pass! Of those who do not, but go on, year after year, toiling, scheming, pinching, hoarding, what shall be said if not that they are equally the dupes of their own passions and the spoilers of humanity; and that if, for the abuse of their opportunities and faculties, the race can take no other vengeance, it will, at least, make reprisals on their memory when they are gone.

The only other question I now mention as pressing upon the attention of the rich, relates to the method of expenditure. There are who seem utterly destitute of this. They are willing to spend their wealth freely; but they spend it very much at hap-hazard, seldom to any good purpose, and often to quite harmful ones. They are almost as likely to give to any preposterous charity, or feeble and unnecessary institution, or plausible and insinuating beggar, or to some one already burdened with a plethora of money, as to the most promising, deserving and needy; and are about as ready to buy whatsoever strikes their crude fancy, or uneducated taste, with scarcely a thought of its real value or utility, as what is most worthy, and would be most helpful. What all such persons-what all persons who have any money to spare-need to consider is: What is in the line of their own thought and taste; what they can best comprehend and get most from. For these things let them spend, recognizing that the same sums spent for things of which they have no appreciation, and which do not really minister to their true life, would be wretched extravagances. One gets life out of fine pictures and noble statues ; but what folly for the blind man, or one who could not tell a Turner from a ten dollar daub, or a head of Angelo from the journey-work of an Italian stone-mason, to spend money on objects of art. For one to whom the music of Beethoven or Mendelsohn opens the gate of paradise, it may be economy to spend his last dollar but one for admission to the opera; while for another,

with no music in his soul, and unable to distinguish two tunes apart, it would be ridiculous to give an equal sum from many thousands for the same purpose. So with books, travel, equipage, houses, and all things else for which men spend their money. the line of their own career, faculties, tastes, they are not likely to spend extravagantly, however freely.

In

Yet to get the best uses of their wealth men must spend with system. And by system is meant two things: first, the selection of specific objects for which to spend, as education, æsthetic culture, charity, religion; and secondly, the annual appropriation of a certain portion of their income to be divided as shall seem wise amongst these various purposes. Doing thus, they will find the amounts they disburse for unselfish purposes indefinitely larger, as well as have the very great satisfaction of knowing that their benefactions have taken the most useful direction they could give them.

:

In regard to the use of wealth, however, there will be little difficulty for any who appreciate their moral responsibility that nothing is theirs for selfish gratification but for beneficent ends; that unto whomsoever much is given, of them shall much be required. Herein lies the difficulty, in men's forgetfulness of their responsibility for the right use of every talent, implement, opportunity granted them, and that for such use the moral government under which we live, will sooner or later call them to account. Hence the many huge estates from which society, in none of its higher interests derives any but the remotest benefits; men guarding them as the apple of their eye while they live, and endeavouring to tie them up so as to prevent dismemberment when they die, but generally leaving them as bones of contention to litigious heirs and hungry attorneys. So when, thirty years ago, the then richest man in America died, leaving property estimated at twenty millions, less than

half a million of it was devoted to any public or beneficent purpose; and, as though to keep up the family tradition, when two or three years ago, the eldest son and principal heir of that twenty millions, himself worth probably four or five times that amount, was summoned away, only about an equal sum was devoted to the same object. Thus, too, when a few years since in the capital of the great state of New York died a man of a reputed fortune of ten millions of dollars, he could find only so many paltry thousands for any benevolent purpose. When later, the richest merchant of the continent passed away, leaving almost anywhere from fifty to seventy millions with not a living kinsman to inherit it, there were a few petty gifts to personal friends and humane enterprises, and a little vague talk about contemplated undertakings for the welfare of humanity which were left wholly at the option of other persons -and these were all. And when, finally, the great railway monarch of America was compelled to cease watering stock and making corners in the market, and it was found what use he had made of his almost fabulous fortune; it appeared that less than a million of dollars had been appropriated to any purpose that mankind will care to thank him for; although what disposition of his wealth he would not have preferred to make rather than be subjected to the humiliating and disgusting exposure now making by greedy litigants, it is surely not easy to say.

