A cafe-front indeed is better than an omnibus-top for studying Paris, and the cafe itself is a club for everybody. People go to it to gossip and regale themselves, play games, talk politics, read the newspapers, write letters, transact business it may be, sit, think, dream, and rest themselves. To the Anglo-Saxon the life that is led in it seems a good deal like walking about in a botanical garden during the day and sleeping in an observatory at night--a decidedly artificial existence; but so long as we must drink or be amused at all, we shall do well to study the ways of the French. They alone know how to eat and drink properly and amuse themselves in a rational way. GILMAN C. FISHER. FOG. Light silken curtain, colorless and soft, Dreamlike before me floating! what abides Behind thy pearly veil's Opaque, mysterious woof? Where sleek red kine, and dappled, crunch day-long Thick, luscious blades and purple clover-heads, Nigh me I still can mark Cool fields of beaded grass. No more; for on the rim of the globed world I seem to stand and stare at nothingness. But songs of unseen birds And tranquil roll of waves Bring sweet assurance of continuous life Beyond this silvery cloud. Fantastic dreams, Of tissue subtler still Than the wreathed fog, arise, And cheat my brain with airy vanishings And mystic glories of the world beyond. A whole enchanted town Thy baffling folds conceal-- An Orient town, with slender-steepled mosques, Turret from turret springing, dome from dome, Fretted with burning stones, And trellised with red gold. Through spacious streets, where running waters flow, Sun-screened by fruit trees and the broad-leaved palm, Past the gay-decked bazaars, Walk turbaned, dark-eyed men. Hark! you can hear the many murmuring tongues, While loud the merchants vaunt their gorgeous wares. The sultry air is spiced With fragrance of rich gums, And through the lattice high in yon dead wall, See where, unveiled, an arch, young, dimpled face, Flushed like a musky peach, Peers down upon the mart! From her dark, ringleted and bird-poised head She hath cast back the milk-white silken veil: 'Midst the blank blackness there She blossoms like a rose. Beckons she not with those bright, full-orbed eyes, And open arms that like twin moonbeams gleam? Behold her smile on me With honeyed, scarlet lips! Divine Scheherazade! I am thine. I come! I come!--Hark! from some far-off mosque The shrill muezzin calls The hour of silent prayer, And from the lattice he hath scared my love. The lattice vanisheth itself--the street, The mart, the Orient town; Only through still, soft air