thought, according to the circumstances. It may be safely set down as a rule, however, that the value, the satisfaction of Life is prodigiously overrated, as respects popular expression.

Continually are we hearing of happy lives, as if they were of the commonest. How could any life be happy, in any veritable sense of the adjective? There may be happy hours, happy days; but even these brief spaces of time are pretty sure to be commingled with fragments of unhappiness. But happy lives! Is not the phrase a self-evident absurdity? Is it capable of being entertained as a thought? Has there ever been, or could there be, one happy life out of the decillions of decillions of lives that this crazy old planet has generated? A happy life, if there were only death in the world, ignoring the many worse evils that the world contains, would be impossible. Death may be, and often is better than Life, altogether preferable to Life; but only because Life is so very sad; so very cruel; frequently so very endurable. Were Life under any conditions, what some bamboozled sentimentalists declare it, death would be the climax of horror; and we are all aware, by observation no less than reason, that it isn't. The best satisfied and the most unsatisfied of mortals disagree not essentially in their estimate of, Life. Byron said that he had experienced but two happy days, and Goethe, who postponed his funeral more than twice as long as the English poet did his, experienced but eleven days; so that between a man who believed himself the most miserable of his kind, and a man who was considered abnormally fortunate, the difference in happiness is only nine days. Selah! Life may be an obligation; certes, it is not a delight, nor an advantage. Its mighty seriousness and unescapable responsibilities, except we be very volatile, make it heavy to a degree that we should be pleased, at the end, to lay the burthen down. It is proper and honorable, that we should bear it as best we may, having been juggled into its possession; but to bear it again would be the maddest of follies. Having acquitted ourselves of the duties of Life, is it not wise to trust the fathomless mystery that draws us on, secure in the thought that, if it lead to nothing better, it can lead to nothing worse? Erst while, Saladi whispers, Vex not your spirit over the Unknown, which is the goodness of the Known.

A DAUGHTER OF LILITH AND A DAUGHTER OF

EVE.

BY KATE BUFFINGTON DAVIS.

IN the Talmud myths of life, is one of Lilith, the earthborn woman who first companioned Adam, or man. She wedded him to matter and its fleeting forms. Then as a messenger from God, a helpmeet to lead men from earth, matter, and its illusive shadows to heaven, helping him to perceive the purity, peace, and joy of union in the soul and with the spiritas a tie between heaven and earth,— Eve was created by God, and offered to man for his inspiration and his awakening.

In the bondage of one, ye shall perish. Through union. with the other shall the door of immortality be opened unto

you.

I.

"Love! If I loved I would yield to no power above or below that would hold apart from me the object of my pas

sion."

The magnificent form of the speaker seemed to quiver from the stately head, crowned with its wavy black tresses, through its every beautiful curve to the dainty foot tapping the floor. And the undulating flush that deepened the bloom upon the cheek, the flash of light in the eye, that in unemotional hours looked lazily out from under the heavy fringe of the drooping lids, all emphasized the power that lay behind the words for their fulfilment.

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Why should one yield in love to aught but its destined reward? It is joy nay, it is life itself. We move, we think, and all is monotony, a mere existence. We feel, we love, and all is life. Every throb of our pulse is a note in the melody of being, when it dances to the measure of love. What can compensate for the loss of that which we seek? Nothing. I would stop short of naught save death, to accomplish my aim-if once I loved," she added with a little laugh.

No one save the queenly Cleopatra Tarrasal in the strength of her peerless magnificence, would dare to have uttered words at once so intense and so antagonistic to the accepted code of femininity. As it was, a sort of startled silence fell upon the little group gathered on that seaside piazza.

Cleo was a child of the southern clime, and as beautiful, as intense, as is all tropic beauty. Daring as the rays of a southern sun, that not only nourishes into form and sweetness the orange and the rose, but begets, likewise, the tarantula and the serpent that stingeth unto death, was the nature that animated her beautiful body. She would entice through color, form, and tone, every sense that could be thrilled, and yet in such love lieth hidden the deadly peril.

A moment's silence, and the young girl at Cleo's side said,"You frighten me, Cleo, your idea of love seems so compelling, instead of winning. I cannot understand any joy in forcing an acknowledgment of any emotion. It seems to me that love must be like the discovery of great treasure that God has stored up for you, and hidden in the heart of another, the key to its finding resting in the voluntary blending of thought and emotions that touches the secret spring, throws open the door, and reveals to each their portion of this great joy that enriches life."

