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shoot off a pistol in the forests, and clamber up the trees like a squirrel, for she was peculiarly agile (Goethe called her the Little Mouse). One day, when in an uncommonly frolicsome mood she had ascended into one of the Gothic sculptures of the Cologne Cathedral, she commenced a letter in the following way to Goethe's mother:

"Lady Counselor, how alarmed you would be to see me now, seated in a Gothic rose."

Somewhere else she says: "I prefer dancing to walking, and I prefer flying to dancing."

Bettina arrived at Weimar after passing several sleepless nights. on the box of the coach. She immediately called on Wieland, who knew her family; and obtained from him a letter, introducing her to Goethe. On arriving at the house of the great poet, she waited a few minutes before seeing him. Suddenly the door opened, and Goethe appeared.

"He surveyed me solemnly and fixedly. I believe I stretched out my hands towards him-I felt my strength failing me! Goethe folded me to his heart, murmuring the while, 'Poor child! have I frightened you?' These were the first words he uttered, and they entered my soul. He led me into his room, and made me sit on the sofa before him. We were then both speechless. He at last broke the silence. 'You will have read in the paper,' he said, 'that a few days ago we sustained a great loss through the death of the Duchess Amelia' (the Dowager Duchess of Saxe-Weimar). 'Oh!' I answered, 'I never read the papers.'— 'Indeed! I imagined that everything in relation to Weimar interested you.' 'No, nothing interests me excepting yourself; moreover, I am much too impatient to read a newspaper.' 'You are a charming child.' Then came a long pause. I was still exiled on that fatal sofa, shy and trembling. You know it is impossible for me to remain sitting like a well-bred person. Alas! mother" (it was Goethe's mother to whom she was writing), "my conduct was utterly disgraceful. I at last exclaimed, 'I cannot remain on this couch!' and I arose suddenly. 'Well, do as you please,' he replied. I threw my arms round his neck, and he drew me on his knee, pressing me to his heart."

In reading this scene, we must remember that it took place in Germany, not in France! She remained long enough on his shoulder to fall asleep; for she had been traveling for several nights, and was exhausted with fatigue. Only on awakening did

she begin conversing a little.

Goethe plucked a leaf off the vine that clustered round his window, and said, "This leaf and your cheek have the same freshness and the same bloom." My readers may be inclined to think this scene quite childish; but Goethe soon divulged to her his most serious and intimate thoughts. He became nearly emotional in speaking of Schiller, saying that he had died two springs ago; and on Bettina interrupting him to remark that she did not care for Schiller, he explained to her all the beauties of this poetical nature,- so dissimilar to his own, but one of infinite grandeur; a nature he himself had the generosity to fully appreciate.

The evening of the next day Bettina saw Goethe again at Wieland's; and on her appearing to be jealous regarding a bunch of violets he held, which she supposed had been given him by a woman, he threw her the flowers, remarking, "Are you not content if I give them to you?" These first scenes at Weimar were childlike and mystic, though from the very first marked by great intensity; it would not have been wise to enact them every day. At their second meeting, which took place at Wartburg after an interval of a few months, Bettina could hardly speak, so deep was her emotion. Goethe placed his hand on her lips and said, Speak with your eyes-I understand everything;" and when he saw that the eyes of the charming child, "the dark, courageous child," were full of tears, he closed them, adding wisely, "Let us be calm it beseems us both to be so!" But in recalling these scenes, are you not tempted to exclaim, "What would Voltaire have said?"

JOSEPH XAVIER BONIFACE SAINTINE

(1798-1865)

AINTINE, the author of the familiar classic Picciola,' was in many respects a fortunate man. He was endowed with a contagious optimism, which made him friends and brought him success. From his earliest efforts in authorship, he won readers by the cheering spirit of his pages and his refined sympathy with his fellows. He had no long apprenticeship of failure. His first work, entitled 'Bonheur de l'Étude,' brought him a prize from the French Academy when he was only twenty-one. Two years later he received

a second prize from the Academy, for a discourse upon mutual instruction. A volume of pleasing verse-'Poésies' - appeared in 1823, which was characterized by the fresh romantic spirit, kept within bounds by classical influences.

Saintine was a contributor to many journals; among them the Revue de Paris, the Siècle, the Constitutionnel, and La Revue Contemporaine. He did some interesting historical work, 'Histoire des Guerres d'Italie'; and made a study of German folk-lore, Mythologie du Rhin': but he was best known for his stories. Seul,' one of the most interesting, is the story, simply and vividly told, of Alexander Selkirk, the original of Defoe's Robinson Crusoe.

