the pillow of the sick person, and watched her | terse, sparkling, witty; it must be complete and
alternately with the nurse. Her health, before
robust, suffered from her confinement, and, to
add to her perplexities, her income was not suffi-
cient for the extraordinary expenses her under-
taking had imposed upon her. The nurse cost
a great deal, and clean linen was needed every
day, to say nothing of the prescriptions and
visits of the physician. Besides all these, the
rent became due. Marie sold her silver, paid
for her rooms and those of the sick woman,
and met the daily expenses bravely.

But for Marie this woman never could have returned to life. Friends and hirelings had abandoned her. Marie, the soft and kindhearted girl, overcame death and saved her enemy. At the expiration of two months Madame de Montjeu could rise, and even walk; but she was no longer young. The ravages of disease were but too deeply inscribed upon her face. Her hands, those once so charming hands, now dried up, could not serve to gain her a livelihood. Her fingers, closed by convulsions, would no longer open; the nerves had been drawn

up.

Marie dressed her neatly, gave her a complete wardrobe, put her in a carriage, and conducted her to the hospital in the Rue de Sèvres.

On taking leave of her, she gave her a small roll of paper-it was a copy of the blind man's confessions and said, in a soft and consoling voice :

"My sister, go and pray."

Marie had deposited for the benefit of the hospital the sum of thirteen thousand francs, in consideration of which the Institution would take care of Madame de Montjeu to the day of her death.

Such was the vengeance of Marie. To meet her extraordinary expenses she had quitted the Enfants Rouges, and taken a more modest apartment. She continued through life with a patient courage the practice of benevolence, for hers was a Christian and evangelic soul.

A

EPIGRAMS AND EPIGRAMMATISTS. GOOD epigram is a good thing—but, like a good toast, a very rare one, considering the vast number of epigrams that have been written from the time of Martial until now. The reason of the paucity of good epigrams is sufficiently apparent. Though the conditions necessary to success in this sort of literary enterprise are not so many as those which are demanded by what are called "sustained poems," such as odes, elegies, and the like; yet this simple versicle, which we call an 'Epigram," is in some respects as ambitious and exacting as an epic. Its very brevity is a warrant that it shall be something, or nothing. In an Iliad of twenty-four books the poet may not only be permitted to "nod" now and then, but he may fairly set his readers a-nodding, without reproach to his genius or prejudice to his art; but neither dullness nor carelessness can be winked at in an epigram. It must be brief,

distinct in idea; clear and sharp in expression,
and faultless in versification. To the epigram-
matist there is no "poetic license" to excuse
defects of art; the law is prohibition. Dixit
Apollo. The body of an epigram, that it may
have the soul of wit, must be brief.
In respect
to size, it is no paradox to say that, of two epi-
grams, cæteris paribus, the longer is the less.
Four lines are better than six, and two are bet-
ter than four. Eight is the outer limit; if it
goes beyond that, it goes further to fare worse,
and, violating the first law of its existence,
ceases to be an epigram at all. With every
other requisite, it must have wit or humor;
failing which, it has the deficiency of "Ham-
let" with the part of the Prince omitted. Like
a needle, an epigram without a point is worth-
less. Of epic poems, it is judged by the critics,
there are not more than six good ones extant,
including "Festus," to give it the benefit of a
doubt. Of epigrams that deserve the same epi-
thet, there are not over six hundred in the six
thousand (and more) that have been written;
and of these not more than sixty that are posi-
tively admirable. Three or four by Voltaire,
an equal number by Piron, and two or three by
each of the other most famous epigrammatists,
with a dozen or so by that versatile and prolifie
wit, "Anonymous," embrace the whole num-
ber that approach perfection. Martial, who
wrote fourteen books of epigrams, in the first
century, had so high an opinion of the art, and
was so well convinced of his own deficiencies,
that upon revising his epigrams, he said, with
equal truth and candor:

"Sunt bona, sunt quædam mediocria, sunt mala plura :"
-an epigrammatic confession which may be
rendered with sufficient accuracy thus:

