gorgeous setting, you perceive by what simple means the dazzling result is wrought out. Their dresses are of some soft light material, and the veils, which fall to their feet, are of fine lawn. These do not cover their faces, but are edged with lace or ruching, making a dainty frame for the many pretty Southern faces. A sort of lawn muffler covers the mouth and chin, — dimly suggesting Eastern customs. Veils and mufflers are made rich and rare by an elaborate embroidery of common pins! These are thrust into the goods in the most elaborate patterns, suns, stars, flowers, etc., forming a brocade of cloth of sil

ver.

Each maid carries by long silken cords a white reticule, supposed to hold the dowry, but really containing only a paper with her number on it. They file by in couples, and after them walk the chanting monks and dignitaries in full canonicals, with "bell, book, and candle," carrying the Host under a colossal silk umbrella, which flaps in everybody's face and forces backwards the over-eager bystanders. The train of over three hundred monks, priests, and girls proceeds out into the portico (in papal times it was customary for them to make a tour of the square); then the great main portals are thrown open, and against a background of evening sky, all amethyst, opal, and rose, the flickering lights of the varied procession advance slowly up the nave to the high altar. Back of that, in the choir, the "veiled ones kneel while Ave Maria is sung. A man comes around to collect the candles and silk bags, which are only lent for the occasion. The money itself is given when the girl actually marries or enters a convent; and if, after all, she does neither, the money is a dead letter.

The ceremony is now over, each ammantata is taken possession of by proud, happy relatives, and the vast throng pours out into the piazza, where the evening air blows refreshingly on the hot cheeks of future brides, who find

veils and mufflers more becoming than comfortable, late in the month of June. While I lived in town

The Lark and the Gamut.

I knew, through occasional walks, the lark just enough to distinguish its song from that of other birds in a general and indefinite way. But since I have spent a few weeks in the country, where I hear these birds all day and every day, I have been not a little struck by the observation that their melodies, though very short, are not only numerous, but can in most cases be correctly reduced to our present human system of notes.

There is greater wealth and more poetry and nobility in the tones of a nightingale, but this nobleman does not seem to visit Colorado; and the timbre of the lark's voice is so sonorous and its modulation so great that it is, from an æsthetic standpoint, decidedly king among the birds of this region.

The bird of which I am speaking here is not the same known as the lark at the East. It seems to have its home in the Mississippi Valley as far as the Rocky Mountains. Here it is known as the "meadow lark," and is probably what ornithologists call Alauda magna, for it is decidedly larger than other larks. It has a grayish-brown plumage, the breast being of a dull yellow.

Early in the morning the lark begins with a loud call,

Next to the forms given comes a song which begins with two high notes, the second a minor third above the first; but these are followed by an indefinite gay warble or twitter, which defies all attempts at musical notation.

When, during a walk, I approach a lark sitting on a fence or tree, he generally gives a sharp "jip" at intervals of a few seconds, which may possibly be a warning to his family hidden in their nest near by. Another single tone is a sweet, coaxing "tioo," which sounds as if he were inviting his mate to join him.

In most of their tunes the larks give a shake to the accented notes, or precede them by a grace-note; for instance:

The following few notes, which form a short but complete musical thought, and which I have heard only a few times,

4.

seem to be a theme which they develop to several variations, some of which are heard much oftener than the plain theme. I will give only a few of them:

'cello :

5.

seen

bird from which I have heard this last melody. Though I have never it, I know by the timbre of the voice and the vigor of the tone that it is a lark. His song sounds like a hymn of praise, thanking Nature for the joy, peace, and liberty of life.

There is no doubt that individual larks have different tunes, as some which I always hear around my house I do not hear elsewhere, and vice versa; but most, if not all, larks sing several tunes. One day, after having, on the preceding evening, heard that last melody in the dominant ninth chord, I heard, though at another point, what may be called the answer to it:

14.

A similar difference in taste between

individual birds I observed in another

tune, which I have heard at various times and in various places:

15.

But about half a mile from my house there stands a solitary tree, an inhabitant of which varies this tune in a peculiar manner:

16.

This bird has evidently a copyright on this variation, for I have never heard it except from that tree or its close vicinity. The following tune, also, I have heard only in the neighborhood of one particular spot:

17.

And this is the case with the last instance I shall record. About two miles from my house lives a friend of mine, with whom I pass many a pleasant hour. One day, while sitting and chatting in his cozy study, I heard a melody which was new to me. Though I had no doubt, from the character of

Although a minor key does not always and necessarily give an impression of sadness, and is, for instance, often used with great effect in humorous songs (perhaps with a shade of irony), in this song of a little bird it sounded decidedly like a mournful plaint, as if the sad singer had lost his mate.

