HANS EULER.
FROM THE GERMAN OF J. G. SEIDL.
"Hark, child—again that knocking! Go, fling wide the door, I pray;
Perchance 'tis some poor pilgrim who has wandered from his way.
Now save thee, gallant stranger! Sit thou down and share our cheer:
Our bread is white and wholesome—see! our drink is fresh and clear."
"I come not here your bread to share, nor of your drink to speak.
Your name?"—"Hans Euler."—"So! 'tis well: it is your blood I seek.
Know that through many a weary year I've sought you for a foe:
I had a goodly brother once: 'twas you who laid him low.
"And as he bit the dust, I vowed that soon or late on you
His death should be avenged; and mark! that oath I will keep true."
"I slew him; but in quarrel just. I fought him hand to hand:
Yet, since you would avenge his fall,—I'm ready; take your stand.
"But I war not in my homestead, by this hearth whereon I tread;
Not in sight of these—my dear ones—for whose safety I have bled.
My daughter, reach me down yon sword,—the same that laid him low;
And if I ne'er come back again, Tyrol has sons enow."
So forth they fared together, up the glorious Alpine way,
Where newly now the kindling east led on the golden day.
The sun that mounted with them, as he rose in all his pride,
Still saw the stranger toiling on, Hans Euler for his guide.
They climbed the mountain summit; and behold! the Alpine world
Showed clear and bright before them, 'neath the mists that upward curled.
Below them, calm and happy, lay the valley in her rest,
With the châlets in her arms, and with their dwellers on her breast.
Amidst were sparkling waters; giant chasms, scarred and riven;
Vast, crowning woods; and over all, the pure, blest air of heaven:
And, sacred in the sight of God, where peace her treasures spread,
On every hearth, on every home, the soul of freedom shed!
Both gazed in solemn silence down. The stranger stayed his hand.
Hans Euler gently pointed to his own beloved land:
"'Twas this thy brother threatened; such a wrong might move me well.
'Twas in such a cause I struggled:—'twas for such a fault he fell."
The stranger paused: then, turning, looked Hans Euler in the face;
The arm that would have raised the sword fell powerless in its place.
"You slew him. Was it, then, for this—for home and fatherland?
Forgive me! 'Twas a righteous cause. Hans Euler, there's my hand!"
ELEANORA L. HERVEY.
From All the Year Round.
THE MODERN GENIUS OF THE STREAMS.
Water to raise corn from the seed, to clothe the meadow with its grass, and to fill the land with fruit and flowers; water to lie heaped in fantastic clouds, to make the fairy-land of sunset, and to spread the arch of mercy in the rainbow; water that kindles our imagination to a sense of beauty; water that gives us our meat, and is our drink, and cleans us of dirt and disease, and is our servant in a thousand great and little ways—it is the very juice and essence of man's civilization. And so, whether we shall drag over cold water, or let hot water drag us, is one way of putting the question between canal and steam communication for conveyance of our heavy traffic. The canal-boat uses its water cold without, the steam-engine requires it hot within. Before hot water appeared in its industrial character to hiss off the cold, canals had all the glory to themselves. They are not yet hissed off their old stages and cat-called into contempt by the whistle of the steam-engine, for canal communication still has advantages of its own, and canal shares are powers in the money market.
Little more than a century ago, not only were there neither canals nor railroads in this country, but the common high-roads were about the worst in Europe. Corn and wool were sent to market over those bad roads on horses' or bullocks' backs, and the only coal used in the inland southern counties was carried on horseback in sacks for the supply of the blacksmiths' forges. Water gave us our over-sea commerce, that came in and went out by way of our tidal rivers; and the step proposed toward the fostering of our home industries was a great one when it occurred to somebody to imitate nature, by erecting artificial rivers that should flow whereever we wished them to flow, and should be navigable along their whole course for capacious, flat-bottomed carrying-boats.
The first English canal, indeed, was constructed as long as three hundred years ago, at Exeter, by John Trew, a native of Glamorganshire, who enabled the traders of Exeter to cancel the legacy of the spite of an angry Countess of Devon, who had, nearly three hundred years before that time, stopped the ascent of sea-going vessels to Exeter by forming a weir across the Exe at Topham. Trew contrived, to avoid the obstruction, a canal from Exeter to Topham, three miles long, with a lock to it. John Trew ruined himself in the service of an ungrateful corporation.
After this time, improvements went no further than the clearing out of some channels of natural water-communication, until the time of James Brindley, the father of the English canal system.