taken an oath the importance of which you do not perhaps fully comprehend. You have obeyed a generous impulse, and you have replied with enthusiasm to the call of honour; this is worthy of you, disciples of a victorious faith. But now know, that in so doing you have done more than perform an act of private virtue. You have consecrated a principle, without which, neither chastity nor conjugal fidelity will ever be possible. Enter then into the spirit of such an oath, and acknowledge that there will be no true individual virtue, until the members of society shall be conjointly responsible to each other.'

"Oh love! oh sublime flame! so powerful and so fragile, so sudden and so fugitive! Lightning of heaven, who dost seem as if thou must cross our path of life and be extinguished in us before our course is run, lest thou shouldst consume and annihilate us! we all feel that thou art the vivifying fire emanating from God himself, and that he amongst us who should succeed in establishing thee in his breast, and in maintaining thee there to his last hour ever equally ardent and equally perfect, would be the happiest and the greatest among men. Therefore will the disciples of the ideal constantly seek to prepare for thee in their souls sanctuaries in which thou mayst delight, so that thou mayst not be impatient to forsake them and to reascend to heaven. But alas! thou, of whom we have made a virtue, one of the foundations of our human societies, in order to honour thee as we desire, thou hast, nevertheless, not allowed thyself to be enchained at the will of our institutions; and thou hast remained free as the bird in the air, capricious as the flame upon the altar.' Thou dost seem to laugh at our vows, our contracts, and even at our will. Thou escapest from us in spite of all we have devised to fix thee immoveably in our hearts. Thou abidest neither in the harem guarded by vigilant sentinels, nor in the Christian family, placed between the threat of the priest, the judgment of the magistrate, and the yoke of opinion. Whence come thy inconstancy and thy ingratitude, oh mysterious fascination! oh love, cruelly represented under the form of an infant and blind god? With what tenderness and with what contempt does the human soul alternately inspire thee, that thou comest to inflame with thy fire those whom thou dost afterwards forsake and leave to die in the agonies of regret and of repentance, or of disgust, more frightful still? Whence comes it that upon the whole face of our globe people invoke thee upon their knees; that they exalt or deify thee; that divine poets sing thee as the soul of the world; that barbarous nations sacrifice human victims to thee, throwing widows upon the funeral piles of their husbands; that young hearts call thee in their sweetest dreams, and that the old curse life when thou abaudonest them to the horror of solitude? Whence comes this worship, now sublime, now fanatical, which has been decreed to thee from the golden infancy of humanity down to our iron age, if thou art but a chimera, the dream of a moment of transport, an illusion of the imagination excited by the delirium of the senses? Oh! it is because thou art not a low instinct-a mere animal' want! No, thou art not the blind child of paganism; thou art a son of the true God, and the very element of divinity! But thou hast hitherto revealed thyself to us only through the cloud of our errors; and thou hast not taken up thy abode amongst us because thou wilt not be profaned. Thou wilt return, as in the fabulous times of Astrea, as in the visions of the poets, and establish thyself in our terrestrial para

dise, when, by sublime virtues, we shall have merited the presence of such a guest as thou. Oh! what a delightful abode will this earth then be for man; and how blessed they that shall be born into it! when we shall all be brothers and sisters; when unions shall be freely consented to, and freely maintained by the strength which is derived from thee alone; when, instead of this fearful, hopeless struggle which conjugal fidelity is compelled to sustain against the impious attacks of debauchery, of hypocritical seduction, of unrestrained violence, of perfidious friendship, and skilful depravity, every husband will find around him only chaste sisters-the solicitous and delicate guardians of a sister whom they have given him for a partner; whilst every wife will find in other men so many brothers of her husband, happy in, and proud of his happiness, the natural protectors of his peace of mind and of his dignity! Then the faithful woman will no more be the solitary flower, concealing itself, in order to preserve the fragile treasure of its purity; too often the forsaken victim, pining away in retirement and in tears, powerless to revive in the heart of her beloved one the flame which she has preserved pure in her own. Then the brother will no longer be compelled to avenge his sister, and to kill him whom she loves and regrets, to restore to her a semblance of false honour; then the mother will tremble no more for her daughter; then the daughter will blush no more for her mother; then, above all, the husband will no more be either suspicious or despotic, and the wife, on her side, will abjure the bitterness of the victim or the rancour of the slave. Suffering, injustice, will no longer blast the calm and cheerful sanctuary of domestic life. Love will be enabled to endure; and, who knows? perhaps then, the priest and the magistrate, relying with justice upon the enduring miracle of love, will be able to consecrate indissoluble unions in the name of God himself, with as much wisdom and justice as there is now unconscious impiety and folly. But these days of happiness have not yet come. Here, in this mysterious temple where we have assembled, and where, in the words of the Evangelist, two or three have met together in the name of the Lord, we can only imagine virtue as it should be, and make a trial of it among ourselves. The external world, which would condemn us to exile, to captivity, or to death, if it penetrated our secrets, we cannot invoke as the sanction of our promises, and the guarantee of our institutions. Let us, then, not imitate its ignorance and its tyranny. Let us consecrate the conjugal love of these two children who come to ask of us the benediction of paternal and fraternal love, in the name of the living God, the dispenser of all love. Authorise them to promise each other eternal fidelity, but do not inscribe their oath in a book of death, to remind them of it by terror and constraint. Let God be its guardian. It is for them to invoke Him each day of their lives, that He may keep bright within them the sacred fire which he has caused to descend in their hearts."

