"And now can you still be cruel enough to wish me to go to Rome?" asked Maurice, some little time after Claire had disappeared. "Oh, Maurice, indeed you must go. Think of all the glorious visions the very name of Rome can conjure up-Rome, where the statues seem to bring the gods themselves to dwell with us, and the paintings lift us in spirit to heaven! How often have you told me that you felt your soul grow larger, and all your powers expand at the mere thought of beholding her treasures; and what would the reality be? Oh, yes, Maurice, you must go to Rome." And leave you?" "My heart will be with you, Maurice, and you will know that it shares in all your labours and all your triumphs. "Marguerite," said Maurice, "listen to me. If you would consent to marry me at once, and we were both to work hard and save money, in a year we might go to Rome together! Would not that be delightful? Does not your heart beat with joy at the very thought? Oh, Marguerite, say yessay that it shall be so !" To visit Italy, that fairy land of the earth, to feast her eyes and her soul on its treasures of art, and to visit it with Mauriceto share his thoughts, to lighten his labours by her love, to work by his side; to live that life of bliss. "rounded, complete, fullorbed," which the perfect union of two hearts and minds can give, and to live it beneath Italian skies—was indeed a tempting vision. Her soul seemed to spring toward that sunny clime as a bird soars to its native land, and in fancy she stood already in the Vatican with Maurice beside her, gazing on the marvellous works of the greatest of all those "Who charged cloth-threads with fire of souls till their beauties sank into her satisfied soul, "a joy for ever!" But the next minute, she awoke to reality, and giving a sigh to 66 "Maurice !" exclaimed Marguerite, looking at him with her earnest eyes, no one but you would say so, and you must never say it again." "But why not, my Marguerite-you are my muse, my inspiration; with your smile to encourage me, your praise to reward me, no difficulty could daunt me, no failure make me despair, no triumphs seem too mighty for me to achieve." "Maurice, all my thoughts, all my hopes, will be with you; my love will be always yours, my spirit always beside you; and when you come back, I will crown you with my praise, and fancy that I am indeed the muse you have called me. But Fame will have crowned you long before." "Your praise must always be the sweetest, my Marguerite, and think, if I go to Rome, how long it will be till I can read it in your eyes! How can you bear to have me away from you all those long years?" "I shall have your letters to live on ; and you know what Thekla says :— "The game of life Looks cheerful when we carry in our hearts The inalienable treasure-" You gave me that treasure when you gave me your love." "Oh, my Marguerite, it is your love that is the priceless treasure. But I want you as well as your love. I am not patient, and four years is a long time time to wait." And again he pleaded, as only lovers plead, that she would consent to marry him at once. "Dear Maurice," said Marguerite, "do not tempt me any more. If there were nothing else to prevent it, I could never leave my father." "I wish I had never determined to go to Italy," said Maurice, gloomily. But after a while he brightened at the picture Marguerite drew of his successful career abroad, and his triumphant return, and grew sanguine and happy as before; while Marguerite stifled her own regrets, and thought only of cheering and encouraging her lover. "And you are not a bit afraid that I shall forget you among the beautiful Italian signor inas ?" asked Maurice, gaily. "Not a bit, Maurice," and Marguerite smiled brightly. "I am yours now, and you are mine, and I know we shall always belong to each other; though I must wonder all my life how your fastidious taste could pardon your poor Marguerite her want of beauty!" Maurice knew nothing of Emerson's "Hermione," or he might have remembered the opening lines of that exquisite little poem, "If it be, as they said, she was not fair, but he told her passionately that she was to him the ideal of all that was good and lovely on earth; and now as he gazed on her face, always so sweet, yet so noble in its expression, he beheld it radiant with the glow of happy love, and the light of that genius. which in all moments of intense feeling shone through her features: it was little wonder that she seemed fair in his eyes. Others besides a lover might have thought her so. N CHAPTER VII. WHAT CHRISTIAN KNELLER SAID. OTHING could exceed Christian Knel ler's surprise when he learned that Marguerite had promised to be Maurice Valaze's wife as soon as he returned from Rome. Never very observant, his perceptions in this case were blunted by his belief that Marguerite was unchangeably wedded to art and would never give any other bridegroom a claim on her devotion, and his silent conviction that the world did not contain any one worthy of her-if such a one might be found, Maurice Valazé was certainly not the man. "My poor little Marguerite," he said, after the first surprise was over, "after all, thy heart is as soft as that of any other girl, and thou hast fallen in love with Maurice's handsome face and sweet words. But art thou sure thou dost really love him? He does not deserve it." "Father, I thought you liked Maurice," exclaimed Marguerite. "And so I do. He is a good fellow, a pleasant companion, full of fine fancies, and with a rare gift of words; but the firm will, the large intellect, the great soul, without which I used to think no attractions could win my Marguerite's proud heart, he possesses not. I'll tell thee what, he has the true soul of a troubadour, and he ought to have been a singer of songs, instead of a painter of pictures. Like the old Provençal trouvères, he is brave, gay, generous, ready of hand and word, frank, courteous, and gentle; but like them, too, he is light, weak, fickle-" "Father, father," cried Marguerite, starting up as if an arrow had pierced her heart, "how can you say such cruel things?