A few are good; some well enough; But most, I own, are wretched stuff." Here are a couple of his epigrams that deserve a place in the first class. What is odd enough, they are rather mended than marred in the translation, by Addison:

"TO A CAPRICIOUS FRIEND. "In all thy humors, whether grave or mellow, Thou'rt such a touchy, testy, pleasant fellowHast so much wit, and mirth, and spleen about thee, There is no living with thee, nor without thee!" The closing line has been often quoted and variously applied. The next, "To an Ill-favored Lady," is exceedingly subtle and sarcastic:

"While in the dark on thy soft hand I hung,

And heard the tempting siren in thy tongue,
What flames, what darts, what anguish I endured!
But when the candle entered I was cured."

It is little creditable to the gallantry of the poets that so many of their sharpest sayings are leveled at the women. One would suppose that the French epigrammatists would have observed the usual politeness of the "grand nation" toward the gentler sex; but, in fact, the Gallie wits are as unsparing as the Roman.

After Peter Corneille, the great dramatist, of lowing quatrain : whom Pope said,

poet represents his soul as passing through his "I find the fool when I behold the screen; lips and "soaring away." Alas! that the great philosopher should have lost his soul for a kiss. Anacreon could have done no worse. reading these erotic specimens of genuine Platonism that lately occasioned the following very natural reflection, in the form of a verbal impromptu :

"Lavina is polite, but not profane,

To church as constant as to Drury Lane;
She decently, in form, pays Heaven its due,
And makes a civil visit to her pew."

"Untaught to bear it, women talk away

To God himself, and fondly think they pray,
But sweet their accent, and their air refined,
For they're before their Maker-and mankind!"

"But since the gay assembly's gayest room
Is but the upper story of some tomb,
Methinks we need not our short beings shun,
And, thought to fly, content to be undone.
We need not buy our ruin with our crime,
And give eternity to murder time!"
Canning, the orator, poet, and wit, whose
"Needy Knife Grinder" alone would have made
him famous, was the author of several clever
jeu d'esprit in the form of epigrams. The two
following are attributed to his pen:

"As Harry, one day, was abusing the sex,

As things that in courtship but studied to vex,
And in marriage but sought to enthrall;
'Never mind him,' says Kate, tis a family whim;
His father agreed so exactly with him

That he never would marry at all!'"

lines, the last of which, though very smooth and delicate, was strong enough to hang him:

"Ward has no heart, they say; but I deny it;

He has a heart, and gets his speeches by it!" How does it happen that epigram writing has so nearly gone out of vogue? Quien sabe? It is the best possible form for a single stroke of wit, and was once an acknowledged and formidable force in literature. It was at one time a favorite weapon of personal and political controversy; and as decisive battles have been fought with the rifle-like epigram as with the clumsy club of the pamphleteers, which came next into use; or by the heavy "charges" of newspaper "columns," which is the fashion of the present day. French wit in this form has gone extinct with the French wits; and of English writers only Punch writes epigrams; and not many good ones at that; though he has a happy knack at a parody, and is the author of the best prose facetiæ afloat. Since the death of the incomparable Hood, America can boast the most successful humorous poets now living;

This is much in the manner of the other, and but they either do not write epigrams, or they equally brilliant:

As in India, one day, an Englishman sat,
With a smart native lass, at the window;

do not print them in their books. Not more than half-a-dozen can be found, and these in the volume of a single author. Yet the best epi

Do your widows burn themselves? pray tell me that? grams of the time are by American pens, and Said the pretty, inquisitive Hindoo.

are published anonymously in the newspapers, of which the Boston Post is probably the most prolific. Many of these are local, or turn upon transient matters, and so perish with the memory of the incidents which occasioned them. Others, though sufficiently witty, are too diffuse, or too roughly versified, to command general admiration. A few of these newspaper epigrams, are at once pointed, pithy, pungent, and artistically finished, and deserve a longer life than will probably be accorded to them. The following, lately occasioned by the published gratula

