The social, moral, and political influence of the German-born and German-descended population of the United States upon their fellow-citizens has already been perceptible; that this influence will vastly increase in the future is highly probable. We may state here one of the many reasons for this belief. The intellectual and political leaders of the Germans in America have hitherto mainly confined their public utterances, in the press or on the platform, to the German language. The German newspapers are very numerous; their circulation is large; they are written for the most part with much ability; their treatment of social and political questions is often marked by a breadth of view and a soundness of logic too frequently wanting in many of their English contemporaries. Their influence upon the minds of their readers is also greater than that wielded by the majority of our newspapers printed in the English language. We have heard this fact attributed to the superior honesty with which the German press is conducted; but upon this delicate ground we shall not enter. Our point at present is that German thought and opinion, as expressed through the German periodical press, influence for the most part only the German population. Few of us who are not Germans read a German journal; what the German leaders in politics, morality, and literature are saying, day after day, is for the most part wholly unknown to the rest of us. Occasionally an American editor translates a leading article from a German journal and gives it to his readers; still more frequently he avails himself of the ideas and the arguments of his German contemporaries and reproduces them as his own.

In the next generation this state of things will be modified; more Americans will read German literature, and more Germans, or German-Americans, will write in English journals, speak in English at public conventions, and sit in our legislative assemblies. The barrier of language, which has hitherto tended to separate Germans from the rest of us to so great an extent, will gradually yield and disappear. The German language will be learned by increasing numbers of our non-German citizens; the common use of the German language by the German-Americans will be dropped, and the English tongue adopted in its stead, not only in business affairs, but in politics, literature, religion, and social intercourse. The English language has made many conquests, but in America it has only to hold its own. It is the language of the country, of the legislature, of the courts, of the markets and exchanges, and of society. Our German citizens must acquire it, or enter handicapped into all the relations of life.

The ability with which the German journals here are conducted does not prevent nearly the whole of them which are not avowedly Catholic from being inspired by an antagonism to religion. The genius of the German mind has little sympathy with socialism or communism, and the theories of socialism and communism find expression among our German citizens only through the writings or speeches of a few insignificant and uninfluential men in New York and some of our other large cities. But the German who is not a Catholic is most often an atheist; and he differs from the French atheist in wishing his wife and children to be atheists also. The non-Catholic German press faithfully represents this phase of the German mind; and it sneers at religion with the same pertinacity and often with more skill than is shown in a like direction by too many of our English-written newspapers.

The total immigration into the United States from the close of the War of Independence to the end of 1876 was 9,726,455 souls. The records of the government do not furnish an ethnological classification of all these; it is only since 1847 that this classification has been made. But every one knows that the bulk of our immigrants have come from Ireland and Germany. At the port of New York alone the total number of Irish immigrants from 1847 up to September 1 of the present year was 2,009,447; of German immigrants 2,345,486; of all others 1,265,240. An estimated classification of those arriving before 1847, added to the above figures, gives 2,463,598 Irish, 2,622,556 German, and 1,542,311 of other nationalities. The present Secretary of the Interior is the only American citizen of German birth who has ever held a cabinet appointment; we believe that he is the only citizen of German birth who has ever sat in the Senate. But among the senators at the last session of the Forty-fourth Congress there were seven who were either of foreign birth or the sons of foreigners; and in the lower House of the same assembly there appears to have been but one German to twelve naturalized citizens of other nationalities. The Secretary of the Interior owes the prominent political position which he fills less to his statesmanlike and philosophical acquirements than to his command of the English language and to his grace and power as a public speaker. No doubt there are among our German citizens many who are his equals in learning and political wisdom, but who are almost wholly unknown outside the German-speaking community, for the reason that they confine themselves, on the platform or in the press, to the use of the German language. The coming generation of Americans of German descent will not subject themselves to this disadvantage; and thus the influence of German thought will be widened and deepened.

Upon this portion of our subject we may as well reproduce in substance, although not with literal exactness, the observations made to us by a German ecclesiastic, a member of one of the German religious orders which are working here with so much zeal and success. In his opinion the German element now in the United States will ere long be greatly increased by a revival of immigration. Immigration from Germany may not again attain the vast proportions which it reached in 1852–53–54, nor during the seven memorable years 1866–1872, but it will still be very large. All other things being equal, the proportion of Catholics immigrating from Germany will be greater in the future than in the past. In looking at the future of the country we should reckon that the German element here will for many years to come steadily and rapidly increase. But it is not probable that, after the passing away of the present generation, our German population will so tenaciously retain its distinctive national or ethnological features. It will become absorbed in, amalgamated with, the rest of the community, but through this very absorption and amalgamation it will leaven the whole mass for good or for evil; and most probably the good will preponderate.

In our present German population, especially the younger portion of it, there is a very perceptible disposition to be a little ashamed of their German origin. This feeling, which has long existed, received a check during and immediately after the triumph of Germany over France in 1870 and the erection of the German Empire. But it has now revived and prevails with more force than before. Our German citizens feel that the golden apples of victory have turned to ashes in the grasp of the conquerors. The milliards wrung from France have sunk into the ground or vanished in the air, and Germany is poorer than before the war—much poorer than France, which Prince Bismarck imagined had been crushed into nothingness. All the glory that Germany won by her conquest of France in the field has been eclipsed by the peaceful victory of France—a victory the effects of which were made manifest at our International Exhibition last year. More serious still than this, in the opinion of the learned and acute ecclesiastic whom we are quoting, is the dislike and contempt with which the iniquitous, unnecessary, and tyrannical policy of the German government toward the church is regarded not only by Catholic Germans in America, but by those of their non-Catholic compatriots here who are not swayed by sectarian hatred of the church. This policy is justly regarded as at once an evidence of weakness and a prolific source of future trouble, and among the non-Catholic German-Americans the remark is common that “between the Red-coats and the Black-coats—the Communists and the Catholics—the empire is in great danger of destruction.” For these reasons, and other slighter ones, our German fellow-citizens are becoming less and less disposed to boast of their nationality, and more and more inclined to Americanize themselves and their children. The “Watch on the Rhine” gives place to “Yankee Doodle”; the suggestive inquiry as to the precise locality and boundaries of the Faderland is not so popular as “Hail Columbia.” Certain considerations of a utilitarian nature aid powerfully in leading our German citizens in the same direction. Their common sense enables them to see that their own advancement in life, and the prosperity and happiness of their children, materially depend upon their thorough Americanization—their complete identification with the rest of the community in which they live. The first step towards this end is the acquirement and use of the English language, and in this the children often outstrip the wishes of their parents. In the German-American schools, secular as well as religious, the study of the English language is compulsory, and necessarily so. The children appear to have a natural affinity for the English tongue; they acquire its use rapidly and soon begin to speak it in preference to their native language. It is not uncommon to meet with families where the parents address the children in German and the children reply in English. The truth is that the English language as now spoken, largely Teutonic in its composition and structure, but enriched and softened by Celtic, Latin, and Greek accretions, more easily adapts itself to the expression of the necessities, the emotions, and the ideas of the age. An amusing illustration of this self-asserting power of the English language was afforded by the experience of a village in Indiana, on the Ohio River, which was settled a few years ago by an exclusively German colony consisting of about three hundred families. Nothing but German was at first spoken in the houses, but in a very brief space of time the language in the streets was found to be English, and ere long that became the prevailing dialect of the place, appearing, as one of the residents said, to have sprung up and taken root there just as the weeds in the fields.

