Year: 1868

10 snrll la "a are ye since to love and live


Achille de Beaumont was u young Frencl
physician, with great many days of leis.
ure to be accounted fora title, a chateau
and innumerable fertile estates, to Which
on the death of his father, he would fall
heir; yet strange to say, with all these
golden temptations, added to a strikingly
handsome person, he stood that wonder OF
wonders in this degenerate age, the un-
spoiled possessor of gifts that have driven
thousands to their ruin. Endowed with
that high sense of honor and chivalrous
sense of duty to God, his country, and fell
bowman, for which the families of the an
Glen regime were renowned, he started in life
with the determination to use his time,
talents, and prospects as might best pro-
mote the fulfillment of these objects. Travel
possessed great attractions for him, both
for the development it afforded his own
mental powers, as well as for the excite
ment and novelty with which each new
scene seemed to invest his life. Europe he
knew by heart ; not that he ever wearied
of its innumerable pages, fraught with all
that can exalt the mind, glorify art, and
hallow its remembrance; but there can be
at times a safety of the beautiful-times
when the mind needs rest from too much
thought, and the heart grows weary with
it's own weight of feeling-and laboring un-
der some such influence, Achille determined
to try a newer and less exciting scene, and
with the prejudice SO common among the
most enlightened Europeans, he expected
to find in America the repose of wood and
hill, dotted here and there with peaceful
hamlet and vale, little dreaming of the
never-sleeping activity, noise, and confu-
sion which would be his first greeting in the
new world toward which he determined to
trace his steps. It was the fourth evening
of his arrival in the great Gotham, and we
meet him sauntering along Broadway with
his old American friend, Harold Egmont,
whom he had not met since they parted last
under the shadow of the mighty pyramids /;
for the last time, remembering all the pleas
ant days they had passed in travel together,
parting now perhaps never to meet again,
each felt that the shadow on their own
hearts was as deep as that which for forty
centuries these old-time monuments had
thrown upon earth and sky.


Well, Achille," said Egmont, g are you
weary yet of the rush and whirl of our go
ahead people, or are you still lost i'll wonder
at what you just called our giant strides to
possess all the world 2


Weary of this incessant, slecpless whirl
this wheel OF IXion-I must confess to
being but at the same time must ac-
knowledge that every moment only increase
my amazement at the untiring velocity with
which you Americans grasp everything,
from Il land speculation to a tilibuster meet
ing. One might almost be tempted tc think
that when the archangel blows his note of
doom, the American people will never think
themselves included in the summons, for
surely they never take time either to hear
or think"


''>You are mistaken, my dear fellow;
there are plenty of thinking minds among
our people," said Egmont, with some
warmth, otherwise where would we find
the brains that furnish SO many magazines,
newspapers, etc., with such fund of :ead-
ing matter beside, you must remember,
that we are the greatest reading people in
the world, though 1 must confess that an
awful amount Of trash is consumed in tue
process; but after you get out of this bed
lam, and visit some of our interior and less
cosmopolitan cities, your opinion will take
q wider range and your views do us more
Justice. But let me see Il think you are
Il little cnnuyed with being already lionized
by Fifth Avenue eyes; what do you say to
Il look at Grisi in '' Norma" to- night after
that a petit s0Mper, and a quiet tete-d-tete
about home scenes and old times; just you
and alone?'


That will suit me exactly. True, |
have not much curiosity to hear Grisi. be-
cause the critics say she is but the shadow
of her former self; and as l last heard her
in the very zenith of her greatness and
glory, do not quite fancy destroying the
spell she then cast around me; but GrIsl
can never be mediocre, and in g Norma" to
sec her is of itself aPieture that needs no
sound of voice to interpret its rrdiscmbtance
so let's be off,


Arrived at the opera house, finding it
early and no sign of IL crowd, they stood on
the pavement watching the 'comers, and
continuing their conversation, when Their
attention was attracted by a handsome prl-
vate carriage, drawing up Immediately un-
der the gas light by which they were stand