meant to vote for his kinsman's execu- there for protection, for sympathy, for
tion by the guillotine? Do you suppose affection, for charity of human fellow-
that Robespierre, when he commenced ship; give it what name you like, it is the
his career as the foe of capital punish- same cry for companionship, and terror
ment, foresaw that he should be the of the death of silence and absence. Hu-
Minister of the Reign of Terror? Not man Sympathy, represented by inade-
a bit of it. Each was committed by his quate words or by clumsy exaggeration,
use of those he designed for his tools: by feeble signs or pangs innumerable, by
so must you be―or you perish."
sudden glories and unreasonable ecsta-
sies, is, when we come to think of it,
among the most reasonable of emotions.
It is life indeed; it binds us to the spirit
of our race as our senses bind us to the
material world, and makes us feel at
times as if we were indeed a part of na-
ture herself, and chords responding to
her touch.

Lebeau, leaning against the door, heard the frank avowal he had courted without betraying a change of countenance. But when Armand Monnier had done, a slight movement of his lips showed emotion; was it of fear or disdain?

"Monnier," he said, gently; "I am so much obliged to you for the manly speech you have made. The scruples which my

People say that as a rule men are truer conscience had before entertained are friends than women -more capable of dispelled. I dreaded lest I, a declared friendship. Is this the result of a classiwolf, might seduce into peril an innocent cal education? Do the foot-notes in sheep. I see I have to deal with a wolf which celebrated friendships are menof younger vigour and sharper fangs than tioned in brackets, stimulate our youth myself; so much the better: obey my to imitate those stately togas, whose orders now; leave it to time to say whether I obey yours later. Au revoir."

Le meilleur qui nous reste est un ancien ami, ALFRED de Musset says, in his sonnet to Victor Hugo: and as we live on we find out who are in truth the people that we have really loved, which of our companions belongs to us, linked in friendship as well as by the chances of life or relationship.

names and discourses come travelling down to us through two thousand years, from one country to another, from one generation to another, from one language to another, until they flash perhaps into the pages of Bohn's Classical Library, of which a volume has been lent to me from the study table on the hill? It is lying open at the chapter on friendship. "To me indeed, though he was snatched away, Scipio still lives, and will always live; for I love the virtue of a man, and assuredly of all things that either fortune or nature has bestowed upon me, I have none which I can compare with the friendship of Scipio." So says Cicero, speaking by the mouth of Lælius and of Bohn, and the generous thought still lives after many a transmigration, though it exists now in a world Sometimes it is not until they are gone where perhaps friendship is less thought that we discover who and what they were of than in the days when Scipio was to us - those "good friends and true" mourned. Some people have a special with whom we were at ease, tranquil in gift of their own for friendship; they the security of their kind presence. Some transform a vague and abstract feeling of us, the longer we live, only feel more for us into an actual voice and touch and and more that it is not in utter loneliness response. As our life flows onthat the greatest peace is to be found. A rent of impressions and emotions bounded little child starts up in the dark, and find-in by custom," a writer calls it whose own ing itself alone, begins to cry and toss deep torrent has long since overflowed in its bed, as it holds out its arms in any narrow confining boundaries - the search of a protecting hand; and men mere names of our friends might for and women seem for the most part true many of us almost tell the history of our to this first childish instinct as they | own lives. As one thinks over the roll, awaken suddenly: (how strange these each name seems a fresh sense and exawakenings are, in what incongruous planation to the past. Some, which seem places and seasons do they come to us!) to have outwardly but little influence on People turn helplessly, looking here and our fate, tell for us the whole hidden

-"a tor

story of long years. One means per- serious sacrifice. If a friend is in trouhaps passionate emotion, unreasonable ble, we leave a card at his door, or go the reproach, tender reconciliation; another length of a note, perhaps. We absent may mean injustice, forgiveness, remorse; ourselves for months at a time without a while another speaks to us of all that we reason, and yet all of this is more want of have ever suffered, all that we hold most habit than of feeling; for, notwithstandsacred in life, and gratitude and trust un-ing all that is said of the world and its failing. There is one name that seems pompous vanities, there are still human to me like the music of Bach as I think beings among us, and, even after two of it, and another that seems to open at thousand years, true things seem to come the Gospel of St. Matthew. "My dear- to life again and again for each one of us, est friend," a young man wrote to his in this sorrow and that happiness, in one mother only yesterday, and the simple sympathy and another; and one day a words seemed to me to tell the whole his- vague essay upon friendship becomes the tory of their lives. true story of a friend.

"After these two noble fruits of friendship, peace in the affections, and support of the judgment, followeth the last fruit, which is like the pomegranate, full of many kernels. I mean aid and bearing a part in all actions and occasions," says Lord Bacon, writing in the spirit of Cicero three hundred years ago.

To be in love is a recognized state; relationship without friendship is perhaps too much recognized in civilized communities; but friendship, that best blessing of life, seems to have less place in its scheme than almost any other feeling of equal importance. Of course it has its own influence; but the outward life appears, on the whole, more given to business, to acquaintance, to ambition, to eating and drinking, than to the friends we really love: and time passes, and convenience takes us here and there, and work and worry (that we might have shared) absorb us, and one day time is no more for our friendship.

