“O deep, exulting freedom of the hills! 
    O summits vast, that to the climbing view
    In naked glory stand against the blue! 
  O cold and buoyant air, whose crystal fills
  Heaven’s amethystine gaol!  O speeding streams
    That foam and thunder from the cliffs below! 
    O slippery brinks and solitudes of snow
  And granite bleakness, where the vulture screams! 
  O stormy pines, that wrestle with the breath
    Of every tempest, sharp and icy horns
    And hoary glaciers, sparkling in the morns,
  And broad dim wonders of the world beneath! 
  I summon ye, and mid the glare that fills
  The noisy mart, my spirit walks the hills.”

* * * * *

GLADNESS OF NATURE.—­Midnight—­when asleep so still and silent—­seems inspired with the joyous spirit of the owls in their revelry—­and answers to their mirth and merriment through all her clouds.  The moping owl, indeed!—­the boding owl, forsooth! the melancholy owl, you blockhead! why, they are the most cheerful, joy-portending, and exulting of God’s creatures.  Their flow of animal spirits is incessant—­crowing cocks are a joke to them—­blue devils are to them unknown—­not one hypochondriac in a thousand barns—­and the Man-in-the-Moon acknowledges that he never heard one utter a complaint.

THE NOONING.

Mr. Darley’s very characteristic picture on the opposite page needs no description, it so thoroughly explains itself, and realizes his intention.  The following lines from Mary Howitt seem very appropriate to the sketch: 

  “O golden fields of bending corn,
      How beautiful they seem! 
  The reaper-folk, the piled up sheaves,
      To me are like a dream;
  The sunshine and the very air
  Seem of old time, and take me there.”

A MANDARIN.

FROM THE FRENCH OF AUGUSTE VITU.

It was Saturday night, and the pavement sparkled with frost diamonds under flashing lights and echoing steps in the opera quarter.  Tinkling carnival bells and wild singing resounded from all the carriages dashing towards Rue Lepelletier; the shops were only half shut, and Paris, wide awake, reveled in a fairy-night frolic.

And yet, Felix d’Aubremel, one of the bright applauded heroes of those orgies, seemed in no mood to answer their mad challenge.  Plunged in a deep armchair, hands drooping and feet on the fender, he was sunk in sombre revery.  An open book lay near him, and a letter was flung, furiously crumpled, on the floor.

An orphan at the age of twelve, Felix had watched his mother’s slow death through ten years of suffering.  The Marquis Gratien d’Aubremel, ruined by reckless dissipation, and driven by necessity, rather than love, into a marriage with an English heiress, Margaret Malden, deserted her, like the wretch he was, as soon as the last of her dowry melted away.  A common story enough, and ending in as common a close.