Is it aimlessly, then, that Providence works, And absent, then, deem'st thou the God that thee smote? The stroke thou complainest of saved thee perchance, My poor child, for 'twas then that was opened thy heart. An apprentice is man, and his master is pain, And none knows himself until he has grieved. It is a stern law, but a law that's supreme, As old as the world and as ancient as doom, That the baptism we of misfortune must take, And that all at this sorrowful price must be bought. The harvest to ripen has need of the dew, To live and to feel man has need of his tears, Joy has for its symbol a plant that is bruised Yet is wet with the rain and covered with flowers. Wast not saying that thou of thy folly wast cured? Art not young, art not happy, and everywhere hailed? And those airy-light pleasures which make life beloved, If thou never hadst wept, what worth to thee they? * * * * * Wouldst thou feel the ineffable peace of the skies, The hush of the nights, the moan of the waves, If somewhere down here fret and failure of sleep Had not brought to thy dream the eternal repose? * * * * * Of what then complainest? The unquenchable hope Is rekindled in thee 'neath the hand of mischance. Why choose to abhor thy vanished young years, And an evil detest that thee better has made? Imagine the foregoing in its own original music, and invested with that hovering, wavering atmosphere of pathos which Musset knew so well how to throw over his verse, and you will partly understand what the charm is of this French poet to his countrymen. Musset exhibits something of the wit that he was, in the following bit of rhymed epigram, which, breaking up two stanzas for the purpose, we take from his poem entitled "Namouna." The rhymes were necessary here to convey the effect of smartness belonging to the original, and we accordingly preserve them: Lord Byron for model has served me, say you, You know not then Byron set Pulci in view? Read up the Italians, you'll see if he stole. Nothing is any one's, every one's all. Dunce deep as a schoolmaster surely were he Who should dream left for him one word there could be That no man before him had hit upon yet; They somebody copy who cabbage-plants set. This self-vindicating epigram of Musset's may be pronounced clever rather than satisfactory. Musset--the juxtaposition and contrast of the two men irresistibly provokes the reflection--was as much less than Balzac by inferiority of will as he was greater by superiority of genius. Already, such is the pace of progress in these last days of the nineteenth century, the "men of 1830" are beginning to seem a generation long gone by. The future will see whether their successors of the present time enjoy a more protracted supremacy. XXIV. JOUBERT: 1754-1824; Madame Swetchine: 1782-1859; Amiel: 1821-1881.