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us making for such a world? we are to be deprived of all means of exercising such faculties as we have spent our lives in training and cultivating here, what is the use of training and cultivating them at all? Why are these passionate desires given us here for what seems to us pure and noble, if, the moment we pass away from earth, they become perfectly useless? If to-morrow you were to deprive me of all these occupations, I should be very unhappy; and how can I be happy there deprived of them-that is, so long as I maintain my own identity and consciousness?

Belton. At all events I hope I shall have some kind of body to inhabit and use. It seems to me dreadful to think of wandering about a mere naked spirit, with no house to cover one. In fact, without a body I should be nobody. The idea of being blown about by the wind, or of being open to invasion by every other spirit, without any power of secrecy of thought and feeling, is abhorrent to my notions. I do not care to keep this body if I can find a better; but this is better than none; and I have lived in it so long, and had so much happiness in it, that I have a sort of fondness for it. If I take a new one, I should like it fresher, better, and handsomer in every way, more quickly responsive to the spirit, and not so easily tired.

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should like too to be able to go to sleep in it, and so make excursions from it into other regions; for, of course, I hope there will be upper regions still. And of all things I should hope to be able to be alone sometimes, if I chose. I like the odour of flowers. Do spirits smell? Are we to be out of our senses, so to speak? I hope not.

Mallett. Did you ever read 'The Gates Ajar,' by Miss Elizabeth Phelps? She takes up this question and develops it in a most peculiar way, and with much talent.

Belton. Yes, I have read it; and I hear it is very popular, as of course it would be. The vague notions of a future state of existence which are generally entertained are quite unsatisfactory. And I can easily understand that such a view as hers would recommend itself to many. Her development of it to me is quite too material.

Mallett. At all events it does, after a peculiar fashion to be sure, recognise that the tastes, feelings, thoughts, and aspirations we cultivate here will not be utterly obliterated hereafter, and will find something hereafter to correspond to them.

But come! our conversation has wandered widely enough, and it is time to break off. "Light thickens, and the wing to the rooky wood." go and see it on the Pincio.

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makes

Let us

JOHN'S HERO.

THE book, in which you take so warm an interest, is a mere work of fiction; and yet, as you judiciously observe, it is one without which no gentleman's library is complete. You ask who wrote it. You will be surprised to hear that it was produced by two authors. One of these is a man of world-wide reputation. The Japanese student has adopted him with the graceful costume of English civilisation, and his name is misspelt by the Parisian journalist. The other author is comparatively unknown: he is my friend, and his Christian name is John.

Tom, Dick, Harry, John, and I were some few years ago a set at an Oxford college. Widely different in character, we had each his friends outside the little circle; but we five were bound most closely together by the memory of bright days of boyhood and of comical scrapes enjoyed by all together. But enough of this. We have left Oxford, and the old ties are loosened. Each has found for himself an absorbing occupation, and our intimacy has in some cases dwindled to a mere grunt in the street. The sagacious Tom is already a rising lawyer, and has lost his colour. The graceful Dick offers incense at the shrine of art, draws daily longer limbs of sadder women, and has already painted ten thousand sun - flowers. Harry, our golden youth, whose Pactolus flows foaming from the paternal vats, walks with stiff legs in the park, and dances with bent knees in the ball-room. When in London he has his flowers from the country; when in the country, from Covent Garden. He plays his hockey on horseback, and does his skating on wheels; keeps

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a yacht in the harbour, and a stud in the stable; pays for one theatre, and goes every night to another;

in short, sees life, and is as bored by the sight as if he were not the grandson of a jovial tapster. Henry, Richard, and Thomas, friends of my youth, you have gone from me! Indeed I have no time to cultivate you farther, for I have an engrossing occupation too. My whole time and my whole attention are given to the study and to the encouragement of John. John is the most remarkable young man of the age. Indeed he is too great for an age in which the division of labour is carried to excess. Tom delights in law; but how could John, with extended vision and impatient genius, limit himself to the composition of jargon for a conveyancer? Dick revels gracefully in art; but how should John be content with a reputation for painting the sunny side of sheep? And indeed it seems likely that, as the great banker yields to the joint-stock company, so will the great artist be superseded by a union of the small, and a single canvas will display Mr Hobson's unrivalled cows reclining beneath the world-renowned elms of Mr Thompson, while the stream duly patented by Mr Jackson through the inimitable meadow of Mr Harrison, and Mr Robinson's famous young lady in short-waisted white muslin treads the unpretending daisy of the modest Mr Dixon. So is it with other professions. If it has been once admitted that an actor can play an old Frenchman, the world will have none of his young Frenchman nor of his old Englishman. He may play the

