The American Library of Art, Literature and Song

periods. On the contrary, the opening scenes | Aristotle, familiar only with the waters of

of every chapter in the world's history have been crowded with life, and its last leaves as full and varied as its first.

I think the impression that the fauna of the early geological periods were more scanty than those of later times arises partly from the fact that the present creation is made a standard of comparison for all preceding creations. Of course the collections of living types in any museum must be more numerous than those of fossil forms, for the simple reason that almost the whole of the present surface of the earth, with the animals and plants inhabiting it, is known to us, whereas the deposits of the Silurian and Devonian periods are exposed to view only over comparatively limited tracts and in disconnected regions. But let us compare a given extent of Silurian or Devonian seashore with an equal extent of seashore belonging to our own time, and we shall soon be convinced that the one is as populous as the other. On the New England coast there are about one hundred and fifty different kinds of fishes; in the Gulf of Mexico, two hundred and fifty; in the Red Sea, about the same. We may allow in present times an average of two hundred or two hundred and fifty different kinds of fishes to an extent of ocean covering about four hundred miles. Now, I have made a special study of the Devonian rocks of Northern Europe, in the Baltic and along the shore of the German Ocean. I have found in those deposits alone one hundred and ten kinds of fossil fishes. To judge of the total number of species belonging to those early ages by the number known to exist now is about as reasonable as to infer that because

Greece, recorded less than three hundred kinds of fishes in his limited fishing-ground, therefore these were all the fishes then living. The fishing-ground of the geologist in the Silurian and Devonian periods is even more circumscribed than his, and belongs, besides, not to a living, but to a dead, world, far more difficult to decipher.

But the sciences of geology and palæontology are making such rapid progress, now that they go hand in hand, that our familiarity with past creations is daily increasing. We know already that extinct animals exist all over the world-heaped together under the snows of Siberia, lying thick beneath the Indian soil, found wherever English settlers till the ground or work the mines of Australia, figured in the old encyclopædias of China, where the Chinese philosophers have drawn them with the accuracy of their nation, built into the most beautiful temples of classic lands, for even the stones of the Parthenon are full of the fragments of these old fossils; and if any chance had directed the attention of Aristotle toward them, the science of paleontology would not have waited for its founder till Cuvier was born. In short, in every corner of the earth where the investigations of civilized men have penetrated, from the Arctic to Patagonia and the Cape of Good Hope, these relics tell us of successive populations lying far behind our own and belonging to distinct periods of the world's history.

LOUIS AGASSIZ.

STRIKE, BUT HEAR.-Eurybiades lifting up his staff as if he was going to strike, Themistocles said, "Strike if you will, but hear."

PLUTARCH.

THE LEPER.

OOM for the leper! Room!" | Whose shadows lay so still
And as he came
The cry passed on: "Room
for the leper! Room!"
Sunrise was slanting on the
city gates,

Had put their beauty forth beneath the eye
Of Judah's loftiest noble. He was young
And eminently beautiful, and life
Mantled in eloquent fulness on his lip
And sparkled in his glance, and in his mien

Rosy and beautiful, and There was a gracious pride that every eye
from the hills
Followed with benisons; and this was he!
The early-risen poor were With the soft airs of summer there had come
coming in
A torpor on his frame which not the speed
Duly and cheerfully to their Of his best barb, nor music, nor the blast
Of the bold huntsman's horn, nor aught that

toil, and up

Rose the sharp hammer's clink and the far

hum

Of moving wheels and multitudes astir,
And all that in a city murmur swells,
Unheard but by the watcher's weary ear,
Aching with night's dull silence, or the sick,
Hailing the welcome light and sounds that
chase

The death-like images of the dark away.
"Room for the leper!" And aside they
stood-

Matron and child and pitiless manhood, all
Who met him on his way-and let him pass.
And onward through the open gate he came,
A leper with the ashes on his brow,
Sackcloth about his loins and on his lip
A covering, stepping painfully and slow,
And with a difficult utterance, like one
Whose heart is with an iron nerve put down,
Crying, "Unclean! unclean!"

