writings, published in the Contemporary, says that "not even Tolstoi, with all that delicacy and keenness of the Russian conscience, that profound seriousness which moves us so variously in his great books, has a nobler consciousness of the dignity of suffering and virtue than this Spanish dramatist. And not less capable is he of a jesting survey of life. Echegaray writes in no fever of passion, and wastes no talent on the niceties of art. The morality and discontent that float from the meditative north, have reached him in his home of sunshine and easy emotions, and his work is pervaded nobly by its spirit. And unlike Ibsen, he illuminates thought with sane and connected action. Discontent never leads him to the verge of extravagance. Extravagance he conceives to be a part of youth, addicted to bombast and wild words. Man trades in other material than romantic language and rhodomontade. Hence he brings emphasis and plain speech to bear upon him when youth has had its fill through the long-winded, high-colored phases of his scribbling heroes. Thought, perhaps, travels too persistently along the shadowed paths, and we would be thankful to find our world reflected through his strong glass, dappled with a little of the uncertain but lovely sunshine that plays not the least part in the April weather of our life here. The note of unwavering sadness depresses. But, at least, it is not ignoble, and he conceives it borne with so much resignation and dignity that if the picture carries with it the colors of frailty, it brings a counterbalancing conception of the inherent greatness of man."

ERNEST'S INDEPENDENCE.

True, I know little of life, and am not well fitted to make my way through it. But I divine it, and tremble, I know not why. Shall I founder upon the world's pool as on the high sea! I may not deny that it terrifies me more than the deep ocean. The sea only reaches the limit set by the loose sand; over all space travel the emanations of the pool. A strong man's arms can struggle with the waves of the sea; but no one can struggle against subtle miasma. But if I fall I must not feel it humiliation to be conquered. I only wish, I only ask at the last moment to see the approach of the sea that will carry me whither it will, the sword that will pierce me, or the rock that will crush me. To feel my adversary's strength and despise it falling, despise it dying, and not tamely breathe the venom scattered through the ambient air.-From El Gran Galeoto.

"GIVE ME THE SUN."

A generation consumed by vice, which carries in its marrow the veins of impure love, in whose corrupted blood the red globules are mixed with putrid matter, must ever fall by degrees into the abysm of idiocy. Lázaro's cry is the last glimmer of a reason dropping into the eternal darkness of imbecility. At that very hour nature awakes and the sun rises; it is another twilight that will soon be all light.

Both twilights meet, cross, salute in recognition of eternal farewell at the end of the drama. Reason, departing, is held in the grip of corrupting pleasure. The sun, rising, with its immortal call, is pushed forward by the sublime force of Nature.

Down with human reason at the point of extinction; hail to the sun that starts another day!

"Give me the sun!" Lázaro cries to his mother. Don Juan also begs it through the tresses of the girl of Tarifa.

On this subject there is much to be said; it provokes much reflection. If, indeed, our society-but what the deuce am I doing with philosophy? Let each one solve

the problem as best he can, and ask for the sun, the horns of the moon, or whatever takes his fancy. And if nobody is interested in the matter it only proves that the modern Don Juan has engendered many children without Lázaro's talent.

Respectful salutations to the children of Don Juan.— From El Hijo de Don Juan; translated by HANNAH LYNCH.

THE DEDICATION TO EVERYBODY.

Ernest.-Imagine the principal personage one who creates the drama and develops it, who gives it life and provokes the catastrophe, who, broadly, fills and possesses it, and yet who cannot make his way to the stage.

Don Julian.-Is he so ugly, then? So repugnant or bad?

Ernest.-Not so. Ugly as you or I may be not worse. Neither good nor bad, and frequently not repugnant. I am not such a cynic-neither a misanthrope nor one so out of love with life as to fall into an error of that sort.

Don Julian.-What, then, is the reason?

Ernest. The reason, Don Julian, is that there is no material room in the scenario for this personage.

Don Julian.-Holy Virgin! What do you mean? Is it by chance a mythological drama with Titans in it? Ernest. Not at all. It is modern.

Don Julian.-Well, then?

Ernest.-Briefly-it is a question of everybody.

Don Julian.-Everybody! You are right. There is no room for everybody on the stage. It is an incontrovertible truth that has more than once been demonstrated.

Ernest. Then you agree with me?

Don Julian.-Not entirely. Everybody may be condensed in a few types and characters. This is matter beyond my depth, but such, I understand, has been the practice of the masters.

Ernest.-Yes; but in my case it is to condemn me not to write my drama.

Don Julian.-Why?

VOL. IX.-6

Ernest. For many reasons it would be difficult to explain; above all at this hour.

Don Julian.-Never mind. Give me a few.

Ernest.-Look! Each individual of this entire mass, each head of this monster of a thousand heads, of this Titan of the century, whom I call everybody, takes part in my play. It may be for a flying moment, to utter but one word, fling a single glance. Perhaps his action in the tale consists of a smile, seen but to vanish. Listless and absent-minded, he acts without passion, without anger, without guile, often for mere distraction's sake.

Don Julian.-What then?

Ernest. These light words, these fugitive glances, these indifferent smiles, all these passing murmurs and this petty evil, which may be called the insignificant rays of the dramatic light, condensed to one focus, to one family, result in conflagration and explosion, in strife and in victims. If I represent the whole by a few types or symbolical personages, I bestow upon each one that which is really dispensed among many, and such a result distorts my idea. Suppose a few types on the stage, whose guile repels and is less natural because evil in them has no object; this exposes me to a worse consequence, to the accusation of meaning to paint a cruel, corrupted, and debased society, when my sole pretension is to prove that not even the most insignificant actions are in themselves insignificant or lost for good or evil. For, added to the mysterious influences of modern life, they may reach to immense effects.

Don Julian-Say no more, my friend. All this is metaphysics. A glimmer of light, but an infinitude of cloud. However, you understand these things better than I do. Letters of exchange, shares, stock and discount, now--that's another matter.

Ernest.-You've common sense, and that's the chief

thing.

Don Julian.-Thanks, Ernest, you flatter me.
Ernest.-But you follow me ?

Don Julian.-Not in the least. There ought to be a way out of the difficulty.-From El Gran Galeoto.

EEKHOUD, GEORGES, a Belgian poet and novelist, was born at Antwerp, May 27, 1854. He became known as the editor of the Antwerp Précurseur; from which post he passed to the position of literary critic of the Étoile Belge. In 1877 he published a collection of poems entitled Myrtes et Cyprès; which was succeeded, in 1879, by Zigzags Poétiques and Les Pittoresques. Of the pieces published in these books, the most remarkable, in the opinion of French scholars, are Mare aux Sangsues; Nina; Raymonne; and, above all, La Guigne, a realistic poem. Later works are Kees Doorik (1884); Les Kermesses (1884); Les Milices de Saint-François (1886); Las Nouvelles Kermesses (1887); La Nouvelle Carthage (1888). This last is a romance in which contemporary life in the author's native city is represented in a very lively and remarkable manner. The people of the town and of the surrounding country, enriched by a half-century of prosperity, as they pass before the reader, present a moving tableau full of life and color.

"Of all the writers of the Young Belgium school," says Larousse, "M. Eekhoud is the one who has made the most strenuous effort to keep himself free from imitation of contemporaneous French authors." Gubernatis calls him an author "full of talent, but of pessimistic tendencies."