PART II

The summer months were spent in visits to Windsor and other parks near London, and in a tour through Yorkshire. In October his Highness was back in town, and engaged in a new matrimonial venture. He writes to Lucie that 'the fortune in question is immense, and if I obtain it, I shall end gloriously.' In the correspondence published after the prince's death is the draft of a letter to Mr. Bonham of Titness Park, containing a formal proposal for the hand of his daughter, 'Miss Harriet,' and detailing (with considerable reservations) the position of his financial affairs. Muskau, he explains, is worth £4,000 a year, an income which in Germany is equivalent to three times as much in England. 'Everything belonging to me,' he continues, 'is in the best possible order; a noble residence at Muskau, and two smaller chateaux, surrounded with large parks and gardens, in fact, all that make enjoy life (sic) in the country is amply provided for, and a numerous train of officious (sic) of my household are always ready to receive their young princess at her own seat, or if she should prefer town, the court of Prussia will offer her every satisfaction.' Owing to the fact that Muskau was mortgaged for £50,000, he was forced, he confesses, to expect an adequate fortune with his wife, a circumstance to which, if he had been otherwise situated, he should have paid little attention.

This missive was accompanied by a long letter, dated Nov. 1, 1827, to 'Miss Harriet,' in which the suitor explains the circumstances of his former marriage, and of his divorce, the knowledge of which has rendered her uneasy. 'It is rather singular,' he proceeds, 'that in the very first days after my arrival, you, Miss Harriet, were named to me, together with some other young ladies, as heiresses. Now I must confess, at the risk of the fact being doubted in our industrious times, that I myself had a prejudice against, and even some dread of heiresses. I may say that I proved in some way these feelings to exist by marrying a lady with a very small fortune, and afterwards in England by never courting any heiresses further as common civility required. My reasons for so doing are not without foundation. In the first instance, I am a little proud; in the second, I don't want any more than I possess, though I should not reject it, finding it in my way, and besides all this, rich young maidens are not always very amiable.' The prince continues that he had gone, out of principle, into all kinds of society, and seen many charming and handsome girls, but had not been able to discover his affinity. At last, after renouncing the idea of marriage, he heard again of Miss Harriet Bonham, not of her fortune this time, but of her many excellent qualities, and the fact that she had refused several splendid offers. His curiosity was now at last aroused; he sought an opportunity of being introduced to her, and--'Dearest Miss Harriet, you know the rest. I thought--and I protest it by all that is sacred--I thought when I left you again, that here at last I had found united all and everything I could wish in a future companion through life. An exterior the most pleasing, a mind and person equally fit for the representation of a court and the delight of a cottage, and above all, that sensibility, that goodness of heart, and that perfect absence of conceitedness which I value more than every other accomplishment.... I beheld you, besides all your more essential qualities, so quick as lively, so playful as whitty (_sic_), and nothing really seemed more bewitching to me as when a hearty, joyful laugh changed your thoughtful, noble features to the cheerful appearance of a happy child! And still through every change your and your friends' conversation and behaviour always remained distinguished by that perfect breeding and fine tact which, indeed, is to private life what a clear sky is to a landscape....'

There is a great deal mere to the same effect, and it is sad to think that all this trouble, all this expenditure of ink and English grammar, was thrown away. Papa Bonham could not pay down the fortune demanded by the prince without injuring the other members of his family; [Footnote: Mr. Bonham's eldest daughter was the second wife of the first Lord Garvagh.] and although Miss Harriet deplores 'the cruel end of all our hopes,' the negotiations fell through.

The prince consoled himself for his disappointment with a fresh round of sight-seeing. He became deeply enamoured of a steam-engine, of which newly-invented animal he sends the following picturesque description to Lucie: 'We must now be living in the days of the _Arabian Nights_, for I have seen a creature to-day far surpassing all the fantastic beings of that time. Listen to the monster's characteristics. In the first place, its food is the cheapest possible, for it eats nothing but wood or coals, and when not actually at work, it requires none. It never sleeps, nor is weary; it is subject to no diseases, if well organised at first; and never refuses its work till worn out by great length of service. It is equally active in all climates, and undertakes all kinds of labour without a murmur. Here it is a miner, there a sailor, a cotton-spinner, a weaver, or a miller; and though a small creature, it draws ninety tons of goods, or a whole regiment of soldiers, with a swiftness exceeding that of the fleetest mail-coaches. At the same time, it marks its own measured steps on a tablet fixed in front of it. It regulates, too, the degree of warmth necessary to its well-being; it has a strange power of oiling its inmost joints when they are stiff, and of removing at pleasure all injurious air that might find the way into its system; but should anything become deranged in it, it warns its master by the loud ringing of a bell. Lastly, it is so docile, in spite of its enormous strength (nearly equal to that of six hundred horses), that a child of four years old is able in a moment to arrest its mighty labours by the pressure of his little finger. Did ever a witch burnt for sorcery produce its equal?'

