"In 1833, eleven steamboats were employed on the lakes, which carried in that year 61,485 passengers, and only two trips were made to Chicago. Time of the round trip, twenty-five days.

46

In 1834, eighteen boats were upon the lakes, and three trips were made to Chicago. The lake-business now increased so much, that in 1839 a regular line of eight boats was formed to run from Buffalo to Chicago.

"In 1840, the number of steamboats on the lakes was forty-eight. Cabin-passage from Buffalo to Chicago, twenty dollars."

About 1850 was the height of steamboat-prosperity on the lakes. There was at that time a line of sixteen first-class steamers from Buffalo to Chicago, leaving each port twice a day. The boats were elegantly fitted up, usually carried a band of music, and the table was equal to that of most American hotels. They usually made the voyage from Buffalo to Chicago in three or four days, and the charge was about ten dollars. They went crowded with passengers, four or five hundred not being an uncommon number, and their profits must have been large. The building of railroads from East to West, such as the Michigan Central and Southern lines, and the Lake Shore and Great Western, soon took away the passenger-business, and the

propellers could carry freight at lower rates than those expensive side-wheel boats could pretend to do. So they have gradually disappeared from these waters, until at present their number is very small, compared with what it was ten years ago, while the number of screw-propellers is increasing yearly, as well as that of sail-vessels.

Great as is this lake-commerce now, it is still but in its infancy. The productive capacities of most of the States which border upon these waters are only beginning to be developed. If in twentyfive years the trade has grown to its present proportions, what may be expected from it in twenty-five years more?

The secession of the Gulf States from the Union, and the closing of the Mississippi to the products of the Northwest, could we suppose such a state of things to be possible, would still more clearly show the value of the lake-route to the ocean.

Run the line of 36° 30 across the continent from sea to sea, and build a wall upon it, if you will, higher than the old wall of China, and the Northern Confederacy will contain within itself every element of wealth and prosperity. Commerce and agriculture, manufactures and mines, forests and fisheries, all are there.

AT Munich, last summer, I made the acquaintance of My, the famous painter. I had heard much of him during my stay there, and of his eccentricities. Just then it was quite the mode to circulate stories about him, and I listened to so many which were incredible that I was seized with an irresistible desire to meet him. I took, certainly, a roundabout way to accomplish this. My had a horror of

forming new acquaintances, so it was said. He fled from letters of introduction coming in the ordinary way, as from the plague.

Neither prince nor noble could win his intimacy or tempt him out of the pale of his daily routine. We are most eager in the pursuit of what is forbidden. I became the more determined to make M—y's acquaintance, the more difficult it seemed. After revolving the matter

He

carefully, I wrote to America to my intimate friend R., who I knew had subdued "the savage," as My was sometimes called, and begged him to put me in the way of getting hold of the strange fellow. In four or five weeks I received an answer. R. simply inclosed me his own card with the painter's name in pencil written on it,-advising me to go to the artist's house, deliver the card in person, and trust the result to fortune. Now I had heard, as before intimated, all sorts of stories about My. He was a bachelor, at least fifty years old. He lived by himself, as was reported,—in a superb house in an attractive part of the town. Gossip circulated various tales about its interior. Sometimes he reigned a Sardanapalus; at other times, a solitary queen graced but a temporary throne. He was addicted to various vices. played high, lost generally large sums, and was in perpetual fear of the bailiffs. It was even reported that a royal decree had been issued to exempt so extraor dinary a genius from ordinary arrest. In short, scarcely anything extravagant in the category of human occurrences was omitted in the daily changing detail of the scandal-loving society of Magnificent Munich. Only, no one ever imputed a mean or dishonorable thing to My; but for the rest, there was nothing he did not do or permit to be done. He painted when he liked and what he liked. His compositions, whether of landscape or history, were eagerly snatched up at extravagant prices, for My was always exorbitant in his demands. Besides, when he chose, My painted portraits, never on application, nor for the aristocracy or the rich,— but as the mood seized him, of some subject that attracted him while on his various excursions, or of some of his friends. Yet who were his friends? Could any one tell? I could not find a person who claimed to know him intimately. Everybody had something to praise him for: "But it was such a pity that" and here would follow one of the thousand bits of gossip which were floating about and had been floating for years.

VOL. VII.

21

I had seen M―y often,—for he was no recluse, and could be met daily in the streets. His general appearance so fascinated me that the desire to know the man led me to adopt the course I have just mentioned. So much by way of explanation.

And now, furnished with the card and the advice contained in my friend R.'s letter, I proceeded one afternoon to the Strasse, and sought admittance. A decent-looking servant-woman opened the door, and to my inquiry replied that Herr My was certainly at home, but whether engaged or not she could not answer. She ushered me into a small apartment on my right, which seemed intended for a reception-room. I was about sending some kind of message to the master of the house, for I did not like to trust the magic card out of my possession, when I heard a door open and shut at the end of the hall, and the quick, nervous step of a man along the passage. Seeing the servant standing by the door, My, for it was he, walked toward it and presented himself bodily before me. He wore a cap and dressing-gown, and looked vexed, but not ill-natured, on seeing me. I was much embarrassed, and, forgetting what I had proposed to say to him, I put R.'s card into his hand without a word. His eye lighted up instantly.