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SAINTINE

But by far his most famous work was 'Picciola,' which brought him more fame and more money than all the others. It has been republished more than forty times, and translated into many languages, and is still a favorite everywhere. The Academy awarded it the Montyon prize of three thousand francs, and decorated its author with the cross of the Legion of Honor. The story is exquisitely told,of the rich and scholarly but blasé young nobleman, who, while a State prisoner in the fortress of Fenestrella, finds a little plant springing between the paving-stones of his court, watches it, loves it, makes it his companion, and is gradually regenerated by its revelation to him of natural and divine law. Picciola the plant becomes to him

Picciola the ideal maiden of his heart and imagination. There is a charming love tale too. Thérèse, a beautiful unselfish girl, is watching over her father, who is also a prisoner. Picciola is likely to die unless the paving-stones pressing on her stem are removed. It is Thérèse who takes charge of the Count's despairing petition to Napoleon. After the gloom and suffering comes the happy ending. In this book, Saintine's own love of nature is revealed in delicate descriptive touches.

For a Parisian - he was born at Paris in 1798, and died there in 1865- he had an unusual sympathy with nature. His mind had a healthy turn toward all that was alive and growing, and hence the high moral tone and nobility of his work. He was a man whose vigorous appreciation of life was refined and strengthened by education. He was acquainted with books, and versed in natural science; and he wrote with scholarly finish as well as with spontaneity.

To read the touching story of Picciola makes it seem incongruous to think of Saintine as a humorist. Yet with the pseudonym of "Xavier he was a comic dramatist of great popularity. In collaboration with leading writers of vaudeville, he composed over two hundred such works. Julien' and 'L'Ours et le Pacha,' witty vaudevilles written with Eugène Scribe, were particularly brilliant successes.

In his old age Saintine gave up writing, and passed a peaceful happy leisure, with abundant means and surrounded by friends.

FROM PICCIOLA'

Copyright 1865, by Hurd & Houghton

[The Count of Charney, a rich, young, and intellectual nobleman, has vainly and successively tried to find satisfaction in literature, science, metaphysics, and dissipation. In disgust with existing social conditions, he conspires against the government of Napoleon, is arrested, and cast into the fortress of Fenestrella. He is allowed neither books, pens, nor paper; and is forced to exercise all his ingenuity to find the slightest diversion from his hopeless thoughts.]

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NE day at the prescribed hour Charney was walking in the court-yard; his head bowed, his arms crossed behind his back, pacing slowly, as if he could so make the narrow space which he was permitted to perambulate seem larger.

Spring announced its coming; a softer air dilated his lungs; and to live free, and be master of the soil and of space, seemed to him the goal of his desires.

He counted one by one the paving-stones of his little court, - doubtless to verify the exactness of his former calculations, for it was by no means the first time he had numbered them,— when he perceived, there under his eyes, a little mound of earth raised between two stones, and slightly opened at the top. He stopped; his heart beat without his being able to tell why. But all is hope or fear for a captive: in the most indifferent objects. and the most insignificant events, he seeks some hidden cause which speaks to him of deliverance.

Perhaps this slight derangement on the surface might be produced by some great work underground; perhaps a tunnel, which would open and make a way for him to the fields and mountains. Perhaps his friends or his former accomplices were mining to reach him, and restore him to life and liberty.

He listened attentively, and fancied he heard a low, rumbling noise under ground; he raised his head, and the tremulous air bore to him the rapid stroke of the tocsin, and the continued roll of drums along the ramparts, like a signal of war. He started, and with a trembling hand wiped from his forehead great drops of sweat.

Was he to be free? Had France changed its master? This dream was only a flash. Reflection destroyed the illusion. He had no accomplices, and had never had friends. He listened again: the same sounds struck his ear, but gave rise to other thoughts. This stroke of the tocsin, and the roll of the drum, were only the distant sound of a church bell that he heard every day at the same hour, and the accustomed call to arms, which need only excite emotion in a few straggling soldiers of the citadel.

Charney smiled bitterly, and looked upon himself with pity, when he thought that some insignificant animal-a mole who had without doubt lost his way, or a field-mouse who had scratched up the earth under his feet - had caused him to believe for an instant in the affection of men and the overthrow of a great empire.

In order to make his mind quite clear about it, however, he stooped over the little mound and carefully removed some of the particles of earth; and saw with astonishment that the wild agitation which had overcome him for an instant had not even been caused by a busy, burrowing, scratching animal, armed with

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