The list of melodies here given does by no means exhaust the larks' repertory, for when I go several miles from home I sometimes hear a new tune, or a variation different from those with which I am familiar. Frequently a lark sounds two or three tones which can readily be repeated in their proper intervals, but then follows them up with a merry, playful effusion from throat and tongue which derides all systematic music and is utterly inimitable. This is the case when the bird is on the wing, and then his noisy, jubilant warble closely resembles the song of the German lark when rising. It seems as if in these cases the bird dropped from the plane of æsthetic development to that of pure nature, a result, no doubt, of heredity from ancestors that sang thousands of years ago.

That the deep and long-drawn notes of the nightingale are the expression of melancholy is merely a poetic fancy; and so with other birds, the lark among them. What sounds sad or joyous to us may not be so at all to the bird. Attempted interpretations of this kind will always remain fancies. But of what the lark here has convinced me, and what I have tried to demonstrate

with the examples given, is, that man is not the only creature that has, in his musical evolution, attained to the superior level of the diatonic scale. Yet he

is in advance of the lark in this point, that he has recognized the æsthetic necessity of closing a cadence with the tonic chord.

Science. The Ice Age in North America, and its Bearings upon the Antiquity of Man, by G. Frederick Wright, with an Appendix on the Probable Cause of Glaciation, by Warren Upham. (Appleton.) An exceedingly interesting work of original research presented in a form which need not appall the ordinary student. Dr. Wright covers a wide range of topics in his discussion, and is especially interested in those facts which bear upon animal and vegetable life. His own personal investigation of the Muir Glacier in Alaska is not the least interesting feature of the work. The illustrations are from photographs, and though marked by the defects of process work where tone is an important element, are helpful to the student. The maps are excellent, and the entire book indicates painstaking. Dr. Wright's frequent references to James Croll make us ready to glance at that author's little work, Stellar Revolution and its Relation to Geological Time. (Appleton.) It considers the probable origin of meteorites, comets, and nebulæ, and the real source from which our sun derived its energy, namely, from the colliding of dark stellar masses. The theory is supported further by the evidence derived from the testimony of geology and biology as to the age of the sun's heat. - Darwinism, an Exposition of the Theory of Natural Selection, with some of its applications, by Alfred Russel Wallace. (Macmillan.) Very few incidents in the history of science are so striking as the deliberate subordination which Mr. Wallace adopts in his attitude toward Darwin. His own share in the theory of evolution is scarcely less than Darwin's, yet there is an entire absence of any appearance of jealousy or envy. The closing pages of his work are of a high order. They present the firm faith of a scientist who regards scientific explanation of evolution as witnessing to and confirming an independent spiritual life, having its source in spirit. Mr. Wallace does not obtrude his special views as regards modern spiritualism, and his work will fortify the faith of some who might, if they knew his belief, be a little shy of his science. - Sewerage and Land Drainage, by George

E. Waring, Jr. (Van Nostrand.) The general reader will remember Colonel Waring's charming work on Holland, and how he was allured into reading of pumps and drains and model farms, never suspecting that he was not engaged in making the acquaintance of a very good piece of literature. The obverse is true of this comprehensive and well-illustrated book. The sanitary engineer and the anxious householder will read it for its abundance of satisfying information, never suspecting that they are enjoying the work of a man whose literary faculty would itself ventilate a cesspool. One follows Colonel Waring as he leads one serenely through sewers and drains, and becomes so interested in the problems presented and cleared as to be quite oblivious of his actual surroundings.

Philosophy and Theosophy. Fundamental Problems, the Method of Philosophy as a Systematic Arrangement of Knowledge, by Dr. Paul Carus. (The Open Court Publishing Company, Chicago.) The papers which make up this volume were originally published as editorial articles, but have been set in order so as to make a progressive philosophic statement. Nevertheless, there is a fragmentary character to the work which seems inseparable not only from its origin, but from the scintillating character of the author's mind. Thus the book is suggestive rather than comprehensive. An interesting little pamphlet reaches us in The Problem of Personality, by Eliza Ritchie, a thesis presented at Cornell for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. The logical method employed does not exclude the notion of a warm sense of life, and the author is plainly satisfied with thought undetached from experience. - Light on the Path, with Notes and Comments by the Author. (Theosophical Book Company, Boston.) This, we believe, is a famous little book, - famous among the neophytes of theosophy. It is a sort of propylæa to the temple, being a treatise for the personal use of those who are ignorant of the Eastern wisdom, and who desire to enter within its influence." As the author remarks in the course of her work (whatever the sex of