We should not omit to mention, however, a fact which to a very large degree tends to show that the Americanization of our German citizens is not so rapid as it might be. Intermarriages between Germans, or descendants of Germans, and Americans of other descent are not regarded with favor by the older Germans of the present generation, and such marriages are of rare occurrence. This is to be deplored, especially for the sake of the non-German party. In all the domestic virtues the Germans are richly endowed. The influence of the mother in the family is supreme within certain limits, and this influence is almost always exerted for good. The German husband does not regard his wife as a pretty plaything, a fragile and expensive doll to be dressed in gay raiment and paraded for the gratification of her own and his vanity. On the contrary, the German husband, if at fault at all in this respect, looks upon his wife too much in the light not merely of a helpmeet, but of a servant in whose zeal, industry, and faithfulness he can repose the utmost confidence. Americans too often make useless idols of their wives; the German husband may seem to regard his spouse from too utilitarian a point of view. In the German household, here as in the Fatherland, there is not, as there is too often in American homes, one bread-winner and one or more spenders. The wife, whenever it is needful or expedient, not only manages the domestic affairs of the family with economy, prudence, and good sense, but takes a full share of the burden of providing its income. If one journeys through those portions of the West where the Germans are largely engaged in agricultural pursuits, he will see the wife and daughters working in the fields alongside of the husband and the brothers; in the towns, while the husband is pursuing his trade or laboring in the streets, the wife is keeping a shop or a beer-saloon, or otherwise earning her full share of the family income, and aiding her husband to lay up the nest-eggs of their future fortune. The will of the wife is most frequently supreme in all domestic affairs, and even in matters of business; and this, too, without the husband feeling himself at all “hen-pecked.” His wife is his equal; he shares with her his amusements as well as his toils. Nothing is more pleasant than the spectacle of German families, on fête days or on summer evenings, taking their pleasure together in the beer-gardens. The presence of the women and children does not lessen the gayety of the men; but it prevents them from excess and compels propriety of conversation and deportment. With these habits, and with the gift of living well and wholesomely, on plain but abundant food, without wastefulness, the Germans prosper, and they acquire competences sooner and more generally than other classes. When wealth comes, their frugal and sensible habits of life are not laid aside for extravagant display, nor is the influence and sway of the mother weakened or lessened. The daughters, even of the wealthiest and most cultured German families, are taught how to become good and useful wives to poor men, and are thus prepared for reverses of fortune. By some of our American women these virtues of their German sisters may be regarded with contempt and dislike; but many American men, we are inclined to think, would lead happier lives and escape much pecuniary trouble, if they won for themselves wives from among the daughters of their German neighbors. There are but few such marriages now. The German parents dislike them; and there is, moreover, a little ignorant prejudice on the American side. The next generation or two, we trust, will be wiser.

The limits of our space and the scope of our article forbid us to do more than merely glance at a branch of our subject which is in itself worthy of a separate essay—the influence exerted by our German fellow-citizens upon the rest of us by their works in music and in the fine arts. Here the barrier of language does not exist; the genius of music and of art is universal. A certain degree of cultivation of the ear and eye is necessary, of course; but, this being attained, the music of a German composer, the painting, the sculpture, the architecture, or the decoration of a German artist, is appreciated, admired, and imitated as well by those ignorant of his language as by those of his own nationality. There is reason to believe that American taste in music and in art owes vastly more to German influence than is generally supposed or conceded. Perhaps the strongest evidences of this would result from a critical examination of the extent to which German ideas have modified, enlarged, beautified, and spiritualized our architecture, our dramatic, domestic, and ecclesiastical music, and all those phases of our daily life wherein the fine arts play a part.

Among German-American architects may be mentioned G. F. Himpler, a student at Berlin and Paris, and a thoroughly-educated master of his art—the builder of fine churches in St. Louis, Detroit, Sandusky, Elizabeth, Rome (New York), Atchison, and other places; among historical painters, Leutz—now dead, but whose works at Washington and elsewhere have given him a national fame—Lamprecht and Duvenech (the latter a native of this country), Biermann and Lange; among decorative painters, Thien, Ertle, and Muer; among sculptors and designers, Schroeder, Allard, and Kloster—the latter a very distinguished young artist; among German singers, as well known here as in Germany, Wachtel, Hainamns, Lichtmay, and Tuska; among actors. Seebach, Janauschek, Taneruscheck, Lina Meyer, and Witt.

But we can only hint at these things, and hasten on to remark, in passing, that our German citizens, even more generally and zealously here than in Germany, seek to provide for and to secure the education of their children. “The first thing that a colony of German emigrants settling in America seeks to establish is the school,” said to us a high authority. “If they are Catholics, or even zealous Lutherans, the church is built simultaneously with the school; but in every case the school must be set up, and the children must attend it at whatever cost to the parents.”

