climb in imitation of nature. And yet people of such finely artistic perceptions, so passionately fond of music, and so exquisitely capable of judging it, will tread thus ruthlessly over the grave, which the English or American child is taught so reverently to pass around. And yet

English and American graveyards are gloomy as death compared with the South German ! It is a mystery, a contradiction, one of those innumerable paradoxes of the German character.

The graves are

The South German mind is utterly hollow and vain, sacrificing utility or noble reverence for gauds at any time. Why do not the multitudes tread over the grave beautiful with ivy and coral or natural alabaster? Simply because of their devotion to the form of beauty. not ornamented even because of affection, but because of a devotion to the gay, the brilliant, the beautiful in superficial things. Says Louis Ehlert: "The hasty demands of life do not stop to inquire whether it be Sabbath or not; they surprise man amid the worship of the Beautiful, and scarcely give him time to refrain from profanation of the altar." But the South Germans sacrifice everything upon the altar of the Beautiful, even piety to the dead, and worship there alway.

Between Bingen, "dear Bingen on the Rhine," and Ehrenbreitstein, the Rhine traverses a defile which, though far less sublime and elevated than Harper's Ferry, reminds the American of that historic pass. Wherever there is the smallest sunny bank or handful of earth amid the towering ledges, the industrious peasants have terraced it with walls and planted it with vines, so that the innumerable little zigzag walls and cross-walls have the appearance of an immense honeycomb.

Everywhere else are the somber pines, while

"Above, the frequent feudal towers

Through green leaves lift their walls of gray,
And many a rock which steeply lowers,
And noble arch in proud decay."

But

He who has never voyaged from Bingen down the Rhine, between these time-old walls, where it moves in majesty, may well believe that when a German cradled on its banks relates its natural glories, he does but speak with a fond and filial exaggeration; and that the artist who has labored to portray them has sought rather to repay a debt of gratitude than to sketch a truthful panorama. when he comes and beholds the object of these seeming adulations, his incredulity straightway vanishes. Whether gazing on the "walls of gray" which crown many a towering crest, or on the giant palisades in liveries of softest, richest brown, or on the sloping ledges and vast, overthrown boulders whose emerald tints seem only a deepened reflex of the silken, sea-green waves which glide beneath them, he declares in his rapture that these unhewn walls yield hues more noble than the artist ever spread upon his canvas. However bleak, and cold, and gray the hand of nature may have penciled ledges in drier and higher regions, here they seem warm, and soft, and glowing. However hard and grim may be the surroundings of the Rhine where it is cradled among the thundering avalanches and the savage granite of Alpine solitudes, it flows down at length in the tranquil majesty of its greatness, along exuberant and picturesque valleys which its own green waters have fructified, and through mountain gorges which its own humid influence has softened and green-limned with beauty.

THE KAISER'S RESOLVE.

I.

Sweet are the uses of adversity,

Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head.

SHAKSPEARE.

N 1848 three crazy words from France created such an

made a long skip. Uncle, father, were both set aside, in that year of rejuvenescence, and the boy Francis Joseph reigned Kaiser of Austria. The House of Hapsburg, however, did not skip as many traditions as years, and Hungary revolted. But the struggle of revolution went sore against her, through treachery and division, and the end was now daily awaited.

One evening the young Kaiser, unutterably disgusted and bewildered with the state business to which he was so little used, was reclining languidly in an easy-chair before the fire in a small private parlor of the old Burg. With his feet resting across a footstool cushioned like an ottoman, he slipped far down in the capacious chair, crossed his hands over the arms, turned his head wearily to one side, snuggled it deep into the rich downy velvet, and was soon lost in sleep. From this he was awakened by a messenger, bringing a telegram from Pesth, they having orders to bring him such at whatever hour. Muttering a petulant curse upon the lackey, he sleepily reached out his hand, took the message, dropped it, cursed the

lackey for his awkwardness, took it again, and laid it on the cushion, without once lifting his head.

Some time after the messenger went out, a brand of fire fell down, startling him a little, when he remembered the telegram, stretched it out with both hands, and read:

ARMY HEADQUARTERS, PESTH,
October 7, 1849.

TO HIS IMPERIAL MAJESTY The Kaiser.

Since Görgey's surrender at Világos, the whole province has been tranquilized. The rebel soldiers have been dispersed to their homes, and quiet prevails. Yesterday the nine generals were shot at Arad.

HAYNAU, FZM.

"So! then it is over. Pity nine had to be shot," soliloquized the young Kaiser half aloud; and then, after heavily and drowsily blinking at the paper three or four times, he rolled his head over again, snuggled it into the velvet, and slowly the uplifted hands drifted down, down, down, till they softly rested on the chair again, and the paper slipped from their nerveless grasp, and fluttered to the floor. Weariness prevailed, and he was slumbering again.

Whither wandered the dreams of the imperial sleeper? Did his roving imagination return to the hated workcabinet in the vast and lonely Burg, whence he had just escaped, to drag him again through the thousand arguments and cross-arguments with which his ministers and dispatches from his jangling provinces daily distracted his pampered young life?

No; the remembrance of the message still lingers, and he wanders in dreams far away to the battle-fields of unhappy Hungary. He gropes his way among the hideous and blackened ruins. The vultures, scared from the un

buried corpses, flap and scream around him. Human heads, bloody and horrible with their protruding eyes, stare at him from the tops of poles. He stops at last before the patriot generals doomed by his command to death. The files of executioners stand stolidly before them. There are the faint words of preparation, each slightest sound being terribly distinct in the awful stillness. He hears the muskets click. Then a second word of command, low but plain. The fatal crash of muskets is heard. They fall, writhing and ghastly, and the bright blood spirts on their gorgeous Magyar uniforms. The young

Kaiser leaps to his feet, with a shudder of unspeakable horror, catching his breath convulsively!

The low buzz of commands was only the purring of the fire; the crash of musketry, the brands falling again; and the bright streams of blood, the flickering, expiring flames.

Thus was announced, and thus was received, the news of the downfall of poor Hungary, and the beginning of one of the most hellish retributions recorded in history.

II.

Eighteen long years rolled away, and some of them left their imprint in wrinkles upon the face of Francis Joseph. Its boyish roundness was gone, it had grown longer, apparently, and was pulled down and pulled together into something very like an habitual scowl. It was a small and delicate face, but there was little meaning in the eyes, except a kind of querulous appeal to be let alone. The cares of his bedlam of provinces, forever wrangling and bickering, and the unvarying succession of disappointments, defeats, bankruptcies, and disagreements with his ministers, had soured his temper. He was always