runs

Dutchman all his life and make a fortune thereby, but people won't be bothered by his German, however near the border. Finally, the man of letters, if he have a reputation for the knowledge of butter, I will have his essay on cream returned to him with a civil note from his publisher. In such a world what place is there for John? He cannot be content to invent a machine for fixing the wire on corks. To make wire, cork, bottle, and explosive liquor, would scarce be work enough for him. He is a giant in an age of clever pigmies, and should have stood by the great Leonardo wielding the chisel, the brush, and the pen, or played a whole orchestra of instruments while he planned a fort or a cathedral. To the sound of music the slender arches spring to the high point of meeting; the marble floor spreads wide and white below; and the great church, broad for all men and yearning up to God, stands a meet symbol for my friend. Is it strange that I should find the work of my life in watching, encouraging, and hoping for him? But I grow tedious, as I always do when I embark on this subject. I must to my story.

One evening I received a note from John, who begged me to come to him the next morning before breakfast. I am not an early riser; but I refuse my friend nothing. I found him alone, in the simplyfurnished den which opens out of his bedroom on the third floor of a street, which you must forgive me me for not naming. It was a cold, bright morning, and yet I found my friend leaning on his elbows at the open window. A pang of fear shot through me all, even the most perfect characters, have one weak point I was certain that John loved. The worst sign was that he remained unconscious of my pre

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sence. With a sensation of sickness I foresaw the future, and myself without an occupation. I saw him in a suburban villa and the odour of respectability, owner of a dining-room with a sideboard, a wife with a milliner, a coach-house with a perambulator. Could I find interest in watching him, as he bent all his great powers to the acquisition of a Victoria instead of the chariot of fame? I sighed ; and John, at last conscious of my presence, seized me by the arm, and, drawing me hastily to the window, bade me look. I was dizzy, and could scarcely see. I drew my hand across my eyes, expectant of the picture of a young girl watering her mignonette. I have read of such things in books, and I looked for that air of innocent unconsciousness of male observation, which is dear to the sentimental novelist, and characteristic of the more charming sex. How different a sight met my eyes when they had recovered their wonted powers!

On the second floor of the opposite house was a window, of which the lower part was covered by a muslin blind: above this blind appeared a broad fat shoulder; and the shoulder was undoubtedly masculine. Across its ample surface a rough towel was passing and repassing with wonderful celerity.

"That shoulder," said John, solemnly, "supports the best head in England, the head of Mr Damon."

"But what is he doing?" I asked. "He is promoting his circulation."

"After his bath, I suppose?" "I can't say," answered John "but every morning at or about this hour, I observe the rub."

"And yet he is a hero in your eyes!" I exclaimed.

"Yes," said he, and his fine eyes flashed; "if I were to see his statue in an aquarium, he would still b

my hero. He is the man for whom I have been waiting-a man of the most varied talents, of balanced conduct, of perfect culture. I am going to sit at his feet."

"Then I can't go on sitting at yours,” cried I, in some perturbation.

"I can teach nothing," said he; "but," he added, in a tone of deep feeling, "I am going to learn.”

"Do you know him?" I asked. "No; but I shall in less than two hours. I am going to him, as one can to a truly great man, to tell him that I have need of him. I will do anything for him, from blacking his boots to correcting his proofs."

"Or rubbing his back?" I ventured to suggest.

"I cannot aspire to so much honour," said John.

We breakfasted almost in silence. My friend was evidently nervous; and I was wondering if there would be much change in him, if he would be improved out of my reach, beyond my power of appreciation. At 10.30, he swallowed a powerful dose of sal-volatile, wrung my hand in silence, and left me. I saw him cross the road. From the opposite door-step he waved his hand, like a young and stainless knight bound on some great quest, and disappeared.