A few weeks later we hear of one manifestation of the new power, which did not quite come up to the expectations of its admirers. On January 16, 1828, the prince writes: 'The new steam-carriage is completed, and goes five miles in half an hour on trial in the Regent's Park. But there was something to repair every moment. I was one of the first of the curious who tried it; but found the smell of oiled iron, which makes steamboats so unpleasant, far more insufferable here. Stranger still is another vehicle to which I yesterday intrusted my person. It is nothing less than a carriage drawn by a paper kite, very like those the children fly. This is the invention of a schoolmaster, who is so skilful in the guidance of his vehicle, that he can get on very fairly with half a wind, but with a completely fair one, and good roads, he goes a mile in three-quarters of a minute. The inventor proposes to traverse the African deserts in this manner, and has contrived a place behind, in which a pony stands like a footman, and in case of a calm, can he harnessed to the carriage.'

In the early part of 1828 Henriette Sontag arrived in London, and the prince at once fell a victim to her charms. The fascinating singer, then barely three-and-twenty, was already the idol of the public, at the very summit of her renown. Amazing prices were paid for seats when she was announced to appear. Among his Highness's papers was found a ticket for a box at the opera on 'Madame Sontag's night,' on which he notes that he had sold a diamond clasp to pay the eighty guineas demanded for the bit of cardboard. He was in love once again with all the ardour of youth, and for the moment all thoughts of a marriage of convenience were dismissed from his mind. He was now eager for a love-match with the fair Henriette, whose attractions had rendered him temporarily forgetful of those of Muskau. But Mademoiselle Sontag, though carried away by the passionate wooing of the prince, actually remembered that she had other ties, probably her engagement to Rossi, to which it was her duty to remain true. She told her lover that he must learn to forget her, and that when they parted at the conclusion of the London season, they must never meet again. The prince was heart-broken at the necessity for separation, and we are assured that he never forgot Henriette Sontag (though she had many successors in his affections), and that after his return to Germany he placed a gilded bust of the singer in his park, in order that he might have her image ever before his eyes.

In the hope of distracting his thoughts from his disappointment, Prince Pückler decided to make a lengthened tour through Wales and Ireland, and with this object in view he set out in July 1828. Before his departure, however, he had an interesting rencontre at a dinner-party given by the Duchess of St. Albans-the _ci-devant_ Harriet Melton. 'I arrived late,' says the prince, in his account of the incident, 'and was placed between my hostess and a tall, very simple, but benevolent-looking man of middle age, who spoke broad Scotch--a dialect anything but agreeable; and would probably have struck me by nothing else, if I had not discovered that I was sitting next to ----, the Great Unknown! It was not long ere many a sally of dry, poignant wit fell from his lips, and many an anecdote told in the most unpretending manner. His eye, too, glanced whenever he was animated, with such a clear, good-natured lustre, and such an expression of true-hearted kindness, that it was impossible not to conceive a sort of affection for him. Towards the end of the dinner he and Sir Francis Burdett told ghost-stories, half terrible, half humorous, one against the other.... A little concert concluded the evening, in which the very pretty daughter of the great bard--a healthy-looking Highland beauty--took part, and Miss Stephens sang nothing but Scottish ballads.'

Before entering upon a new field of observation, the prince summed up his general impressions of London society with a candour that cannot have been very agreeable to his English readers. The goddess of Fashion, he observes, reigns in England alone with a despotic and inexorable sway; while the spirit of caste here receives a power, consistency, and completeness of development unexampled in any other country. 'Every class of society in England, as well as every field, is separated from every other by a hedge of thorns. Each has its own manners and turns of expression, and, above all, a supreme and absolute contempt for all below it.... Now although the aristocracy does not stand _as such_ upon the pinnacle of this strange social edifice, it yet exercises great influence over it. It is, indeed, difficult to become fashionable without being of good descent; but it by no means follows that a man is so in virtue of being well-born--still less of being rich. Ludicrous as it may sound, it is a fact that while the present king is a very fashionable man, his father was not so in the smallest degree, and that none of his brothers have any pretensions to fashion; which unquestionably is highly to their honour.' The truth of this observation is borne out by the story of Beau Brummell, who, when offended by some action of the Regent's, exclaimed, 'If this sort of thing goes on, I shall cut Wales, and bring old George into fashion!'

