cottage, embowered in fruit trees and forest trees, evergreens and honeysuckles, rising many-colored from amid shaven grass plots, flowers struggling in through the very windows; under its long projecting eaves nothing but garden tools and seats where, especially on summer nights, a king might have wished to sit and smoke and call it his.

Into this home, one meek, yellow evening, it was that a stranger of reverend aspect entered, and, with grave salutation, stood before the two rather astonished housemates. He was closely muffled in a wide mantle, which without farther parley unfolding, he deposited therefrom what seemed some basket, over-hung with green Persian silk, saying only: “Good Christian people, here lies for you an invaluable loan; take all heed thereof, in all carefulness employ it; with high recompense, or else with heavy penalty will it one day be required back.” Uttering which singular words in a clear, bell-like, forever memorable tone, the stranger gracefully withdrew; and before Andreas and his wife, gazing in expectant wonder, had time to fashion either question or answer, was gone.

Neither out of doors could aught of him be seen or heard; he had vanished in the thickets, in the dusk; the orchard gate stood quietly closed; the stranger was gone once and always. So sudden had the whole transaction been in the autumn stillness and twilight, so gentle and noiseless, that the Futterals could have fancied it all a trick of imagination, or a visit from some spirit; only that green silk basket, such as neither imagination nor spirits are wont to carry, still stood visible and tangible on their little parlor table.

Toward this the astonished couple, now with lit candle, hastily turned their attention. Lifting the green veil to see what invaluable it hid, they descried there, amid down and rich white wrappings, no Pitt diamond or Hapsburg regalia, but in the softest sleep a little red-colored infant! Beside it lay a roll of gold, the exact amount of which was never publicly known; also a baptismal certificate, wherein, unfortunately, nothing but the name was decipherable.

To wonder and conjecture were unavailing then and thenceforth. Nowhere in Entepfuhl did tidings transpire of any such figure as the stranger. Meanwhile, for Andreas and his wife, the grand practical problem was what to do with this little sleeping infant! Amid amazements and curiosities which had to die away without satisfying, they resolved, as in such circumstances charitable, prudent people needs must, on nursing it, if possible, into manhood.

Young Diogenes, or rather young Gneschen, for by such diminutive had they in their fondness named him, traveled forward by quick but easy stages. I have heard him noted as a still infant, that kept his mind much to himself; above all, that he seldom cried. He already felt that time was precious; that he had other work cut out for him than whimpering.

Most graceful is the following little picture: “On fine evenings I was wont to carry forth my supper, bread crumbs boiled in milk, and eat it out of doors. On the coping of the orchard wall, which I could reach by climbing, or still more easily if Father Andreas would set up the pruning ladder, my porringer was placed; there many a sunset have I, looking at the western mountains, consumed my evening meal.

“Those hues of gold and azure, that hush of the world’s expectation as day died, were still a Hebrew speech for me; nevertheless I was looking at the fair, illuminated letters, and had an eye for their gilding.”

With the little one’s friendship for cattle and poultry we shall not much intermeddle. It may be that hereby he acquired a certain deeper sympathy with animated nature. He says again: “Impressive enough was it to hear in early morning the swineherd’s horn, and know that so many hungry quadrupeds were, on all sides, starting in hot haste to join him for breakfast on the heath. Or to see them at eventide, all marching in again with short squeak, almost in military order; and each trotting off in succession to the right or left, through its own lane, to its own dwelling.”

Thus encircled by mystery, waited on by the four seasons, with their changing contributions, for even grim winter brought its skating matches, its snowstorms and Christmas carols, did the child sit and learn. These things were the alphabet whereby in after time he was to syllable and partly read the grand volume of the world; what matters it whether such alphabet be in large gilt letters or in small ungilt ones, so you have an eye to read it?

For Gneschen, eager to learn, the very act of looking thereon was a blessedness that gilded all; his existence was a bright, soft element of joy, out of which wonder after wonder bodied itself forth to teach by charming.

From “Sartor Resartus.”

A SCENE FROM WILLIAM TELL.

SHERIDAN KNOWLES.

Scene I.

[WILLIAM TELL, ALBERT HIS SON, AND GESLER.]

Gesler. What is thy name?

Tell. My name?
It matters not to keep it from thee now:—
My name is Tell.

Ges. Tell!—William Tell?

Tell. The same.

Ges. What! he so famed ’bove all his countrymen
For guiding o’er the stormy lake the boat?
And such a master of his bow, ’tis said
His arrows never miss!—Indeed—I’ll take
Exquisite vengeance!—Mark! I’ll spare thy life—
Thy boy’s too!—both of you are free—on one
Condition.

Tell. Name it.

Ges. I would see you make
A trial of your skill with that same bow
You shoot so well with.

Tell. Name the trial you
Would have me make.

Ges. You look upon your boy
As though instinctively you guessed it.

Tell. Look upon my boy! What mean you? Look upon
My boy as though I guessed it!—Guessed the trial
You’d have me make!—Guessed it
Instinctively! you do not mean—no—no—
You would not have me make a trial of
My skill upon my child!—Impossible!
I do not guess your meaning.

Ges. I would see
Thee hit an apple at the distance of
A hundred paces.

Tell. Is my boy to hold it?

Ges. No.

Tell. No!—I’ll send the arrow through the core!

Ges. It is to rest upon his head.

Tell. Great Heaven, you hear him!

Ges. Thou dost hear the choice I give—
Such trial of the skill thou art master of,
Or death to both of you; not otherwise
To be escaped.