"Oh, we cannot! For around it All the Saints and Guardian Angels Throng in legions to protect it; They defeat us everywhere!" At one point, however, the evil spirits were successful; the colossal statue of the Virgin, which crowned the dizzy summit, and was familiar with the secrets of the upper air, and which, like its dread Enemy, "above the rest, In shape and gesture proudly eminent, Stood like a tower,"-- after having for fifty years borne the insults of these airy powers, till it had lost all its original brightness, and its face "Deep scars of thunder had intrenched,"-- was taken down, and the present cross put in its place. And there it stands to this day, high up in the silence of midair, where the voices of the city below are rendered small and thin by the distance,--four hundred and seventy-four feet above the heads of the populace, who, in their littleness, crawl about and traffic at its base. This amazing summit, "moulded in colossal calm," in its unapproachable grandeur, seems to forget the city from which it rises, and to hold communion only with that vast circle of "crowded farms and lessening towers" which it surveys. It is a worthy companionship; on the one hand, the great Vosgian chain, the closed gates of France,--on the other, afar off, the hills of the Black Forest, and, more near, Father Rhine, winding his silver thread among the villages and vineyards of Germany. There is (or was) an enormous key suspended just beneath the cross of Strasburg Cathedral, its use, and why it was placed there, having passed away from the memory of man. If it were not to open the gates of heaven for those who built this ladder of light and those who worship in its shadow, it remains a riddle and a blank. Let us accept the interpretation, and, made mild-eyed by the lens of tender memories, we shall behold in every spire a means of grace and a hope of glory. THE PROFESSOR'S STORY. PRELIMINARY CORRESPONDENCE. THE PUBLISHERS TO THE AUTHOR. _Queerangle Building, Nov. '59._ Dr. SR,-- Will you contract to do us a tale or a novel, at the rate of say 10 pp. per month, with some popular subject, such as philanthropy, or the Broad Church movement, or fashionable weddings, or the John Brown invasion, brought in so as to make a taking thing of it? When finished, to come to a 12mo of 350 pp. more or less. A good article of novel is always salable about Christmas time, and we can do it up by Dec. 1, 1860. Our Mr. Goader has been round among the hands that do the light jobbing,--finds several ready to undertake the contract, at say 75c. @ 3.00 per page;--but want the job done in first-rate style, and think you could furnish us a good article. Our firm has great facilities for working a novel, tale, or any kind of fancy stuff. What w'd be y'r terms in cash payment, 1st of every month? P.S. Would any additional compensation induce you to allow each number to be illustrated by a colored engraving? Yr obt serv'ts.