hope, the fear, the jealous care,
The exalted portion of the pain
And power of love, I cannot share,
But wear the chain.

But 'tis not _thus_, and 'tis not _here_,
Such thoughts should shake my soul--nor _now_,
Where glory decks the hero's bier,
Or binds his brow.

The sword, the banner, and the field,
Glory and Greece, around me see!
The Spartan, borne upon his shield,
Was not more free.

Awake! (not Greece--she _is_ awake!)
Awake, my spirit! Think through _whom_
Thy life-blood tracks its parent lake,
And then strike home!

Tread those reviving passions down,
Unworthy manhood!--unto thee
Indifferent should the smile or frown
Of beauty be.

If thou regrett'st thy youth, _why live_?
The land of honorable death
Is here:--up to the field, and give
Away thy breath!

Seek out--less often sought than found--
A soldier's grave, for thee the best;
Then look around, and choose thy ground,
And take thy rest.

FERNAN CABALLERO

(CECILIA BOeHL DE FABER)

(1796-1877)

England, France, and Spain have each produced within this century a
woman of genius, taking rank among the very first writers of their
respective countries. Fernan Caballero, without possessing the breadth
of intellect or the scholarship of George Eliot, or the artistic sense
of George Sand, is yet worthy to be named with these two great novelists
for the place she holds in Spanish literature. Interesting parallels
might be drawn between them, aside from the curious coincidence that
each chose a masculine pen-name to conceal her sex, and to gain the ear
of a generation suspicious of feminine achievements. Each portrayed both
the life of the gentleman and that of the rustic, and each is at her
best in her homelier portraitures.

Unlike her illustrious compeers, Fernan Caballero did not grow up amid
the scenes she drew. In the scanty records of her life it does not
appear whether, like George Sand, she had first to get rid of a
rebellious self before she could produce those objective masterpieces of
description, where the individuality of the writer disappears in her
realization of the lives and thoughts of a class alien to her own. Her
inner life cannot be reconstructed from her stories: her outward life
can be told in a few words. She was born December 25th, 1796, in Morges,
S