Thus far we have written of our German population as a whole. We now turn our attention to that portion of it which belongs to ourselves—i.e., the German Catholics of the United States. United with us by the bond of faith, their welfare is especially dear to us, and in their spiritual and material progress, prosperity, and happiness we have a deep and abiding interest.

Prior to 1845 the German emigration to the United States had been numerically insignificant, and consisted chiefly of the peasant class. The revolution of 1848 had the effect not only of greatly increasing this emigration but of materially changing its character. An official report recently made by Dr. Engel, Director of the Bureau of Statistics at Berlin, states that the number of Germans who emigrated to the United States from 1845 to 1876, both years inclusive, was 2,685,430. Dr. Engel remarks that a very large proportion of these emigrants (considerably more than 1,000,000 of them) were “strong men”; there were few old or infirm people among them; those of them who were not adult males in the vigor of their manhood were chiefly young and middle-aged women and children. A goodly proportion of these emigrants must now be living among us; we know by the census of 1870 that our German-born population even then numbered 1,690,410. The German race is hardy and prolific; its women are good mothers; their thrift, industry, and economical habits enable them to live in comfort upon modest resources; without being teetotalers, they are seldom intemperate. The German-born and German-descended population of the United States at present—including in the latter class only those whose parents on both sides or on one side or the other were natives of Germany, but who were themselves born here—is believed to be about 5,500,000 souls. The great bulk of this population is in the Central, Western, and Northwestern States; the six States of New York, Illinois, Ohio, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Missouri contain nearly two-thirds of the whole number.^[86]

The German Empire as at present constituted contained at the latest census (1875) 42,723,242 people. Of these not quite one-third are Catholics. Had the immigration from the states which now form the German Empire borne this proportion, we should have in the United States a German Catholic population of about 1,800,000 souls. But the immigration was largely from the Protestant states, or from those in which the Protestants were in the majority. We should be satisfied, and more than satisfied, when we learn that the German Catholics in the United States, according to the latest and most accurate computation, numbered 1,237,563 souls. It is a very large number—large enough to establish the fact that the Catholic Germans arriving here have not lost their faith, but have preserved and guarded it for themselves and their children. These 1,237,563 German Catholics in America are not mythical or hypothetical persons; in making up the numeration care was taken to include only those who were known as practical Catholics, frequenters of the sacraments, careful observers of their duties as Catholic parents or Catholic children. In this connection we may add some figures for which we are indebted to the courtesy of a German priest and statistician, and on the accuracy of which our readers may depend. First, however, let us state, upon the best authority, that the church in America loses very few of her German children. We were extremely gratified with the unanimous testimony which rewarded our inquiries on this matter. It very rarely occurs that a young German Catholic of either sex strays or is stolen from the fold. Neither the false philosophy of the infidel or Protestant German schools, nor the seductions and ridicule of their infidel or Protestant American neighbors, lure them from the faith. We have observed in our own visits to the German churches in New York, especially at the early Masses, the large proportion of male adult worshippers. “Our old people, of course, never leave us,” said a learned German priest, “and our young people rarely, very rarely, stray away. They are faithful in their duties, and they appear to love their religion with all their hearts. When they marry and have children, they look after them as Catholic parents should do. Our parochial schools are well attended; our higher schools and academies are prosperous. Our teaching orders, of men and women, have their hands full of work, and they are almost without exception well supported. One of the bishops in a Western diocese, the greater part of whose flock are Germans, has the happiness of knowing that all the children of his people are in attendance either in his parochial schools or in other schools of which the teachers are Catholics.”

Our 1,237,563 German Catholics in America are ministered to in spiritual things by 1,373 German priests. They have 930 church edifices, while there are 173 other congregations of them regularly visited by priests, but as yet without church buildings. The whole number of Catholic priests in the United States, according to the Catholic Directory for this year, is 5,297, of churches 5,292, and of chapels and stations 2,768. Thus it will be seen that the German priests number a little more than one-fourth of our American ecclesiastical army. There is a German priest for every 900 German Catholics. How faithfully they discharge their duties, and how zealously the people, on their part, assist their pastors, may be estimated by the fact that the baptisms by these German priests last year numbered 71,077—an average of more than one each week for each priest; and that the number of children in the German parochial schools was 137,322—an average of almost exactly 100 children for each priest. The following table will show with approximate exactness the number of German Catholic priests and German Catholic laymen in the various States or dioceses:

The education of the juvenile portion of this large army of German-American Catholics is partly in the hands of the teaching orders of the church, male and female; partly in the hands of the parish priests; and partly confided to private instructors. The “German Sisters of Notre Dame,” for example, 923 in number, in 79 congregations, have charge of the parochial schools and instruct 25,557 children. They have also 15 academies, in which 1,375 pupils are receiving higher education; and 11 orphan asylums with 1,400 children. Another branch of the same sisters have their houses in 17 congregations, and in these 63 teaching sisters are instructing 9,000 children; they have also 3 academies with 700 pupils. The German Franciscan Sisters, in 19 congregations, have 53 teaching sisters educating 5,700 children; and one academy. The Sisters of the Precious Blood, in 11 congregations, employ 17 of their number in teaching 900 children. The German Dominican Sisters, whose houses are in New York, Williamsburg, and Racine, Wisconsin; and the Sisters of Christian Charity, at Melrose and elsewhere, are among the many religious orders chiefly engaged in educational work among the German Catholics. Prince Bismarck has done us a very good turn without wishing it. The expulsion of the religious orders of men and women caused by the persecution of the church in Germany compelled these servants of God to seek new homes. Many of these orders already had houses in this country; driven from Germany, they found not merely a refuge but a warm welcome and abundant work with their brothers and sisters here. Others of them, not previously established in this country, and being robbed by the paternal government of Prussia of all their property, arrived here in poverty; but they were joyfully received and speedily supplied with means for commencing their work in these new and inviting fields. The German branch of the Christian Brothers—“Christliche Schulbrüder”—has experienced a marvellous growth, and is accomplishing splendid results in the primary and higher education of the German Catholic youth.^[87]