'A London exclusive of the present day,' continues our censor, 'is nothing more than a bad, flat, dull imitation of a French _roué_ of the Regency, Both have in common selfishness, levity, boundless vanity, and an utter want of heart. But what a contrast if we look further! In France the absence of all morality and honesty was in some degree atoned for by the most refined courtesy, the poverty of soul by agreeableness and wit. What of all this has the English dandy to offer? His highest triumph is to appear with the most wooden manners, as little polished as will suffice to avoid castigation; nay, to contrive even his civilities so that they are as near as may be to affronts--this is the style of deportment that confers on him the greatest celebrity. Instead of a noble, high-bred ease, to have the courage to offend against every restraint of decorum; to invert the relation in which his sex stands to women, so that they appear the attacking, and he the passive or defensive party; to cut his best friends if they cease to have the strength and authority of fashion; to delight in the ineffably _fade_ jargon and affectations of his set, and always to know what is "the thing"--these are the accomplishments that distinguish a young "lion" of fashion. Whoever reads the best of the recent English novels--those by the author of _Pelham_--may be able to abstract from them a tolerably just idea of English fashionable society, provided he does not forget to deduct qualities which the national self-love has erroneously claimed --namely, grace for its _roués_, seductive manners and witty conversation for its dandies.'

The foregoing is a summary of the prince's lengthy indictment against London society. 'I saw in the fashionable world,' he observes in conclusion, 'only too frequently, and with few exceptions, a profound vulgarity of thought; an immorality little veiled or adorned; the most undisguised arrogance; and the coarsest neglect of all kindly feelings and attentions haughtily assumed for the sake of shining in a false and despicable refinement; even more inane and intolerable to a healthy mind than the awkward stiffness of the declared Nobodies. It has been said that vice and poverty form the most revolting combination; since I have been in England, vice and boorish rudeness seem to me to form a still more disgusting union.'

The prince's adventures in Wales and Ireland, with the recital of which he has filled up the best part of two volumes, must here be dismissed in as many paragraphs. On his tour through Wales, he left his card on the Ladies of Llangollen, who promptly invited him to lunch. Fortunately, he had previously been warned of his hostesses' peculiarities of dress and appearance. 'Imagine,' he writes, 'two ladies, the elder of whom, Lady Eleanor Butler, a short, robust woman, begins to feel her years a little, being nearly eighty-three; the other, a tall and imposing person, esteems herself still youthful, being only seventy-four. Both wore their still abundant hair combed straight back and powdered, a round man's hat, a man's cravat and waistcoat, but in the place of "inexpressibles," a short petticoat and boots: the whole covered by a coat of blue cloth, of quite a peculiar cut. Over this Lady Eleanor wore, first the grand cordon of the order of St. Louis across her shoulders; secondly, the same order round her neck; thirdly, the small cross of the same in her buttonhole; and, _pour comble de gloire_, a golden lily of nearly the natural size as a star. So far the effect was somewhat ludicrous. But now you must imagine both ladies with that agreeable _aisance_, that air of the world of the _ancien régime_, courteous, entertaining, without the slightest affectation, speaking French as well as any Englishwoman of my acquaintance; and, above all, with that essentially polite, unconstrained, simply cheerful manner of the good society of that day, which in our hard-working, business age appears to be going to utter decay.'

Thanks to his letters of introduction and the friendships that he struck up on the road, the prince was able occasionally to step out of the beaten tourist tracks, and to see something of the more intimate side of Irish social life. He has given a lively and picturesque account of his experiences, which included an introduction to Lady Morgan, [Footnote: See page 142.] and to her charming nieces, the Miss Clarkes (who made a profound impression on his susceptible heart), a sentimental journey through Wicklow, a glance at the humours of Donnybrook Fair, a visit to O'Connell at Derrinane Abbey, a peep into the wilds of Connaught, an Emancipation dinner at Cashel, where he made his _début_ as an English orator, and an expedition to the lakes of Killarney. All this, which was probably novel and interesting to the German public, contains little that is not familiar to the modern English reader. The sketch of O'Connell is sufficiently vivid to bear quotation.

