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DELAND, MARGARETTA WADE (CAMPBELL), Margaret Deland," novelist; born at Alleghany, Pa., February 23, 1857. She was educated at Pelham Priory, New Rochelle, N. Y. After studying at Cooper Union, New York, she was a teacher of industrial design in the Normal College for girls, New York, 1878-79. She was married, 1880, to Lorin F. Deland of Boston. In poetry she has published The Old Garden, and Other Verses (1886, republished with decorations, 1893). Her noveis are John Ward, Preacher (1888); Florida Days (1889); Sidney (1890), and Philip and His Wife (Atlantic Monthly, 1894). John Ward, Preacher, instantly commanded public attention by its vigor and keenness in tracing the abnormal influence of certain doctrinal beliefs formerly current in the Church and supposed to be a part of Christianity. The characterization of these beliefs verges at times on caricature, though undeniably able and with a basis of truth.

THE TOWN.

The singers could buy their flowers in the market, which is but a little way from the Cathedral. Whitewashed pillars uphold its ancient roof, and its brick floor is so old that it is worn into hollows; it used to be filled with stalls, where great heaps of vegetables and yellow oranges were displayed for sale, or where the wet sides of fish sparkled on every scale with wonderful color. There were sunbonneted women gossiping in the sunshine across their wares;

men

smoking under the streamers of moss from the liveoak trees, or chaffering over their mules and horses; a crowding, good-natured, quick-tempered people, bringing color and laughter into the little square; they came for the most part from the country beyond, along the shining shell-road and through the city gates.

As long ago as the beginning of this century the towers of the gateway in the wall about the town were crumbling and broken with age, so that they must have witnessed many things unknown to the tranquil life which comes and goes under their gray shadows to-day. They see nothing more startling now than lovers whispering in the twilight, perhaps; or the gay tramp of marching feet which have never known the hurry and terror of war; or a sob beside a funeral bier.

True, Love and Death-there could have been nothing more ultimate than they; but the expression changes; and these square pillars crumbling slowly in the white, hot sunshine, have seen quick and nervous lives and cruel deaths. The iron gates which used to hang between the two coquina towers, were always closed at night, and fastened with ponderous bolts, so that the little town might sleep peacefully within them. How many enemies of the King of Spain they have repulsed when the town was garrisoned by his soldiers, and how often they have received and sheltered terrorstricken wretches flying from the outlaws of the plains beyond!

A darky goes jolting through now, in a little twowheeled cart, full of yellow oranges. He sings, perhaps, in a full sweet voice, but with a certain wild note in it, which will take many generations yet to tame. "Oh, my Lawd," he says, leaning forward, his elbows resting on his ragged knees, and the reins slipping carelessly between his fingers,—

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With this morning freshness in the sparkling air, he sings because he cannot help it; long ago the Lord

remembered the captivity in Babylon, but the song has found no deeper meaning in his soul; it is only a simple rejoicing in the sunshine. It is hard to realize, in the comfortable content among the negroes, living tranquil, sleepy lives in the old town, that these words were ever sung with tears and prayers; such pain meant alertness and eager life, for which one now looks in vain. These people would surely never rouse themselves to contradict the man who asserted, with grim disdain of all intense life, that the happiest moment each day, to the happiest person, was the moment when consciousness began to melt into sleep.

A woman, sitting in the sun with half-shut eyes, her pipe gone out, perhaps, her head resting against the door-post, is quite satisfied and happy.