A visit to a German Catholic church can scarcely fail to be interesting and profitable to an American Catholic. He will see much that is edifying and highly pleasing. The congregations at the early Masses on week-days—we speak now only of what we have ourselves observed in New York—are generally large and are composed of a fair share of men; at all the Masses on Sundays the attendance is still more numerous. On days of obligation, other than Sundays, these churches are thronged to their utmost capacity; at the nine o’clock Mass on last Corpus Christi we saw the great Church of the Redemptorists, on Third Street, packed from the altar rails to the doors, and even the spacious vestibule filled with kneeling worshippers. On this occasion, as on many others, nearly or quite one-half of the congregation were men—a fact which we emphasize, as it contradicts the mistaken idea that the faith is losing its hold upon our men and is mainly cherished only by women. There are thirteen German Catholic churches in this city. The good sense, thrift, and wise management of the Germans have borne their natural fruit in their churches and religious houses as well as elsewhere. For example, attached to each of the two Capuchin churches is a large, handsome, and substantial convent for the use of the fathers and for their schools. We were astonished at the extent, the good arrangement, and the solidity of these edifices, and our astonishment was not lessened when we learned that they had both been erected within the last ten years.

It would be well, we think, if the relations between our German Catholics and the rest of us were made more close and intimate. The bond of faith, we know, unites us in all essential things; but it would be well for us to come nearer together in every way. Our German co-religionists are worthy of all esteem. They are already strong in numbers. They will constantly became stronger. The Pall Mall Gazette recently contained a most interesting summary of a report made by Vice-Consul Kruge upon the subject of German emigration. We quote the following portion of this summary:

“Emigration from Germany, particularly to the United States, increased steadily after the memorable year 1848, and assumed very large proportions immediately after the chances of a war between Austria and Prussia in 1852 and 1853. The largest number of emigrants of any year left in summer, 1854, or after the declaration of the Crimean war—the United States alone receiving 215,009 German immigrants in that year. There appears a considerable falling off from 1858 to 1864, but already in 1865, when a probability of a war between Austria and Prussia became more and more visible, the number of emigrants began to increase very much. The years from 1866 to 1870, most likely in consequence of the suspicious relations between France and the North German Confederation, which ultimately brought on the war in 1870, give very large figures. Even the year 1870 has the large number of 91,779 emigrants. ‘Strange to witness,’ says Consul Kruge, ‘after the close of the Franco-German war, when the German Empire had been created, and a prosperity seemed to have come over Germany beyond any expectation, when wages had been almost doubled, and when, in fact, everything looked in the brightest colors, a complete emigration fever was raging in all parts of Germany’; and the years 1871, 1872, 1873 show an almost alarming tendency to quit the Fatherland. This movement would no doubt have continued but for the natural check it received through the financial and commercial crisis in the United States. There are however, at present again unquestionable signs that a very large emigrating element is smoldering in Germany, stimulated by political and economical embroilments which will break forth as soon as sufficient hope and inducements offer themselves in transatlantic countries in the eyes of the discontented and desponding Germans. The general political aspect and the decline of German commerce and industry at the present period are, observes Consul Kruge, such that an emigration on a large scale must be the natural consequence of the ruling state of affairs. Among other illustrations of the causes of a desire on the part of the Germans to leave their native land, Consul Kruge mentions the religious ‘Kulturkampf,’ which, he says, in its practical results may, at least up till now, be rightly termed an unsuccessful move on the political chessboard, and has been brought home by degrees to the Roman Catholic population in an irritating, harassing form. Between the priests on the one hand and the Government on the other the lives of the Roman Catholic peasantry are made one of ‘perfect torment’; and these people naturally desire to leave that country where, rightly or wrongly, they believe their religion attacked or endangered. The relations between France and Germany also act powerfully to promote emigration, and the huge expenses of maintaining the army, besides a navy of considerable size, contribute to swell the emigration tendency of the country. Consul Kruge thinks that if the Australian colonies care to have the largest portion of the coming German emigration, at no time have they had a better chance of creating an extensive movement to their shores than at present.”

These remarks strongly confirm the opinions expressed by ourselves when writing on the same subject four months ago.^[88] But when the wave of German emigration again rises to its former height, it will turn toward this country, as before, and not to Australia. Here the German population is already so large and so well-to-do that the new-comers will find themselves at home upon their arrival. Especially will the United States be attractive to the German Catholics; for here they will find their exiled priests and nuns, already settled in their new homes, with churches and schools prepared for them. The return of moderate prosperity to the United States will probably give the signal for the commencement of the new German exodus; and we are scarcely too sanguine in believing that this return to prosperity will not be delayed much longer.

AT THE CHURCH-DOOR.

At this moment the door-handle was touched on the outside, and M. Rouvière sprang hastily from his chair and stationed himself with his back to the fire, looking very straight and stiff and aggressive. The door slowly opened and Mme. Dupuis entered, pushing out, at the same time, the unfortunate cat which was trying to slip in with her.

“No, no, pussy,” said the lady, “you got yourself turned out, and you must stay out. O the naughty men!” she exclaimed, laughingly, as she closed the door, “they have been smoking.”

“Have we been smoking?” said Rouvière, sniffing. “Bless me! I really believe we have; it shows how absent-minded one can be. I hadn’t perceived it, so absorbed were George and I in our great project.”

“What project?” asked madame as she took off her hood and cloak. “Are you going to stay with us, M. Rouvière?”

“Not exactly,” replied the guest, “but for George and me the result is the same. Are you good at guessing riddles, madame?”

“You are not going to take George away with you, are you?” asked the wife, her brown eyes resting firmly on his.

“With your permission, dear lady,” answered Rouvière, bowing with ironical politeness.

“No, no, it cannot be!” exclaimed Mme. Dupuis, with a forced, flickering smile, looking at him inquiringly and speaking low and hurriedly. “You will think me very silly to take a joke so seriously, but I cannot help it. You are playing with my life-spring. Tell me—I pray you tell me, dear M. Rouvière, that you are not going to take my husband away.”

“I shall certainly leave his heart with you, my dear lady,” answered the triumphant friend, “but it is a fact that I am going to carry off his body for a while. The long and the short of it is this: for some time past George has been meditating a return to the land of the living, and he is glad to seize this opportunity to start at once, thus obviating all minor hindrances.”