In this peaceful island from whence I write we hear Cicero's voice, or listen to In Memoriam, as the Friend sings to us of friendship to the tune of the lark's shrill voice, or of the wave that beats away our holiday and dashes itself upon the rocks in the little bay. The sweet scents and dazzles of sunshine seem to harmonize with emotions that are wise and natural, and it is not until we go back to our common life that we realize the difference between the teaching of noble souls and the noisy bewildered translation into life, of that solemn printed silence.

Is it, then, regret for buried time,

That keenlier in sweet April wakes,
And meets the year, and gives and takes
The colours of the crescent prime?

Not all the songs, the stirring air,
The life re-orient out of dust,
Cry thro' the scene to hearten trust
In that which made the world so fair.

One or two of my readers will under- Here, then, and at peace, and out of stand why it is that I have been thinking doors in the spring-time, we have leisure of friendship of late, and have chosen to ask ourselves whether there is indeed this theme for my little essay, thinking some failure in the scheme of friendship that not the least lesson in life is surely and in the plan of that busy to-day in that of human sympathy, and that to be a which our lives are passed; over-crowdgood friend is one of the secrets that ed with people, with repetition, with pascomprise most others. And yet the sac-sing care and worry, and unsorted materifices that we usually make for a friend's comfort or assistance are ludicrous when one comes to think of them. "One mina, two minæ; are there settled values for friends, Antisthenes, as there are for slaves? For of slaves, one is perhaps worth two minæ, another not even half a mina, another five minæ, another ten." Antisthenes agrees, and says that some friends are not even worth half a mina; "and another," he says, "I would buy for my friend at the sacrifice of all the money and revenues in the world."

I am afraid that we modern Antisthenes would think a month's income a

rial. It is perhaps possible that by feeling, and feeling alone, some check may be given to the trivial rush of meaningless repetition by which our time is frittered away, our precious power of love and passionate affection given to the winds.

Sometimes we suddenly realize for the first time the sense of kindness, the treasure of faithful protection, that we have unconsciously owed for years, for our creditor has never claimed payment or reward, and we remember with natural emotion and gratitude that the time for payment is past; we shall be debtors all

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"Where you see those houses," he is saying now, "there was nothing but green fields when I was a boy. Not a brick to be seen anywhere." And so he goes on commenting on everything. Whatever his senses inform him of, he seems obliged to put on record. bald horse," he says as one goes by him in an omnibus; "Čurious smell," as he passes the fried-fish stall. This is the man with whom we have all travelled in railway-trains. He proclaims to his companion - a person much to be pitied-the names of the stations as the train arrives at each Ah, Croydon," he says; or, "Ah, Redhill, -going to stop, I see. opens, the friend comes in slowly He makes his comments when they do "Little girl with fruit," he says; or, with a welcoming smile on his pale and stop. noble face. Where find more delightful tate the peculiar cry of this last Boy with papers." Very likely he will imicompanionship than his? We all know papaw," ," for his friend's benefit. the grace of that charming improvised talker may be studied very advantageously in gift by which he seemed able to combine railway-trains. He is familiar with technical disjointed hints and shades into a whole; terms. He remarks, when there is a stoppage, to weave our crude talk and ragged sug- that we are "being shunted on to the up-line gestions into a complete scheme of hu- till the express goes by.". Presently there is a mourous or more serious philosophy. In shriek, and a shake, and a whirl, and then our some papers published a few years ago in friend looks round with triumph. "That was the Cornhill Magazine, called "Chapters This is a very wearying personage. it," he says; "Dover express, down-line." on Talk," a great deal of his delightful not be quiet. If he is positively run out and and pleasant humour appears. without a remark to make, he will ask a question. Instead of telling you what the station is, he will in this case ask you to tell him. with him. He doesn't want to know: he is "What station is this?" is a favorite inquiry not going to stop at it: he merely asks because his mouth is full of words, and they must needs dribble out in some form or other.

-"Mornin'
This kind of

He can

Occupying a foremost position among these, I find a small, but for its size exceedingly vig orous and active member of the garrulous species, to which the name 66 Perpetual-drop Talker" may perhaps be given with some degree of propriety. In dealing with a new branch of science, as I am now doing, the use of new terms is inevitable, and it is hoped that In this case it takes an interrogative form. this one, and such other technical expressions tiresome individual this: cannot help as have been introduced in the course of these speculating how many times in the course of chapters, will be favourably received by talk- his life he has thought it necessary to inform students generally. The Perpetual-drop Talker his fellow-creatures that the morning has been then-I will venture to consider the term as fine or cold, as the case might be, and the res accepted-is a conversationalist of a species weather generally seasonable, or the reverse.

