steady and clear, like the light that | us from absolute want; but my condition, gathered and brightened in her eyes-"a the doctors said, necessitated many luxu mother who has seen her child die, is still ries, and to gain money for these Paula not comfortless. For no mother who has worked hard. Not writing; the time for lost her child can doubt. Lewis, do you that was past. She had lived too much, understand me? God is good," she cried, perhaps, to be able to put life on paper passionately, "and in his mercy he ordered as she had done years before. Imaginait so, that to a bereaved mother's soul tion had been set aside by vital engrossing must come the conviction that is more reality, for so long, that it could not now than knowledge-the faith that is worlds resume its functions as of old. But she above all reasoning. I know that I shall was more than content to teach the few have my child again! Lewis-Lewis-I little children that came to her every know it!" morning. Intercourse with children, indeed, grew to be one great solace of her life.

She sank down beside me; and again the soft rain of tears fell plenteously. When women weep so, it is well with them. * * And I lay still and thought.

*

*

*

*

The other-yes, I think I was solace to her, even when I myself was most hopeless. I think I helped her, though I was very, very weak, and so feeble as I have said."

And years passed on. Comparative wealth came to us then; but Paula for a long while continued her labor of love among the little children.

We grew old together. It is not long since she left me. I have been very lonely since then; but not-as she said once-not comfortless.

It was well with Paula, I could see that. To see it, steadied me, strengthened me, infinitely. The feeling of that long convalescence was a very strange one. It might well be so, for the clear head, the vigorous brain, I had had a man's pride in possessing, had passed from me for ever; and, during those months of slow recovery to bodily strength, I had to grow accustomed to the truth. Mental strength would never be mine again. All my ca- It has helped to wear away this time pacities were bounded now by but a nar- of waiting to write this history for you, row circle. The profound thought, the my true and kind friend. You knew me complicated reasoning, that had been easy when the world applauded me as strong to me as pastime, I could pursue no longer. and great; and when it compassionated The affliction fell heavily upon me-per- my weakness and my ruined prospects. haps the smaller cares it involved, helped And I think you, who, seeing deeper than to nerve us both to endurance. My vo- the world, saw through both the strength cation was gone, and with it, no means and the weakness, will find the lesson that of living, save the small sum that yearly I know these pages must convey. accrued to Paula. It was enough to save So, farewell.

EVERY human face, say the learned in penciled traces of its presence. It may these matters, carries written upon it the be so. We need not quarrel with a theory story of its owner. The prevailing which, for the present, is no more than a thoughts have shaped the organs; the pre-speculation. The generality of mankind vailing passions have furrowed the lines. No emotion, whether of joy or sorrow, passes off without leaving behind it the

* Deutsche Liebe. Aus den Papieren eines Fremdlings. Leipzig: F. A. Brockhaus. London: Wiliams and Norgate. 1857.

are, happily, but indifferent phrenologists,
and, for our time, at least, are likely to be
spared a knowledge which, if it ever comes,
will make the world intolerable.
have no anxiety to find a window opened
into our consciences, to take the public

We

Ger

behind the scenes, where we can be seen, | mind is really revealing itself, the result is stripped of our stage dresses, in naked its own excuse. simplicity; and still less have we a desire to pry curiously into the secrets of others. The living torrents which, for eighteen out of each four-and-twenty hours, stream along our streets, are made up of units, each of whom has a history that would infallibly interest us if we knew it. Every one of them is struggling, suffering, loving, hating, failing, succeeding, doing every thing of which the most delightful novel is but a feeble counterfeit; and our feelings, if we were admitted to all these confidences, would speedily be worn threadbare by perpetual friction. Here, too, as in most other things, we have cause to think the world well made; that it is well for us all that we are allowed the exclusive custody of our own secrets.

Further, as we are able to keep our story to ourselves, so it seems as if, for the most part, we were intended to keep it to ourselves; as if human beings should be known to one another only as they come in contact in action and life, while the rest lies between each particular man aud his Maker, or should be made known only where reserve is melted down by af fection. The interest which the world might feel in any given story is no sufficient reason for communicating it. All ancient literature would not be too high a price to pay for a knowledge of those first thirty years in which the carpenter's Son was subject to His parents in Galilee. But our curiosity is altogether ungratified; we are told as much as there is any occasion for us to know.

Yet although concealment be the rule, it is at times suspended by peculiar circumstances. More than one remarkable man, in the last and the present century especially, has chosen to make mankind his confessor; and has either shadowed out in fiction, or related, in actual narrative, his experiences outward and inward. Goethe and Wordsworth considered it their duty to expose the structure and growth of minds which had exercised so vast an influence over their contemporaries. Rousseau, from some unexplained impulse, laid bare in his own person the diseases of which the world was sick. It is idle to examine the motives of such things. Men of genius are sometimes driven to what they do by a force which they can neither resist nor understand; and in these rare instances, where a real