—how can you believe them? You do not know Maurice. He has the finest mind, the loftiest genius, the noblest aims in life that man could have. But you do not mean what you have said; you cannot have so misunderstood his glorious and beautiful nature." "Enough, child, enough," said Christian Kneller, with a heavy sigh; "I see thou dost indeed love him. If he does not change his mind in Italy, let him be thy husband in God's name; and if he loves and prizes thee only half as much as thy old father, thou mayest not be unhappy after all." "Oh, he does love me," exclaimed Marguerite, coming back to her father again and sitting down beside him; "he will love me and prize me even as much as you could wish, dear father." And persuading herself that it was his dread of losing her that had made the good old man for once in his life unjust, she told him with her loving heart beaming in her happy eyes, that she would never leave him, and that Maurice had promised they should all live together in the dear old house, from which, and all its associations, she well knew her father could never have borne to be separated. Christian Kneller said little in reply ; but he smoked his pipe quietly, and let Marguerite weave her bright fancies of future bliss unchecked, and Marguerite was perfectly happy. To be continued. Nay, even if her note we miss, Yon tiny nest that gems the spray, We, serfs fast-fettered to the soil, But thou, unbound by care or fear To North or South as roams the year: Could mortal sorrow look on thee Without a pulse of joy? Could mortal mirth thy joyaunce see Nor feel its own alloy? What art thou on this tear-stained earth, Far from thy native sphere, 'Midst things of dark and doleful birth? What is thine errand here? Dost thou through clouds of doubt and woe, That o'er our being lower, The ever-brooding presence show Of some benigner power Some power that suffers darkness now To make a dawn divine Of rapture, like thy bosom's glow Of beauty, such as thine? G. NEOT. EARLY CHRISTIAN ART AND SYMBOLISM. BY THE REV. W. H. WITHROW, M.A. in the early centu HE conditions, under which Christian | opment and of the changes it has undergone. The corruptions of doctrine, the rise of dogmas, the strifes of heresiarchs and schismatics are all reflected therein. The frescoes of the catacombs are illustrations, inestimable in value, of the pure and lofty character of that primitive Christianity of which they were the offspring. The very intensity of that old Christian life under repression and persecution created a more imperious necessity for religious symbolism, as an expression of its deepest feelings, and as a common sign of the faith. Early Christian art, therefore, was not realistic and sensuous, but ideal and spiritual. Of the unknown artists of the catacombs, no less than those of the Rénaissance, may it be said: ries, were eminently unfavourable to its highest development. It was not, like pagan art, the æsthetic exponent of a dominant religion; enjoying the patronage of the great and wealthy; adorning the numerous temples of the gods and the palaces and banquet chambers of emperors and senators; commemorating the virtues of patriots and heroes, and bodying forth the conceptions of poets and seers. There was no place in the Christian system for such representations as the glorious sun-god, Apollo, or the lovely Aphrodite, or the sublime majesty of Jove, which are still the unapproached chefs d'autre of the sculptor's skill. The beautiful myths of Homer and Hesiod were regarded with abhorrence; and the Christian converts from paganism shrank, as from sacrilege, from any representation of the supreme object of their worship. Nevertheless the testimony of the catacombs gives evidence that art was not, as has frequently been asserted, entirely abjured by the primitive believers on account of its idolatrous employment by the pagans. They rather adopted and purified it for Christian purposes, just as they did the diverse elements of ancient civilization. It was not till the increasing power and growing opulence of the Church, led to the more lavish employment of art, that it called forth the condemnation of the Fathers of the third and fourth centuries. "They never moved their hand Till they had steeped their inmost soul in prayer." The decoration of these subterranean crypts is the first employment of art by the early Christians of which we have any remains. A universal instinct leads us to beautify the sepulchres of our departed. This is seen alike in the rude funereal totem of the American savage, in the massive mausolea of the Appian Way, and in the magnificent Moorish tombs of the Alhambra. It is not, therefore, remarkable that the primitive Christians adorned with religious paintings, expressive of their faith and hope, the graves of the dead, or in times of persecution traced upon the martyr's tomb the crown and palm, the emblems of victory, or the dove and olive branch, the beautiful symbol of peace. The art of any age is an outgrowth and efflorescence of an internal living principle; It must not, however, be supposed that and as is the tree so is its fruit. The icono- the first beginnings of Christian art were graphy of the early centuries of Christianity rude and formless essays, such as we see is, therefore, a pictorial history of its devel- among barbarous tribes. The primitive be |