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the writer may be, the mind is feminine, and we feel at liberty to say She), “an intolerable sadness is the very first experience of the neophyte in occultism. A sense of blankness falls upon him, which makes the world a waste and life a vain exertion." If these things be done in the green tree, what shall be done in the dry? Before we reach the stage of neophytism, even while we read these pages without the fear of Karma before our eyes, we feel profoundly the vanity of exerting ourselves to fathom this little volume.- The Light of Egypt, or the Science of the Soul and the Stars. (Religio-Philosophical Publishing House, Chicago.) Dear, dear! here is a schism already in the new Buddhistic church. Progressive Buddhism, this appears to be. Reader, would you know what man is ? Spell him with capitals, and we can tell you what he does. "MAN stands upon the central rung of the cyclic ladder, as the meeting point of the equilibrium between the upper and the lower manifestations of the great ONE LIFE." Rather a ticklish position. - Christianity and Agnosticism. (Appleton.) In this composite volume, a paper on Agnosticism, read by Dr. Henry Wace at the Manchester Church Congress, 1888, is followed by a series of blows and counter-blows delivered by Huxley, Bishop Magee, Mallock, and Mrs. Humphry Ward. The air is thick with the missiles, and each comes out a little battered, but unconvinced.

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Poetry and the Drama. The fifteenth volume of the Poetical Works of Robert Browning (Smith, Elder & Co., London) contains both series of Dramatic Idyls and Jocoseria. It is to be noticed that as Browning draws near the end of his series of writings he makes fewer changes. In the series of Canterbury Poets (Walter Scott, London) is a little selection from the poems of Landor, made by Ernest Radford. The preface lacks the moderation which its author praises in Landor. Of the Imitation of Christ, by Thomas à Kempis, a metrical version, by Henry Carrington. (Kegan Paul, Trench & Co., London.) Entirely correct in form, but somehow the sweet gravity of the original has turned into mere seriousness. The Siege of Syracuse, a poetical drama in five acts, by William A. Leahy. (D. Lothrop Company.) This seems to be the shell of a dramatic creature from which the living animal has somehow disappeared. - Spiritual Evolution, by Warren Holden. (J. B. Lippincott Company, printers, Philadelphia.) Mr. Holden opines that the sacred scriptures have suffered from a too liberal interpretation, and in this little volume he undertakes to give some examples of symbolism. Still, it was not necessary, to prove his case, to give them in halting verse. — - Madeline and Other Poems,

by James McCarroll. (Belford, Clarke & Co.) A readiness marks these verses, which sometimes rise into poetic light, as in the pretty poem The Humming Bird. - The Merry Muse, Society Verse by American Writers, edited by E. De L. Pierson. (Belford, Clarke & Co.) It is a pleasure to come upon a collection of verse all in the major key, and there is this to be said for these trifles, that the writers who never go further at least do no mischief; those who try deeper deeps are apt to do their work better for this light practice. - Late Lyrics and Other Poems, by William Wilfred Campbell. (J. & A. McMillan, St. John, N. B.) There is genuine fire here as well as flames which answer to the bellows. How pretty is the Canadian Folksong! and there are poems which are more than pretty.

Biography. Father Damien, a Journey from Cashmere to his Home in Hawaii, by Edward Clifford. (Macmillan.) Possibly Mr. Clifford's sketch will serve a better purpose than a formal biography would, for he has given with a certain artistic felicity such a view of this nineteenth-century martyr and saint as will surely fix his character and bearing in the reader's mind. Father Damien, as the world knows, and the world is as quick now to recognize an uncanonized saint as it ever was, deliberate

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ly shut himself out from the world to minister to the lepers at Molokai, one of the Hawaiian group, and after years of cheerful service fell a victim to the loathsome disease. Mr. Clifford is an artist who heard of his sacrifice, and was also confident that he had found in the East a cure for the disease. Accordingly he visited Father Damien, and this book is the result. It is a little pity that he should have thought it necessary to give other, rather feeble sketches from his note-book. His description of the Hawaiian volcano, indeed, is excellent, but his thumb-nail sketches of traveling bores are cheap and needless. Nor does it much matter that Mr. Clifford should explain why he, a Protestant, should signalize Roman Catholic heroism. - Eli and Sibyl Jones, their Life and Work, by Rufus M. Jones. (Porter & Coates.) Eli Jones was one of the Society of Friends, and his wife also was of the same society. They lived man and wife for forty years, Sibyl dying in 1873; the husband yet lives, we infer from this book, which is an interesting record of the harmonious life of two kind-hearted persons who went in the utmost simplicity to Africa and the East, sowing the seeds of a spiritual Christianity. They helped to plant schools; they labored unostentatiously and ceaselessly in every kind of philanthropic work. There is something delightfully ingenuous in these simple-hearted missionaries. without any board of missions behind them.

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