If you wish to hear my account of my friend's intercourse with Mr Damon, I must first warn you that some of the details, in which I delight, are inferred from others which John has given me, and from my knowledge of my friend's character, which I have studied so long. But you care nothing for this. And so let me to my story.

John explained to the maid-servant who admitted him that he would introduce himself. As he walked slowly but firmly up-stairs he thought of Boswell's first interview with Johnson, and of that happy day when Eckermann first saw the great Goethe "dressed in a blue frock-coat, and with shoes." "What a sublime form!" was the comment of the German youth; but the more taciturn Englishman made no such observation on entering the room of Mr Damon. Opposite to him, as he entered, was a large back still slouching over the breakfast-table. "Some more toast," said the sage.

"I beg your pardon," said John.

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"Hollo! oh! eh!" and Mr Damon turned slowly in his chair.

My friend found himself much embarrassed. "I took the liberty," he began.

"Oh! ah! precisely! but I am afraid I must ask you to call again. The fact is, that I don't happen to have it by me."

"I beg your pardon," said John. "You can leave the bill, you know."

It was an unlucky beginning. As the two men looked at each other it became gradually clear to the elder that the gallant young fellow before him was neither his slavey nor an unreasonable shopboy. John did not know what to say, confounded partly by the difficulty of explaining his purpose, partly by the confusion which was painfully apparent on the large face before him. Mr Damon rolled his big head, and. then had nothing better to say than, "Would not you like-in fact-to take a chair?"

John took a chair, and a pause ensued. But he felt that he could

not sit silent. He was just on the point of speaking of the weather, when he was moved to make a bold plunge, and said abruptly, "I want to thank you for all the good which I have got from your writings." The great man looked at him suspiciously he thought that he was going to be asked for an autograph. His guest went on earnestly"I hope that I have not been wrong in coming to you; but won't you tell me what to do?"

"What to do!" repeated the other, on whose open countenance was a strange mixture of embarrassment and dawning gratification.

"I mean, what to do with my life."

He

"Live it," said Mr Damon, on the spur of the moment, and with a happy reminiscence of one of his early sayings. It sounded well, and he repeated in a deeper tone, "Live it." Nor did it fail to make an impression on my friend. thought it over. Then, as he saw his host grow calm after his inspired utterance, and settle himself in his chair, he felt that he had established his footing, and prepared to enlarge on his difficulties. As he warmed with the subject, he grew almost eloquent. He spoke of his strong desire to do something which should add in some way to the public good; and said how hard it was to find the right thing to do. Philanthropy, even when harmless, could but cleanse one house in a city of corruption. Statesmanship seemed little more than the science of getting place. Business was a mere race for comforts, or a substitute for the gaminghouse. The mission of art was to tickle the fat ribs of the stall-fed financier; that of literature, to charm away those idle hours of the hectic matron which were not devoted to millinery or flirtation.

Such, briefly, was the talk of John, who, I confess, was at times no wiser than other clever youths, who are apt to be intoxicated by the sudden consciousness of their own cleverness, and by the nimbleness of their tongues. Only he is unlike them all. He is so truly enthusiastic and warm-hearted. He is such a really fine fellow.

As Mr Damon listened to his guest's speech, his attention became by degrees more and more closely fixed. He had heard a good deal which was very like it. Indeed, as he listened, there dawned again for him a day in his own youth when, with a crust of bread and an apple in his pocket, he had roamed from morning till nightfall among the Westmoreland hills, sometimes raving in verse, and sometimes wondering why nobody had come to set the clumsy world to rights before.

Yet he felt a stir about his heart which he had not experienced since he tried his first electric bath ten years before. The tones of the brave young voice were like wine to him. to him. Gradually one thought became predominant in his mind. He forgot that the boy was asking for help, as he wondered whether he could get help from the boy. Was it possible that his old faith, which he had never abandoned, but which had so long been a dead heap on which criticisms might be founded-was it possible that the mass could glow again? If he could but get regular doses of this fresh enthusiasm, what might he not accomplish even now? The solemn criticisms, with which he occupied himself daily, seemed to him in his unwonted mood heavy as dough. He remembered the works of his youth, and of his prime; and heard the echo of old praises. He remembered plans long since abandoned, for compressing all life into a work

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