Mme. Dupuis listened silently, her eyes cast down; she had not taken a seat since her entrance into the room, and she continued standing, leaning against an arm-chair in front of her guest.

“It is true, then,” she murmured when Rouvière ceased speaking.

“Do you hear him?” cried her tormentor, laughing, as a heavy thump was heard on the floor of the room above them. “The madcap! what a row he is making up there with his trunk. He’s dragging it about as if it were a triumphal car. Come, now, madame, you really ought not to feel surprised that, after living thirty consecutive years in Saint-Sauveur-le-Vicomte, a man like George....”

“Do not trouble yourself to enter into any explanations—I understand,” interrupted Mme. Dupuis dryly. “Where are you taking him?”

“Why, to tell the truth, my dear lady, everywhere; first....”

“For how long a time?” again interrupted the victim.

“How long? Well, a year, perhaps, or two years ... at most. Ah! my dear Mme. Dupuis, what pleasant hours he is preparing for you,” continued M. Rouvière, who waxed each minute more and more vainglorious and jubilant. “How vastly will your remarkable collection of curiosities be enriched by his few months of travel! He will bring you back a dozen authentic reliquaries, and as many rosaries, blessed by the Holy Father himself ... propria manu! What say you to that?”

But Mme. Dupuis had ceased to listen; she had thrown herself into the arm-chair before her and was weeping bitterly. “O my God! my God!” were the only words she spoke between her sobs.

“Good!” growled Rouvière, scowling at the unhappy woman—“the elegiac style. Come, now,” he continued, making a step towards her and forcing himself to speak gently—“come, now, my dear lady, you are not reasonable. What is all this crying about? A journey. A journey don’t kill a man; am not I a proof of that? And, good God! sailors’ wives—what do they do? Really, this is too bad; you are placing me in a most annoying position, madame,” suddenly changing his gentle tone to one of vexation. “You are rendering my mission excessively painful.”

“Excuse me, sir,” sobbed the stricken wife, raising her wet face for a moment. “You see I ... I can’t....” She could not go on.

M. Rouvière began to pace the room angrily; his tactics were at a loss, and he found his task more difficult than he had anticipated; the little “provinciale” did not resemble the old Indian vixen as much as he had imagined. Presently he stopped in front of the weeping lady. “You are doing, madame,” said he sternly, “precisely what I was instructed to tell you George wishes to avoid.”

“Shall I not see him before he goes?” asked Madame Dupuis with a frightened look, half-rising from her seat as she spoke.

“You shall see him, if you can recover your equanimity,” replied Rouvière; “if you cannot, it will be better for you and for him not to meet. His resolution is not to be changed.”

“Oh! I will be calm, I promise you,” exclaimed the wife, great drops flowing fast down her pale cheeks; “in a few minutes ... give me a few minutes more.... I cannot ... all at once.... O God! merciful God!” Again she wept despairingly.

“I am compelled to make the remark, madame,” observed Rouvière harshly, “that all this despair is quite out of proportion with the cause. The deuce take it! I’m not carrying your husband off to the war.”

“No, no; I believe that he will come back again,” sobbed Mme. Dupuis, trying to wipe away her tears.

“You are a pious woman, madame, and now’s the hour to show your piety. Religion does not consist in only going to church. You are not to think of yourself solely in this world.”

“But you see, M. Rouvière,” replied the good little woman, making a great effort to control her emotion, “he’s not accustomed, like you, to a life of continual fatigue; his health is more delicate than you suspect. You will take care of him,” she added, suddenly seizing her enemy’s right hand with both of hers—“you will take care of him, will you not?”

“Why, certainly, madame, certainly,” answered Rouvière a trifle more gently; “you may rely on me for that. I promise to bring him back to you as fresh and rosy as any lad in Cotentin. I give you my word of honor. You understand me, do you not? But now, I beg you, let us have no more tears, especially no scene at parting.”

“I will do all you wish me to do.” And Mme. Dupuis forthwith smiled tearfully on the hard, cold man who had so wantonly upset her happiness.

“Look,” she cried presently, as she wiped away the last hot drops, “it can’t be perceived that I have been crying.”

“That’s right, madame; that’s the way! I’ve great esteem for strong, single-hearted women; for wives who are truly Christian and self-sacrificing. And now that you’ve recovered your calmness, allow me to repeat to you that there really never was any reason for such great grief. What is a year? Gracious heavens! it is nothing. You will probably spend six months of it with your daughter, and the remaining six months you will pass here in the midst of your remembrances. George will not be more than half absent, for everything around you will bring him constantly before you; you will meet him at every step!”

“Take care, sir, take care!” said Mme. Dupuis, shaking her head at him with a faint smile, “lest, while you seek to comfort me, you increase the pain, ... which you cannot understand!”

“I beg your pardon, madame; I understand it perfectly,” replied Rouvière, an angry gleam lighting up his eyes for an instant, “and I thought that I was proving to you that I do.”

“O sir! believe me, I wish to cast no reflection either on your intelligence or your kindness; be quite sure of that!”

“Madame!” exclaimed the gentleman.

“But there are things,” continued Mme. Dupuis, giving at last free utterance to her feelings—“there are things which are not to be guessed. Have you thought how different your life has been to ours? You have been very wise; you have never allowed your heart to be bound by any of those ties whose number and strength are only recognized when they come to be broken. Yes, you may well say that everything here, the very hearthstone itself, forms a part of our united lives, of our remembrances, making our very thoughts the same. Everything around us loves us, everything is dear to us.... So, at least, I believed until now! A few minutes ago how dearly I prized the simple objects this room contains—all so familiar to us both during so many years, all bearing traces of our habits; each one reminding us of the projects, the pleasures, the sorrows we have shared together! And now they are nothing to me—they can be nothing to me but the ruins of a false happiness, the wrecks of a dream!”

“Really, madame, you exaggerate strangely,” replied Rouvière coldly; “admitting that this journey throws a shade over the present, the past, at least, remains intact.”

