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stepped up to the distressed damsel, offered his services, was accepted, and they were married the next day!

"Of course the bride soon decamped, and carried with her all the savings of poor Restif, and everything he possessed but the clothes on his back!

"After this marriage, he lived for years a wild life of feverish adventure.

"His soul was full of instincts early perverted-never utterly destroyed. He panted to be something and to do something.

"Beaumarchais had introduced him somewhat into the world; his ambition as a writer was kindled; he resolved to teach his age by painting himself and his life; he became the most terrible realist of literature. Inflamed by the example of Rousseau, he thirsted to reform mankind; and infected, as he was, with the materialism of the times, he believed that life was only to be understood through experience; that nobody could know what pitch was without touching it; that one ought to try everything, exhaust everything, and so reach the perfection of wisdom by draining the world."

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I think," said I, "we have a Restif or two on our side of the Atlantic, even DOW !"

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Oh! impossible," Paul replied; "you cannot have comprehended the man, if you say so. Why, his books are the very seething scum of the philosophy of the encyclopedists. He tore off every veil from himself; his novels, his social theories, his political pamphlets are all so many Confessions of Restif.' You think Rousseau cynical, but Rousseau is reserved in comparison with Restif. 'People,' he says, in his famous Paysan perverti (a book that ran through fortytwo editions in England alone!) 'think fables instructive. Well, I am a great fabulist, teaching others at my own expense. I am all animals! sometimes a cunning fox; sometimes a slow, obstinate donkey; sometimes a fierce, bold lion; sometimes a cowardly, hungry wolf!' I spare you the eagle, the goat, and the hare the details of the spell of Circe! There is nothing good nor bad in itself; let us find out the use of everything, and so make the world more comfortable-there is the sum of Restif's philosophy. Do you mean to say that anything like this doctrine prevails in your young, patriotic, religious America?"

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"Prevails? no!" I answered, "nor precisely that doctrine. But I am not sure that our materialism is less dangerous for being more specious than Restif's was. In the time of Restif you had in France a world of the aristocracy, who worshiped pleasure, and who believed Restif's creed without sharing his philanthropy. In America, now, we have a world of busy men, who worship success, and whose creed is even more desolate. They don't care whether there be anything good or bad; as some one has neatly summed it up, their faith is simply this: 'there's nothing new, there's nothing true, and it don't much signify!' It is the sad side of our life that we haven't even our romance; that we are not so much vicious as apathetic; so that sometimes one is really at a loss to know why people should take the trouble to live."

"At least, if this be so," Paul answered, "you are spared the madness of misdirected philosophy; the inflammation of disorderly thought such as preceded our terrible revolution."

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"No," I replied; "amid our busy world we have another world of passionate materialistic thinkers. Everything is questioned, everything is denied. Wo have men who insist upon experiencing everything; who insist that all the moral law is discoverable in the nerves; that this life was meant to be complete. Have we not our 'spiritualists,' who tell us that all the unseen world is literally a lackeydom for the convenience of this; our students of nature. who are, after all, the mere slaves of impulse?"

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Heaven help you, then," Paul replied, "for you have mighty convulsions before you!"

"What finally became of Restif?" I asked, after a pause.

66 He lived on into the Revolution. His works multiplied with his years. It was his habit to traverse Paris day and night; sometimes he wandered through the most brilliant quarters-sometimes through the foulest. But wherever he stumbled on an adventure, he pursued it; the life, the passions, the miseries, the crimes of Paris, were his constant study. His 'romances' were so numerous that, in the disorder of his brain, he came at last to believe that he had a wife in every street of the city, and to fancy himself the father of every child he met. Whatever happened to him

he instantly committed to print; there is not a scene of his hundred novels which is not a picture from life. And what pictures! Once he pursued a lady in a black satin cloak, with green slippers, up into one of the gamblinghouses of the Quays. He never saw her face; and when he tried to make some inquiries at the gambling-house, he was told that his life depended on his silence. Years afterward, while descending the Rhine, he saw a lovely young girl in the company of two ladies, and overhearing their conversation, found that the child was the lifelong disappointment of a prince of the house of Courtenay, who had sent his wife, the daughter of the Duc de Richelieu, in search of an heir, fourteen years before! There were circumstances in the tale which poured a sudden light upon Restif's memory of the green slippers. And yet, we hear people declaim against Rousseau for leaving his children at the Foundling Hospital, as if he were the one unnatural being of his age!"