Let it not be supposed, however, that reference is made to these men, borne to their graves with so much pomp, and praised in so florid rhetoric by many a pulpit and press, for the sake of disparaging them. They were the centres and springs of much indus trial life. They were men of great shrewdness and practical force; and of certain economic virtues by no means to be despised. Nor has reference to them been forborne because they

are no longer here to answer for themselves. For the old Latin maxim, 'De mortuis nil nisi bonum,' I long since abandoned all regard. Had I not, and had I referred to them at all, I should have been obliged to speak of poor Judas, unhappy Borgia, unfortunate Jeffreys, maligned Wilkes Booth. Speaking of the living or the dead, it seems desirable to speak of them with all candour and truthful ness, painting not only the outline of the faces, but the wrinkles and warts on the faces. In this spirit have the foregoing references been made. They have been made because few truths do now more need enforcement than the responsibility of men of wealth, and because so many are temp ted to the same tremendous mistake, not to say fearful sin of which such millionaires are guilty.

Beside all such, now place, not only the two great benefactors of mankind in this line before mentionedGeorge Peabody and Peter Cooperbut Matthew Vassar, Ezra Cornell, John Hopkins, all of them founders of noble institutions with which their names will be forever identified. Put beside them the name of Willard Carpenter, of Indiana, giving a million of dollars to establish a college exclusively for poor students, wherein both food and raiment, as well as culture, shall be afforded them; or the English Holloway, who, after building a sanitarium at an expense of £150,000, is now, under the advice and partial direction of Professor Fawcett, erecting a college for women, at an expense of not less than a million of dollars; or the still better known Stephen Girard, bequeathing more than two millions of dollars to found the institution which has become one of the chief glories of Philadelphia, as it is one of the most useful in the world; or put beside them the writer's personal friend, a widow, having no fortune but what herself has made by keeping the best boarding house in her city, subscribing a thousand dollars to build

a church, which was thought greatly needed, and, to pay it, resolving to remain in business two years longer than she had contemplated. Is any assurance needed as to which of these classes has made the better use of its wealth, little or much ?--which has proved itself the richer in all that dignifies and ennobles humanity? When the names of the former, and all like them, shall be sunk in merciful oblivion, those of the latter shall not only shine with constantly increasing brightness in the spiritual firmament, but will evoke benedictions from multitudinous hearts which owe to them no small share, if not all, that has made life beautiful and worthy.

Just now, in the City of Toronto, is an opportunity for some rich man to supply an imperious need, and to secure for himself a fragrant memory as enduring as the city. For how pressing is the need here of a free public library, worthy the rapidly growing metropolis of this great and wealthy Province Can any intelligent and patriotic Torontonian now confess without a blush that here, where are gathered nearly or quite 70,000 inhabitants, where have been built during the last three or four years a halfa-score of quite expensive churches, and where there is considerable pretension to literary culture, no public library yet exists? True, there is the University College Library; but that can scarcely be said to be open to the public; and if it were, is unfavourably situated for the accommodation of the great mass of the people, and is mainly composed of books of reference rather than for general reading. There is also the Mechanics' Association Library, to which not a few young persons resort for their weekly novel. But he who offers this as any proximately satisfactory answer, or as other than a travesty upon a proper answer to the need of Toronto in this respect, will not be argued with here. He needs to have the first conception of an institution of the kind worthy

of the city in which we live. He needs to see what other cities of equal size and wealth have done in this direction. And looking, not to the Old world which has so long a past at its back, and so large an accumulation of wealth from which to draw, but across the border, and to the new cities of the West, he sees hardly a town of 20,000 or 30,000 people that has not provided far better facilites of this sort for its citizens than Toronto can boast; while in all the more important places, though scarcely older, more populous, or more wealthy than our city, are public libraries of truly noble proportions. In the City of Detroit, for instance, with certainly not more than a quarter more people than Toronto, there is a really substantial and elegant building, containing anywhere from 40,000 to 50,000 well-selected volumes, open to the poorest boy and girl in the town, from which every day are taken hundreds of volumes, and whose spacious reading-room is always largely occupied with more or less industrious seekers after knowledge. And the educational influence, both intellectual and moral, of such an institution, who can estimate? How much might it do here to attract young men from the 400 dram shops that infest the city? How much to quicken frivolous young women to the perception of somewhat better than silks and jewellery, parties and flirtations? How much might it, in time, accomplish for the elevation of the tone, and the refinement of the temper of the whole people, making society not a bore but a pleasure, and conversation at once sprightly, rational, and instructive, and life indefinitely richer? While then, in the present state of the city finances, the corporation can hardly be expected to take the initiative in establishing such an institution, have we not some rich man, or some rich men, amongst us, who cannot hold on to their title deeds much longer, and who are soon going where not what they have, but what they

are, is of value, and whose consciences tell them they owe something to mankind, and whose generous impulses assure that it is their unspeakable pri vilege to found here a Public Library worthy the name and the city, and that shall be not only a noble monu

ment of themselves, but shall be a fountain of salutary and saving influence for all the generations to come! Unquestionably there are men of the ability thus to do. Have they the disposition?

