THE GIG ADVENTURE.

NE fine day I was returning quietly on foot from a fair, when I met with a tall man with a handsome countenance, though he is not much younger than myself, and though his dark eyes and pale-or, rather, yellow-complexion give him a stern and harsh appearance. He was in a gig, and was driving down a steep descent full of pointed stones, as in the time of our fathers, and yet he was urging on his horse as if not aware of the danger. I could not forbear giving him warning.

"Sir," said I, "in the memory of man no wheeled carriage ever came down this road. I think the enterprise, if not impossible, at least likely to cause you to break your neck; and if you choose to take a longer but safer way, I will point it out to you."

"Thank you," he answered, with some roughness in his manner; "this road seems "this road seems to me good enough, and I will answer for it that my horse will get through."

"It is your affair, and not mine," replied I, “and what I said was out of pure humanity."

"Thank you, sir; and, since you are so obliging, I will endeavor to acknowledge it. You are on foot, and seem to be going the same way; so if you like to take a seat in my gig, you will get on more quickly and I shall have the pleasure of your company."

I remained for a moment divided between the fear of breaking my bones and that of passing for a coward. passing for a coward. "After all," said I to myself, "this individual does not look like a madman, and appears to have no reason for risking his life. No doubt he has a wonderful horse and an excellent gig." So I got in by his side, and we began to descend the hill at a hard trot without the horse once making a false step or the master losing his presence of mind for an instant. He talked to me of one thing or the other and asked me a good many questions about the country. I confess that I answered him somewhat confusedly, for I was not quite easy.

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You call that a river?" said he, shrugging his shoulders. "I see nothing but stones and reeds. You wouldn't turn aside for a dry ditch?"

"As you please," said I, a little mortified. His contemptuous audacity vexed me; I knew he was going right into a gulf, and yet, as I am not of a timid nature, I refused his offer to set me down. I wished to punish him that he might have a good fright, even at the risk of drinking a little water myself— though I am not fond of water.

I had neither the satisfaction nor the inconvenience of such a catastrophe. The gig

He accepted the repast offered him by the curate, allowed himself to be made much of, and let it be understood that he was in a position to render more service than he received. He spoke little, heard much and inquired about everything, even to matters which seemed not directly to concern his enterprise-such as if the people of the country were truly pious or only superstitious, if the middle classes lived comfortably or closely, if public opinion inclined to moderate or democratic views, what sort of people composed the general council of the department, and so on. At nightfall he took a guide, that he might go and sleep at Pin, and I did not see him again till three days after. He then stopped at my door, to thank me, as he said, for having been so obliging, but in reality, I think, to ask me some more questions.

"I will return in a month," said he as he bade me farewell, "and I think I shall fix myself at Gargilesse. It is a central point, the spot pleases ine, and I have a notion that your little river, which you described as so wicked, will not be very difficult to reduce to obedience. It will cost less to bring it into order than I should have to spend on the Creuse; and, besides, the kind of little danger we surmounted in crossing it makes me think it is my destiny to conquer in this place." Thereupon he took his departure.

This man was Monsieur Cardonnet.

mud, overlooking his workmen, knowing the why and the how of everything and directing the building of a great factory, with dwelling-house, garden and dependencies, workshops, sheds, dykes, roads, bridgesin fact, a magnificent establishment. During his absence men of business had been employed, and had purchased the ground without his appearing in the matter. As he paid a high price, it was thought at first that he knew nothing of business and that he was come here to ruin himself. He was laughed at still more when he raised the wages of workmen; and when, to induce the municipal authorities to let him divert the course of the river, he offered to make a new road at his own expense, people said, "This man is mad. His ardor in speculation will be his ruin." Yet, after all, I think him as far-sighted as others, and I wager that he will succeed in placing both his house and his money to advantage. The river troubled him a good deal last autumn, but luckily it has been pretty quiet this spring, and he will have time to finish his works before the rainy season, if we have no extraordinary storms. He does everything on a large scale, and it is true that he spends more money than necessary; but if he have a passion for finishing quickly whatever he undertakes, and if he have the means and the will to pay liberally for the sweat of the poor workman, where is the harm? It seems to me, on the contrary, that it is a great good; and, instead of accusing this man of being a hairbrained fellow, as some do, or a crafty speculator, as others will have it, we ought to be grateful to him for having conferred on our country the benefits of manufacturing industry.

TO HIS CHILDREN.

