What shines and glitters has its birth But for the present hour alone; The real--the thing of truth and worth-- To all posterity goes down. _--Goethe._ BEETHOVEN IN GERMANY.--When the German talks of symphonies he means Beethoven; the two names are to him one and indivisible; his joy, his pride. As Italy has its Naples, France its Revolution, England its Navigation, so Germany has its Beethoven symphonies. The German forgets in his Beethoven that he has no school of painting; with Beethoven he imagines that he has again won the battles that he lost under Napoleon; he even dares to place him on a level with Shakespeare.--_Robert Schumann._ A NEW USE FOR A DOG.--A farmer's daughter in the West of England received a hairy poodle dog from a friend in town. The unsophisticated damsel wrote back thanking her friend for the present, and saying that she found it very handy, when tied to a stick, to clean windows with. THE WORST OF SUCCESS.--She that has never known adversity is but half acquainted with others or with herself. Constant success shows us but one side of the world, for, as it surrounds us with friends who will tell us only our merits, so it silences those enemies from whom alone we can learn our defects. RIGHTS AND DUTIES.--There is no right without its duties, and no duty without its rights. MERLE'S CRUSADE. BY ROSA NOUCHETTE CAREY, Author of "Aunt Diana," "For Lilias," etc. CHAPTER IV. MERLE'S LAST EVENING AT HOME. "So it is all settled, Merle." "Yes, Aunt Agatha," I returned, briskly, for she spoke in a lugubrious voice, and as one sad face is enough beside the family hearth, I assumed a tolerably cheerful aspect. If only Aunt Agatha's eyes would not look at me so tenderly! "Poor child!" she sighed; and then, as I remained silent, she continued in a few minutes, "I wish I could reconcile myself more to the idea, but I cannot help feeling a presentiment that you will live to repent this strange step you are taking." I found this speech a little damping, but I bore it without flinching. One can never set out down some new road without a few friendly missiles flying about one's ears. "Remember, I told you such and such a thing would happen if you did not take my advice. I am only warning you for your good." Alas! that one's dearest friend should be transformed into a teasing gad-fly! What can one do but go straight across the enemy's country when the boats are destroyed behind one? I always did think that a grand action on Xenophon's part. "You have not given me your opinion of my new mistress," was my wicked rejoinder. Aunt Agatha drew herself up at this and put on her grandest manner. "You need not go out of your way to vex me, Merle. I am sufficiently humiliated without that."