"I expected this from thee, oh, inspired sibyl!" exclaimed Albert, receiving in his arms his mother, exhausted by having spoken so long with the energy of conviction; "I expected the avowal of the right you grant me to promise everything to her I love. You acknowledge this to be my dearest, my most sacred right. I promise her then -I swear to her-to love her solely and faithfully all my life, and I take

which

God as my witness. Tell me, oh prophetess of love! that this is not a blasphemy."

"Thou art under the power of the miracle," replied Wanda. "God blesses thy vow, because it is He who inspires thee with faith to pronounce it. 'Always' is the most impassioned word of lovers. It is an oracle to them in their ecstasy of rapture. Eternity is the ideal of love as it is the ideal of faith. The human soul never more completely attains to the height of its power and lucidness than in the enthusiasm of a great love. The 'always' of lovers is then an internal revelation, a divine manifestation, which should throw its sovereign brightness and its beneficent warmth upon every moment of their union. Woe to him who shall profane this holy formula! Such an one falls from a state of grace into a state of sin; he extinguishes faith, light, strength, and life in his heart."

"And I," said Consuelo -"I accept thy vow, oh Albert! and I adjure thee to accept mine. I, too, feel myself under the dominion of the miracle; and this 'always' of our short life appears to me as nothing in comparison with the eternity for which I desire to promise myself to thee."

"Fearless, noble soul!" said Wanda, with a smile which seemed to beam through her veil; "pray to God that thou mayst enjoy eternity with him whom thou lovest, as the reward of thy fidelity to him in this short life."

"Oh, yes!" cried Albert, raising towards heaven his wife's hand clasped in his own, "that is the aim, the hope, and the reward! To love each other nobly and ardently in this phase of existence, in order to meet again and be eternally united in those which follow! Oh! I feel that this is not the first day of our union; that we have already loved, already possessed each other in a former state of existence. So much happiness is not the work of chance. It is the hand of God which brings us together and reunites us, as the two halves of a single being inseparable through all eternity."

MY FIRST FRENCH DINNER.

WITH a light heart and full purse, I realised one fine morning last summer, what from my earliest youth I had ever looked upon as the summit of human happiness, a visit to the French capital-" à Paris on s'égaye, à Londres on s'ennuie," says the proverb, and my first impression certainly confirmed the truth of this assertion. The clearness of the sky, the picturesque appearance of the houses, the unconcerned expression of the inhabitants, formed a striking contrast to the zincky atmosphere, the monotonous rows of brick boxes, and the stolid countenances of the British metropolis, where materialism alone is the order of the day.

I lost no time in repairing to my hotel in order to adoniser, during which my imagination was filled with the delights that were in store for me from the theatres, cafes, museums, and other places of resort, alike suited for the culture of the mind as for the gratification of the senses;

nor did the satisfaction I anticipated from a real French dinner form the least item in my already crowded thoughts. I strolled forth like the Great Mogul, determined to yield to the influence of present enjoyment, and banish the cares of this working-day world from my forehead.

I had passed the tedium of my journey in perusing the "Physiologie du Gout," and Brillat Savarin was the pagod of my idolatry. Ye! who pretend to indifference in gastronomy! confess that it is affectation! and frankly own that, on the sly, a perigord or a foie gras would possess greater charms than your limb of ox, or wedge of sheep's flesh: if you will not, persevere in your "pièces de resistance," destroy your organs of deglutition, and engender spleen, heartburn, and dyspepsia, for you are free to do so.

The veracity of Bruce was discredited from his asserting that it was no uncommon circumstance for the Abyssinians to cut slices from the cow and demolish them raw; and yet where is the wondrous difference between them, and a considerable number of our own countrymen? "Tis true, that the latter would feel ashamed of eating their steaks in an entire state of crudity, but the specious pretence of merely blackening the outsides of their meat on a gridiron, is but an evasion, and, viewed in the most favourable light, but a degree removed from the carnivorous propensities of the Chippawas, or the quadruped inhabitants of the forest-but to proceed.

