ction," replied Fabrice. "How often could I hope to see you if I
were living in Parma, a free man again? And life would not be worth
living if I could not tell you all my thoughts--no, not that exactly:
you take precious good care I don't tell you _all_ my thoughts! But in
spite of your cruel tyranny, to live without seeing you daily would be a
far worse punishment than captivity; in all my life I was never so
happy! Isn't it strange to think happiness was awaiting me in a prison?"

"There is a good deal to be said on that point," rejoined Clelia, with
an air that all at once became very serious, almost threatening.

"What!" exclaimed Fabrice, in alarm, "am I in danger of losing the small
place I have won in your heart, my sole joy in this world?"

"Yes," she replied. "Although your reputation in society is that of a
gentleman and gallant man, I have reason to believe you are not acting
ingenuously toward me. But I don't wish to discuss this matter to-day."

This strange exordium cast an element of embarrassment into the
conversation, and tears were often in the eyes of both.

Copyrighted by George H. Richmond and Company.

WILLEM BILDERDIJK

(1756-1831)

Willem Bilderdijk's personality, even more than his genius, exerted so
powerful an influence over his time that it has been said that to think
of a Dutchman of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century was to
think of Bilderdijk. He stands as the representative of the great
literary and intellectual awakening which took place in Holland
immediately after that country became part of the French empire. The
history of literature has many examples of how, under political
disturbances, the agitated mind has sought refuge in literary and
scientific pursuits, and it seemed at that time as if Dutch literature
was entering a new Golden Age. The country had never known better poets;
but it was the poetry of the eighteenth century, to quote Ten Brink,
"ceremonious and stagy."

In 'Herinnering van mijne Kindheit' (Reminiscences of My Childhood), a
book which is not altogether to be relied upon, Bilderdijk gives a
charming picture of his father, a physician in Amsterdam, but speaks of
his mother in less flattering terms. He was born in Amsterdam in 1756.
At an early age he suffered an injury to his foot, a peasant boy having
carelessly stepped on it; attempts were made to cure him by continued
bleedings, and the result was that he was confined to his bed for