attend upon her, who is not himself sick, or is so self-sacrificing as to give up his own comfort for the sake of promoting hers, and who can consequently have a reclining chair or a mattress placed upon a settee, all nicely arranged for her, and her attendant ready to go and come for her, and provide for every want, it is probably better to be on deck; for here, under these exceptional circumstances, she can have the benefit of the horizontal position, the open air, and effect of the sky and the horizon upon her sensorium combined. But very few of the whole number of passengers can enjoy these advantages, and of gentlemen, except those who are very seriously sick, none. The question, therefore, whether it is better to remain quietly in one's berth or to go on deck and "take the air," depends much on the precise situation in which the party will find himself in the latter case. The condition of a lady lying upon a mattress, or even reclining upon an extending chair, with a pillow under her head and her body and limbs covered with blankets and shawls, is very different from that of her husband who sits by her side upon a camp-stool, with the bleak Atlantic winds whistling about his feet, and no support except some rigid wooden edge or bar against which he is crowded hard by the lurching of the ship at every plunge. Sometimes under such circumstances the gentleman seems to feel inclined to think it more comfortable in the state-room below, while his wife wonders why he wishes to remain shut up in such narrow quarters when it is so much pleasanter and so much better to be on deck in the open air. If there is any selfishness hidden away, however secretly, in the breast of man. or woman, it is pretty sure to find its way out to the surface at sea. Indeed traveling, in all its forms, is a wonderful means of bringing into action and so exposing to view the hidden traits of characterthe bad as well as the good. A young man will get a deeper insight into the temper and disposition, and the real mental constitution and character, of the lady whom he is inclined to choose as his partner for life, by making one voyage to Europe in company with her party, than by half a dozen seasons of association with her in the balls and concerts of a great city. The disabilities resulting from the motion of the sea are, in general, mainly overcome in a few days, and the ship, moreover, by that time is beginning to pass beyond the special domain of fogs, icebergs, and squalls, and to enter upon the broad and deep Atlantic, where there is at least some possibility of serene skies and gentle if not favoring gales. The passengers then begin to emerge, one by one, from the cabins and state-rooms where they have been concealed. All the available nooks and corners on the decks, where a little shelter can be found from the raw winds, are occupied by convalescent invalids. The seats at the long tables in the great cabin begin to be better filled at least at four of the five daily meals which constitute the system at sea; namely, breakfast, luncheon, dinner, tea, and sup per. At the rather brief intervals between these, when the stewards leave the tables free, groups are seen seated at them, some reading, some commencing their journals, some engaged in conversation, with a feeling of leisure and contentment which can nowhere else be so fully enjoyed. The ladies even sometimes bring out their work and establish themselves in cozy corners, where they form charming, though some times rather delusive, pictures of domestic industry and thrift. Those who have not yet quite strength or courage to present themselves in public, make the ladies' cabin their resort-a small apart ment, where they feel perfectly free from all the restraints and exactions of ceremony and dress, and can sit, or recline, or lie, as their inclination prompts them, and take their food when and how they please. Their gentlemen friends, such as are both agreeable and good-natured, are admitted to visit them there, to entertain the convalescents with reports of the weather, or the prospects of the voyage, and sometimes to read aloud some narrative or tale from the ship's library. There are always a few, more slow to recover from the sickness, or more indolent or timid, that still keep to their state-rooms, where they receive the calls of their friends, and even sometimes invite company to dinner. The cabins and state-rooms of an Atlantic steamer during the latter half of the voyage, when the weather is tolerable, are the scenes generally of a very active and incessant gossip -innocent because it is usually good-natured, and entertaining because it has the field entirely to itself. There is, in fact, nothing else to be done, and nothing to occupy the thoughts, for the mass of the company of passengers, but to inquire about, and talk about, their neighbors. A very large portion, consequently, of the conversation that would be heard by an invisible listener in the various nooks and corners occupied by the different groups, would be found to consist of speculations and surmises, and the communication of