, where the land rose above the horizon, in clear relief against the pale blue sky, stood out one solitary fir-tree; one saw the sky between the branches, and the upper outline against the sky was clear and dark. It was resting to look upon. My enjoyment of the island beauties had grown dangerously strenuous, because I could not break the trick of trying to find a meaning everywhere. This tree against the sky proved nothing, and all the more for that, its mere contemplation was fraught with inexplicable pleasure. foliage against the blue stood out in sharp relief, and the sky above the deep blue sea was blue, dim with a rising haze. There was nothing to be thought or said, and yet weariness was impossible; the vision was of embodied rest; the still universe seemed a temple of the Most High, and I fed my soul by looking. It was the memory of this long look that came back to me first, forty-eight hours afterwards, when I leaned out of a third-floor bedroom in Bloomsbury to seize a glimpse of the sunset sky. On rare evenings, when the clouds have melted, there was a little patch of pearly grey between the houses, shading into beryl-like transparency, and the topmost twigs of an old elm-tree make a feathery fringe of green against the sky; here too is stillness, beauty, and unreasoning peace; and down below a neighbor has trained a jessamine against his bit of garden wall. I saw the feathery green of the new year's young rich shoots, and the white flowers that shine like stars upon a I went on my way breathing a blessing moonless night, against their dark cool on the good householder who had tended bed. The light grew paler and paler, a the fir-tree in its youth; and, though I shortlived flush of pink came and went, don't know that my prayers had anything and then the pale grey deepened into to do with the result, I was as much night, still, calm, and sweet, and the starry pleased as if they had, when I heard that Jessamine still glimmered through the the good wife's son came back the next shade. Night fell, and then I wrote to week from a three years' voyage, with all | Venice. his pay in hand, enough to buy the ten shares in the market-boat which old neighbor Nicolas had left to provide a portion for his only daughter. But I did not know this then, so my prayers were only for unspecified good luck. After re-entering the castle lands, I wandered through the first pine wood, bending inland by degrees, and just as I neared the public way, I turned back, leaning on a grassy bank. This time I That was five years ago. The dutiful little note of answer that Marian wrote to me in her mother's name had one word more of kind regard in it than strict civility required, and on the faith of that word I worked and hoped and waited, and as the years went on I never ceased to remember in dark hours that to every change of joy and sorrow in the mixed web of human life there is a far-away accompaniment of unchanging beauty, peace, and calm delight, for the gulls swoop as ever | sky was overhead. I saw visions and through the sunlit air and alight upon the breaking waves, and the starry jessamine shines at sunset through the London smoke. Marian asks why I never told her all this before. Are you jealous, sweetheart, of my amours with the spirits of the waves and flowers? And besides, what was there to tell? It is a long story, and yet it comes to very little. I was ill and went to the seaside, and the waves broke, sweet wild flowers grew, and the changing dreamed dreams, but rash mortals fare ill who would woo the very gods; the island imps teased me, they hid when my heart was aching; but I think, darling, they meant it kindly, for after every trick they played me, came back the memory of a sweet fair face, with grave brown_eyes that could not tease or trifle; and if I was ever faithless, this was my sin, and you must forgive it to the fairies of the shore: but for their mischievous bright magic I had despaired at once of life and love, and | Marian you. the health, comfort, and content of the people? The further lesson also requires to be learned, namely, that where the mass of the people are allowed to grovel in filth and misery, there can be no true security for property. A whiff of grape-shot will not cure such disease. Builder. LONDON FOGS IN 1660. The newspapers and journals are full of the great question of purifying London by the abolition of smoke. The question arises how far this is a modern evil, and the antiquary has something to say on this. As long as London has been London it has been subject to fogs owing to its nearness to the river, and the old city was by no means smokeless. One day Charles II. and John Evelyn were conversing together in the private garden at Whitehall, when a cloud of smoke was observed by both of them issu DECLINE OF THE ITALIAN RACE.· One of the reasons for the deformed, rickety, dirty, wretched, thievish inhabitants of Italy is the total absence of proper sanitary arrangements in Italian towns and villages, from the palace to the hovel and room-tenement. Italy the land of sunshine, art, and song-is a land of filth and vermin. There are marble palaces, art galleries, and blue skies, but neither sewers, drains, nor adequate scavenging. Hence, strangers who are tempted to visit the worldrenowned cities pay a fearful penalty in risks from fever and certainty of mosquito stings, as also of punishment from other domestic torments. There is not one Italian city properly sewered, drained, and scavenged. The best hotels use cesspools, out of which pass foul gases and putrid fluids, to contaminate both air and water. Proper scavenging implies daily cleansing, not only of public streets and places, but of all back streets, lanes, alleys, yards, and tenement houses, with a removal of excreta and refuse at short intervals, never ex-ing from tall chimneys near Northumberland ceeding one week. As to proper sanitary works, a full supply of pure water is necessary, not merely for display in public fountains, but laid on by appropriate services to every occupied dwelling, however humble. The regulations of a Common Lodging House Act should be enforced in every slum and wretched roomtenement, and all the places unfit for human habitation should be sternly closed, and proper accommodation provided. When the improvements herein suggested have been adopted and are continuously carried out, there may be hope for the regeneration of Italy. Ironclads with a hundred-ton guns, Royal Cuirassiers, Royal Carabinieri, customs officers, excisemen, police, municipal guards, and Jesuits will avail Italy nothing in removing the fearful causes of disease and human distortion. When will statesmen learn that the greatness and strength of a nation are not alone in magnificent cities, palaces, ironclads, and standing armies, but in | House. The king, who had lately returned from the pure air of the Continent, commanded Evelyn to consult with the law officers of the crown, and to draft a bill for the abolition of the nuisance. The result was the famous "Fumifugium; or the inconvenience of the aer and smoak of London dissipated, together with some remedies proposed by J. E, Esq., to His Sacred Majesty and to the Parliament now assembled, in 1660," but no action was ever taken by the indolent king. In a previous work, "Character of England," 1659, Evelyn had specially referred to the "pestilent smoke . . . leaving a soot on all things that it lights," and wrote, "I have been in a spacious church where I could not discern the minister for the smoke, or hear him for the people's barking." The denseness of the air must have been great when the author could write, "If there be a resemblance of hell upon earth it is in this volcano on a foggy day." For EIGHT DOLLARS, remitted directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually forwarded for a year, free off Remittances shoulde be made by bank draft or check, or by post-office money-order, if possible. 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