He held it in his hand; His child's fond letter from her distant home: It breathed of warm remembrance, purest love, And grief that asked him back-up yon blue dome, There only should they meet-in lands above. He held it in his hand; Blood flowed from mortal wounds-he felt them not; And his unconscious child at blithesome play. It trembled in his hand; She too was there, his young, loved, faithful wife, Alas! how all was changed in one brief moon! It trembled in his hand; He saw no ghastly heaps of dead around, But only those loved forms; the cannon's roar Was lost in their dear voices' gentle sound, And in sweet thought he clasped them both once more. He crushed it in his hand; The brave who faced stern death; who shook his sword In danger's crimson front, and mocked at fears, That vision all unnerved; the blood which poured Down his scarr'd cheeks, was mingled now with tears. His hand sank slowly down; He felt his end approaching; France! loved France! He saw a small, sweet face, a sunny glance. He grasped it feebly now; Sinking upon his elbow, low, more low, Death came in faintness; now he smiled, then sighed: "Heaven shield the fatherless, and soothe her woe!" Once more he fondly kissed it-kissed, and died. 萬 VALE AND CITY. XXXV. The Vale. I HAVE received your three letters, my dear friend, and after each reached me I was glad that I had not replied to that which had preceded it, as I felt that there was nothing on the horizon around. my tree worth commenting on to you-worth offering to your thoughts in the midst of your old and new ideas on German matters. As to those about Prussia, I must say that I hold much more with Alfieri's detestation of its military despotism than with your new friend Mr. W.'s high estimate of its destiny. Its system of education may be good, but even with that it can only make a people of able soldiers, trained into a servile obedience, that will undoubtedly fit them to grasp and retain provinces and lands lying near them, suited for the enlarging and rounding off their bounds, nothing more, and the social state wants something more in the times in which we live. Stupidity and ignorance are fatal things to any people, but more than they is blind obedience. The obedience of man to the priest cramps the moral nature and limits the social affections. The obedience of the soldier to his commander must be that of a machine. If it be that of a reasoning man, it is of one whose training has made him, under the rude dogma, obey or die! has made him able to set at nought both his moral nature and his social affections. Of course I do not include in this idea of the soldier him who untrained becomes one voluntarily when his country is in danger. It is his moral nature and his social affections that rouse him to fight. A moment may, however, come in the life of a nation, when the trained soldier may be inspired by the generous passions of the volunteer. Even such an inspiration did once stir the Prussian army, framed as it was by the cunning and energy of a subtle despot, to be simply a machine in his hands and those of his successors. The ultimate result of that impulse in 1813 was by no means favourable to the development of free institutions in Prussia. Can it be that another impulse of the same kind would be more favourable to them? Your friend Mr. W. will say that it would be so. In that I cannot agree. If instead of all that he expects from Prussia, he should find that the military tyranny which is educating her unfits for any development but that of a military power, let him not be disappointed. And be not you disappointed if what used to be said, that the empire of the land was given to France, prove fallacious too. This rising power, which is admired by many, I know, may grasp it. And what, too, if the empire of the sea pass from England to a descendant of hers on the other side the Atlantic, who has two oceans under her control? Well! this is looking too far forward, and we can hardly make ourselves satisfied to anticipate such a thing. Yet we might be contented even to believe in it, it seems to me, if we could also believe that we were destined to have instead of it that empire of the air-of the soul, the intellect—to which the Germans once aspired. If that empire of the mind were a true and real sovereignty, it might console us for many losses of another kind. But to make it such, we should have to fall back on what we were some centuries ago, not found our sway on what we are now. Diffusion of our language and community of thought will not suffice for that, although one tongue and one mind spread from these islands over the great northern continent of America, the newer world of Australia, and a regenerated India. What do you think of this empire for us? Do you think it possible? We have a language that makes it so in one point of view-that of its ruling through the power of expressing the thoughts of the free. Even a great German philologist has acknowledged that its directness and simplicity fit it, more than any modern tongue, for this purpose. Thus might those thoughts not permitted to be entertained by the speakers of other tongues penetrate in this time of reading, of travelling, and of trading, even within the bounds of Russia-pierce even through the circle of iron within which Prussia means to form her own ideal of the citizen; that is, the obedient soldier. Let us, then, hope that, with other aid to boot, the independence of England's descendants in the West destine for her language a more extensive and a more lasting dominion than the conquests of Alexander effected for that of Greece in the East. And now I turn to what you say of Herder and Montaigne, that they are not writers for women. I acknowledge at once that there are many writers who are not women's authors, because