"Rothenburg on the Tauber," are among the best of the short stories. His "Tales of the Troubadours" are very beautiful, but are somewhat marred by a freedom of speech which approaches actual vulgarity. It is this unfortunate and unnecessary frankness which has brought against Heyse the accusation of immorality, although all his stories have an "upward tendency," and are time to the highest ideals. No one reading "A Divided Heart," or "Rothenburg on the Tauber," could doubt the rectitude of the writer's moral sense, or his love for the best in human nature.

Since Heyse is still living, the thousand and one interesting facts and anecdotes which come to the world's knowledge only after a great man's death are not yet told of him. His life has been even and uneventful; poor in those startling changes of fortune which make the usual attractive biography, but rich in inner experience, in the vivid impressions, intense feelings, and great thoughts, which make actual life full of interest and meaning.

A number of Heyse's works have been translated into English, but many more deserve wider popularity than their own language can give them. Their great writer, realistic as Balzac, analytic as Tolstoi, picturesque as his own countryman, Ebers, should become as famous here as he is in Germany, and add one more to the increasing list of great men whose writings are precious, not alone to their own countries, but to the world. C. S. C.

A DIVIDED HEART

A DIVIDED HEART.

It was still early when I left, although the company was one of those which do not become lively until after midnight. But a gloomy uneasiness which I had brought with me, would not yield to the good wine and tolerable humor which seasoned the bacchanal; so I seized a favorable moment and took French leave. As I came out of the house and inhaled the first breaths of the pure, night air, I heard some one following me and calling my name.

It was L., the eldest and gravest of our circle. I had heard his voice scarcely twice the whole evening among the noisy chatter of the others. I esteemed him very highly, and was usually delighted to meet him. But just then I desired no man's company.

"It has driven you out also," he said, as he caught up to me, and, stopping for breath, glanced at the starlit spring heavens. "We were neither of us at home among those hardened bachelors. When I saw you slipping out, a melancholy envy, which you must pardon, came over me. Now, thought I, he is going home to his dear wife. She has been sleeping for some time; he steps on tip-toe to her bedside; she at once awakens from her dream, and asks--'Is it you already? Did you enjoy yourself? You must tell me about it to-morrow.' Or, she has been interesting herself in a book, and opens the door herself when she hears your footstep. To be so received means to be at home somewhere in this world. In my lonesome cell there is no one waiting for me. But I enjoyed that good fortune for twelve whole years, and am far better for it than our young friends yonder, who have no perception of the best things life can offer, and who speak of women as the blind do of colors. Are you not of my opinion, that one only half knows them when one speaks merely from hearsay, and says, with the usual irony, a 'better half'?"

He put his arm in mine, and we walked slowly along the deserted streets.

"You know, my dear friend," said I, "that I am a marriage fanatic, with good reason. If I neglected to preach its gospel to the heathen this evening, it was only from a general disinclination to speak where I am not altogether at ease. I feared, too, that my usual eloquence on the subject might leave me in the lurch. But, truly, it would not be the first time that I have argued alone against a whole gang of obstinate bachelors."

"I admire your courage," he replied. "For my part, I am always hindered from contradicting the scoffers by an absurd heart-beating; it seems to me a desecration to gossip of the school in which one learns to fathom the deepest and most beautiful secrets of human life."

"You are quite right," said I, "and I have often reproached myself for being beguiled into discussing in prose, after the manner of a scientific problem, what one may properly confess only in verse. And yet certain silly speeches always excite me to protest again. When I hear it said that marriage is the death of love; that the obligation to fidelity quenches passion; and that, since no man can master his heart, even the best should hesitate before forming a life-tie, my vexation at the foolish babble runs away with my reason, and I begin to speak of things which one regards as mere exaggeration unless he has himself experienced them."

To this he did not reply, and we walked silently side by side. I observed that he was lost in recollections which I did not wish to disturb. I knew nothing of his marriage, except that he had lost his wife many years before, and mourned her as if it were but yesterday. An old lady who had known her told me that she was an irresistible person, with eyes which no one who had once looked into them could ever forget. Her daughter, lately married, I had met once at a social affair; she impressed me as an amiable, but very quiet, young woman.

L. had been a military man in his younger days; but being severely wounded in the Schleswig-Holstein war, he had withdrawn to a country estate and passed his best years there with his wife and child. After he became a widower, a spirit of unrest seemed to drive him over the earth, and it was only from time to time that he made a brief appearance among his old friends. He was a stately, handsome man even yet. His hair, although streaked with gray, stood thick and curly above his high, bronzed forehead, and in his eyes there gleamed a quiet fire which told of imperishable youth.

At the next crossing he stopped.

"My way properly leads down there," said he, "but, if you do not object, I will accompany you for a distance. My sleep has not been worth much for some time, and 'In that sleep what dreams may come' seldom amount to anything. Besides, I am going away in a few days. Who knows when we can chat with each other again."

We set forth on our, or rather on my way, but for a long while the talk would not take the right channel.

The warm, night wind was as soothing as the murmur of a cradle-song; the stars blinked like eyes which can scarcely keep themselves open. A fine mist moved slowly across the heavens, weaving a veil over the shining firmament.

"Bear in mind," said I, "we shall be wakened from our first sleep by a spring thunder-storm."

He neither answered nor glanced at the heavens, but continued to look fixedly at the ground. Suddenly he began, "Do you know what I have always lamented? That Spinoza was never married. How that would have improved his ethics! He had no conception of certain problems; and I have always wondered how he would have regarded them if they had come under his observation."

"Which do you mean?" I asked.

"You know he was the first to deny the power of reason over our passions, and to advance the profound thesis that a passion can be displaced only by one stronger. But what happens if two equally strong passions together rule the same soul?"

"Are there then two precisely similar passions?" I asked; "I myself have never experienced anything of the kind, and am inclined to be sceptical until I see it proved in another man."