“You are mistaken, sir,” returned Mme. Dupuis. “This journey is doubtless not much in itself, but it answers cruelly a question which I have been accustomed to ask myself in secret nearly all my life: Is George happy? No, he was not happy; I alone was happy. I know the truth at last! He was resigned”—she struggled a moment to contain her emotion—“but he was not happy. And yet my heart—I feel it, I am sure of it—was worthy of his; in every other respect I was inferior to him, and I felt it bitterly. What companionship could a mind like his find in the conversation of a poor, provincial girl, ignorant of everything, knowing nothing but how to love him?”

“You undervalue yourself,” remarked her attentive listener; “as for me, I declare that the more I know you, the better I appreciate George’s choice of a wife.”

“You flatter me, M. Rouvière,” replied Mme. Dupuis, smiling; “you see me unhappy, and you are generous. I will be so too, and forgive you all the pain you have occasioned me.... I have hated you for years.”

“Me? Impossible! What had I done to deserve it? But first tell me”—and his voice was quite kind and gentle—“you feel better now, do you not? I don’t know how it is, but really you look ten years younger!”

“Possibly,” said Mme. Dupuis, with a quiet smile; “I think that I am a little feverish—so much the better!”

“Come, come, cheer up! And tell me, now, what painful part have I played in your existence?”

“Well, M. Rouvière,” she began calmly, but became more and more excited as she went on, “I need scarcely tell you that every woman, from the very morrow of her wedding-day, finds herself in presence of a formidable rival—her husband’s unmarried life. Nor need I explain how difficult is the task to make him forget all that he has given up for his wife; how almost impossible it is to allay his regret for the golden age that is gone—regret which grows stronger as those past days recede farther and farther into the distance and youth fades away. I, sir, soon perceived that your name, incessantly on his lips, was George’s favorite symbol of lost pleasures—the incarnation of all the illusions of by-gone years. In his dear thoughts you represented liberty, adventure, and the days of fleeting sorrows and of infinite hopes; while I—I was positive life, paltry domestic economy, and daily anxiety. I was prose and you were poetry. It was with you then that I had to struggle, and I did so with all my strength and with all my soul. Alas! it was in vain; you were stronger than I. Each day George grew more thoughtful, and it seemed to me as if every one of those moments of sadness was a triumph for you. How often have I wept secret tears over my defects, here, seated by this hearthstone, or under the willow-trees in our little garden! But I was young then, and God took pity on me and gave me my daughter, and you were overcome. Now”—her voice fell and she paused a moment—“now the angel of our home is gone, and victory is once more yours.”

“Who knows?” replied Rouvière, his voice strangely hoarse and trembling. “The last word is not yet spoken. You are going to see George. Speak to him. You can still prevent his journey.”

“I have promised you that I will not try to do so,” she answered gently.

“But I give you back your promise!” cried her guest vehemently. “I will not be your evil genius. I am abrupt, madame, selfish too, sometimes—that’s a bachelor’s profession, you know; but I am not bad—pray, believe it.”

“I do believe it,” she replied, looking him frankly and smilingly in the eyes, “but I know George. All my efforts would be useless; they would irritate him, and nothing more. Besides, even if, by dint of tears, I could keep him at home, I would not do it now. I should only be adding another new and bitter regret to those which have already poisoned his life. And my heart would seem to reproach me with my victory every time that I saw him silent or sad. No; he must go!”

“All you say is true—too true,” said Rouvière after a short pause. “There is nothing to reply; you are right. But depend on me, madame, to shorten his absence.”

“I will depend on you; thank you.” She rose from her seat as she spoke and offered her hand to him. The repentant guest clasped it in both of his and kissed it, bowing low as he did so. At the same moment a loud noise as of something falling down the stairs, followed by a great confusion of tongues, was heard outside.

“My God! what is the matter?” exclaimed Mme. Dupuis, pale as death. “It is he; I hear his voice!”

She rushed towards the door, but before she could reach it her husband entered, boiling over with passion, and followed by Marianne.

“You’re an awkward dunce! Be silent, I command you!” he shouted, as the maid tried to excuse herself. “You can’t make me believe that you find this trunk, which has nothing but a few shirts in it, too heavy for you to carry. The stupid creature,” he continued, turning to his wife, “actually let my trunk roll from the top to the bottom of the staircase!”

“Well, the fact is,” cried Marianne, “ever since you told me that you were going to Rome I’ve lost all strength in my arms and legs. I’ve no strength at all. Going to Rome, indeed! What next?”

“The woman is crazy,” said Dupuis, red with indignation. “What business is it of yours, I should like to know?”

“I don’t say that it’s my business,” replied the maid, who was as red and angry as her master, “but, all the same, it’s a queer idea to leave mistress here all alone, at her age too, while you go to Rome. You’ll be lucky if you find her again when you come back. I won’t answer for it.”

“Marianne, take care!” cried Dupuis, who had listened, speechless with amazement, to his old servant’s impertinence. “You must see that I am far from pleased.”

“I’m not surprised at that,” returned she; “you’re not pleased with others, because you’re not pleased with yourself. That’s always the way.”

“I dismiss you from my service,” cried her master, in a fury.

“Go down stairs directly, Marianne,” said her mistress sternly.

“I dismiss you,” repeated Dupuis; “though they should be the last words I have to speak in my own house, they shall be obeyed. I dismiss you from my service! It is your fault also, my dear Reine,” he added when the maid had gone from the room; “you allow your servants to be too familiar with you. You see the consequence. I hope you understand that I have dismissed that woman?”

“Yes, George,” answered the lady gently; “I will settle her wages to-morrow morning, if you do not change your mind.”

“Change my mind!” exclaimed her husband. “Am I accustomed to change my mind every five minutes? Am I a weathercock, or do you deem me so weakened by age that I can submit to be lectured by my own servants?”

“I beg you, dear, not to say another word on the subject. She shall go away to-morrow. But I want to know, George, if you have all you need. Let me look into your trunk, will you? Men don’t know much about wearing-apparel, and when one is travelling the merest trifle that is missing suffices to put one out of sorts for the whole day. I know that you can buy whatever you want, but where’s the use when you can avoid it? And then, too, I wish to make you think of me all the time, you gadabout!”