'Do they burn? That they do!' the gentleman said, With a flame not so easy to smother; Our widows, the moment one husband is dead, Immediately burn-for another!'" Coleridge wrote a good many epigrams, but all the fine ones are merely rhymed versions of other people's jokes. Several are appropriated from Lessing, a poet whose exuberant wit furnishes a sufficient answer to the solemn inquiry of Père Bonhours, "Whether a German can be a bel esprit ?" Coleridge's best epigram is based on a comical quibble which he found in "Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy." | tion of a lady (an authoress) on the birth of her

It is very subtle and amusing:

"Sly Beelzebub took all occasions

To try Job's constancy and patience.
He took his honor, took his health,

He took his children, took his wealth,

His servants, oxen, horses, cows

But cunning Satan did not take his spouse.

But Heaven, that brings out good from evil,
And loves to disappoint the devil,

Had predetermined to restore

Two-fold all he had before;

His servants, horses, oxen, cows-
Short-sighted devil! not to take his spouse!"'

first child, is exceedingly clever:

"Ah, well! 'tis over! Should I not resign

My weaker will to Fate's imperious shall? 'Tis not a boy! yet such as 'tis, 'tis mine;

Then let me, thankful, murmur c'est e ‘gal !'"*
A similar reason suggested an equally good-
natured rhyme, a few years ago, when an edi-
tress announced that, after a marriage of fifteen
years, she had given birth to her first child.
Whereupon an epigrammatist, who must have
been a lawyer, made the following "declara-
tion:"

"An honest woman, you may safely bet,
Who thus, without the least equivocation,
Pays to the world a most important debt,
When clearly free by statute limitation!"
When Dr. Parsons took the prize for the pro-

Rogers, the banker-poet, the most caustic of verbal jokers, has left a single epigram in print, which Byron pronounced "the best ever written in two lines." One Ward, a fluent magazinescribbler, and a flippant Parliamentary orator, had criticised the poet's “Italy" with great vio-logue recited at the opening of the new Boston lence. Rogers, learning the name of the reviewer, and hearing the current talk that his enemy was more than suspected of declaiming his speeches from memory-a practice then and now regarded by the House as a disgraceful imposition-came down upon his adversary in two

theatre, there was the usual discussion whether the production was either prize-worthy or praiseworthy. Some person, who seems to have thought the author a better poet than the prologue indicated, expressed his opinion in an epigram entitled:

INVITA DENTE.
"What Parsons, a dentist? You don't mean to say
That that sort of chap bore the chaplet away?"
"Nay-none of your sneers at his laureate wreath-
He's a very good poet, in spite of his teeth!"'
Here is a patriotic epigram :

At a rubber of whist an Englishman grave
Said he couldn't distinguish a king from a knave,
His eyes were so dim and benighted;

A Yankee observed that he needn't complain,
For the thing has been often attempted in vain
By eyes that were very clear-sighted!"

I

perception as at the moment of utterance.
can not express what I experienced in this re-
spect better than to say that my own mind, like
a mirror, reflected sometimes the consciousness,
memory, and volition of another; and this quite
independently of effort on my part other than
to hold in abeyance disturbing forces.

One morning in the middle of July, after a protracted drought, and after the failure of repeated prognostics of rain, the temperature had suddenly descended from little less than a hun

The following on an ex-member of Congress, dred degrees to the vicinity of fifty. The cool

is not bad:

"To say Mr. Brodhead has never a wrong head,
Is more than his measure of laud:

But yet Mr. Brodhead has surely a strong head,
Which makes it as long as 'tis broad!"

ness had braced my nerves to a degree of tension which I had rarely felt. I was evolving a plan of action as I stood by the window in the office of my friend Wynn, whose guest I then was, and who, by-the-way, was eminent in the

And here is an epigram by an exultant wid- brotherhood of lawyers whose rare acumen and ower, entitled:

'THE WORLD, the flesh, and the devil.” "My first was a lady whose dominant passion

