And likewise brooms of millet grass, and such, —
And baskets of split cane. And still his touch
Was sure and swift; and all his wares were strong,
And found a ready sale the farms among.

But now, from fallow field and moorland waste,
The laborers were trooping home at last.

Then hasted sweet Mirèio to prepare,
With her own hands and in the open air,

Their evening meal. There was a broad flat stone
Served for a table, and she set thereon

One mighty dish, where each man plunged his ladle.
Our weavers wrought meanwhile upon their cradle.

Until Ramoun, the master of the farm,

Cried, "How is this?"-brusque was his tone and warm. "Come to your supper, Ambroi: no declining!

Put up the crib, my man: the stars are shining.

And thou, Mirèio, run and fetch a bowl:

The travelers must be weary, on my soul!"

Wherefore the basket weaver, well-content,
Rose with his son and to the table went,
And sat him down and cut the bread for both;
While bright Mirèio hasted, nothing loath,
Seasoned a dish of beans with olive oil,
And came and sat before them with a smile.

Not quite fifteen was this same fair Mirèio.
Ah, me! the purple coast of Font Vièio,
The hills of Baux, the desolate Crau plain,
A shape like her will hardly see again.
Child of the merry sun, her dimpled face
Bloomed into laughter with ingenuous grace.

Eyes had she limpid as the drops of dew;
And, when she fixed their tender gaze on you,
Sorrow was not. Stars in a summer night
Are not more softly, innocently bright:
And beauteous hair, all waves and rings of jet;
And breasts, a double peach, scarce ripened yet.

DUTY.

BY JULES SIMON.

[JULES FRANÇOIS SUISSE SIMON, French publicist and author, was born at Lorient, Bay of Biscay, in 1814; educated there and at Vannes; tutor at Caën in 1836; disciple of Victor Cousin, and succeeded him in philosophy at the Sorbonne, writing on Plato's and Aristotle's Theodicy (1840), and the Alexandrian School (1844-1845). Entering politics in 1846, he was deputy in 1848, councilor of state 1849. Refusing the oath to Louis Napoleon, he was suspended from the Sorbonne. Sent to the Corps Legislatif in 1863, he was the recognized republican leader till 1870; after Sedan was of the Provisional Government, and minister of public instruction in Thiers' cabinet; in 1875 created life senator and elected to the Academy; premier 1876-1877. He died in 1896. He wrote also "Duty 99 (1854), “Natural Religion" (1856), “Liberty of Conscience" (1859), "The Workingwoman" (1863), "The School" (1864), "Labor" (1866), "Free Trade" (1870), "Reform of Secondary Education" (1874), "The Twentieth Century Woman" (1891), and "Four Portraits"— Lamartine, Lavigerie, Renan, and William II. (1896).] ·

IT IS a mistake to consider oneself an honest man, when he has merely earned the right to say, in the words of the popular proverb, that he has never harmed a fellow-creature. The moral law obliges us not only to do no harm to our fellow-men, it obliges us to aid them. It is not enough that we do not kill them, we must help them to live; nor to respect their property, for we should share ours with them. In a word, we owe them in equal measure justice and help.

on.

Civil law, so minute, so precise in what it forbids, is timorous, scrupulous, incomplete in what it prescribes. It commands a father to educate his son; a son, to furnish an allowance to his father; a husband, to support his wife as befits her station; in certain cases it punishes ingratitude, but only by withdrawal of the benefit conferred; everywhere it establishes a system of taxation, which serves in certain countries, under different names, for various objects: and that is about all it has ventured There is this difference between the prohibitions which the law enforces and its prescriptions: the former are all favorable to liberty, while the latter are all contrary to that principle. Law, by forbidding that I shall be harmed, sanctions my independence; by ordering me to aid my fellow-citizens, it lessens my liberty. The tendency of absolute constitutions is to prescribe many duties, giving but few securities to our rights; while the tendency of liberal constitutions is to multiply our securities, leaving duties to the individual conscience; and that is the reason that theorists in favor of absolute monarchy are in a position to assert that this form of government fosters

human brotherhood, while liberty, by strengthening the rights of the individual, leads to isolation, to egotism, to dissension. Our own belief is that we must look for the development of human brotherhood in civil institutions, in education, in faith and moral conduct; and that penal law should be limited almost exclusively to assuring us justice that is to say, liberty. As soon as penal law undertakes to control our actions, it destroys free will; and as soon as it undertakes to dispose of property, or only of its benefits, it attacks ownership. So one should not complain of a necessary reserve; but the more timid the written law should be when a question of aid occurs, so much the more should we insist on the duties prescribed by moral law.