“Do as you like, love,” said George; “here are the keys.”

“Well, Tom,” he continued, when the lady had closed the door behind her, “it seems to me that she received the news very well indeed.”

“Perfectly; do you know, George, your wife possesses some great qualities?”

“I know she does,” returned Dupuis, looking inquisitively at his friend’s serious, almost downcast countenance.

“She is shy and excessively timid, and that does her wrong,” went on Rouvière.

“I told you so, my dear friend,” cried Dupuis eagerly. “She was afraid of you at dinner. Now, I would bet any sum that, the ice once broken, you hardly recognized her.”

“It is true. Under the influence of deep emotion—for I will not conceal that she was at first very much affected—she found expressions, directly from her heart, which astonished me.”

“She has plenty of heart, that’s certain!” exclaimed the gratified husband.

“And you may add,” said his friend, “that she possesses a most refined and elevated mind.”

“I know it, Tom—I know it well!” cried Dupuis with delight. “I’m not a blockhead, hey? Do you suppose that I should have married her, if I had not known all that? And if it had to be done again, I should do it again. I am not only happy in the woman I have chosen, Tom, but I am proud of her! She has some slight defects—I see them as well as any one—but, bless me! of what consequence is a little awkwardness, or perhaps a few parish prejudices, when you find in the same woman the most self-sacrificing tenderness, the most exquisite good sense and uprightness, the most fervent and unassuming piety—in short, all the virtues that can captivate an honest man?”

“Ha! ha!” laughed Rouvière, slapping him caressingly on the shoulder. “An honest man—there you are! Well, well! all right.”

“What do you mean?” asked Dupuis, astonished.

“I mean,” replied Rouvière, “that the conclusion of your little speech is perfectly clear: thinking better about our journey, and estimating more coolly the value of the treasure that remains in the house, you have lost the courage to leave it. In short, you are about to let me go away alone.... I can understand perfectly that it should be so.”

“But I swear ...” cried Dupuis.

“Say no more, say no more,” interrupted his friend. “I understand it all perfectly, I tell you.”

“You misunderstand, you mean,” said Dupuis angrily. “I have never, for one moment, forgotten my wife’s good qualities, but, were she ten times the saint she is, it is not less true that I have been living the life of a snail. Good heavens! I shall be better able to appreciate her many virtues when no consciousness of intellectual degradation is present to spoil my enjoyment.”

“You are too absurd, George! You make me laugh with your ‘intellectual degradation.’”

“You did not laugh half an hour ago,” retorted Dupuis, “when you depicted it in colors ... well, in colors which not even your friendship for me could soften.”

“Is it possible that you did not perceive that I was jesting? How singular it is that there’s not an intelligent man in France who, if he is condemned to live in the provinces, far from Paris, does not fancy that he is becoming idiotic! I had a presentiment that you suffered from this monomania, and I amused myself by exciting it. I had been drinking, you know; let that be my excuse.”

“However that may be,” answered Dupuis, a cold, stubborn expression stealing over his face and fixing itself there, “I am more than ever resolved to travel; if I hesitated before, I do so no longer. I confess that I was afraid of the effect my intention would produce on my wife, but her calmness removes all my scruples.”

“Listen to me, George, I beg you,” replied his friend earnestly: “don’t trust too much to appearances; your wife affects a firmness she is far from feeling. I know....”

“You know!” interrupted Dupuis. “You know that you begin to think that I shall be in your way, and so you want to cast me over.”

“No, George, no—nothing of the kind. You don’t understand me. I sincerely believed, from what you said, that you had changed your mind. I thought that I was anticipating your wishes in giving back your promise to go with me. But if you really persist in your intentions, all right ... I am delighted.”

“Here are the horses,” bawled Marianne, opening the door suddenly and then shutting it with a bang.

“That old woman would take my life, if she could,” said Rouvière, laughing. “Now, then,” he continued, taking up his cloak, “let’s gird up our loins. By the bye, I think I remember that you never can sleep in a coach.”

“I beg your pardon, I can sleep perfectly well.”

“So much the better. Allons! Bravo! Are the horses put to, I wonder? Does this window look out upon the street?” Rouvière opened the sash as he spoke, but closed it quickly. “What a wind! It’s terrible—cold enough to split a rock! Now I think of it, one of the glasses of the post-chaise is broken. I’m afraid you’ll be frozen to death, George.”

“Don’t trouble yourself about me,” replied Dupuis, putting on his overcoat. “I can bear cold like a Laplander.”

“All right!”

The clock at this moment struck nine, and Madame Dupuis entered the room, carrying a soft India shawl suspended from her arm. The poor lady was very pale.

“Everything is ready,” she said with a trembling voice, “and here are your keys, dear. You will see that I have added some few little things that you had forgotten. And here is a comforter for you. I’ve cut my old cashmere shawl in two, and half of it will be very nice to wrap round your throat; it is very warm.”

“How foolish of you to cut up your shawl!” cried Dupuis. “However, since ’tis done, I accept; but it really was very foolish of you.”

“Here is the other half for you, M. Rouvière,” said madame, presenting it with a kind smile.

“For me!” cried Rouvière, taking it from her with respectful eagerness. “Thank you, thank you most sincerely!”

“You will remember your promises, will you not?” asked the lady gently, fixing her eyes on his.

Rouvière bowed and turned away abruptly.

“You will write to our daughter, George? You will not fail?”

“I will write to her—to both of you—often, often,” answered George in a husky voice, and pulling his travelling-cap over his eyes.

“The 12th of January!” suddenly exclaimed Rouvière, who was warming his feet at the fire, while he examined an almanac placed on the chimney-piece. “Is it really the 12th of January to-day?”

“It really is,” replied Mme. Dupuis. “Why do you ask? Is there any particular remembrance attached to that date?”

“It is a date which interests me only,” replied Rouvière in a tone of infinite sadness. “Five years ago this very evening, almost at this same hour, I was passing through an ordeal I shall never forget. Now, George, are you ready?” he added with abrupt impatience.

“What kind of an ordeal? What had happened to you? An accident?” asked George, with intense interest.

