bunches of fresh grapes to refresh the tired bullocks, whose carts creaked under their heavy load.

6. Then we would count the number of bins, and run to tell our father, who would calculate the numbers of tuns of wine which would be the final result, and which, in reality, formed our whole income for the year. A few days after, the same work was begun again, until the leaves of the vine, all yellow and seared, had no more fruit to conceal; until, in fact, the vintage being over and the barrels filled to the brim with wine, the vines were left desolate; the goats picked off the few remaining leaves, and the once busy paths were still as death. Alphonse de Lamartine.

FROM THE FRENCH OF GUSTAVE NADAUD.2

I'M growing old, I've sixty years;
I've labored all my life in vain :
In all that time of hopes and fears
I've failed my dearest wish to gain.
I see, full well, that, here below,

Bliss unalloyed there is for none.
My prayer will ne'er fulfillment know, -
I never have seen Carcassonne.
I never have seen Carcassonne !

2. You see the city from the hill,

It lies beyond the mountains blue,
And yet, to reach it, one must still

Five long and weary leagues pursue,
And to return, as many more!

Ah! had the vintage plenteous grown!
The grape withheld its yellow store;
I shall not look on Carcassonne.

I shall not look on Carcassonne !

3. They tell me every day is there

Not more nor less than Sunday gay;
In shining robes and garments fair,
The people walk upon their way.
One gazes, there, on castle walls

As grand as those of Babylon,
A Bishop and two generals!

I do not know fair Carcassonne.

I do not know fair Carcassonne !

4. The vicar's right: he says

that we

Are ever wayward, weak, and blind;
He tells us, in his homily;

Ambition ruins all mankind;

Yet could I there two days have spent,
While still the autumn sweetly shone,
Ah me! I might have died content,
When I had looked on Carcassonne.
When I had looked on Carcassonne !

5. Thy pardon, Father, I beseech,
In this my prayer, if I offend;
One something sees beyond his reach,
From childhood to his journey's end.
My wife, our little boy Aignan,1

6. So crooned, one day, close by Limoux,*

A peasant double-bent with age. "Rise up, my friend," said I;

" with you

I'll go upon this pilgrimage."

We left next morning his abode,

But (Heaven forgive him!) half-way on

The old man died upon the road:

1 Ain-yän.

2 Nar-bun.

3 Per-pen-yän.

4 Le-moo.

He never gazed on Carcassonne.

Each mortal has his Carcassonne !

JOHN R. THOMPSON.

This lesson contains a beautiful description of the origin, course, and mission of the winds. Those not familiar with this subject will find it very interesting and profitable to read, in connection with this lesson, some discussion of the winds as found in any work on Physical Geography. See "Manual of Reading,” prepared by the Author, for explanations of points in the lesson.

WHO

HO are these who follow us softly over the moor in the autumn evening? Their wings brush and rustle in the fir-boughs, and they whisper before and behind us, as if they called gently to each other, like birds flocking homeward to their nests.

The woodpecker on the pine-stems knows them, and laughs aloud for joy as they pass. The rooks above

the pasture know them, and wheel around and tumble in their play.

2. The brown leaves on the oak trees know them, and flutter faintly, and beckon as they pass. In the chattering of the dry leaves, there is a meaning, and a cry of weary things, longing for rest.

"Take us home, take us home, you soft air-mothers, now our fathers, the sunbeams, are grown dull. Our green summer beauty is all draggled, and our faces are grown wan and thin; and the buds, the ungrateful children whom we nourished, thrust us off from our seats. Waft us down, you soft air-mothers, upon your wings, to the quiet earth, that we may go to our home, as all things go, and become air and sunlight once again."

3. The bold young fir-seeds know them, and rattle impatiently in their cones. "Blow more strongly, blow

more fiercely, slow air-mothers, and shake us from our prisons of dead wood, that we may fly and spur away north-eastward, each on his horny wing. We will dive like arrows through the heather, and drive our sharp beaks into the soil, and rise again, as green trees, toward the sunlight, and spread out lusty boughs."

4. They never think, bold fools, of what is coming to bring them low in the midst of their pride,— of the reckless axe which will fell them, and saws which will shape them into logs, and the trains which will roar and rattle over them, as they lie buried in the gravel of the way, till they are ground and rotted into powder, and dug up and flung upon the fire, that they, too, may return home, like all things, and become air and sunlight once again.

5. The air-mothers hear their prayers, and do their bidding; but faintly, for they themselves are tired and sad, and their garments are rent and worn. Ah! how different were those soft air-mothers, when, invisible to mortal eyes, they started on their long sky journey, five thousand miles across the sea.

6. Out of the blazing caldron which lies between the two New Worlds, they leaped up, when the great sun called them, in whirls and spouts of clear, hot steam, and rushed to the northward, while the whirling earth-ball whirled them east.

7. So north-eastward they rushed aloft, across the gay West Indian Isles, leaving below the glitter of the flying-fish and the side-long eyes of cruel sharks; above the cane-fields and the plaintain gardens, and the cocoagroves which fringe the shores; above the rocks which throbbed with earthquakes, and the peaks of old volcanoes, cinder-strewn; while, far beneath, the ghosts of their dead sisters hurried home upon the north-east breeze.

8. Wild deeds they did, as they rushed onward, and

struggled and fought among themselves, up and down, and round and backward, in the fury of their blind, hot youth. They tired themselves by struggling with each other, and by tearing the heavy water into waves; and their wings grew clogged with sea-spray, and soaked more and more with steam.

9. At last, the sea grew cold beneath them, and their clear steam shrank to mist; and they saw themselves. and each other wrapped in dull rain-laden clouds. Then they drew their white cloud garments around them, and veiled themselves for very shame; and said, "We have been wild and wayward; and, alas! our pure youth is gone. But we will do one good deed, yet, before we die, and so we shall not have lived in vain. We will glide onward to the land, and weep there, and refresh all things with soft, warm rain, and make the grass grow, and the buds burst; we will quench the thirst of man and beast, and wash the soiled world clean."

10. So they are wandering past us, the air-mothers, to weep the leaves into their graves; to weep the seeds into their seed-beds, and to weep the soil into the plains; to get the rich earth ready for the winter, and then creep northward to the ice-world, and there die. But will they live again, those chilled air-mothers? Yes; they must live again. For all things move forever; and not even ghosts can rest.

11. The corpses of their sisters, piling on them from above, press them onward, press them southward toward the sun, once more, across the floes, and round the icebergs, weeping tears of snow and sleet, while men halt their wild, harsh voices, and shrink before their bitter breath. They know not that the cold, bleak snow-storms, as they hurtle from the black north-east, bear back the ghosts of the soft air-mothers, as penitents, to their father, the great sun.