"Restif called himself a reformer. He published his romances as fast as we now print in the newspapers. In six years he wrote eighty-five volumes! They all had one object to persuade men that property was the root of all mischief."

"He anticipated St. Simon, then, and Proudhon?" I said.

"If you choose to put together, as people always do, men who are as much alike as Voltaire and Rousseau,” Paul replied, with a smile. "He was a Socialist, certainly, in a vague, fiery fashion. But the revolution disturbed and distressed him.

He mourned, terribly, over the death of Mirabeau, of whom he has left us the most vivid sketches, and Cubirères draws a melancholy picture of Restif as he saw him, towards the end of his life, silent and moody, and not answering when he was spoken to. He was no longer the Restif of those fine festivals which Grimod de la Reynière used to give, where no one was admitted who would not promise to drink eleven cups of coffee, and where, after a series of electrical experiments, dinner was announced by a herald in his tabaret, and served in silver, on a round table lighted with three hundred and

sixty-six lamps; while lovely servingmaids, in Roman robes, presented their long tresses to the guests, for napkins!

"Weary and worn out, at last, Restif, about the year 1794, went back to Courgis, where he had first learned Latin and love. The republicans had laid waste the church; but the poplars of La Fontaine Froide were still standing. Where was Jeannette Rousseau?

"Restif walked up to the old house. An old woman sits spinning in the doorway. It is Jeannette; the same bright eye lights up the withered roses of her cheeks; the old grace lingers about the lines of her bowed and trembling form!

"Do you recognize me, mademoiselle?' said Restif.

"I have seen you, I think, sir,' she replied; but I am an old woman now, and it was long since.'

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"I am Nicholas Restif, the choir-boy of the cure of Courgis!'

"The poor old couple fell into each other's arms, weeping.

"Jeannette had read, from time to time, the books of Restif. She had seen that, in everybody whom he painted, he had pleased himself with tracing some trait of Jeannette. She had not forgotten those old meetings-those octo-syllabic verses!

"I have never married,' said she. 'We are too old now for happiness; but we can, at least, die together.'

"And a curé was found, who ventured to unite, in secret, this melancholy pair.

"Was it strange I should have thought of Restif. yesterday, in the Cathedral ?"

"No!" I answered, "nor was it strange that the Prefect should have repudiated the reminiscence!"

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"Then, you don't think Restif very engaging, with all his romance,'" said Paul. But, in his old age, the French nation voted him two thousand francs, 'for his services to morality!' and the Academy would have received him, but for his want of taste!'"

"And here!" he cried, as a furious ringing of bells broke in upon his talk, "here we are, at the Embarcadere, and this is Paris. Restif is at rest now. Is the spell of Circe broken?"

MY MISSION.

VERY spirit has its mission, say the transcendental crew;

EVE

This is mine," they cry; "Eureka! This the purpose I pursue;

For, behold, a god hath called me, and his service I shall do!

"Brother, seek thy calling likewise, thou wert destined for the same; Sloth is sin, and toil is worship, and the soul demands an aim: Who neglects the ordination, he shall not escape the blame."

O my ears are dinned and wearied with the clatter of the school:
Life to them is geometric, and they act by line and rule-
If there be no other wisdom, better far to be a fool!

Better far the honest nature, in its narrow path content,
Taking, with a child's acceptance, whatsoever may be sent,
Than the introverted vision, seeing Self preeminent.

For the spirit's proper freedom by itself may be destroyed,
Wasting like the young Narcissus, o'er its image in the void:
Even virtue is not virtue, when too consciously enjoyed.

I am sick of canting prophets, self-elected kings that reign
Over herds of silly subjects, of their new allegiance vain;
Preaching labor, preaching duty, preaching love with lips profane.

With the holiest things they tamper, and the noblest they degradeMaking Life an institution, making Destiny a trade;

But the honest vice is better than the saintship they parade.

Native goodness is unconscious, asks not to be recognized;
But its baser affectation is a thing to be despised:

Only when the man is loyal to himself shall he be prized.

Take the current of your nature; make it stagnant if you will;
Dam it up to drudge forever, at the service of your mill:
Mine the rapture and the freedom of the torrent on the hill!

