20.

In convent cold, the prisoner lean
In lightless den, the robèd Queen,
Even the youth who waits,
Hiding the knife, to glide unseen
Between the gates:

21.

He nothing human alien deems
Unto himself, nor disesteems
Man's meanest claim upon him.
And where he moves the mere sunbeams
Drop blessings on him.

22.

Because they know him Nature's friend,
On whom she doth delight to tend
With loving kindness ever,
Helping and heartening to the end
His high endeavour.

23.

Therefore, tho' mortal made, he can
Work miracles. The uncommon man
Leaves nothing common-place:
He is the marvellous. To span
The abyss of space,

24.

To make the thing which is not be
To fill with Heaven's infinity
Earth's finite, to make sound
The sick, to bind the broken, free
The prison-bound,

25.

To call up spirits from the deep
To be his ministers, to peep
Into the birth of things,
To move the mountains, and to sweep
With inner wings

26.

The orb of time, is his by faith;
And his, whilst breathing human breath
To taste before he dies
The deep eventual calm of death,
Life's latest prize.

27.

If such a man there be, howe'er
Beneath the sun and moon he fare,
That man my friend to know
To me were sweeter than to wear
What kings bestow.

UP THE DANUBE.

IT is a hot dry day in July. The blinding
dust-storm comes rushing along the wide
wilderness of streets, darkening the daylight, so
that one cannot see from one side to the other.
They are streets seeming to have been made for
giants, with hills and valleys in them, making
them sore travelling for ordinary men. I have
been summoned in haste to London by anxious
news, three telegrams coming and going—question,
answer, reply—over that immense distance
in a few hours. Truly blessed are the inventions
which thought and science have been permitted
to win from Nature!

No people are so really friendly and
companionable to strangers as the kind-hearted and
hospitable people among whom I am living. In
twenty years of foreign travel, I have seen no
other nation where a foreigner can make so
many steady and lasting friendships. There is
a thoughtful kindliness, a real warm-heartedness
among the Southern Russians to which all who
have dwelt among them must desire to pay
grateful tribute. Though alone, a solitary
Englishman in a Russian city, I am not lonely, and
many a gentle word is in store for me before I
go. My luggage is soon packed, a small carpetbag
containing bare necessaries for the journey,
and a light great-coat—nothing more. Some
hours of business, good in their effect, as
wrenching the heart from its sorrow, and then
at three o'clock in the afternoon, I form one of
a Russian family party, and we sit down to a
good-by dinner, which has been ordered early,
for the steamer which is to carry me away starts
at five. We do not any of us eat much, and
we talk less, even after the old-fashioned local
custom of drinking me good-speed in champagne
has been duly observed. My thoughts are far
away, and my hosts are too full of kindly
sympathy to disturb them. At last by common
consent we rise from table as the roll of the
wheels of the carriage is heard which is to take
me to the port. Then we all sit down in a
circle precisely in the centre of the room,
according to an immemorial custom, in this country
before setting out upon a journey, and the
farewells, which have been nervously put off till now,
fairly begin. The little children, who have
romped and played round my knees for years,
come and put their small soft arms about my
neck. It is hard to break away from those tiny
pretty fetters. The master of the house kisses
me on both cheeks, and then there is a hurried
moving towards the door, and I drive away with
the dear Russian faces looking kindly after me,
and white handkerchiefs waving, till a turn in
the road hides them from my sight. Surely, in.
no other country in the world are real friendships
more warm and sincere than here.

No end of good-nature and forethought follow
me. I am not the only one on board the
Metternich that day who have tender partings
from friends or kinsfolk. There is some laughing,
indeed, among the pleasure-hunters and
travellers to the baths, but even that is rather
forced, and many streaming eyes full of hot
tears that will not be quenched watch the return
of the boat laden with cargoes of friends, and
then go hurriedly below to hide their anguish.
Very full is the world, of love and sorrow.

At last the paddles begin to revolve slowly,
the captain shouts his hoarse command, the
helmsman answers, the shrill voice of the engine
boy takes up the cry, and we stand out to sea.
The stately city fades away, the fairest of the
Russian towns. The moon rises by-and-by, and
I pace the deck till wearied out. When I awake
from a troubled sleep we are at the Sulina mouth
of the Danube, and there lie her Majesty's
ships Weazer and Growler, looking taut and
trim and wholesome, even among these fetid
marshes, and in this unlovely country, in the
sullen grey of the coming morning.

Millions of fat, pulpy, loathsome, sluggard