the flames of hell, with a multitude of women shaking at
him the bloody severed limbs of their sons and husbands; a child burned
alive in its cradle; the head of a decapitated criminal, and the visions
that filled its brain,--such are some of the ghastly imaginings of this
diseased and uneducated nature. Compare such works as these with Dore's
crudest conceptions, and the difference between the inventions of genius
and those of a morbid intellect becomes at once apparent.

L.H.H.

AN OFF YEAR.

It is a great luxury to find ourselves and the country in the midst of
what Marshal MacMahon might style a _quadrennate_, and to be at the
neutral and central point from which a much-vexed people can look both
ways for a Presidential election. The contest of two years ago is over,
and that of two years hence not near enough to beget mentionable worry.
This equator of partisanship, lying midway between the two polls, is a
happy medium of repose. The trade-winds of party passion blow from both
sides fiercely toward it, but fail to break its calm. The average
American--even the average professional American politician--possesses
his soul in patience. He looks forward to no revolution, and, when he
thinks of the matter at all, is entirely certain that the night of the
first Tuesday in November, 1880, will bring nothing more tremendous than
the usual hubbub among the telegraph-operators, the reporters and the
haunters of the clubs and leagues. He doubts the due abnormal succession
of the Presidents as little as he does that of the British kings, and a
great deal less than he does that of some of the continental monarchs,
to say nothing of the French ruler, whose septennate happens also to be
within about two years of its close.

So pleasant it is to be at leisure to bestow attention on life, liberty
and the pursuit of happiness, without thought of the usually engrossing
machinery so painfully and minutely contrived for facilitating our
advance to those ends! To forget the means and for once look at the
object; to ignore the strife for free government, and be placidly and
contentedly free; to shut our eyes on eternal vigilance, and realize
that we have paid that price and have the receipt in our pockets; to
intermit our nursing of the tree and enjoy the fruit; to feel that life
in a republic is not necessarily and always "the fever called
living,"--such is, for the present interval, our lot. Self-government is
such very hard wo