'Daniel O'Connell,' observes the prince, after his visit to Derrinane, 'is no common man--though the man of the commonalty. His power is so great that at this moment it only depends on him to raise the standard of rebellion from one end of the island to the other. He is, however, too sharp-sighted, and much too sure of attaining his ends by safer means, to wish to bring on any such violent crisis. He has certainly shown great dexterity in availing himself of the temper of the country at this moment, legally, openly, and in the face of Government, to acquire a power scarcely inferior to that of the sovereign; indeed, though without arms or armies, in some instances far surpassing it. For how would it have been possible for his Majesty George IV. to withhold 40,000 of his faithful Irishmen for three days from whisky drinking? which O'Connell actually accomplished in the memorable Clare election. The enthusiasm of the people rose to such a height that they themselves decreed and inflicted a punishment for drunkenness. The delinquent was thrown into the river, and held there for two hours, during which time he was made to undergo frequent submersions.... On the whole, O'Connell exceeded my expectations. His exterior is attractive, and the expression of intelligent good-humour, united with determination and prudence, which marks his countenance, is extremely winning. He has perhaps more of persuasiveness than of large and lofty eloquence; and one frequently perceives too much design and manner in his words. Nevertheless, it is impossible not to follow his powerful arguments with interest, to view the martial dignity of his carriage without pleasure, or to refrain from laughing at his wit.... He has received from Nature an invaluable gift for a party-leader, a magnificent voice, united to good lungs and a strong constitution. His understanding is sharp and quick, and his acquirements out of his profession not inconsiderable. With all this his manners are, as I have said, winning and popular, though somewhat of the actor is noticeable in them; they do not conceal his very high opinion of himself, and are occasionally tinged by what an Englishman would call _vulgarity_. But where is there a picture without shade?'

The prince's matrimonial projects had been pursued only in half-hearted fashion during this year, and on his return to England in December, he seems to have thrown up the game in despair. On January 2, 1829, he turned his back on our perfidious shores, and made a short tour in France before proceeding to Muskau. In one of his letters to Lucie he admits that on his return journey he had plenty of material for reflection. Two precious years had been wasted, absence from his dearest friend had been endured, a large sum of money had been spent in keeping up a dashing appearance--and all in vain. He consoles himself with the amazing reflection that Parry had failed in three attempts to reach the North Pole, and Bonaparte, after heaping victory on victory for twenty years, had perished miserably in St. Helena!

But if the prince had not accomplished his design of carrying off a British heiress, his sojourn in England brought him a prize of a different kind--namely, the laurel crown of fame. His _Briefe eines Verstorbenen_, the first volumes of which were published anonymously in 1830, was greeted with an almost unanimous outburst of admiration and applause. The critics vied with each other in praising a work in which, according to their verdict, the grace and piquancy of France were combined with the analytical methods and the profound philosophy of Germany. In England, as was only to be expected, the chorus of applause was not unmixed with hisses and catcalls. The author had, however, been exceptionally fortunate in his translator, Sarah Austin, whose version of the Letters, entitled _The Tour of a German Prince_, was described by the _Westminster Review_ as 'the best modern translation of a prose work that has ever appeared, and perhaps our only translation from the German. As an original work, the ease and facility of the style would be admired; as a translation, it is unrivalled.' Croker reviewed the book in the _Quarterly_ in his accustomed strain of playful brutality, rejoiced savagely over the numerous blunders, [Footnote: The most amusing of these is the derivation of the Prince of Wales' motto 'Ich dien' from two Welsh words, 'Eich deyn,' said to signify 'This is your man!'] and credited the author with almost as many blasphemies as Lady Morgan herself. The _Edinburgh_, in a more impartial notice, observed that a great part of the work had no other merit than that of being an act of individual treachery against the hospitalities of private life, and commented on the fact that while the masterpieces of Goethe and Schiller were still untranslated, the _Tour of Prince Pückler-Muskau_ had been bought up in a month.