Entirely ignorant of the different localities of Paris, I wandered for a full hour in search of a restaurant, not but what they were sufficiently numerous, but I had determined my first dinner should be worthy of Lucullus himself, and it was very evident I had rambled in a wrong quarter. My eye at length lighted on a board announcing that " Ici on dine en cabinet, ou en jardin." There was something novel in dining in fresco, and, as the day was furiously hot, I at once made up my mind to enter. I took my seat under a trellis cage, such as we invariably see in the first scene of a ballet, where the beloved of Lubin sits with white satin shoes and short muslin petticoat, turning a spinning-wheel, very much as if she were grinding coffee. Mirth and satisfaction surrounded me on all sides; and the observation of Guzman d'Alfarache, "Il est bon d'avoir un père, il est bon d'avoir une mère; mais il vaut encore mieux avoir de quoi manger," struck me as uncommonly true. I had, however, no sooner seized the carte when one of those showers so peculiar to a July day broke over our houseless heads, and my unfed sides had to endure the " pelting of the pitiless storm.”

If countenances, like barometers, are affected by weather, those of the dinners" à la champêtre" indicated change. In a moment every thing was confusion, one and all rushed headlong to the salon; "Sauve qui peut" was the cry. Mine host, an obese man, with a large umbrella, like a general on the field of battle, thundered out his orders to his underlings. Jules! François! Baptiste! resounded on all sides. The fair Parisiennes, with napkins thrown over their bonnets, flitted about like spectres; for two fat citizens, in their endeavour to enter the door of the salon at the same time, had stopped up the gang-way. Choice morceaux were deluged, the bread was reduced to sop, glasses jingled and waiters cursed; in short, the whole scene was the realisation of a pantomime, only the joke was a little too near home to be sufficently appreciated.

Seeing my object thus defeated, with the imperturbability of a Briton I beat a retreat, determining to dine no more in gardens. I soon found myself in the Palais Royal, where there were restaurants au choix. I entered one with a promising interior, and was marshalled to a table by a garçon of the free and easy school. Whether it was my hat-for an Englishman is known throughout the continent by his head furnitureor my pronunciation, when I asked him for the carte, I know not, but I was immediately identified. As I was several minutes turning over the carte, and revolving in my mind with what I should commence my orgie, my friend the garçon, thinking I was in "un embarras," ventured to inform me in the Anglo-French tongue, that "he shall know what Monsieur shall like;" "that he had been in London, there shall have been three year; that, if monsieur would leave the dinner to him, he should be my undertaker." The last offer struck me as somewhat ominous, but being ignorant of the nomenclature of the different dishes, I gladly allowed him to act as pioneer, upon the express understanding, however, that his catering should incline to the outré. I was immediately stopped with "I shall know what monsieur shall like, there shall have been three year that I am in London." Minutes rolled on, roulades of hunger resounded within the regions of my vacant stomach, and I was fain obliged to burrow into an ample roll of bread to stay the gnawings of my famished inwards. "Plat" after "plat" of the most appétisant description glided by me in rapid succession for the adjacent tables, when I beheld at length my caterer approaching. With a self-satisfied air he placed before me a ponderous dish, the cover of which he whisked off with a "v'là," as if he were performing a trick of legerdemain. What did my expectant eyes behold? Answer offended shade of Savarin, for I cannot. With an expression that might have done credit to the great Talma himself. I thundered out the name of that person so popular in France—"Le Diable!” and could have gnawed my knuckles till they bled.

"I told Monsieur that I should know what he should like,” exclaimed the satisfied garçon.

"In the name of Heaven!" uttered I, "what have you brought me; there surely must be some mistake?"

Shop mottons à l'Anglaise," was the reply; and floating in a sea of oil, I beheld some ten or a dozen meagre, charred, and miserable fragments of meat, which would have defied the appetite of a mastiff or a shipwrecked mariner. I thrust my hand into my pocket, threw down a five-franc p ece upon the table, called the waiter a "farceur," and quitted the "Restaurant au Douze Cesars" quite chapfallen.

Although balked in this my second attempt, my darling project of obtaining a real French dinner was not to be frustrated. "Ne tentes aut perfice," exclaimed I, as I threaded the arcade of the Palais Royal, resolving at the same time that my keen-edged appetite should not be sated with aught but the orthodox. Fortune, whom I invoked and flattered, responded propitiously, and guided me to the abode of the genius who dispenses "the sweets that this brief world affords." A wafture of gastronomic perfumes pervaded the threshold, the window was filled with choice fruits, which, from their size and colour, made me doubt of their reality, presenting a coup d'œil (a knock on the eye) perfectly enchanting 'twas the far-famed "Trois Frères." How I blessed my stars