special Sciences.

Could such a discovery be actually accomplished; should it prove to be
the simple fact of nature that every sound of the human voice is
Nature's chosen vehicle for the communication of an equally elementary
idea; and that the Combinations of the Elementary Sounds into Words do
inherently and necessarily, so soon as these primitive meanings and the
law of their combination are known, produce words infinite in number and
perfect in structure, naturally expressive of every precise idea of
which the human mind is capable, it becomes perfectly conceivable how a
Natural Universal Language would be evolved by discovery alone. The
creation of the Language would belong to Nature as truly and
absolutely--in a sense, more truly and absolutely--than our existing
instinctual Languages. It would be in fact the normal Language of
Humanity, from which, for the want of such a discovery, mankind has been
unnaturally debarred. The fact would prove to be that we have ever been
banished from our true vernacular, and have been, all our lives,
speaking foreign or strange tongues, from which we have only to recur or
come home. May we not, therefore, found in Science the rational
expectation, that in due time, from a Lingual Paradise Lost in the
remote Past, we may recur to a Lingual Paradise Regained, in literal
fulfilment of the promise of prophecy, that all the nations of the earth
shall be of one speech?

A SUMMER'S NIGHT.

[_Translated literally from the original Polish of Count S. Krasinski,
by Prof. Podbielski; prepared for_ THE CONTINENTAL _by Martha Walker
Cook._]

'O'er this sad world Death folds his gloomy pall,
Bright buds hatch worms, flowers die, and woe shrouds all.'

MALIZEWSKI.

'Oh, look on me, my fellow countrymen,
From the same Fatherland! On me, so young,
Passing o'er the last road, gazing for the last time
On Helios--to see him rise no more for ever!
In his cold cradle Death rolls all asleep;
Me _living_ he conducts to his black shores;
Me wretched! unbetrothed! upon whose ears
No bridal chant has ever hymned its joys,
Stern Acheron alone calls to his side,
And Death must be my icy Bridegroom now!'

SOPHOCLES: _Antigone_.

CHAPTER I.

I behold her as they lead her forth, with myrtle wreath upon her brow,
and floating drapery of snow. She moves slowly, as if in fear, and the
church rises like a vast cemetery before her eyes. C