the Messageries steamer _Donai_, bound
from Constantinople to Marseilles. On board many nationalities were
represented. The story is a fine illustration of the wide-spread
popularity of the American poet.

"One evening, as we were quitting the Straits of Bonifacio, some one
remarked at dinner that, though Victor Hugo was born in Paris, the
earliest impressions of his life were received in Corsica, close to
which we were passing. Ten or twelve of us lingered after the meal was
finished to talk of the great French poet. One of the party spoke of
him as embodying, more than any other writer, the humanistic
tendencies of the nineteenth century and as the exponent of what is
best in humanity.

"We had been talking in French, when the Russian lady exclaimed in
English to the gentleman who had last spoken, 'How can you, an
American, give to him the place that is occupied by your own
Longfellow? Longfellow is the universal poet. He is better known, too,
among foreigners than any one except their own poets! Then she
commenced repeating in rich, mellow tones:

I stood on the bridge at midnight,
As the clocks were striking the hour,
And the moon rose over the city
Behind the dark church tower.

I recall how her voice trembled over the words:

And the burden laid upon me
Seemed greater than I could bear.

and how it swelled out in the concluding lines:

As the symbol of love in Heaven,
And its wavering image here.

It was dramatic and never to be forgotten. Then she added, 'I long to
visit Boston that I may stand on the Bridge.'

"In the company was an English captain returning from the Zulu war. He
was the son of that member of Parliament' who had been the chief
supporter of the claimant in the famous Tichborne case, and who had
poured out his money like water in behalf of the man whom he
considered cruelly wronged. The captain was a typical British soldier,
with every characteristic of his class. Joining our steamer at Genoa,
he had so far talked only of the Zulus and, with bitter indignation,
of the manner in which the Prince Imperial had been deserted by
British soldiers to be slain by savages. As soon as the Russian lady
had concluded he said: 'I can give you something better than that,'
and began in a voice like a trumpet:

Tell me not in mournful numbers
Life is but an empty dream.

His recitation of the entire poem was marked by the common English
upheaval