Was thorough devotion to parties and fashion;
My second, regardless of conjugal duty,
Was only the worse for her wonderful beauty;
My third was a vixen in temper and life,
Without one essential to make a good wife.
Jubilate at last in my freedom I revel,

sterling good sense form a counterpart to the granitic structure of their own State. While I stood there, then, an individual entered the office, whom in spite of multifarious disguises, such as dyed hair and whiskers, false teeth and an assumed name, I at once recognized as my own fellow-townsman, and as arrant a scoundrel as it had ever been my lot to encounter. He

For I'm clear of the world, and the flesh, and the devil!" had an air of much pretension, wore a large

AN EVENING AT EPPING.

seal ring, a showy breast-pin, and several crossings of heavy gold chain over a bright-patterned SUPPOSE that all persons given more to vest, all of which decorative trumpery served reflection than to action have at times been the purpose of varnish to a very ugly picture, conscious of powers undeveloped far transcend- heightening the distinctness of every bad point. ing all they have ever put forth. In illustra- His errand, to obtain the use of the Town-hall tion of this assumption, I purpose offering a for the delivery of a lecture on animal magnetplain statement of facts. It may be that circum-ism, being speedily accomplished, he took his stances equally remarkable occur within the experience of most persons; but if it be so, I believe they excite usually only a transient observation.

leave.

"Wynn," said I, as the door closed upon him, "do you remember Mark Tufts, who was convicted of burglary in Charleston, and who afterward escaped from the State Prison?"

"Yes," answered Wynn; "and I could not think of whom this man reminds me; yes, it is of Mark Tufts."

"It is Tufts himself," I replied. "I recognized him before he had uttered three sentences. I came across the room just now to look for the scar of a wound on the left cheek, given him by a companion in a drunken broil. The mark is there. And I know that the little finger and the first joint from the one next it are missing from the hand which he carries in a sling, and which he avers to have been hurt in a recent railroad accident."

Ten years ago, I was spending the summer in Epping-a quiet, pleasant country town in New England. Unusual demands had been made on my energies, mental and physical, the preceding year, and with scarcely vitality sufficient to enable me to seek rest, I yet thankfully accepted it when offered by chance. A month of absolute repose restored to me a degree of vigor commensurate perhaps with that which I before possessed, but with a difference. Previously I had valued chiefly my uniformity of ability to labor. Now, I had the ability in an equal degree, but interruptedly. Gradually I observed, too, that my own moods were precursors of meteorological changes, so that I became "Pierson E. Leffingwell," was elaborately a sort of conscious barometer. My experiences engraved on the card with which he had inat this time were not all equally pleasurable, troduced himself. I looked from the window; but the most agreeable of them, I think, was a the man had crossed the street and was standfeeling of extreme buoyancy accompanied by an ing on the piazza of the Epping House. Presunusual clearness of perception, apparently coin-ently he entered, and shortly after reappeared, cident with, and, as I grew to believe, dependent accompanied by a showily dressed woman and upon, any extraordinary augmentation of atmos- a young girl; in the appearance of the latter 1 pheric electricity. At such times, too, I was remarked nothing except perhaps extreme fraconscious of a recognition of traits of character gility. in the individuals around me which I had never before observed; their thoughts, the very words they were about to speak, were as clear to my

A programme indicated that at the close of the lecture some interesting demonstrations would be exhibited. Mrs. and Miss Louise

Leffingwell, it was stated, were both mediums, | low, with shadowy chestnut hair; the eyes, blue, and the former gifted with remarkable powers I knew afterward, though I had supposed them of reading the future. black, were so large and fringed with such thick,

We decided at once to "assist" at this pre-long lashes, that they seemed to make half her lection. The man's extreme villainy and au- face. There was an occasional slight compresdacity made him interesting. Indeed, so en- sion of the under lip that showed her to be ill tire had been the popular conviction, in the at ease, whether from physical pain or some trial to which I have referred, of the man's de- other cause, and under an air of apparent lanliberate, vindictive malice, that there had been guor, a quick nervous closing and unclosing of felt a very general disappointment that his sen- the little left hand which held the edge of her black scarf. She wore no ornaments.

tence was not more severe.