"My children," he said to them, "I have made you rich, since it was necessary to do so in order to overcome the obstacles which separated you and to render you happy. My will has been long made, and the form of it I changed last night. My intentions remain the same; Emile, I think, is acquainted with them. Do not make me any reply, my children. I know your sentiments; I am acquainted with your hearts. You have been exposed to the most severe trials; you have come forth triumphant. I have full confidence in you, and I leave the future to your free disposal. You have the intention of becoming a practical man, Emile; I give you the instruments for it, but this is not saying that you will yet have the means of being so.

"You must possess social science, and this is the result of long labor, to which you will apply yourself with powers that the age in which you live-and which is no longer mine-will develop more or less speedily, more or less happily, according to the will of God. Perhaps it may not be for you, my children, but your offspring, who will see my projects realized, but in bequeathing to you my wealth I bequeath to you my opinions and my faith. You will, in your turn, bequeath it to others, should you have to pass through a phasis of humanity which will not allow of your building with good effect. But Emile once gave utterance to an expression which struck me. One day I asked him what use he would make of property like mine. He replied, 'I would try to employ it usefully.' Let him therefore try-he who has always fancied that the prosperity of the

ganization and development of agricultural science; let him, after he has well reflected upon and well studied how his dreams may be successfully realized, and the means of transition which will prevent the chain that unites the past to the future from being deplorably broken.

"I confide in your intelligence because it derives its source from the heart. May God inspire you with genius, Emile, and may he also bestow it upon the men of your time! for the genius of a single individual is almost as nothing. I have now only to fall calmly asleep in my tomb. If it be granted to me to live yet a short time in the society of you both, I shall have begun to enjoy life on the eve of my death. But, idle, desponding and useless as I have been, I shall not have lived in vain if I have discovered the man who is able and destined to act in my stead.

"Keep the secret of your projects until the new and complete self-education which Emile has to undergo shall be terminated. To die calmly, I ardently desire to see you free and strong.

And, after all, my children, whatever decision you arrive at, whatever errors you may commit or whatever success may crown your efforts, I own to you that I find it impossible to feel uneasy concerning the future condition of the world. In vain the storm will burst over the generations that are born or will be born; in vain error and falsehood will labor to perpetuate those frightful disorders which by some are called-apparently in derision-social order; in vain iniquity will triumph here on earth; and if some centuries hence my ghost be able to revisit this vast inheritance and glide beneath the ancient trees which

my hand has planted, it will behold here men free, happy, equal and united-that is to say, just and wise. These shades to which I have retired in dread from the presence of the men of the present time will then form the arched roof of a sublime temple and afford shelter to a numerous family prostrated to offer prayers and thanksgivings to the Author of nature and the Father of men. For do not talk to me of narrow spaces within which stone and cement enclose the bodies and thoughts of men; do not talk to me of rich colonnades and superb porches in comparison with the natural architecture of which the supreme Creator is the only founder. I have centred all the poetry of ideas in trees and flowers, in streams, in rocks and in meadows. Do not deprive the old planter of his illusion-if it indeed be one-for he still cherishes the adage that God pervades all things and Nature is his temple."

my

Translation of PECHE DE M. ANTONIE.

THE ILIAD.

When, however, such a work appears, its effects are absolutely incalculable; and such a work, you are aware, is the Iliad of Homer. Who can estimate the results produced by the incomparable efforts of a single mind? Who can tell what Greece owes to this firstborn of song? Her breathing marbles, her solemn temples, her unrivalled eloquence and her matchless verse all point us to that transcendent genius who by the very splendor of his own effulgence woke the human intellect from the slumber of ages. It was Homer who gave laws to the artist, it was Homer who inspired the poet, it was Homer who thundered in the Senate, and, more than all, it was Homer who was sung by the people; and hence a nation was cast into the mould of one mighty mind, and the land of the Iliad became the region of taste, the birthplace of the arts.

FRANCIS WAYLAND.

THE SPHYNX.

more awful than all else in the land Egypt, there sits the lonely Sphynx. Comely the creature is, but the comeliness is not of this world; the once-worshipped beast is a deformity and a monster to this generation, and yet you can see that those lips, so thick and heavy, were fashioned according to some ancient mould of beauty, some mould of beauty now forgotten-forgotten because that Greece drew forth Cytherea from the flashing foam of the Egean and in her image created new forms of beauty, and made it a law among men that the short and proudly-wreathed lip should stand for the sign and the main condition of loveliness through all generations to come.

Yet