A smile crept over the full red lips of the beautiful Cleo, who had relapsed into a manner of lazy indifference, compared to which her previous emotion had been like a sudden tempest. She turned her eyes with deliberate gaze upon the speaker and slowly said,

"That may be your idea, Carrol, but mine is any power that wins. If the man I shall love is not my master, he shall be my slave. Mine he shall be, either through love or submission."

A chill almost of horror seemed to pass over the fair girl, who had ventured to suggest her different thought, as she gazed upon the leonine grace and power embodied in the speaker.

Just at that moment there came around the corner of the building, a fair and graceful man. As he advanced, a close observer of Cleo would have seen a change pass over her, scarce perceptible, yet suggestive of the cat-like concentration of all faculties into a perceptive state, that the animal takes on when its attention is fixed by a bird.

As he approached the group with a graceful salutation, Cleo's face animated and she motioned him to her side with a pretty little wave of her hand. A faint hesitation on his part caused the color to flicker over her countenance, and there passed into her expression a magnetic charm, a look no son of Adam can resist, unless his soul stands guard.

Accepting the seat beside her, Richard Noyes handed her a newly-cut magazine, and said:

"Miss Cleo, I brought you the paper on hypnotism we were speaking of last evening. It very ably sustains the argument that a person cannot be hypnotized against his will, thereby contends there are no innocent victims of this new recognition of science."

Rising, she took the book and said:

"Oh, thanks; anything in that line interests me exceedingly; how nice to know there are such wonderful forces to work our will. I wonder if there is any limit to the power of mind if we but know ourselves?"

As she stood in graceful unconsciousness of muscular effort, in seeming absorption in the realm of mind, she looked as fascinating as, history tells us, did her royal predecessor in name and in beauty, whose passions ruled empires and made the history of a world. She looked a woman so full of life, that emotion radiated, winning response in all sense perceptions. In her wondrous eyes was a fearless gleam, as she searched within for the mystic faculties that obey the will.

"I have just an half hour at my disposal before my packing must be done, we leave so early in the morning," she said. "So I will go and read this article now, that we may have a little opportunity for its discussion this evening.' And she walked away.

Going to her room she threw herself upon a low couch by the window, and rapidly read the article of interest in the magazine. As she finished it, she tossed the book aside, and clasping her beautiful hands above her head, gazed long and earnestly into the ever moving sea, whose waves restlessly caressed the sands before her window.

Her face at first looked veiled in its placidity, as all thought force seemed concentrated within. Then, like a sudden flash, the color leaped to her rounded cheek, swept over the marvellous throat, and followed with a gleam in the

eyes as she sprung to her feet, and paced back and forth the confines of her room, as a tigress measures the limits of her cage. Finally she muttered,

"I don't believe the power is limited. At any cost I'll test it this very night."

II.

It is just three months since Cleopatra Tarrasal experimented with her force as a hypnotizer. If her power over her subject extended to the suggestion a echeance, to-night, in this, her southern home, it will be proven. For in that last evening at the seashore they had tried some hypnotic experiments, and Cleo had succeeded in placing three subjects in hypnotic sleep, one being Richard Noyes; and during his subjective state she had laid the command upon him to appear at her home in New Orleans three months from that day, on this, the twenty-third of November. And to-night, she is awaiting the fulfilment of the test, with every breath a quivering anxiety.

She loved Richard Noyes with the fearless intensity of her wonderful nature. Yet she was not blind to the fact that he never sought her with the eagerness she felt to behold him. Instead, she realized, although every charm she was mistress of had been thrown about him, that she had been able only to exercise a sort of physical attraction upon him when he was in her presence. That he would more willingly seek the side of pretty little Carrol Ashton, in those days at the shore, was to her plainly manifest.

But she was magnificent to-night! Effect had been studied well, before she adopted that Grecian robe of white wool with golden girdle holding its soft folds to her queenly form, her black and wavy hair held in place by a golden dagger. The dress was simplicity itself, thus showing her mastery of the art of dress; for it adorned her with its grace, and yet made you only conscious of her exquisite personality. And it was suited to the hour and the rich surroundings of her luxurious home. In looking upon her one could utter the tribute Hafiz bestowed on Zuleika's beauty:

"In the midnight of thy locks,

I renounce the day;

In the ring of thy rose lips,

My heart forgets to pray."