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easily recognizable by all persons possessed of I have not said much all this time about
even moderate acuteness of perception. The good listeners. They are scarce, almost as
chief and most remarkable characteristic of scarce as good talkers. A good listener is no
him is that his chatter is incessant, and that egotist, but has a moderate opinion of himself,
there issues from his mouth a perpetual drib-is possessed of a great desire of information
ble of words, which convey to the ears of those on all kinds of subjects, and of a hundred
who hear them no sort of information worth other fine qualities. It is too much the gen-
having, no new
thing worth knowing, no idea eral impression that listening is a merely neg-
in the British Isles in great numbers.
worth listening to. These talkers are found ative proceeding, but such is very far from
There being really the case. A perfectly inert per-
is no It son is not a good listener, any more than a
you live in a street, and will only sit at your talk to manifest intelligence, to show interest,
bolster is. You require the recipient of your
window for a sufficient length of time, one of
and, what is more, to feel it. The fact is, that
to listen well- -as to do anything else well
is not easy. It is not easy even to seem to
listen well, as we observe notably in the con-
duct of bad actors and stage amateurs, who
break down in this particular, perhaps more

with him, the recipient of that small dropping |
talk
calling his friend's attention to a baker's shop
German, you see: Frantzmann, German name.
what is he saying? He is saying, "Ah,
Great many German bakers in London: Ger- often and more frequently than in any other.

like that of anybody else; it sometimes | eleven o'clock, the mists had dissolved put me in mind of another voice out of into a silent silver and nightingalethe past. There was an earnest wit, a broken dream—in which were vaporous gentle audacity and simplicity of expres- downs, moonlight, sweet sudden stars, sion that made it come home to us all. and clouds drifting, like some slow flight Of late, E. R. was saying he spoke with of silver birds. L- took us to a little a quiet and impressive authority that we terrace at the end of his father's garden. all unconsciously acknowledged. The All the kingdoms of the night lay spread end of pain was near. Of his long suf- before us, bounded by dreams. For a ferings he never complained. But if he minute we stood listening to the sound spoke of himself, it was with some kind of the monotonous wave that beats away little joke or humourous conceit and allu- our time in this pleasant place, and then sion to the philosophy of endurance, nor it ceased-and in the utter silence a was it until after his death that we knew cuckoo called, and then the nightingale what his martyrdom had been, nor with began, and then the wave answered once what courage he had borne it. more. It will all be a dream to-morrow, He thought of serious things very con- as we stumble into the noise, and light, stantly, although not in the conventional and work of life again. Monday comes manner. One of the last times that we commonplace, garish, and one can scarce met he said to me, "I feel more and more believe in the mystical Sunday night. convinced that the love of the Father is And yet this tranquil Sunday night is not unlike that of an earthly father, and more true than the flashiest gas-lamp that as an earthly father, so He rejoices in Piccadilly. Natural things seem inin the prosperity and material well-doing spired at times, and beyond themselves, of his children." Another time, quoting and to carry us upwards and beyond our from the Roundabout Papers, he said gas-lamps; so do people seem revealed suddenly, "Be good, my dear.' Depend to us at times in the night, when all is upon it, that is the whole philosophy of life; it is very simple."

Speaking of a friend, he said with some emotion, "I think I love M. as well as if he were dead."

peace.

From Macmillan's Magazine. He had a fancy, that we all used to THE TRAVELLER'S CALENDAR. laugh over with him, of a great central [THE following List has been compiled for building, something like the Albert Hall, travellers anxious to make the best use of their for friends to live in together, with gal-time aboad. Curious and interesting events leries for the sleepless to walk in at night.

Perhaps some people may think that allusions so personal as these are scarcely fitted for the pages of a Magazine, but what is there in truth more unpersonal than the thought of a wise and gentle spirit, of a generous and truthful life? Here is a life that belongs to us all; we have all been the better for the existence of the one man. He could not be good without doing good in his generation, nor speak the truth as he did without adding to the sum of true things. And the lesson that he taught us was "Let us be true to ourselves; do not let us be afraid to be ourselves, to love each other and to speak and to trust in each other."

Last night the moon rose very pale at first, then blushing flame-like through the drifting vapours as they rose far beyond the downs; a great black-bird sat watching the shifting shadowy worlds from the bare branch of a tree, and the colts in the field set off scampering. Later, about

are often missed from not knowing when they occur. The writer went to Naples a few years ago to see the "liquefaction of the blood of St. Januarius" on the 19th to 26th September. By waiting till December he might have intent, the great Festa of the year at Loreto cluded in one journey of very little more ex(Dec. 10), the "liquefaction" at Naples (Dec. 16), and Christmas Day at Rome -two of which events he missed merely for want of some such list as that now given. It is hoped that the somewhat unusual appearance of such a calendar in Macmillan will be pardoned by its readers for the sake of the end it seeks to gain. Every care has been taken to insure accuracy in the dates, but mistakes will inevitably occur in a first attempt, and the writer will be glad to receive corrections or suggestions for use in a republication next year, should the calendar meet with approval. EDITOR M. M.]

I. IMMOVABLE.
January.

1. The Circumcision. Papal Chapel at
the Sistine; *
drawing for patron
"Papal Chapel" signifies the presence of the

6. The Epiphany. Procession in the
Ara Cali Church, and benedic-
tion with the Santo Bambino 10.
from the top of the steps; ser-
vices in different languages and 12.
with various rituals, at the Pro- 22. Illumination round the miraculous
paganda Church and Sant' An-
drea della Valle, throughout the 23.