ine and Pandora, despite the noise of
the throng and the witticisms of the auctioneer, a sad feeling of
desecration must have crept over many of those who were present at
the dispersion of the household goods and gods of that man who so
hated the vulgar crowd. Gazing through the open windows they could
see the tall trees waving their heads in a sorrowful sort of way in
the summer breeze, throwing their shifty shadows over the neglected
grass-grown paths, once the haunt of the stately peacocks, whose
medieval beauty had such a strange fascination for Rossetti, and
whose feathers are now the accepted favors of his apostles and
admirers. And so their gaze would wander back again to that
mysterious face upon the wall, that face as some say the grandest in
the world, a lovely one in truth, with its wistful, woful,
passionate eyes, its sweet, sad mouth with the full red lips; a face
that seemed to say the sad old lines:

'Tis better to have loved and lost,
Than never to have loved at all.

And then would come the monotonous cry of the auctioneer to disturb
the reverie, and call one back to the matter-of-fact world which
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, painter and poet, has left
forever--Going!--Going!--Gone!

BALZAC AND MADAME HANSKA

A thought entered my heart, such as God sends to make us willing to
bear our griefs. I resolved to instruct and raise this corner of the
earth, as a teacher brings up a child. Do not call it benevolence;
my motive was the need I felt to distract my mind. I wanted to spend
the remainder of my days in some arduous enterprise.

The changes to be introduced into this region, which Nature has made
so rich and man made so poor, would occupy my whole life; they
attracted me by the very difficulty of bringing them about. I wished
to be a friend to the poor, expecting nothing in return. I allowed
myself no illusions, either as to the character of the country
people or the obstacles which hinder those who attempt to ameliorate
both men and things. I made no idyls about my poor; I took them for
what they were.

--_Balzac in "The Country Doctor"_

[Illustration: BALZAC]

Balzac was born in the year Seventeen Hundred Ninety-nine. The father of
Balzac, by a not unusual coincidence, also bore the name of Balzac. And
yet there