he shadow of Dr. Spring's church on Fifth Avenue.
Within the one the miserable occupants may have festered in body and
rotted in soul--harming only themselves and the physical atmosphere
meanwhile, and victims of the horrible aggregation of poverty in great
cities; while within the other a maelstrom of pleasant dissipation has
been whirling, to which the victims came in their own carriages with
full liveries, the waves as they circled sending up jets of cooling
spray and redolent of perfumes from the flowers of sunny lands--but
continually widening its circle of evil attraction and drawing in those
who thenceforth had no power of resistance against the banded demons of
wine, of play and of lascivious enjoyment, who lurked beneath the
waters, eager for their prey.

The fable of the "Lurline" is the story of human life and temptation;
and yet few of the thousands who have read it in the old German legend
of the "Lurleiberg" or the charming "Bridal of Belmont" of the author of
"Lillian," or who have gazed at it for hours when presented upon the
stage in the shape of "Ondine" or the "Naiad Queen,"--have fully
realized its significance. To most it has been merely a pretty conceit
or an effective spectacle; to the close student it is an absorbing
picture of the enthralment of human energies. Sir Huldebrand of
Kingstettin is a true as well as a valiant knight, and he has a
golden-haired and white-handed ladie-love in the neighboring castle of
the Baron of Steinbrunnen. He has a hope, a love, a faith, a duty; and
on the day when he fares forth from Kingstettin and takes his way to
the river bank, he has mirth as well as all these, for Karl, his merry
servant, is beside him. But the day is hot and sultry, and he dismounts
from his horse and lies down to sleep beside the Lurleiberg. He has
granted himself rest and indulgence. Half in his sleep and half in his
waking thought he sees the stream rippling below the banks and circling
in pleasant eddies by rock and mossy edge, while the water-lilies nestle
down their soft cheeks to the lapping water in the sheltered nooks, and
the willows bend down and kiss the stream with the swaying tips of their
hundred fingers, and little gleams of golden sunshine steal through the
branches and touch the soft ripples here and there with such tints of
transparent light as the pencil of painter never mastered. Oh, how
deliciously sweet and dreamy is that half wakeful feeling of repose and
indulgence