to consider for whom they wrote never entered into their minds. They were men writing the thoughts of men as they would have spoken them to men. But would they have so spoken in the society of women? Certainly not. This decides the question on your side, that there are books more fitted for men's reading than for women's. How are we to rectify this matter? for you seem to infer that it needs some rectification. I am sure I cannot tell how it can be done in these days of universal reading, when every woman can read any book she pleases. There is this, however, to be said, that the entirely masculine books are essentially books of truth, of strength, of wit. They could have no attraction for the very young-none for the loose, vapid mind, seeking a downward course for itself. Such a course is found by all who seek it much more easily without books than with them. For one woman whom a book has corrupted-if there be one such-ten thousand have been corrupted by the vanities of dress. But I fancy I hear you say now, "Oh, then, the masculine books are for old women!" No; I do not admit this if there be evil in them. Evil would be a more serious matter to those on the verge of the tomb than to those who had the prospect of correcting their errors by the teachings of life. Being convinced that there is no sex in intellect, none in morals, and doubting the expediency of keeping an index of male and female reading, I confess that I have nothing to suggest further on the curious subject you started apropos of Herder. You ask, can summer and fine weather not tempt me away from my tree? Autumn and fine weather and children have done so. Although under my tree I have pleasant memories of favourite books and of your society, it is at times too sadly haunted by thoughts of the aged, the suffering, the dead. With the wood, which you know is near this, no remembrances of that kind are connected; the young have filled it for me with gay and happy anticipations, and there the past was never present. What a delightful afternoon we had nutting last week! We envied you not the Thuringian woods, the Black Forest, nor aught that you can see in Germany. Our day was perfect. The sky, of a deep clear blue, seemed to shine with unusual lustre between the branches over our heads; and now and then, when we came to a more open path or to a glade, we saw it varied by a great cloud of snowy whiteness sweeping majestically on. All was beauty above and below to me, yet I am sure the joyous youngsters thought little of any delight connected with the place except that of filling their baskets with nuts. No, You never discovered that there is an Arcadia near me? nor have I either made that discovery. Yet, although there was but one Arcadia in the history of the world, and Greece alone possessed it, it is certain that with a little more simplicity of taste, and something more of facile arrangement in our homes, we might contrive to leave with children the remembrance of an Arcadia of their own. I do not fear your finding any semblance of an Arcadia in Germany that can tempt you to remain there. Having said so much, I just add that after autumn comes winter, and that you will do well to take refuge soon at my fireside. Till then, adieu! Nov.-VOL. CXLVII. NO. DXCIX. 2 Q XXXVI. The City, Cassel. I MIGHT find many things in your last letter, my dear friend, worthy of comment and of long discussion, but I am disposed to begin this letter by a remark on that with which you conclude. You say you do not expect me to find an Arcadia in any German forest, and seem to suggest that after summer and fine weather abroad, it would be as well for me to try winter and good fires at home. At home with you? Yes, my thoughts turn quite in that direction, and I am glad that some unexpressed sympathy guided yours to meet them. It is time to bring my roving to an endand I shall end it-" until the next time," you will say, and I do not contradict you. We are proceeding from this place to Bonn; there the N.'s will remain for the education of their children, and I shall go on to England. Having said so much I shall leave discussions until we meet, and shall tell you of our movements since I last wrote. We went from Weimar to Eisenach, a town that once gave shelter to Luther in his youth, and that now shelters an unfortunate princess who seemed destined to be the queen of a great people I mean, the widowed Duchess of Orleans. Here she and her two young sons found an asylum after the events of '48 in Paris. A gentleman of the neighbourhood spoke to us in the highest terms of the royal exiles, and of the excellent education which is being given to the two young princes. Well, the little, dull, formal German town seemed to me a dreary place for her and them, and if I scorn most of those whom France took back after her last revolution, I heartily pity the mother and the two children whom she expelled. Will the day ever come when they may be received back by their country? Who can tell? But it seems at this moment scarcely probable. We heard from another person that of late the duchess has lived in some fear of assassination. This became known to him in a singular way. He had presented himself at her residence to beg the favour of being allowed to exhibit to the two young princes some invention, or some curiosity, I know not what, and found himself subjected in the ante-chamber to a long scrutiny by several persons, who came and went successively, some questioning him in one fashion, some in another. At first, this was rather disagreeable, but the cause of it beginning to dawn on him, he became amused by it, and showed so frank and easy a manner that he disarmed suspicion, and was admitted to the presence of the duchess. There are, no doubt, two persons whose name, position, and high |