IT

CHAPTER XXXVII.

Can these things be? or are visions about?'

T was on Thursday afternoon that Miranda asked Mr. Rondelet to meet her in Desdemona's cell.

He came with a curious sense of agitation. It was hardly possible that she should refuse him; and yet-why had she not accepted him at once? What need to deliberate for four and twenty hours over what might just as well have been decided on the spot? Perhaps, however, it was the way of young ladies, a class with whom Paul Rondelet, in spite of his monastic vows, had but little sympathy.

Had he overheard the conversation which took place between Desdemona and Miranda, he would have been more agitated.

'No,' Miranda was saying. 'You need not be in the least alarmed, Desdemona, I am not going to hold out any hopes. And this, I trust '—she heaved a deep sigh-' will be the last of my courtiers.'

Desdemona lifted her great soft eyes lazily she was lying, as usual,

'My dear Miranda,' said Desdemona, 'I sincerely wish you had. Most young men, and especially young men of Advanced Thought, would be all the better for a box on the ears.'

And just then the candidate for her hand and fortune appeared.

He was elaborately got up: a studied simplicity reigned in his neat and faultless dress, his grey kid gloves, the hat which was not too new and yet not shabby, the plain black silk ribbon which did duty for a tie. Even his smooth cheeks, his tiny moustache, his dark hair parted down the middle with an ambrosial curl, half an inch long over his white brow, spoke of quintessential taste.

'Pray sit down, Mr. Rondelet,' said Desdemona the hostess. chair nearest the china.

"Take the

I know it

soothes you to be near blue china. Miranda has asked me to be present, if you do not object.'

'Miss Dalmeny's wishes are commands,' he said, feeling more uneasy. But perhaps she was going to take him at his word and enter upon a betrothal with the calm which marks the truly philosophic spirit. After all she would be worthy of him.’

'I have been thinking, Mr. Rondelet,' said Miranda slowly, turning a paper-knife between her fingers, and looking at her suitor with more of a critical eye than he liked to see. It is all very well to be a critic, but no critic likes to be criticised. She was looking, too, calm and self-possessed, as if she was perfectly mistress of the situation. 'I have been thinking over what you said. You assumed, you may remember, as a ground for your request, a superiority over the ordinary run of educated men-over our Monks of Thelema, for instance. But I have reflected, however, that I was asked to take that on your own assurance. Would you mind telling me how you can prove this superiority?'

Proof Proof of his superiority? Paul Rondelet dropped his eye-glass and drew a long breath of amazement. Then he put it up again, and flushed a rosy red. Did she actually want him to bring testimonials, like a candidate for a place?

'I am Paul Rondelet,' he said proudly-Paul Rondelet of Lothian. I should have thought that was enough.'

'We live here,' said Miranda, 'so far from Oxford, and are so little connected with the circles where people think, that I am afraid I must ask you for a little more information.' Her voice was steady and her manner calm, but in her eyes there was a light which boded ill for her suitor. I have no doubt at all that you are incontestably in the front. Only I should like to know how you got there.'

Paul Rondelet was silent. This

was an awkward turn of things. What reply could he make?

For instance,' Miranda went on. pitilessly, have you written works of scholarship?"

'No,' said Paul, very red and uneasy, 'I leave grammar to schoolmasters.'

'Then there is Art,' she continued. 'The women of your higher levels,. you say, are to possess an instinctive love for Art, but are to be trained by the men. Do you paint?'

Paul Rondelet, whose lips were very dry by this time, and his hands trembling, shook his head. He did. not paint.

'Then how could you train me, supposing I possessed this instinct?'

'I should instruct you on the principles of Art and its highest expression,' said the superior youth.

'Yes yes. You would show me beautiful pictures. But I have already, we will suppose, the instinct of Art, and could find them out for myself. And all that you could tell me I have in my library already.'

"The new school, the Higher School," he interrupted pleadingly, 'requires its own language to express its new teaching.'

'I know,' she said, 'I have translated some of the languages of the New School into English, and I find its disciples to be on no higher a level, as I think, than my old authorities. I have Ruskin, at least, whom I can understand. And Eastlake, and Wornum, and Jameson, and old Sir Joshua. However, there are other things. You have written novels, perhaps?'

He shuddered. Could a man of his standing condescend to write a novel, to pander to the taste of the vulgar herd who read such things?

'You are a dramatist, then?' 'The British Drama is dead,' he replied in a hollow voice.