“No, not an accident, but I was very ill, which is always a misfortune—and ill in an inn, which is horrible.”

“People are ill everywhere,” remarked Dupuis sententiously.

“True; but the impressions made on you by sickness and death vary according to the circumstances in which they surprise you; you can scarcely conceive how much, unless you have had the experience.”

“Pshaw! death is death under all circumstances; it is always equally unpleasant!” cried Dupuis.

“Ah! you think that.... I should like to have seen you.... Well, I’ll tell you my story. It happened at Peschiera, on the Lago di Guardia—a lovely country; we’ll pass through it, and I’ll show you the house. I was detained there by a fever of a somewhat pernicious character. All went on well, however, during eight days—for I was delirious the whole time, and knew nothing of what was passing—till one fine evening, the evening of the 12th of January, when I suddenly came to myself, so weak in body, so anxious in spirit, and at the same time with such an extraordinary lucidity of mind that I felt convinced I was at the point of death. I have passed through many bitter moments in the course of my life—cruel moments—which nevertheless I can think of now with a kind of pleasure; but when I recall to mind my awakening in that inn-chamber, a cold shiver runs through me; I shudder!”

Rouvière paused as Marianne entered the room; Mme. Dupuis signed to her imperatively not to interrupt, and the maid remained standing near the door.

“What did you see that could make such a fearful impression on you?” asked George, moving a little nearer to his friend.

“Nothing very horrible; only some people who were waiting for me to die, an old woman and a young doctor who were conversing together in a corner, and a priest who was kneeling at the foot of my bed.

“They formed to my eye a picture whose accessories were the dirty, faded curtains of the couch on which I was stretched and the tarnished, heterogeneous furniture of a lodging-house. But the ignoble surroundings, the preparations for death even, caused me no emotion; what revolted me—stirred up my very soul to protest—was the neglect, the brutal lack of charity—saving the presence of the priest—the desolate isolation, the void of all human sympathy in which I realized that I was at that moment dying. How distinctly I can recollect the pitiful, suppliant look with which I gazed around me, as if trying to interlink the life that was escaping me with any, the slightest, earthly object; as if seeking to discover some sign of interest, of pity even, in the impassible faces which looked so calmly on me! My agonized heart longed for any trifle—a picture, a vase, a chair—which had known me, and to which I could say farewell. But all was strange.”

“Death never can be agreeable,” remarked Dupuis crabbedly. “When the last hour is upon us it is dismal to be alone, I don’t say the contrary; but I can’t see that it is more cheerful to be surrounded by a weeping family.”

“I think that you would have felt as I felt then,” replied Rouvière with melancholy gravity; “the death which God has ordained for men—the death which most men die, which finds consolation and resignation in the tears of tender regret shed by loving friends—that death appeared to me, in my solitary agony, like a sweet, untroubled feast.... I made many a singular reflection that night! But come, George, are you ready?”

“When you will; ... but, first, what were your reflections?”

“Well, to tell you the truth, I lost somewhat of my self-sufficiency. And then I congratulated myself a little less on the path I had chosen for my life’s journey. Why not say it? The book of life seemed suddenly to be opened before me, and I read on every page, traced by God’s own hand, the words ‘duty and sacrifice.’ I had rejected that law. Hitherto I had only seen its hardships; now I recognized its benefits. I had avoided its bonds that I might live independently, and exile and isolation had been my lot. I had fancied that, by escaping the usual dull routine of humble duties, I should win for myself a happiness unknown—pleasures inconceivable to the vulgar crowd. Alas! I found that I had experienced nothing save a loveless youth, a solitary old age, and an unlamented death. Then, George—then I understood what an erroneous price we pay for the indulgence of our selfishness.”

“Were you long in this agitated state?” asked Dupuis.

“Long enough for it to be indelibly impressed on my memory,” replied his friend. “When the young physician perceived that I was looking at him, he arose and approached me, and I felt the touch of his hand, cold and indifferent as his heart. I pushed it away and closed my eyes. And then a vision of my father’s death-bed flashed before me, distinct and clear. I saw again, grouped around it, the faithful friends of his youth—our ancient servants, the old doctor, the white-haired priest, and, dearest of all, my mother, my good mother. They leaned over him, they wiped his damp brow, they smiled at him through their tears; they had gladdened his life, and they were beside him now, to cheer and sustain him as he passed away! My dried-up heart melted within me as I gazed on this vision of a scene I had long since ceased to recall, and I burst into tears; they saved me!”

Rouvière stopped, overpowered by his emotion, and, covering his eyes with his hand, leant forward against the mantle-shelf.

“These recollections are too painful,” said Dupuis gently.

“They are painful,” replied Rouvière, his voice hoarse and trembling, “and everything I see around me here awakens them. Oh! how alike these old houses are,” he continued, speaking to himself and looking around the room. “All this is familiar to me. There stood my mother’s little work-table near the window, just as that is—I always found her seated at it when I came home for a holiday—and there, in the chimney-corner, was the great arm-chair in which my father always sat. And the family portraits looked down from the walls just as these do. There, as here, the trace of two lives closely entwined, never to be separated, was visible everywhere. Why did I not learn by their example? Why was I compelled to drag my weary, vagrant life, my unceasing remorse, all over the wide world, ere I could comprehend that they were happy? Did they know that they were happy? I doubt it. How often I have heard my father speak with envy of the very pleasures I have found so hollow! How often they confided to me their mutual grievances! And yet when one went the other could not stay. Dear old father! dearest mother!”

“My dear friend!” whispered George.

“And I,” continued Rouvière, with increasing emotion—“I sold their home as soon as it was empty—I had the heart to do that! I sold the room where I was born; I sold all our family traditions; I sold the ancient, faithful friendships which seemed to adhere to the house and soil. I alienated my patrimony.... I riveted the chain of egotism I was so eagerly forging. I did my work well; no kind care, no friendly companionship will ever be the solace of my old age. I have nothing to offer in return—not even the bribe of a legacy. I cannot even buy back that humble home; my last days may not be sheltered by those walls whose very shadows I have learned to love. I may not even die there. Come! let us go,” he added with vehemence, dashing away the tears which suddenly inundated his face.