"You are from America? - You are welcome! - How is my friend?" were words rapidly enunciated. "Come with me, - leave your hat there, so!"— and we mounted a flight of stairs, passed what I perceived to be a fine salon, then through a charming, domestic-looking apartment into one still smaller, around the walls of which hung three portraits. Portraits did I say? I can employ no other name, but so life-like and so human, my first impression was that I was entering a room where were three living people.

"Never you mind these," exclaimed My, pleasantly, "but sit down there," pointing to a large fauteuil," and tell me when you reached Munich, and if you will stay some time: then I can judge better how to do for you."

My face flushed, for I felt guilty at the little fraud I seemed to have practised on him. I hesitated only an instant, and then frankly told him the truth: how it was eighteen months since I left America; how I had been three months in Munich already; how, hearing so much about him and observing him frequently in the streets, I became anxious for his acquaintance, and had written to R. accordingly.

The man has the face of a child: cloud and sunshine pass rapidly over it. Pleasure and chagrin, sometimes anger, oftener joy, flit across it, swiftly as the flashing of a meteor. While I was making this explanation, he looked at me with a searching scrutiny,- at first angrily, then sadly, as if he were going to cry; but when I finished, he took my hand in both of his, and said, very seriously,

"You are welcome just the same."

Soon he commenced laughing: the oddity of the affair was just beginning to strike him. After conversing awhile, he said,—

"Ah, we shall like each other, shall we not? Where do you stay? You shall come and live with me. But will that content you? Have you seen enough of the outside of Munich?"

I really knew not what to make of so unexpected a demonstration. Should I accept his invitation, so entirely a stranger as I was? Why not? My was in earnest; he meant what he said; yet I hesitated.

"You need feel no embarrassment," he said, kindly. "I really want you to come, unless, indeed, it is not agreeable to you."

---

"A thousand thanks!" I exclaimed, "I will come."

"Not a single one," said M-y. "Go and arrange affairs at your hotel, and make haste back for dinner: it will be served in an hour."

The next day I was domesticated in M-y's house.

I have not the present design to give any account of him. Should the reader find anything in what is written to interest or attract, it is possible that in

a future number a chapter may be devoted to the great artist of Munich. Now, however, I remark simply, that the gossip and strange stories and incidents and other et ceteras told of him proved to be ridiculous creations, with scarcely a shadow to rest on, having their inception in My's peculiarities,-peculiarities which originated from an entire and absolute independence of thought and manner and conduct. A grown-up man in intellect, experience, and sagacity,— a child in simplicity and feeling, and in the effect produced by the forms and ceremonies and conventionalities of life: these seemed always to astonish him, and he never, as he said, could understand why people should live with masks over their faces, when they would breathe so much freer and be so much more at their ease by taking them off. This was the man who invited me to come to his house,and who would not have given the invitation, had he not wanted me to accept it.

I have spoken of three paintings which excited my attention the day I paid my first visit. These were masterpieces,— three portraits, not life-like, but life itself. They did not attract by the perpetual stare of the eyes following one, whichever way one turned, as in many pictures; in these the eyes were not thrown on the spectator. One portrait was that of a man of at least fifty: an intellectual head; eyes, I know not what they were, fierce, defiant, hardly human, but earthly, devilish; a mouth repulsive to behold, in its eager, absorbing, selfish expression. Another, the same person evidently: the same clear breadth and development of brain, but a subdued and almost heavenly expression of the eyes, while the mouth was quite a secondary feature, scarcely disagreeable. The third was the likeness of a young girl, beautiful, even to perfection. What character, what firmness, what power to love could be read in those features! What hate, what revulsion, what undying energy for the true and

the right were there! A fair, young creation,―so fair and so young, it seemed impossible that her destiny should be an unhappy one yet her destiny was unhappy. The shadow on the brow, the melancholy which softened the clear hazel eye, the slightest possible compression of the mouth, said,-"Destined to misfortune!" Were these actual portraits of living persons, or at least of persons who had lived? Was there any connection between the man with two faces and two lives and the maiden with an unhappy destiny? After I became better acquainted with My, I asked him the question, and in reply he told me the following story, which I now give as nearly as possible in his own words.

