and love—that period in which life has some value and some definite purpose, in which the heart expands with an unknown and pure affection, in which a woman becomes the sanctuary of a new existence-she chose that time of transfiguration to contrive her criminal project of abandoning her husband!

She gave birth to a daughter, and was scarcely recovered when she expressed a wish to visit her parents. Lord Byron consented; and when she had arrived at her father's house she wrote him a letter to say that her departure was a flight and not a visit, and that they were separated forever before God and men. It is not possible to express the indignation with which England regarded her illustrious son. History has no example of similar anger. All the reputations he had wounded, all the jealousies he had sown with his genius, all the old customs he had scorched and ridiculed with his satire, all the privileges he had combated with his eloquence- the Protestant clergy, the British aristocracy, private society, literary men, the ministers, the court, the people, so easily deceived; in fine, all English prejudices arose against Lord Byron like so many vipers. The doors of all classes of society were closed against him. The hands which had woven him crowns now recoil from his touch, as if fearing to be burned with some poison. The street boys flung mud upon him. In the theatres he was hissed. The most obscene libels attributed to him most shameful vices. The daily papers represented him with horrible caricature. Fathers hid their daughters from his basilisk glances. Women, so jealous of the prerogatives of their sex, were dismayed on seeing such a monster. To the eyes of society he was a devil illumined with genius, the better to show he had neither heart nor conscience. For these troubles there was but one remedy; after having lost his home, he lost his country; he fled, an exile without glory, a martyr without his crown, unhappy among the most miserable a fallen angel, covered with the mire of London streets, flung upon his sculptured brow by a people intoxicated with hatred.

Poet! mighty poet! men know not the impossibility of having grand qualities without having also great defects. They know not that all extraordinary virtue, all surpassing merit, is born of a disproportion between human faculties. They know not that the perfect sense of hearing has a relation with the imperfect sense of vision; and at times, the perfection of imagination with the imperfection of conscience. They do not reflect that as the

organs of animals are proportioned to their destiny in creation, so the faculties of giant minds are proportioned to their destiny in history. Demand of the Creator why the eagle sings not like the nightingale. Ask him why the horse has not the strength of the bull. Let us not desire to discover too closely the physical fatalities which surround us, and which trouble us within and without our organism. Talent is in the soul, but it throws its influence on the body. All supernatural genius is an internal infirmity. The singing which enchants us, the melody which transports us to the world of dreams, has often been the consequence of an aneurism; the poem which inspires us with lofty ideas, great aspirations, has been written with bile; that wondrous work which leaves an indelible track in history devours and destroys an organism; that discourse which awakens a generation to new ideas is but a nervous crisis; that powerful intellect, able to weigh the stars, and to trace as on a map the limits of human reason, is for the body weakness and sterility; and all genius is a mortal infirmity.

Believe not in the impassibility of great men like Goethe and Rossini; believe not that with Olympian indifference they could pass from the torments of life to the heaven of immortality, as if in this world they were of marble instead of the flesh which burns the bones, and of the blood which is mingled with fire. Genius is a divine infirmity; genius is a martyrdom. The poet seizes upon the light, the stars, the mountains, the seas, to convert them into ideas, into canticles. The poet dissolves the universe to mingle the colors for his pictures. But he cannot undertake the Titanic work without insuring his own destruction. He cannot go into the fire without being burned; he cannot mount to the extreme heights of the atmosphere without being frozen; he cannot enter the thundercloud without receiving in that conductor, his body, the shock of electricity. Those privileged souls which, flinging off the clay of this world, force their way upward till they become like bright stars in the firmament, almost approaching the angels; those beings - who from the rock of their own shipwreck hold forth the light to future generations. -have fed the divine splendor burning in the lamp of their own brain with tears from their eyes and with blood from their hearts! From the "Life of Byron and

Other Sketches.»

GEORGE CATLIN

(1796-1872)

EORGE CATLIN, whose studies of the Indians of North America gave him well-deserved and enduring reputation, was born at Wilkesbarre, Pennsylvania, June 26th, 1796. After seven years (from 1832 to 1839) spent among them, he published his "Illustrations of the Manners, Customs, and Condition of the North American Indians," and followed it with "Life among the Indians." Part of his method of studying Indian character consisted in painting portraits of typical Indians from life. More than five hundred of these are now preserved by the United States government. Their scientific value is inestimable. Catlin died in Jersey City, December 23d, 1872.

THE

CHARACTER OF THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS

HE native races of man, occupying every part of North and South America at the time of the first discovery of the American continent by Columbus, and still existing over great portions of those regions, have generally been denominated "Indians," from that day to the present, from the somewhat curious fact that the American continent, when first discovered, was supposed to be a part of the coast of India, which the Spanish and Portuguese navigators were expecting to find, in steering their vessels to the West, across the Atlantic.

To an appellation so long, though erroneously applied, no exception will be taken in this work, in which these races will be spoken of as Indians, or savages, neither of which terms will be intended necessarily to imply the character generally conveyed by the term "Savage," but literally what the word signifies, wild (or wild man), and no more.

These numerous races (at that time consisting of many millions of human beings, divided into some hundreds of tribes, and speaking mostly different languages; whose past history is sunk in oblivion from want of books and records; three-fourths of whom, at least, have already perished by firearms, by dissipation, and

"THE SCALP DANCE.”

After a Painting by Catlin.

APLIN'S studies of Indian life have a high scientific value. He painted hundreds of portraits of Indians from life-hundreds being a suggestion rather than an exaggeration of bis industry, as more than five hundred of these portraits are in a single collection,-that of the National Museum at Washington. Like the pre Raphaelite masters, he does not idealize. His work gives Indian ugliness as he found it.