being built it was discovered by actual end. They tend, like despots, to go experiment that the millionaire con- mad. The proportion of them in Amertractors were the best to employ, that ica who suffer from "nervous disease," even if they charged extravagantly, or a habit of drinking contracted by eftheir railways actually did get done, forts to keep down nervous ailment, is while the little people were pausing or extraordinary, is, in fact, described by failing before unexpected obstacles. good medical authority as amounting Suppose a bank has four millions, its to fifty per cent. That is always acdirectors cannot expend three in filling counted for in newspapers as the result up Chat Moss, for they may be robbing of nervous strain, of fierce anxiety, of their shareholders, who trust to their overwork; but we are by no means sure judgment and discretion. But the con- that as unlimited power is known of tractor with four millions can pitch itself to overtax the brain, so an unthree into the swamp, first, because limited command of wealth does not they are his own, and secondly, because weaken the controlling will. The deif his judgment prove faulty, he has sire to do something bigger still masstil enough left for luxury or for be- ters them, they do not get the help ginning again. "If I lose a quarter of a despots do from counsellors, and by and million," said a considerable contrac- by their power of action, rapid and irtor, "over that infernal bridge, I'm responsible action, gets too much for ruined; but if Brassey loses it he'll just their mental strength. We do not care, build it again. That's the use of Bras- it would not, indeed, be right, to give sey;"-and we do not see where the instances; but we are greatly mistaken answer to that rough apology for the if many of the new millionaires are not new millionaire is to be found. There showing a tendency to the special form are big, risky things to be done which of mental weakness which is called are also useful things, and he is, occa- megalomania, or "les grandeurs," a desionally at all events, wanted to do sire to make their houses, their yachts, them. If only one could give million- their pleasaunces, even their activities, aires consciences there would be a bigger than for their own objects it is true place for them in the social fabric, necessary they should be made. They even if they never gave away a penny, become too conscious of their own and were only intent on becoming bil- magnificence, are too completely their lionaires. The trouble is that their con- own pivots, think too largely and consciences die, as those of most con- stantly of their own relation to the querors do, in the very magnitude of world around them. Madness lies in their transactions, which tempt them that direction, and we should not be at to act as if they were powers of nature, all surprised some day to see a mamand sweep on to their ends regardless moth millionaire loose în the world, alike of human misery and of right and and doing mischief on a scale which wrong. would compel more than one country to question whether the right to spend one's own money had not limits which the owner must be prevented by force from passing.

The great danger from millionaires, we suspect, is one which many of our readers, will pronounce fanciful, the danger indicated in Mr. Barnato's sad

Fatigue in Reading.-The increasing part played by reading in the life of civilized man has resulted in the wide prevalence of myopia, astigmatism, and kindred disorders. Myopia would, however, be rare if the eye were never fatigued; so a paper by Harold Griffing and S. I. Franz, in the Psychological Review, on the physical conditions

of

fatigue in reading, and the best means of avoiding it, should be of service. From their experiments the authors conclude that the size of type is the all-important condition of visual fatigue. No type less than 1.5 mm. in height should be used, the fatigue increasing rapidly even before the size becomes as small as this.

No. 2768-July 24, 1897.

{

Sixth Series, Volume XV.

}

I. THE AMULET. Part I. From the Ital-
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Age by Mrs. Maurice Perkins,

II. NOVELS OF THE ITALIAN RENAISSANCE, Edinburgh Review, .
III. CHANTILLY AND THE DUC D'AUMALE.

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V. AMER.CANS AT PLAY,

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VIII. THE OLDEST CITY IN THE WORLD,

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FROM THE ITALIAN OF NEERA.
THE AMULET.1

Translated for THE LIVING AGE by Mrs. Maurice
Perkins.
PART I.

On the death of General Maurice de Riche Fournion, a Piedmontais of good family, who had made his first campaign in the Crimea, and afterwards become famous in the wars of Italian Unity, his heirs, distant relations, divided among themselves the knickknacks in his small bachelor apartment. One of them received an oddly shaped portfolio, of embroidered leather, evidently coming from some Eastern bazar. This portfolio, fastened by a faded silken cord, exhaled an odor of attar of rose and fine tobacco. In one corner were engraved two crossed swords surmounted by a rose. Under the satin lining there was a manuscript, a hundred sheets of thin tough paper covered with a nervous handwriting not broad and tall after the fashion of to-day, but thin, fine, not without that innate elegance of which the letters of our great-grandmothers give us some idea.

anything about the persons, or places, or the time in which it was written. After all, perhaps the old man was right and it did not concern us.

99

THE MANUSCRIPT.

I remember the month, it was February, and the day-a splendid day-and the hour. It was the hour when my salon was strangely illuminated through the red silk curtains, the hour when its heavy, almost sombre furniture in this atmosphere of flame, seemed animated by a secret ardor. I was arranging a vase of flowers and my little Alexis seated on the carpet hummed softly in his plaintive voice,

The text was in French. In the margin there were some pencil notes in the general's heavy handwriting. A sheet was added to the manuscript as a sort of preface and explanation; a proof that he valued it, and that, if he had ever made a will, these mysterious papers would never have come to the public eye. This, without a commentary is the my mind. memorandum of the general:

I rise with the sun in the morning, And send up a prayer to God. "Alexis," I said, "be still a moment. I think I hear a step." "It is Pietro."

"I do not think it is Pietro. You know I am expecting our cousin M. de la Querciaia. You will be a good boy, won't you?"

"I like la Querciaia," answered the child, "because there are lots of little birds in the trees."

Just at this moment, Pietro raised the portière. I had never seen my cousin; first he had been at college, and then abroad. I remembered his mother, an angelic creature, who had died a year before, but as for him, I had never seen even his portrait. Nothing but his reputation for cleverness bad reached me, and that only disturbed

Accustomed as I was to an ordinary existence, always alone with my child and Pietro, and Old Ursula, at a distance from any intellectual centre, and from all society, what could I find to say to this clever, well bred young man?

Happily, as I was already standing in the middle of the room, I did not find it very difficult to hold out my hand to him, and Alexis, jumping up from the floor and running to hide himself in my skirts, furnished me with a subject of conversation to begin with. I cannot say whether I thought him attractive or not at first sight, but I am very cer