Of a similar kind, and similarly also to be explained, is the little book which is the subject of the present article. man Love, from the Papers of an Alien, may not be strictly an autobiography; but it bears about it the unmistakable impress of reality. It is the work of an uncommon man, who has sought relief from some inward sorrow by throwing it into a narrative; and although the beauty of the story forbids us to wish that it had not been written, yet it is difficult wisely to speak of it. The writer, whoever he may be, is highly gifted, both in intellect and feeling. The passionate outpourings of such a person are not to be coldly criticized, and we should have preferred, perhaps, to pass by the book in silence, were it not first for its most rare merit, and secondly, for the close and intimate acquaintance which the author shows with England and the most modern English literature. He calls himself an alien. He is perhaps one of the many waifs and strays which these late years have cast upon our shore, and his book is the explanation of his exile. The subject of it is the common one-love and disappointment. But the love and the disappointment are peculiar. The nature of them will be best seen by extracts, if a translation can convey tolerably the meaning of language which has been chosen with elaborate care. The following is from the opening page:

"Childhood has its mysteries and its wonders; but who can describe them? who can interpret them? We have all passed through with each of us when we have looked around in perplexity of happiness, and our spirits have steeped themselves in the fair reality of life. Then we knew not where we were, or what we were. Then the whole world was ours, and we were the world's. That was an eternal life, without beginning and without end; without interruption or pain. Our hearts were bright as the sky in spring, fresh as the fragrance of the violet, calm and holy as a Sunday morning.

this enchanted forest. There has been a time

“And what disturbs this peace of God in the child? How is this innocent, unconscious existence brought to an end? How are we driven forth from this Eden of union and communion, and left desolate and alone on the outer earth? that it is sin. Has the child learned to sin? Say "Say not, thou with the solemn brow, say not rather that we do not know, and that we must be resigned.

"And yet it is so sweet to look back into the spring-time of life-again to gaze into its sanc

tuary to remember. Yes, in the sultry sum- |
mer heats, in the sad autumn and the cold win-
ter, there comes here and there a spring day;
and the heart says, 'I, too, feel as though it
were spring such a day it is to-day, and here
I lie in the balmy forest, and stretch my weary
limbs; I gaze upward through the green leaves,
and think how it was with me in childhood.'

"All seems a blank. The first pages of memory are like an old family Bible, the opening leaves faded, soiled, or crumpled. Only when we turn on, and come to the chapters which tell how Adam and Eve were driven out of Paradise, it begins to be clear and legible.”

a

We have next an exquisite picture of German home, as it appears idealized in its simplicity: the loving mother; the great church with its gilt cross; the palace opposite the gate, with the eagles on its pinnacles, and the great banner floating from its central turret. The family are intimate with the Prince, and the boy grows up the play-fellow of the royal children. Among the latter is one, the Princess Maria, the eldest daughter, who had lost all use of her limbs, and with a heart-complaint in addition, has looked every day for death. She is older than the rest, a sort of guardian angel, as they loved to consider her. One day, when her illness was at its worst:

feelings. I was a boy then, and the gentle beauty of the suffering angel had not been without its charms for my young heart. I loved her as a boy can love-and boys love with a devotion, a truth, a purity, which few preserve in youth and manhood; but I thought she was a stranger' whom, if I loved, I must not say that I loved. I scarcely heard her words; I only felt that our souls were as near as two human souls can be. The bitterness was gone. I was no more alone; I was not an alien, divided from her by a chasm. I was beside her, with her, and in her. I would not take the ring. If you would give it me,' I said, 'you must keep it; for what is yours is mine.' She looked at me for a moment, surprised and thoughtful. then she replaced it on her finger, and again kissing my forehead, answered softly, 'You know not what you say. Learn to understand yourself, and you will be happy, and make others happy also.'"

Time passes. The Princess lingers on in life; the boy goes out into the world, and at length returns as a young man, when he is again thrown with her. A feeling rises between them which is not love in the ordinary sense of the word, but intellectual sympathy. Their minds are touched deeply with the mystic philosophy of the fifteenth century. They discuss the Deutsche Theologie, and from thence, and in the mystic spirit, our own most modern English writers-Carlyle, Tennyson, Wordsworth, and Matthew Arnold. They spend their days in a Swiss cottage attached to the palace. The misfortune of the lady throws her off her guard. She sees no reason why the playfellow of her childhood should not be the companion of her age. At length prudent people are alarmed. The delightful meetings are brought to an end. He is recom