Straighten out its wavy margin; make a tow-path at the side:
Be the dull canal your channel, where the heavy barges glide-
Lo, the muddy bed is tranquil, not a rapid breaks the tide!

I shall wander o'er the meadows where the fairest blossoms call; Though the rocky ledges seize me-fling me headlong from their wall, I shall leave a rainbow hanging o'er the ruins of my fall!

I shall lead a glad existence, as I broaden down the vales,
Brimming past the regal cities, whitened with the seaward sails,
Feel the mighty pulse of ocean ere I mingle with its gales!

Vex me not with weary questions; seek no moral to deduce-
With the Present I am busy, with the Future hold a truce:
If I live the life He gave me, God will turn it to His use.

LIVING IN THE COUNTRY.

Our New Barber-Reminiscences of our Old Barber-A Dog of another Color-October Woods-A Party on the Water-Home, Sweet Home, with Variations (Flute Obligato)A Row to the Palisades-Iroquois Legend-Return to the Cottage.

WE

E have gotten a new barber in the village. It is a good thing to have a barber in the country. You hear all the news, all the weddings, the engagements, the lawsuits, and other festive matters in his aromatic shop. Our former Master Nicholas has left us suddenly-"Maestro Nicolas quando barbero del mismo pueblo." We miss him very much. I used to admire his long and learned essay upon the uman air. The uman air, for want of capillary attraction, could not maintain its place upon the uman ead, without the united juices of one hundred and fifty-five vegetables. So long as he devoted himself to procuring the necessary vegetables, and hung his argument upon a hair, he did very well. It was pleasant to doze under his glib fingers and his vegetal philosophy. But, unfortunately, he got into politics. Barbers usually have excitable temperaments. The barber of our village became the softest of the softs. He was ready to argue with anybody and everybody, in his "garden of spices."

One day, while I was under his tuition, at the end of a prolonged debate with one of his sitters, by way of clinching his point, he did me the honor of tapping me twice upon the cranium, with the back of his hair-brush. "Sir," said he (tap), "I tell you that is so" (heavy tap). In consequence, I predicted his speedy downfall. Sure enough, he laid a wager that his candidate would have a majority in our village over all the rest of the candidates, and the next election only gave his candidate two votes. Next day our barber was missing. Public vandalism had crushed him.

We have procured a new barber. He is in the dyeing line of business. It is the color, not the quantity of hair, that engages all his lubricating efforts. To convert the frost of age into a black or brown scalp is the highest ambition of his genius. Not only that; he anticipates time, and suggests preventive treatment to younger men. To me he is excessively tiresome.

I have bought me a new dog: a snowwhite terrier, with rose-colored ears and

paws. She is as white as new plucked cotton, or February clouds. All our other dogs, Jack, Zack, and Flora, are black; Juno, by contrast, looks strikingly white. One day, I found four black dogs under the porch. Of the four, I should say Juno was the blackest. She had been to the barber's on a visit, and he had given her a coat of his confounded Praxiteles balsam. Now she is growing out of it; but her present appearance is so repulsive, that the other dogs will not associate with her. Some day, I mean to give that barber a talking to about the matter.

Who that loves nature can forsake the country in October? Before the leaves fall, before "the flying gold of the woodlands drive through the air," we must visit our old friends oppositethe Palisades; we must bring forth our boat once more, and "white-ash it" over the blue river to the " chimneys." "What do you think of it, Mrs. Sparrowgrass?" Mrs. S. replied she was willing. So then, on Saturday, if the weather be fair, we will make our final call upon them. The weather was fine, the air warm, the sky clear, the river smooth, the boat in order, and over we went. I had invited a German gentleman, Mr. Sumach, to accompany us, on account of his flute. He is a very good performer upon that instrument, and music always sounds to great advantage upon the water. When we approached the great cliffs, Mr. Sumach opened his case, and took therefrom the joints of an extraordinary large flute. Then he moistened the joints and put it together. Then he held it up and arranged the embouchure to his satisfaction, and then he wiped it off with his handkerchief. Then he held it up again at right angles, and an impudent boy, in another boat, fishing, told him he'd better take in his boom, if he didn't want to jibe. Then Mr. Sumach ran rapidly through a double octave, executed a staccato passage. with wonderful precision, and wound. up with a prolonged bray of great brilliancy and power. Then the boy, by way of jibing himself, imitated the bleating of a sheep. Then I bent the

white-ash oars to get out of the reach of the boy, and the blisters on my hands became painfully bloated. Then Mr. Sumach, who had been trilling enough to make anybody nervous, proposed that we should sing something. Then Mrs. Sparrowgrass suggested "Home, sweet Home." Then we commenced (flute obligato).

