university life generally. He sketched in a large and comprehensive picture in broad and striking lines. All listened to him with profound attention. His eloquence was masterly and attractive, not altogether clear, but even this want of clearness added a special charm to his words. The exuberance of his thought hindered Rudin from expressing himself definitely and exactly. Images followed upon images; comparisons started up one after another-now startlingly bold, now strikingly true. It was not the complacent effort of the practiced speaker, but the very breath of inspiration that was felt in his impatient improvising. He did not seek out his words; they came obediently and spontaneously to his lips, and each word seemed to flow straight from his soul, and was burning with all the fire of conviction. Rudin was the master of almost the greatest secret-the music of eloquence. He knew how in striking one chord of the heart to set all the others vaguely quivering and resounding. Many of his listeners, perhaps, did not understand very precisely what his eloquence was about; but their bosoms heaved, it seemed as though veils were lifted before their eyes, something radiant, glorious, seemed shimmering in the distance. All Rudin's thoughts seemed centered on the future; this lent him something of the impetuous dash of youth. . . . Standing at the window, not looking at any one in special, he spoke, and inspired by the general sympathy and attention, the presence of young women, the beauty of the night, carried along by the tide of his own emotions, he rose to the height of eloquence, of poetry. . . . The very sound of his voice, intense and soft, increased the fascination; it seemed as though some higher power were speaking through his lips, startling even to himself. . . . Rudin spoke of what lends eternal significance to the fleeting life of man. 66 The "I remember a Scandinavian legend," thus he concluded, a king is sitting with his warriors round the fire in a long dark barn. It was night and winter. Suddenly a little bird flew in at the open door and flew out again at the other. king spoke and said that this bird is like man in the world; it flew in from darkness and out again into darkness, and was not long in the warmth and light. King,' replies the oldest of the warriors, even in the dark the bird is not lost, but finds her nest.' Even so our life is short and worthless ; but all that is great is accomplished through men. The con sciousness of being the instrument of these higher powers ought to outweigh all other joys for man; even in death he finds his life, his nest." Rudin stopped and dropped his eyes with a smile of involuntary embarrassment. "Vous êtes un poète," was Darya Mihailovna's comment in an undertone. - And all were inwardly agreeing with her all except Pigasof. Without waiting for the end of Rudin's long speech, he quietly took his hat and as he went out whispered viciously to Pandalevsky, who was standing near the door : "No! Fools are more to my taste." No one, however, tried to detain him or even noticed his absence. The servants brought in supper, and half an hour later, all had taken leave and separated. Darya Mihailovna begged Rudin to remain the night. Alexandra Pavlovna, as she went home in the carriage with her brother, several times fell to exclaiming and marveling at the extraordinary cleverness of Rudin. Volintsef agreed with her, though he observed that he sometimes expressed himself somewhat obscurely—that is to say, not altogether intelligibly, he added, wishing, no doubt, to make his own thought clear; but his face was gloomy, and his eyes, fixed on a corner of the carriage, seemed even more melancholy than usual. Pandalevsky went to bed, and as he took off his daintily embroidered braces, he said aloud, "A very smart fellow!" and suddenly, looking harshly at his page, ordered him out of the room. Bassist of did not sleep the whole night and did not undress he was writing till morning a letter to a comrade of his in Moscow; and Natalya, too, though she undressed and lay down in her bed, had not an instant's sleep and never closed her eyes. With her head propped on her arm, she gazed fixedly into the darkness; her veins were throbbing feverishly and her bosom often heaved with a deep sigh. TO-MORROW. 1 BY PHILIP BOURKE MARSTON. [1850--1887.] I SAID "To-morrow!" one bleak, winter day, And still "To-morrow!" while the winter grew And sweet, dear Sins still held me in their sway. I cry, "To-morrow will I flee each while- DEATH OF BARNIER. BY E. AND J. DE GONCOURT. (From "Sister Philomène": translated by Laura Ensor.) [EDMOND and JULES HUOT DE GONCOURT: French artists and men of letters. Edmond was born at Nancy, May 26, 1822; died July 16, 1896; Jules was born at Paris, December 17, 1830; died June 20, 1870. They began active life as artists, and in 1850 commenced a literary partnership. A series of monographs on art and the stage first gave them repute in 1851-1852. They wrote always in collaboration, kept a journal together, and lived almost as one man until Jules' death; after which Edmond continued to publish novels of the same high degree of excellence as those written with his brother. Among their works, historical and fictitious, are: "Gavarni” (1873), "L'Art au XVIII Siècle" (1874), "Watteau" (1876), “Prud'hon" (1877), "Les Hommes de Lettres" (1860), "Sœur Philomène" (1861), "Renée Mauperin (1864), “Germinie Lacerteux" (1865), "Manette Salomon" (1867), and "Madame Gervaisais " (1869). Jules wrote "La Fille Élisa" (1878), "La Faustin" (1882), and "Idées et Sensations" (1866). The "Journal des Goncourt was published in six volumes, 1888-1892.] WHEN in the hospital the patient-man or woman-is not a brutish creature, a kind of animal whom poverty has hard 1 From "A Last Harvest, Lyrics and Sonnets from the Book of Love." By permission of C. Elkin Mathews. (Post 8vo. Price 5s. net.) |