Of course I do not pretend in any way to account for the phenomena I am about to describe. No theory that ever came in my way has seemed to me to bear adequate credentials. In most instances, too, which have been related to me, I have felt myself compelled to doubt facts and inferences. I will give an unvarnished statement of occurrences, premising only that I had previously, and precisely when I had found myself in a mood similar to that which I have described as particularly belonging to me on this day, been able to exert the influence to which

Not a very large audience, of course, was to be expected in a place like Epping; but it was a pretty fair turn-out-several hundreds-and these were mostly collected before Mrs. Leffingwell and the young lady made their appearance. On a platform at one side of the hall were placed a table with lights and several chairs. Mr. Leffingwell came in, arranged these, withdrew again, and soon returned conducting his assistants. The woman seated herself in a bustling, important way, arranging and rearranging her dress, and sending around bold, assured glances. The girl took her place quiet-have been given the epithets magnetic, odic, and ly, without raising her eyes until the falling of a window which had not been properly fastened up; then she lifted them a moment, with a startled, expectant look. I observed the group closely, for I had begun to grow interested in them.

the like, over some very refractory subjects.

At the close of Mr. Leffingwell's declamatory farrago, he came to the front of the platform and proposed, for the more satisfactory demonstration of his science, to experiment on any one or several among his auditors who might solicit proof in their own persons. A middleaged man, of stolid aspect, and a boy of sixteen presented themselves. Directing them to be seated in chairs on the right of the staging, and observing that he would begin with the elder individual, he took his station nearly opposite, and commenced his craft.

The lecture was a tissue of trashy plagiarisms, through which what the man would be at was not clearly perceptible. It was evident, however, that he had himself a sort of grotesque faith in what he was trying to say; a kind of trembling belief involved in his diabolism. And this suggested to me a plan for the solution of a query which had entered my mind; how far, I commenced too, and in earnest. For about namely, that slight young girl, sitting there three minutes, during which I felt my concenwith an air of such utter abstraction, was a trative power-I know no better name for it— voluntary accomplice of Mr. and Mrs. Leffing-growing stronger, I perceived no outward token well. That they were well matched admitted of success; but then there was a perceptible tonscarcely a doubt. The woman, large-framed, ing down, a manifest smouldering of the audaccoarse-featured, swarthy, with thick, sensuality of his look. Let me endeavor to describe lips and black brows meeting over lurid eyes, my own experience at the time. looked fit for any emergency of wickedness. It seemed as if I projected a circle of influIn dress she was the counterpart of her hus-ence extending to an indefinite distance from band; every thing about her was tawdry; a the man, and inclosing him as a centre. The flashy silk gown much flounced, a heavily circumference, irregular at first, and wavering, wrought and soiled white crape shawl, a rigo-it was my effort to integrate, and then with a lette, as I believe they term those triangular tag- steady, tidal pulsation to contract toward and rags which women were then beginning to wear around the person I was endeavoring to control. on the head, a quantity of bracelets, rings, It was in my favor that he, intent on his own chains, brooches, and the like, and a vulgar- purpose, was unaware of mine. I was succeedlooking fan, which she flourished unremitting-ing-nearer and nearer came the inclosing ly, made up her outfit. She impressed me as wave-I saw it become faintly luminous, while having foregone every womanly trait. points of lambent, bluish flame projected from Not so the girl claimed by the Leffingwells it inward; a needle of light glided toward his as their daughter. She looked at most four- | hand-he rubbed it hastily-the next moment teen, and might be a year or two younger; she the faint blue circle, invisible to all but myself, wore a lilac-colored dress and a black silken was contracted to a hazy, luminous, irregular scarf; the simplicity of her attire not less than centre. My aim was accomplished; his eyelids the frail delicate beauty of her person, contrast-quivered, then drooped, and with a slow, audible ing noticeably with the intense vulgarity of the respiration he sat back in his chair, rigid and woman beside her. Her face was too pale, but white. the features were exquisite in outline; the brow

I breathed freely then, and I became aware