The prince was far too vain of his unexpected literary success to preserve his anonymity, and the ink-craving having laid hold upon him, he lost no time in setting to work upon another book. The semblance of a separation between himself and Lucie had now been thrown aside. During the summer months they lived at Muskau, where they laboured together over plans for the embellishment of the gardens, while in the winter they kept up a splendid establishment in Berlin. The sight of a divorced couple living together seems to have shocked the Berliners far more than that of a married couple living apart, but to Pückler, as a chartered 'original,' much was forgiven. At this time he went a good deal into literary society, and became intimate with several women-writers, among them the Gräfin Hahn-Hahn, Rahel, and that amazing lady, Bettine von Arnim. With the last-named he struck up an intellectual friendship which roused the jealousy of Lucie, and was finally wrecked by Bettine's attempts to obtain a spiritual empire over the lord of Muskau.

In 1832 the prince's debts amounted to 500,000 thalers, and he was obliged once again to face the fact that he could only save himself from ruin by a wealthy marriage, or by the sale of his estate. In a long letter he laid the state of the case before his faithful companion, pointing out that even at forty-seven, he, with his title and his youthful appearance, might hope to secure a bride worth 300,000 thalers, but that as long as his ex-wife remained at Muskau he was hardly likely to be successful in his matrimonial speculations. Lucie again consented to sacrifice herself in the good cause; but the prince, a man of innumerable _bonnes fortunes_ according to his own account, was curiously unfortunate as a would-be Benedick. The German heiresses were no more propitious to his suit than the English ones had been; and though, as he plaintively observes, he would have liked nothing better than to be a Turkish pasha with a hundred and fifty sultanas, he was unable to obtain a single Christian wife.

In 1834 the prince published two books, _Tutti Frutti_, a collection of stories and sketches, and _Observations on Landscape-Gardening_. _Tutti Frutti_ was by no means so popular as the _Briefe eines Verstorbenen_, but the _Observations_ took rank as a standard work. The project of a journey to America having been abandoned, the prince now determined to spend the winter in Algiers, leaving Lucie in charge at Muskau. This modest programme enlarged itself into a tour in the East, which lasted for more than five years. The travellers adventures during this period have been described in his _Semilasso in Africa, Aus Mehemet's Reich, Die Rückkehr_, and other works, which added to their author's fame, and nearly sufficed to pay his expenses. We hear of him breaking hearts at Tunis and Athens, shooting big game in the Soudan, astonishing the Arabs by his horsemanship, and meddling in Egyptian politics. It was not until 1838 that, moved by Lucie's complaints of her loneliness, he reluctantly abandoned his plan of settling in the East, and turned his face towards Europe. On the homeward journey he made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and turned out of his course for the visit to Lady Hester Stanhope that has already been described.

His Highness arrived at Vienna in the autumn of 1839, bringing in his suite an Abyssinian slave-girl, Machbuba, whom he had bought a couple of years before, and who had developed such wonderful qualities of head and heart, that he could not bring himself to part from her. But Lucie obstinately refused to receive Machbuba at Muskau, and declared that the prince's reputation would be destroyed for ever, if he brought a favourite slave under the same roof as his 'wife,' and thus sinned against the laws of outward seemliness. So Machbuba and the master who, like another Pygmalion, seems to have endowed this dusky Galatea with a mind and soul, remained at Vienna, where the Abyssinian, clad in a picturesque Mameluke's costume, accompanied the prince to all the public spectacles, and became a nine days' wonder to the novelty-loving Viennese. But the severity of a European winter proved fatal to poor Machbuba, consumption laid its grip upon her, and it was as a dying girl that at last she was taken to the Baths of Muskau. Lucie received this once-dreaded rival kindly, but at once carried off the prince for a visit to Berlin, and in the absence of the master whom she worshipped with a spaniel-like devotion, Machbuba breathed her last. The slave-girl was laid to rest amid all the pomp and ceremony of a state funeral, the principal inhabitants of Muskau and the neighbourhood followed her to her grave, and on the Sunday following her death the chaplain delivered a eulogy on Machbuba's virtues, and the fatherly benevolence of her master.

The prince was temporarily broken-hearted at the death of his favourite, but his mercurial spirits soon reasserted themselves, and a round of visits to the various German courts restored him to his accustomed self-complacency. The idea of selling Muskau, and thus ridding himself of the burden of his debts, once more occupied his mind. A handsome offer for the estate had been refused a few years before, in compliance with the wishes of Lucie, who loved Muskau even better than its master, and had appealed to the king to prevent the sale. But in 1845 came another offer from Count Hatzfeld of 1,700,000 thalers, which, in spite of Lucie's tears and entreaties, the prince decided to accept. Although it cost him a sharp pang to give up to another the spot of earth on which he had lavished so much time, so much labour, and so much money, he fully appreciated the advantage of an unembarrassed income and complete freedom of movement.

