self to such small matters. She gives | tered and changed, which is all his jourhim counsel about the management of his nal has come to, there ensues a sudden affairs, in which the philosopher is not deadly lull. "Multa flagella peccatoris very clear; and arranges, weak and suf- sperantam autem in Domino misericorfering as she is, about his printing, and dia circumdabit," he cries twice over out the distribution and correction of his of the depths. "Wilt Thou take from pamphlet. But her health keeps her from me all happiness on this earth? Thou him, and keeps him in a perpetual anxi- hast it in Thy hands, O my God, I ety, which she thus endeavours to calm hope in Thee, O my God, I submit down: to Thy sentence, whatever it may be; but I should have preferred to die. O Lord God of mercy, reunite me in heaven to her whom Thou hast permitted me to love on earth."

Mon pauvre ami, it is not the first time that you have made me smile, bidding me promise you to be ill no more. Ah, health is so precious that if I possessed wealth I would sacrifice it all to obtain that blessing. But we must submit, hope in the future, and have patience. Have patience, also, mon fils, and do not stupefy yourself with this as you do with your calculations; for how to be cured is not a problem which can be solved, and it is vain to attempt it if the Master of our being

wills that it should be otherwise. We must

Julie was dead.

now a

After this the hapless life pauses, comes to a dead stop, as lives do when struck with those blows which slay only the heart, not the body. He strayed away from the Lycée which he had longed and prayed for, but which was learn to bear these evils, and do what we can misery to him, and after a while got to not to think too much of them. How willingly Paris, to fame, to a reputation more than [she adds later] would I spend your money national, and a place among the first rank that you might have a wife like others who of French philosophers. But the chapcould enjoy with you and our little one so ter of Amorum was closed forever. In many little pleasures which bad health poisons! after-years the passion of paternal love, Oh yes, it is sad indeed to be always an object which belongs so specially to the French of anxiety to one's own people -to you, mon character, made him happy in his absopauvre ami, who see me suffering, weary, lute devotion to his son; but that one sometimes unjust. God wills it so we must submit. I should have been too happy had brief, almost momentary, episode of a He left me my strength. A good husband, a passion more absorbing still, got buried delightful child, the best of mothers, loved and in silence and obscurity, until the time cherished by all my family, would not this came when poor André Ampère died, have been too much happiness? I feel it, for, one of the most distinguished of savants, notwithstanding my condition, I am more and the hand of genius stirred those attached to life than ever: it is because I love ashes to make a record of his life. you more, and my child also, and I am sure that Strange power of human words! With both of you have need of me to be happy. the old letters out of the silken portfolio But let us change the subject, for this over-which Julie worked for him, this whole comes me; you will feel, like me, your heart! bleed as you read.

little circle reappears as living as if in France letters were still dated in GermiPoor Julie poor young husband! nal and Messidor not Ampère and the pamphlet, with its unique calculation Julie only, but the two mothers, the sis(considérations sur la théorie mathéma-ters, the old servants, and all that homely tique du feu), the anxious efforts of every life over which their refined and graceful kind, brilliant lectures, successful exper- tongue throws a charm and elegance iments, problems solved, succeeded to which does not always appear in translathe height of his hopes. In the spring of tion or in reality. Besides the melancholy 1803 he had at last certainty of his ap-beauty of the story, it is a revelation of pointment at the newly-formed Lycée of apparently cultivated intelligence and Lyons. On the 17th April he came home elevated feeling such as we scarcely expour ne plus quitter Julie-pathetic pect to find in a poor bourgeois family in words! for Julie was on the eve of leav- the height of the Revolution. These ing him, and forever. On the 5th July rural women write in French to which he gave, poor soul, his first lesson in the Academy could take small exception. Lyons; but the day which should have They play at graceful society games of been the climax of happiness to him calls bouts rimés, such as solace the highest forth not a word of pleasure. He went to circles. They read comedies, tragedies his much-desired tribune from the deathbed of his wife. On the 13th of July, after a pitiful record of medicines adminis

"Lettres Provinciales," the "Nuits de Young," and much beside yet are merely poor middle-class people, noways

--

distinguished from others, so far as can the object at successive small fractions be perceived. This glimpse into the un-of a second; and in this way, by countrevealed depths of society in such an age is of as much interest historically, as is this charming, gentle, and real romance for the illustration of human life.

From The Academy.

TWINKLING OF THE STARS.

ing the alternations of colour in the circumference of this circle of light, M. Montigny has succeeded in observing nearly two hundred alternations of colour in a second of time.

The point sought to be established was the connection between these changes and the constitution of the stellar light, for it is easy to see that rays which are deficient cannot be acted on by unTHE subject of the twinkling of stars dulations of the atmosphere, and that has engaged a good deal of attention of there will therefore be fewer changes of late years, and some interesting results colour the more dark bands there are in a have been obtained. A few years ago, star's spectrum. Now Secchi has dithe Italian astronomer, Respighi, an-vided the stars of which he has examined nounced the discovery of the cause of scintillation in certain dark bands which were seen to traverse the spectrum of a star, indicating changes in the refrangibility of our atmosphere, from hot and cold strata, which produce something of the effect of a passing mirage. A layer of hot air would bend the rays less than the colder and denser air around, and thus the star's light would not reach the observer, rays which traversed the hot stratum passing over his head, and those which traversed the cold air below being bent so as to fall beneath his feet. As the rays of different colours are differently bent in their passage through the air (the red rays being the least refracted), different parts of a star's spectrum would be thus cut off in succession, as the relative temperatures of the layers of air varied. Arago's not very lucid explanation of the phenomena, as a result of the interference of light, is in this way completely disposed of.