Many years ago, in one of my excursions, I came to Baden-Baden. It was a favorite resort for me, because I found there so many varieties of the human countenance, and I liked to study them. One evening I was in the ConversationHaus, looking at the players at rouge-etnoir. At one end of the table I saw seated a man apparently past fifty; around him were three or four young fellows of twenty or twenty-five. It is nothing unusual to see old men at the gamingtable, quite the contrary. But this person's head and forehead gave the lie to his countenance, and I stopped to regard him. While I was doing so, his eyes met mine. I suppose my gaze was earnest; for his eyes instantly fell, but, recovering, he returned my look with a stare so impudently defiant that I directed my attention at once elsewhere. Ever and anon, however, I would steal a glance at this person, for there was something in his looks which fascinated me. He entered with gusto into the game, won and lost with a good-natured air, yet so premeditated, so, in fact, youthfully-old, I felt a chill pass over me while I was looking at him. Later in the evening I encountered him again. It was in the public room of my own hotel, at supper. He was drinking Rhine-wine with the

same young men who were with him at rouge-et-noir. The tone of the whole company was boisterous, and became more so as each fresh bottle was emptied. The young fellows were very noisy, but impulsively so. The man also was turbulent and inclined to be merry in the extreme; but as I watched his eye, I shuddered, for there enthroned was a permanent expression indicating a consciousness in every act which he committed. Once again our eyes met, and I turned away and left the apartment. During my walk half an hour afterwards, I encountered the same party, still more excited and hilarious, in company with some women, whose character it was not easy to mistake. As I passed, the Unknown brushed close by me, and again his glance met my own. He seemed half-maddened by my curious look, which he could not but perceive, and, as I thought, made use of some insulting expression. I took no notice of it, but passed on my way, and saw him no more during my stay in the place.

From Baden I made an excursion into Switzerland. I was stopping at a pleasant village in the romantic neighborhood of the Bernese Alps. One afternoon I took a walk of several miles in a new direction. I left the road and pursued a path used only by pedestrians, which shortened the distance to another village not far off. A little way from this path was erected a small chapel, and in a niche stood an image of Christ, well executed in fine white marble. The work was so superior to the rude designs we find throughout the country that I stopped to examine it. I was amply repaid. In place of the painful-looking Christ on the Cross, too often a mere caricature, the image was that of the Youthful Saviour, mild, benignant, forgiving. In his left palm, which was not extended, but held near his person, rested a globe, which he seemed to regard with a heavenly love and compassion, and the effect on me was so impressive that the words came impulsively to my lips,-"I am the light of the world.”

His

For several minutes I stood regarding with intense admiration this beautiful exhibition of the Saviour of Sinners. Presently, I saw the door of the chapel was open. Should I look in? I did so. What did I behold? The individual I had seen at Baden, - the gamester, the bacchanal, the debauchee! Now, how changed! He was kneeling at a tomb,the only one in the chapel. The setting sun fell directly on his features. fine brow seemed fairer and more intellectual than before. His eyes were soft and subdued, and destitute of anything which could partake of an earthly element. Even the mouth, which had so disgusted me, was no longer disagreeable. Contrition, humility, an earnest, sincere repentance, were tokens clearly to be read in every line of his face. I took very quietly some steps backward, so as to quit the spot unobserved, if possible. In doing so, I stumbled and fell over some loose stones. The noise startled the stranger, who was, I think, about to leave the chapel. He came forward just as I was recovering myself. We stood close together, facing each other. A flush passed over the man's face. He seized my arm and exclaimed fiercely,

"What are you doing here?" Without appearing to recognize him, I hastened to explain that my presence there was quite accidental, and it was in attempting to retreat quietly, after discovering I was likely to prove an intruder, that my falling over some stones had attracted his notice. Thus saying, and bowing, I was about to proceed homeward, when the stranger suddenly exclaimed, "Stop!"

He came up close to me. Every trace of angry excitement had vanished. Calm and self-possessed, but very mournfully, he said,

"Are you willing I should put my arm in yours, and walk back with you to the inn? I am alone,- and God above knows," he added, after a pause, "how utterly so."

I could only bow an assent, for this sudden exhibition of weakness was an

Yes," he continued, "I saw you when you dismounted, and I knew you at once. Don't you recognize me?” he inquired, sadly.

I suppose not: conscious, and I Excuse my rude

"I do," was all I replied. "So much the better!" he went on. "I like your countenance, nay, I love to look at your face. You are a good man; do you know it? the good are never should not tell you. approach just now: the Devil had for a moment dominion over me. Will you remain here awhile? Shall we sit and be together? And will you say, will you talk with me?"

I promised I would. My feelings, despite his miserable weakness, were becoming interested, and in this manner we reached the inn. Then I persuaded this strange person to sit down in my room, where I ordered something comfortable provided for supper. In fact, I thought it the best thing I could do for him. Very soon I gained his entire confidence. After two or three days he exhibited to me a small portrait, exquisitely painted, of a most lovely young girl, and permitted me to copy it. It is one of the three which you see on the wall there. The others, I need not add, are portraits of the man himself in the two moods I have described. For his history, it teaches its lesson, and I shall tell it to you. He narrated it to me the evening before he left the inn, where we spent two weeks or more, and I have neither seen nor heard from him since. Seated near me, in my room, he gave the following account of himself.

I was born in Frankfort. My parents had several children, all of whom died in infancy except me. I was the youngest,