The boy in the jolting car, even though he sings, is half asleep. He apostrophizes his mule, or the oranges which tumble about his feet, with violence of words, but with a face full of lazy good-nature. Indeed, he and his beast have the same placid way of taking life. The mule does not mark his abusive entreaties to proceed, any more than the boy notices or objects when his gray friend comes to a halt, and, turning slowly in the broken, rope-mended harness, bites at a fly upon his shaggy side. But who shall dogmatize on such an attitude of the mind? Indifference, after all, may be, height instead of depth. Does not "A. B." (his modesty has given us no more than his initials) write, as long ago as 1595, in "The Noblenesse of the Asse; a work rare, learned, and excellent," of that characteristic and admirable calm! "He (The Asse) refuseth no burden; he goeth whither he is sent without any contradiction; he lifts not his foot against any one; he bytes not; if strokes be given him, he careth not for them." A. B.'s honest appreciation of this patient and respectable animal leads him yet a little further. Their "goodly, sweet, and continual braying," he says; and adds that such brayings "forme a melodious and proportionate kinde of musicke." Still, all this is but the small adornment of an estimable character; the great thing is his beast's "tranquil calm."-Florida Days.

DE LA RAMÉE, LOUISE, an English novelist, known under the pseudonym of "Ouida," was born at Bury St. Edmunds in 1840. At an early age she began to write for periodicals, her first novel, Granville de Vigne, a Tale of the Day, being published in Colburn's New Monthly Magazine. This novel was subsequently republished in 1863 under the title of Held in Bondage. Subsequently she wrote Strathmore, a Romance (1865); Chandos (1866); Cecil Castlemaine's Gage, and other Novelettes, and Idalia (1867); Tricotrin, a Story of a Waif and Stray, and Under Two Flags (1867); Puck (1868); Folle Farine (1871); A Dog of Flanders and A Leaf in the Storm (1872); Pascarel (1873); Two Little Wooden Shoes (1874); Signa (1875); In a Winter City (1876); Ariadne: the Story of a Dream (1877); Friendship (1878); Pipistrello and Moths (1880); The Village Commune (1881); In Maremma (1882); Wanda (1883); Othmar and A House Party (1886); Guilderoy (1889); Syrlin and Ruffino (1890), and Toxin (1895). Her writings are vivacious and entertaining, and her work displays much genius, but the moral tendency of her stories is not of the best, though they have met with a large sale.

STRIVINGS AGAINST NATURE.

The son of an athlete can never rest quiet at home and at school like the children of cobblers, and coppersmiths, and vinedressers. All my life was beating

in me, tumbling, palpitating, bubbling, panting in me, moving incessantly, like the wings of a swallow when the hour draws near for its flight, and the thirst for the South rises in it. With all my force I adored my pale, lovely, Madonna-like mother, but all the same as I trotted toward the priest with a satchel on my back, I used to think, would it be very wicked to throw the books into the river, and run away to the fields? And, in truth, I used to run away very often, scampering over the country around Orte like a mountain hare, climbing the belfries of the churches, pulling off their weathercocks or setting their bells a-ringing, doing a thousand and one mischievous antics; but I always returned at nightfall to my mother's side. It seemed to me it would be cruel and cowardly to leave her. For she had but me in the world.

"You promise to be sensible and quiet, Pippo?” the poor soul always murmured. And I used to say "Yes," and mean it. But can a bird promise not to fly when it feels in its instincts the coming of spring? Can a colt promise not to fling out his limbs when he feels the yielding turf beneath his hoofs? I never wished to be disobedient, but somehow, ten minutes after I was out of her sight, I was high above on some tower or belfry with the martens and pigeons circling about my curly head. I was so happy on high there!—and they spoke of making me into a monk, or, if I would not hear of that, of turning me into a clerk in the notary's office.

A monk! a clerk! when all the trees cried out to me to climb, and all the birds called to me to fly! I used to cry about it with hot and stinging tears, that stung my face like lashes, lying with my head hidden on my arms in the grass by the old Tiber water. For I was not twelve years old, and to be shut up in Orte always, growing gray and wrinkled, as the notary had done over the wicked, crabbed, evil-looking skins that set the neighbors at war-the thought broke my heart. Nevertheless I loved my mother, and I mended my quills, and tried to write my best, and said to the boys of the town: "I cannot bend iron, or leap, or race any more. I am going to write for my bread in

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