M. Montigny, of Brussels, has been investigating the amount of scintillation in different stars by the help of an ingenious contrivance, to which he gives the name of scintillometer. His plan is to make use of the persistence of impressions on the retina, by causing a thick plate of glass, mounted obliquely on an axis parallel to that of the telescope used, and fixed just in front of the eye-piece, to rotate rapidly; the effect of this is to displace the star's image, so that, owing to the varying inclination of the glass plate, the star appears to move in a circle, which, if the rotation is rapid enough (three or four times in a second), forms a continuous circle of light, just as in the case of a burning stick whirled rapidly. The changes in the colour of a star will be seen on this circle, the successive points of which give the appearance of

the spectra into four types, and M. Montigny has observed the scintillations of stars belonging to three of these types: viz., bluish white stars exhibiting four black lines in their spectrum; yellow stars, like our sun, showing numerous fine dark lines; and orange stars, which have a spectrum somewhat resembling a colonnade. As far as the results obtained by M. Montigny go, it seems that the greatest amount of twinkling is to be found in the first type (white stars), and the least in the third type (orange stars), and that the mere brightness of the star has no influence on the phenomena. But the principle of combining observations of different nights without any further correction, on which M. Montigny has acted, is highly objectionable, and destroys our confidence in his conclusions. The proper way of treating such measures is to arrange the stars in sequences representing the order of scintillation, just as Sir John Herschel formed sequences of brightness as a basis for his standard magnitudes of stars.

RITUALISM.

It is difficult for a thoughtful and considerate person to speak positively on this subject, because in all that relates to common forms, so much depends upon taste and feeling, and taste and feeling, again, are so powerfully influenced by custom. We are familiar enough with different extremes of practice, with regard to the forms of religious worship. You may represent to yourselves, on the one hand, a building like a barn, with its inside walls bare and cold, marked in every part, and not least where the Christian altar stands, by signs of indifference

and neglect; the worshippers and per- and affects common life no less than haps the minister using hardly any forms Churches. There is ritualism among of religious gesture, but behaving with Dissenters as well as in the Church. nearly as much freedom as if they were Probably most persons of middle-age are outside the building. This you may de- conscious of having moved with the scribe as the Presbyterian or the Puritan stream, and many can remember that they usage. You may represent to yourselves once felt a repugnance to things which a very different scene; a beautiful eccle- now almost every one prefers. It is not siastical building, with the dyes of its creditable that there should be unreasonstoried windows casting a dim religious able panic and misjudgment about atlight, rich with solemn ornament, each tempted improvements of the externals part reverently cared for, but especially of worship. But I venture to plead two the sanctuary and the altar, the forms justifying considerations in excuse of the and the attitudes and the tones of wor- instinct of resistance to such attempts. ship all studied for imaginative effect,- First, I think it is reasonable to deprea scene striking you as something so cate excessive or abrupt change, in our different from the common outside world, traditional ways of worship. Feelings of a sheltering refuge for faith and devotion. reverence grow up entwined with arrangeThis you may call the Catholic usage. ments or customs which may not be in Yet every one knows that the feeling themselves the best. And the real want of towards religious forms is profoundly reverence is in those who treat with levity affected by habit, and that there may be or roughness religious habits which have more of devotion and reverence in some been the inheritance of any generation. Presbyterian than in some Roman Cath- Whilst it is not to be desired that ritual olic worshipper, in a Presbyterian than forms should be stereotyped, the change in a Roman Catholic congregation; nay, of them ought not only to be manifestly that the very action of the service may in for the better, but it ought also to be particular cases not improbably touch made as smoothly and gently as possible. and move the Presbyterian more than the Secondly, I am convinced that it is well Roman Catholic. Forms which are per- to be watchful against making too much fectly familiar to us, we take as they of the senses in religion. We are always come, and are not greatly affected by in danger of falling away from spirituality. them. The way in which a service may A sensuous worship, appealing in howimpress any one to whom it is new and ever refined a way to eye and ear and strange, is no measure of its influence artistic feeling, may be a subtle snare ; upon those who are accustomed to it. . . and the danger of it is much increased, The introduction of more taste and art if there is a deliberate attempt to muzzle and care into our ritual has in some de- and chain up the understanding, in the gree carried the whole population along interest of sentiment and of the imaginawith it. It belongs in part to a move- tion. ment which is general as well as religious, Llewelyn Davies, on Superstition.

part of the way. All that is past. A railway will soon enable the flying tourist to pass through the Ober-Bernland in a day, and to look down from a first-class carriage on the panorama seen from the Scheidegg, which is to be the culminating point of the lines.

Academy.

We know not whether our readers may not | feet generally had to carry them the greater feel more regret than satisfaction on learning that the charming region of the Bernese Oberland is to be levelled and tunnelled in every direction to make way for a network of railways, which, thanks to the success of the Rigi line, are now to penetrate to the ledge of every waterfall, ice grotto, and glacier. At Grindelwald a central station is to be brought within the precincts of the Schwarzer Adler, close enough to the glacier, we hear, for the smoke and steam to blacken and melt its icy waves. The guides to Lauterbrünnen and the Wengern-Alp will soon be an extinct race. Tourists will no longer have to hire horses and mules to convey them along paths, where, as they soon learned by experience, their own

UNAMIABLENESS. - It is hard to say so, but stern propriety, rigid temperance, and the practice of early rising and the shower-bath, are among the grand supporters of human pride and the conspicuous causes of human unamiableness. By sternness no good is effected.

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