intelligence, more or less indirectly obtained, in respect to other groups and parties, and of introductions and other preliminaries to the formation of acquaintanceship between one party and another. In such a remarkably constituted society, consisting of a body of utter strangers to each other, but thrown by circumstances into the closest domestic intimacy, and exposed, moreover, as they all imagine, to common hardships and a common danger, it is very natural and very excusable that every body should wish to know who every body else is, and why and how they are crossing the Atlantic. The gossip which is developed by this state of things is, we repeat, innocent, for it is good-natured-the sense of a common danger predisposing each one to feel kindly toward the rest. You can not read much at sea, partly because fixing the eyes upon the book tends to bring back the giddy and bewildering sensation in the head, from which you are just recovering, and also because there is so much going on all around you to distract your attention from the book. You can not without great difficulty write at all. There is nothing to be done but to observe your neighbors, and to speculate about them. Is that young lady a bride, or is the gentleman who is with her her brother? Are that elderly gentleman and the pleasing young woman by his side husband and wife, or father and daughter? Is this pompous individual, who enters the dining-saloon with such an air, some mighty general, or a clerk of great personal pretensions, and proud of his first commission to Manchester to make purchases for his house? These speculations, and the inquiries which result from them, which under other circumstances would indicate only an idle curiosity, are very laudable here, since the more the passengers become ac quainted with each other, the more agreeably they can make pass the otherwise tedious days. Thus every body is interested in learning all he can about his neighbors-quietly and unobtrusively, of course, and with all proper caution and reserve. The ladies are aided very much by the stewardesses, who communicate to one party in one state-room what they have learned of another in another. Some of these stewardesses become quite expert in forming their estimates of the relationships and characters and positions of the various parties that come under their observation. One of them on board a Cunard ship gave a lady passenger a rule by which she could always discover, she said, the true state of the case in respect to any couple which she saw together in the saloon. "If the gentleman is very attentive to the lady," she said; "then they are going to be married. If the lady is very attentive to the gentleman, then they have just been married. If they do not seem to care any thing about each other at all, then they have been married some time!" The good woman who gave this sage test was a middle-aged widow, so that besides the facilities for observation which she had enjoyed at sea, she had had opportunity, it seems, by her own experience, to know all about it. Sometimes very warm friendships result from the acquaintances formed at sea, through the friendly intercourse which takes place among the passengers during the latter part of the voyage-friendships which are often cultivated and cherished through future life. More frequently, however, though the intimacy may become quite close and the attachment quite strong, while the company of passengers remain together, the acquaintance comes abruptly to an end amidst the confusion of the landing at Liverpool, and exists thereafter only as a pleasant recollection, and as one of the elements of the charm with which a prosperous sea voyage is invested in the memory and imagination of all sensible people, when it is once over. We say all sensible people, for there are people who obstinately persist in occupying their minds exclusively while the voyage is in prog FIRE-ROOM. ress, and their recollections of it when it is past, with the irksome, disagreeable, and disquieting incidents and elements of it, to the exclusion of every thing else. Although the tables are loaded with every luxury that money can procure, and notwithstanding what would be supposed to be the insuperable difficulty of providing a great variety of food for such a number of guests, with the extremely limited and restricted conveniences that can be enjoyed on shipboard, there are always discontented and dissatisfied people to complain of the supplies. A fashionable lady, who considers herself a model of refinement and politeness, will be thrown into a fretful and querulous humor, because the captain's report at noon makes the distance run during the preceding twenty-four hours ten or twenty miles less than she had hoped, and make herself and her party miserable by groaning over the length and tediousness of the voyage. "Madam," said a venerable gentleman-whose age and position entitled him to the privilege of speaking plainly-to such a complainer, "here we are a thousand of us shut up in this wooden box in the middle of the Atlantic; immense furnaces under our