HOME SWEET HOME!

WITH VARIATIONS.

"Mid (Taw-tawtle) pala (Tawtle) Though-oh! (Tawtle-taw!)

Be it (Taw-tawtle) hum-(Tawtle)

Taw, Tawtle-taw! (rapid and difficult passage, ending with an inimitable shake). A cha (Tawtle) skies! (Tawtle) halo (Taw, Taw),

Which (Taw-tawtle) world (Taw) not (Taw-tawle), where

Home! (trill B flat) Hoem! (rapid and diffi cult passage).

Sweet! (Toodle) sweet! (Toodle) home! (Toodle),

Be it (Tawtle-de-doodle-diddle-doodletaw) 'ble,

There's no-oh! (Toodle) home!"

By this time we had reached the base of the Palisades.

Now then, here we are-a segment of sand you might cover with a blanket, and all the rest of the beach a vast wreck of basaltic splinters! Rocks, rocks, rocks! From bits not larger than a water-melon, up to fragments the size of the family tea-table. All these have fallen off those upper cliffs you see rising from the gold, brown, and crimson of autumnal leaves. Look up! no wonder it makes you dizzy to look up. What is that bird? Mrs. Sparrowgrass, that is an eagle.

It was a pleasant thing, after we had secured the boat by an iron grapnel, to pick our way over the sharp rocksnow holding by a lithe cedar, now swinging around a jutting crag by a pendulous wild grape-vine, anon stepping from block to block, with a fine river view in front and below; and then coming suddenly upon the little nook where lay the flat stone we were in quest of, and then come the great cloth-spreading, and opening of the basket. And we took from the basket: first, a box of matches and a bundle of choice cigars of delicate flavor; next, two side bottles of claret; then we lifted out carefully a white napkin, containing only one fowl, and that not fat; then two pies, much the worse for the voyage; then two

more bottles of claret; then another centre-piece-ham sandwiches; then a bundle of knives and forks, a couple of cork-screws, a tier of plates, six apples, and a half bottle of olives; then twentyseven hickory nuts, and a half dozen nut-crackers; and then came the cheese and the manuscript.

Oh! golden November sky, and tawny river! bland distance, and rugged foreground, wild crimson vines, green cedars, many-colored, deciduous foliage, gray precipices, and delicious claret! What an afternoon that was, under the palisades!

"Mr. Sumach," said I, after the pippins and cheese, "if you will cast your eyes up beyond the trees, above those upper trees, and follow the face of the precipice in a direct line for some four hundred feet perpendicularly, you will see a slight jutting out of rock, perhaps twenty feet below the top of the crags.' Mr. Sumach replied the sun was shining so brilliantly, just then, upon that identical spot, that he could see nothing at all. As, upon careful inspection, I could not see the spot myself, I was obliged to console myself with another sip of claret. Yet there it was, just above us.

"Mr. Sumach," said I, "I wish you could see it, for it is one of the curiosities of our country. You know we have five wonders of the world in America-the Falls of Niagara, the Natural Bridge in Virginia, the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky, Trenton Falls, and the Palisades. Now sir, just above us, almost at the brink of that dizzy height, there is singular testimony of the freaks of nature. That tough old rock, sir, has had a piece taken out of it, squarely out, by lightning, probably; and the remnants of the vast mass now lie around us, covered with lichens, nut shells, dead leaves, table cloth, and some claret bottles. If you will go with me some two miles north, there is a path up the mountains, and we can then walk along the top of the vast precipice, to the spot Mr. Sumach dedirectly over us."

clined, on the ground of not being accustomed to such rough walking. "Then, sir, let me describe it to you. From that jutting buttress of rock in front, to the opening there, just back of you, there is a flat platform above us, wide enough for a man to lie down, with his head close to the inner wall, and his feet a few inches over the precipice. That plat

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