'Twas now the first Of the Judean autumn, and the leaves,

stirs

The spirit to its bent, might drive away.
The blood beat not as wont within his veins;
Dimness crept o'er his eye; a drowsy sloth
Fettered his limbs like palsy, and his mien,
With all its loftiness, seemed struck with eld.
Even his voice was changed, a languid moan
Taking the place of the clear silver key,
And brain and sense grew faint, as if the
light

And very air were steeped in sluggishness.
He strove with it a while, as manhood will,
Ever too proud for weakness, till the rein
Slackened within his grasp and in its poise
The arrowy jereed like an aspen shook.
Day after day he lay as if in sleep;
His skin grew dry and bloodless, and white

scales

Circled with livid purple covered him;
And then his nails grew black and fell away
From the dull flesh about them, and the hues
Deepened beneath the hard unmoistened.

scales,

Wet not thy burning lip

In streams that to a human dwelling glide,

Nor rest thee where the covert fountains hide,

Nor kneel thee down to dip The water where the pigrim bends to drink, By desert well or river's grassy brink ;

"And pass thou not between The weary traveller and the cooling breeze, And lie not down to sleep beneath the trees Where human tracks are seen,

Nor milk the goat that browseth on the plain,

Nor pluck the standing corn or yellow grain.

"And now depart; and when Thy heart is heavy and thine eyes are dim, Lift up thy prayer beseechingly to Him.

Who from the tribes of men Selected thee to feel his chastening rod. Depart, O leper! and forget not God."

And he went forth-alone, not one of all The many whom he loved, nor she whose

name

Was woven in the fibres of the heart Breaking within him now, to come and

speak

Comfort unto him. Yea, he went his way,

From all thou lovest, away thy feet must Sick and heartbroken and alone, to die;

flee,

That from thy plague his people may be free.

'Depart, and come not near

The busy mart, the crowded city, more, Nor set thy foot a human threshold o'er;

And stay thou not to hear Voices that call thee in the way, and fly From all who in the wilderness pass by.

For God had cursed the leper.

It was noon,

And Helon knelt beside a stagnant pool
In the lone wilderness and bathed his brow,
Hot with the burning leprosy, and touched
The loathsome water to his fevered lips,
Praying that he might be so blest to die.
Footsteps approached, and, with no strength
to flee,

He drew the covering closer on his lip,

He took a little water in his hand Crying, "Unclean! unclean!" and, in the And laid it on his brow and said, "Be folds

clean !"

blood

Of the coarse sackcloth shrouding up his face, And, lo! the scales fell from him, and his He fell upon the earth till they should pass. Nearer the Stranger came, and, bending o'er The leper's prostrate form, pronounced his

name:

"Helon!" The voice was like the master

tone

Of a rich instrument, most strangely sweet,
And the dull pulses of disease awoke,
And for a moment beat beneath the hot
And leprous scales with a restoring thrill.
"Helon, arise!" and he forgot his curse
And rose and stood before him.

Love and awe

Mingled in the regard of Helon's eye
As he beheld the Stranger. He was not
In costly raiment clad, nor on his brow
The symbol of a princely lineage wore,
No followers at his back, nor in his hand
Buckler or sword or spear, yet in his mien.
Command sat throned serene; and if he
smiled,

Coursed with delicious coolness through his veins,

And his dry palms grew moist, and on his
brow

The dewy softness of an infant's stole.
His leprosy was cleansed, and he fell down.
Prostrate at Jesus' feet and worshipped him.

Sweet was the fancy of those antique ages

That put a heart in every stirring leaf, Writing deep morals Nature's upon pages, Turning sweet flowers into deathless sages, To calm our joy and sanctify our grief.

A kingly condescension graced his lips
The lion would have crouched to in his lair.
His garb was simple and his sandals worn,
His stature modelled with a perfect grace,
His countenance the impress of a God,
Touched with the opening innocence of a And gladly would I know the man or child—

child;

His eye was blue and calm as is the sky
In the serenest noon; his hair, unshorn,
Fell to his shoulders, and his curling beard
The fulness of perfected manhood bore.
He looked on Helon earnestly a while,

As if his heart were moved, and, stooping

down,

But no! it surely was a pensive girl
That gave so sweet a name to floweret wild,
A harmless innocent, and unbeguiled,

To whom a flower is precious as a pearl.

Fain would I know, and yet I can but guess, How the blue floweret won a name so sweet.

Did some fond mother, bending down to And those who reared them must have been

bless

Her sailing son with last and fond caress, Give the small plant to guard him through the fleet?

Did a kind maid that thought her lover all
By which a maid would fain beloved be,
Leaning against a ruined abbey wall,
Make of the flower an amorous coronal

Stout men when they were young; For oft I've heard my grandsire speak How men were growing thin and weak.

His heart was twined, I do believe,
Round every timber there,

For memory loved a web to weave
Of all the young and fair
Who gathered there with him to pray

That still should breathe and whisper, For many a long, long Sabbath-day.

"Think of me"?

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The American Library of Art, Literature and Song, Volume 4