ense of
splendor.

In his sketch of the poor mother cuddling her child, it is the feeling
of rest, the mother's sleeping joy, the relaxed limbs, the folding
embrace, which he has given us to enjoy. These are the beauty of the
picture--not rounded flesh, nor graceful curves, nor fair complexion;
and so with the singing-girls: they are not beautiful girls, but they
are simple--they love to sing, they are full of tenderness and music. We
might go over all his pictures to weariness in this way. The young girl
plucking at the daisy as she stands in an open field must, however, not
be omitted. The natural elegance of this portrait renders it peculiarly,
we should say, such a one as any woman would be proud to see of herself.
Doubtless this young girl, like others, may have worn ear-rings and
chains and pins and rings, but the artist knew her better than she knew
herself, and has portrayed that exquisite crown of simplicity with
which, it should seem, Nature only endows beggars and her royal
favorites.

In all the ages since Hamlet was created there appears never to have
been an era in which his character has excited such strong and universal
interest as in America at this time. William Hunt has thrown upon the
canvas a figure of Hamlet beautiful and living. There is no suggestion
of any actor in it. Hamlet walks new-born from the painter's brain. His
"cursed spite" bends the youthful shoulders, and the figure marches past
unmindful of terrestrial presences.

One other picture will illustrate more clearly, perhaps, than everything
which has gone before, this gift of imagination. In "The Boy and the
Butterfly," now on the walls of the Century Club-house, the loveliness
of the child, the power of action, the subtle management of color and
light, are all subordinated to the ideas of defeat and endeavor. Energy,
the irrepressible strength of the spirit upheld by a divine light of
indestructible youth, shines out from the canvas. The boy who cannot
catch the butterfly is transmuted as we stand into the Soul of Beauty
reaching out in vain for satisfaction, and ready to follow its
aspiration to another sphere.

OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP.

WILHELMINE VON HILLERN.

German literature, despite its extraordinary productiveness and its
possession of a few great masterpieces, is far from being rich in the
department of belles-lettres, especially in works of fiction. It has no
list of novelists like those which include such names as