feet, burning with furious fires; a boiler with force pent up in it sufficient to blow us all in an instant in the air; and gales and storms howling about the various regions of the sea, violent enough if they assail us to drive us off our course or send us to the bottom. So long, then, as we are all safe, and are headed toward our port, and are moving on-so long as all the fire is shut up in the furnaces, and all the force held in the machinery, and the winds and seas are not too violent for us to move on steadily through them, we won't utter a word of complaint because we are only going on prosperously at the rate of twelve and a half miles an hour instead of thirteen." The necessity imposed upon Americans of crossing the Atlantic in order to visit their mother country and the Old World is, in certain aspects of it at least, a vast additional element of enjoyment for those making this grand tour, for that which would be otherwise a simple and commonplace pleasure is invested by it with a certain character of romance and grandeur which nothing else could impart to it. Crossing the Atlantic is an experience which strikes very deep into the soul, and produces changes in the habits of thought and of association which remain through all future life. Nor does the advantage consist merely in the elements of sublimity involved in the voyage itself. The passage of the Atlantic invests with a portion of its own greatness and dignity the whole subsequent tour. Wherever the American goes in his rambles over Europe-among the Highlands of Scotland, in Paris, on the Rhine, or among the Alps-he carries with him the sense of his vast distance from home, and of the grand old ocean, with all its sublime accessories, that separates him from it; and this adds a mysterious and half hidden but very real charm to all his adventures and to all the wonders that he sees. THROUGH THE WHEAT. ONCE, when my heart and I were young, The grassy valleys of Switzerland; Where watchful summits forever frown, While happy hamlets smile between ; Where rapid torrents rejoicing run, Leaping the cliffs in strength and pride, Where smoke-like cloudings of tender blue Often at eve, when the sun was low, And the mountain shadows grew dark and vast, I watched the cottagers, wending slow Home to rest when their toil was past. Two walked lovingly, side by side, Speaking softly, as lovers speak He with an air of manly pride, She with a blush on her sun-browned cheek. Hand in hand, through the evening red They went through the shadows damp and sweet Choosing a narrow path that led On and on through the growing wheat. Sunset touched him with rosy light, Sunset brightened her loosened hairPoor and plain, they were fair to sight, For youth and love are forever fair. And often as sunset charms the air For the time and scene are vanished now I think of that simple, loving pair, And wonder whether they kept their vow Whether under some mossy roof, Their wedded spirits serenely blent, They weave the even warp and woof Of their quiet lives in calm content; Or whether they parted in scorn and wrath, Or whether, still, as across the land The dewy shadows grow damp and sweet, Perennial lovers, with hand in hand, They walk, knee-deep, in the growing wheat. VIII. THE CONQUEST OF SILESIA thoroughly armed, were preceded a few yards by covering battalions, who, having stealthily the battle of Neily leery assigned to them, were to lie flat upon the ground. Not a gun was to be fired; not a word was to be spoken save in a whisper; not even a pipe was to be lighted. Some engineers were to mark out with a straw rope, just in the rear of the covering party, the line of the first parallel. Every perg withdrew the defeated Austrian army to the vicinity of Neisse, where he strongly intrenched himself. Frederick encamped his troops around Brieg, and made vigorous preparations to carry the place by storm. With great energy he pushed forward his works, and in less than three weeks was ready for the as-imaginable contingency was provided for, and sault. On the night of April 26 there was a each man was to attend to his individual duty tempest of extraordinary violence, which was with the precision of clock-work. followed, the next night, by a dead calm, a cloudless sky, and a brilliant moon. On both sides of the river Oder, upon which Brieg was situated, there was an open champaign country. Several bridges crossed the river. At a fixed moment two thousand diggers were collected, at appointed stations, divided into twelve equal parties. With the utmost exactness they were equipped with all the necessary implements. These diggers, with spade and pickaxe, and yet Precisely at midnight all were in silent, rapid motion. The march of half an hour brought them to their appointed stations. The soft and sandy soil was easily shoveled. Every man plied pick and spade with intensest energy. As the town clock of Brieg struck one they had so far dug themselves in as to be quite sheltered from the fire of the hostile batteries, should the guns open upon them. Before the dawn of day they had two batteries, of twenty-five |