miable philosopher in his summer excursions, take the Alpine-stock, and
with him visit the mountain solitudes, or linger around the blue
lakes--those air-hung forget-me-nots--which gem the highest valleys of
Switzerland.

His remaining works, published in book-form, are "Rosa et Gertrude," and
the "Reflexions et Menus Propos d'un Peintre Genevois, ou Essai sur le
Beau dans les Arts."

"Rosa et Gertrude," given to the public a short time before his death,
is considered by some as holding the first place in Toepffer's works of
imagination. It is a touching story of two orphan girls, deeply attached
to each other, one of whom, deceived and maltreated by the world,
receives that kind and Christian charity "which thinketh no evil" from
M. Bernier, the good old clergyman, who is the guardian of Rosa and
Gertrude, as well as the narrator of their simple history. In this book
Toepffer has abandoned the humoristic, his ordinary vein in his short
stones, and in taking up the more serious mode of treating his
characters has succeeded so well that Albert Aubert of Paris, in his
criticism, says, "In 'Rosa and Gertrude' M. Toepffer has surpassed
himself"; and yet it is not so characteristic as his other writings.

However, that one of M. Toepffer's works which, it seems to me, is
destined to live longest in the future, is his "Reflexions et Menus
Propos," etc.,--"Reflections and Short Disquisitions on Art." Here are
the results of twelve years' meditations on Art, by one who _felt_ Art
in his inmost soul, and who understood its practice as well as its
theory. In this work we find a Ruskin without dogmatism, uncertainty, or
man-worship. If Toepffer had written several volumes on his favorite
subject, we should not find him, in each succeeding tome, taking back
what he had said in the first. He studied, reflected, rewrote, and then
waited patiently for years before he committed his mature judgment to
the perpetuity of print. Long before Ruskin's first volume appeared,
Toepffer's "Reflexions et Menus Propos" had commanded the admiration of
the best writers and artists of the Continent. As an aesthetic and
philosophic work, it is of the highest value. Pearls of thought and
beauty are dropped on every side. It is relieved by fanciful episodes;
and yet the whole book starts from and plays around a stick of India
ink! It is not merely a volume in which the professional artist can gain
great advantage, but one by which the general reader i