A brigand attacks a traveler on the highway. I am the sole witness of the crime, and I do not attempt to prevent it: am I innocent of the murder? A man seduces a woman in my presence. I might warn the victim, open her eyes, save herand I am silent: am I innocent of her ruin? A slander is repeated before me; I know the truth and refrain from stating it am I not now an accomplice of the slanderer? Merely to ask these questions is to answer them. A man who deceives his fellow-men is an enemy of God; but the man who might enlighten them, and who, through indifference or pride, locks up within himself his learning, does this man fulfill his rightful destiny? A beggar must die of hunger at the baker's door, without touching the bread which does not belong to him: such is the right of ownership, in all its terrible rigor. The written law sanctions it in this form, and does not oblige the rich to give to a dying man; but the moral law obliges him imperiously so to do. If he enjoy his superfluity in the presence of the dying man, he is responsible for his death. Christian morality teaches us eloquently that the rich are only the treasurers of the poor: a truly divine saying, and enough in itself, if engraved in every heart, to prove the salvation of society.

When we reflect on what man is, on the place he occupies in creation, the faculties with which he has been endowed, the treasures he has received, we can no longer be reconciled to the thought that all this love, all this force, all this intelligence, should be employed only in the service of their possessor; that God asks of us only that we should not mar his plan, should not cut each other's throats, should not persecute one another; but it is clear, on the other hand, that God has saved us from

nothingness that we may be fellow-workers in his sublime task; that he has commanded us to love and to aid our brothers, and to consecrate our forces, our talents, all that we possess and all that we are, to protect them, to feed, to enlighten, to do them good. When he shall call us to him (for we must consider death and its consequences), shall we say to him merely, "I have done no harm"? Of what avail then are thought and will, if to have been useless is Virtue enough? Why this burning heart, if prudence allow the flame to flicker out? Of what avail are men of genius, if God allow this genius to be silent, to become as naught? Far from having destined us to a passive rôle, he has measured our obligations according to our force, and our worthiness according to our obligations. To live is to act; to fight at one's post the battle of life; leader or soldier, it matters little, so long as one does one's duty valiantly. The strength which God has given us, be it great or small, is a gift truly divine; we should neither let it perish, nor profane it by unworthy uses.

As there are men who consider themselves honest enough because they harm no one, and who speak with conviction of their probity and their honor, while they allow their fellowmen to suffer and to die in their midst, without holding out a helping hand, there are others who, from ostentation, from preference, from kindness of heart perhaps, love to give, to be active in charity, putting to a generous use an ill-acquired fortune. Benevolence is more attractive than justice, above all when the kind deed is such as to win us personal devotion, or of those which pass for heroic, gaining for the benefactor universal esteem and admiration. We take a complacent delight in the thought of these generous acts; feeling ourselves capable of self-devotion, we place ourselves without hesitancy among the chosen souls, without reflecting that the time given to some protégé, to some favorite case, is due to another; that the money we spend so gladly in this relief belongs by right to another; that another has a prior claim, and that an absolute one, to this fortune spent in bountiful giving. We should first of all establish matters on a rightful footing, accomplish the austere task imposed upon us by strict equity, thus earning the right of yielding to the desires of our own hearts. No doubt it is a duty to give; but in order to give a thing we must before all make it legitimately our own. Justice is absolute, inexorable; with her no compromise is possible. All that she ordains must be

executed at once and loyally, without hypocrisy, without second thought, because the decree is just, and not because it is profitable or may do us credit. When by mischance our heart is not in accord with justice, it should be silenced. It must be conquered, subdued by the yoke of duty. To fail in one's duty, because by so failing one may accomplish great things, may be called according to circumstances heroic or grand; it is given this name by the feeble-souled many, but philosophers call it failing in one's duty. The rules of justice are not like those of military tactics, nor yet like those which govern the art of poetry, above which genius may soar free. They are written by the hand of God himself, and whosoever infringes them violates God's law and profanes within himself the most sacred quality of humanity. Could a just law admit of an exception, justice ceases to be justice. If there be two moralities, true morality no longer exists.

We must not allow ourselves to be deceived by acclamations from without. Men naturally love all that comes from the heart, all that is grand, all which dazzles, and even all that is new and strange. A heroic action or a simple act of generosity is sure to move them and to provoke their enthusiasm. They see the acts, but fail to see the justice which rules the heart of the just. Be a hero like D'Assas, and one moment of sublime courage renders your name immortal. But Aristides, if no longer destined to be at the head of the Republic, may carry with him to the tomb but a faint esteem. There is no character on the stage more admired than Charles Moor. To seize in order to give away again; to tread beneath one's feet all vulgar duties; to be always ready to protect the poor, to avenge their insults, to relieve their sufferings; to revolt against social order, but for passion's sake, not egotistically; to make the heart a guide, in spite of reason, and the heart must be loyal and chivalrous: all this is enough and more than enough to make many faults, nay crimes, forgotten, and to enable one to pass through life as a triumphant conqueror. Strength alone, success without generosity, suffice at times to blind the multitude, and to throw dust in the eyes of History, so great is the fascination of strength! Who would deny his title of Great to Alexander, the unjust conqueror of Asia? Who but admires Cæsar and Augustus? Augustus pardoned Cinna, perhaps by policy; it was enough to make the proscriptions forgotten. In one day fell twenty thousand victims, but