For a year or two after the sale, he led a wandering life, with Berlin or Weimar for his headquarters. In 1846, shortly before his sixtieth birthday, he met, so he confided to the long-suffering Lucie, the only woman he had ever loved, or at least the only woman he had ever desired to marry. Unfortunately, the lady, who was young, beautiful, clever, of high rank, large fortune, and angelic disposition, had been married for some years to a husband who is described as ugly, ill-tempered, jealous, and incredibly selfish. The prince's letters at this period are filled with raptures over the virtues of his new _inamorata_, and lamentations that he had met her too late. For though his passion was returned the lady was a strict Catholic, for whom a divorce was out of the question, and for once this hardened Lothario shrank from an elopement, with the resultant stain upon the reputation of the woman he loved. In 1846 he parted from his affinity, who survived the separation little more than a year, and retired with a heavy heart to his paternal castle of Branitz, near Kottbus, where he occupied himself in planting a park and laying out gardens. Branitz was only about a tenth part the size of Muskau, and stood in the midst of a sandy waste, but at more than sixty years of age the prince set himself, with all the ardour of youth, to conjure a paradise out of the wilderness. Forest trees were transplanted, lakes and canals dug, hills appeared out of the level fields, and, in short, this 'earth-tamer,' as Rahel called him, created not only a park, but a complete landscape.

The remainder of our hero's eventful career must be briefly summarised. In 1851 he made a flight to England to see the Great Exhibition. Here he renewed his acquaintance with many old friends, among them the Duchess of Somerset, who told him that she had known his father well twenty-five years before. The prince, who has been described as a male Ninon de L'Enclos, was naturally delighted at being mistaken for his own son. In 1852 the work at Branitz was so far advanced that its lord invited Lucie to come and take up her abode at the Schloss. But the poor lady's troubled life was nearing its close. She had a paralytic stroke in the autumn of this year, and remained an invalid until her death, which took place at Branitz in May, 1854.

In the loneliness that followed, the prince amused himself by keeping up a lively correspondence with his feminine acquaintance, for whom, even at seventy, he had not lost his fascinations. His celebrity as an author and a traveller brought him many anonymous correspondents, and he never wearied of reading and answering the sentimental effusions of his unknown admirers. In 1863 he paid a visit incognito to Muskau, the first since he had left it eighteen years before, though Branitz was but a few leagues away. He was recognised at once, and great was the joy in the little town over the return of its old ruler, who was honoured with illuminations, the discharge of cannon, and torchlight processions. The estate had passed into the hands of Prince Frederick of the Netherlands, who had carried out all its former master's plans, and added many improvements of his own. Pückler generously admired the splendour that he had had so large a share in creating, and then went contentedly back to his _kleine Branitz_, his only regret being that he could not live to see it, like Muskau, in the fulness of its matured beauty. In 1866, when war broke out between Prussia and Austria, this grand old man of eighty-one volunteered for active service, and begged to be attached to the headquarters' staff. His request was granted, and he went gallantly through the brief campaign, but was bitterly disappointed because he was not able to be present at the battle of Koniggrätz, owing to the indisposition of the king, upon whom he was in attendance.

In 1870, when France declared war against Prussia, he again volunteered, and was deeply mortified when the king declined his services on account of his advanced age. For the first time he seems to have realised that he was old, and it is probable that the disappointment preyed upon his spirits, for his strength rapidly declined, his memory failed, and on February 4,1871, after a brief illness, he sank peacefully to rest. He was buried in a tomb that he had built for himself many years before, a pyramid sixty feet high, which stood upon an acre of ground in the centre of an artificial lake. The two inscriptions that the prince chose for his sepulchre illustrate, appropriately enough, the sharply contrasting qualities of his strange individuality--his romantic sentimentality, and his callous cynicism. The first inscription was a line from the Koran:

'Graves are the mountain summits of a far-off, fairer world.'

The second, chosen presumably for the sake of the paradox, was the French apothegm:

'Allons Chez Pluto plutôt plus tard.'

WILLIAM AND MARY HOWITT

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