The

"She took five rings which she wore on her hand, drew them off one after another, and looked so sad and yet so gentle, that I shut my eyes to prevent myself from weeping. The first she gave to her eldest brother, kissing him as she placed it on his finger; the second and third she gave to her two sisters, and the fourth to the youngest prince; kissing each of them also. I was standing by; I looked fixedly at her, and I saw that she had one ring yet remaining; but she leaned back and seemed ex-mended to travel, and wanders with an hausted. Presently she caught my expression; aching heart into the Tyrol. Thither, and as a child's eyes speak aloud, she saw easily however, his fate follows him. what was passing in me. I did not wish for her ring; but I felt that I was a stranger-that Princess, on the death of her mother, has I did not belong to her-that she did not love inherited an estate among the Tyrolese me as she loved her brothers and sisters and mountains, and there he again meets her. this gave me a shooting pain, as if I had burst She has been warned in the interval. A a vein or bruised a nerve. She raised herself marriage, even if her health had allowed up, laid her hand on my forehead, and looked at it, was inadmissible between the highme so searchingly, that I felt she was reading born lady and the unknown student, and my every thought. Then she drew the ring slowly off and gave it to me, and said: 'I had a philosophic friendship was properly conintended to have taken this one with me when sidered dangerous. She tells him that I went from you, but it is better that you should they must see one another no more. have it, to remind you of me when I am gone. Read the words which are written on the edge. "As God will." You have a passionate heart, and a soft one; may it be tamed by life, and not hardened.' She then kissed me as she had done her brothers. I can hardly describe my

"I have caught hold upon your life," she says, "forgetting how slight a touch will rob the flower of its petals. In my ignorance of the world, I never thought that a poor sufferer such as I could inspire any feeling stronger than compas

sion. I welcomed you warmly and frankly be- | God join us again hereafter in a fairer world, cause I had known you so long, because your and reward you for your love?" presence was a delight to me, because (why should I not confess it?) because I loved you. But the world does not understand this love, and does not tolerate it. The whole town is talking of us; my brother, the Regent, has written to the Prince, and requires me to end our intimacy. I am very sorry to have caused you so much suffering; say only that you forgive me, and let us part friends.'

The Princess consents; but the destinies are unrelenting. Another solution awaits the difficulty. She had been warned against excitement, and the struggle had been too much for her. In the night which follows this scene, her heart stopped not recover itself. suddenly, and can Her lover wakes in the morning to receive Such words can produce but one effect. her last message, the ring, with the inShe is speaking at a disadvantage; a sum-scription on it "Wie Gott will." mer twilight amidst mountains and lakes and yellow moonlight are poor supporters to prudence. The old struggle commenced again between man and the world; the individual soul fluttering against the bars of its prison, and crying out against social despotism.

"When I recall the stories of my friends," he passionately pleads, "I could tell you volumes of tragedies. One loved a maiden, and was loved in return; but he was poor-she was rich. Parents and relations despised him, and two hearts were broken. Why? Because it is thought a misfortune that a lady's dress should be made from the wool of a plant in America, rather than from the fibers of a worm in China.

Another loved a maiden, and was loved in return; but he was a Protestant-she was a Catholic. Mothers and priests disagreed, and two hearts were broken. Why? Because three centuries before, Charles the Fifth, Francis the First, and Henry the Eighth played a political game at chess. A third loved a maiden, and was loved in return; but he was a noble-she was a plebeian. The sisters were jealous, and two hearts were broken. Why? Because, a hundred years ago, a soldier slew another who was threatening a king's life in battle. He was rewarded with titles and honor, and his greatgrandson atones with a blighted life for the blood which was then shed by him. Each hour, say the collectors of statistics, some heart is broken; and I believe it. But why? Because in all but all cases the world will not permit us to love each other unless we are connected by some peculiar tie. If two girls love the same man, one must be sacrificed. If two men love the same woman, one or both must be sacrificed. Why? Can one not love without wishing to appropriate ?"

Since, however, there is no alternative, he asks her whether, rather than submit to separation, she will bear the world's displeasure. They love each other with all their hearts. Let them marry. She is silent for a time. At length she says:

"I am yours. God will have it so. Take me as I am. While I live, I live for you.

May

"And days and weeks and moons and years are gone," he says. "My home has become strange to me, and a strange land is my home; but her love remains for me; and as a tear falls into the ocean, so has my love for her dissolved trates and envelopes millions-millions of those in the living ocean of humanity, and interpene'strangers' whom from my childhood I have so lying alone in the green forest of nature, and loved. Only on still summer days, when I am know not whether beyond its circle there breathe any other men, or whether I am solitary upon the earth, then the past stirs again in the rise up out of their graves. The omnipotence churchyard of memory. Dead remembrances of passion flows back into my heart, and streams out toward that fair being who again is gazing then my affection for the millions' is lost in my on me with her deep, unfathomable eyes; and affection for the one, and my thoughts sink baffled before the inscrutable mystery of the finite

and infinite love."

With these words the book ends. Were it a fiction, the story would have been made more complicated, or would have been told with less intensity of passion. Only real life can provide materials at once so simple and so beautiful. Whether, however, it is well for us to dwell in this way over sufferings which in some degree fall to us all-whether the wise man does not rather let the dead bury their dead, and live-not in a past which is beyond his control, but in a present and future which are in same degree his own--is a further question. The heart knows its own bitterness; it is rarely that we can wisely advise others, far less undertake to judge them. If the author has found is well. German literature has received a any true comfort in writing this book, it fresh ornament; and a noble nature has shaken off some portion of its distress. But sorrow, if a good medicine, is a dangerous food. There is a luxury of grief, which, like opium, seems to soothe, yet is stealing into the veins like poison, and the victim sinks at last in despair.

From Sharpe's London Magazine.

THE FATAL