(_To the Editor._)


The following anecdote was told me last summer, in the cabriolet of a
diligence between Pau and Bayonne, and is very much at your service.
EGOMET IPSE.


About twenty-three years ago, the vane of Strasbourg Cathedral was
struck by lightning, so that it hung on one side, threatening by its
fall to endanger the lives of the people below. The alarm was so great,
that the authorities, after a special consultation, posted bills about
the streets, offering any reward that should be required to any one that
would venture to ascend and strike off the vane. While the good citizens
were reading this announcement, a peasant from the department of the
Landes passed by, and being unable to read, he inquired the purport of
the advertisement. When informed, he immediately offered his services
for that purpose, and was conducted to the mayor and the bishop, who
happened to be both in the Hôtel de Ville at the time. They questioned
him, and fully acquainted him with the difficulties of the
enterprise--such as the real height, and that the upper part of the
spire could only be ascended by ladders on the outside. However, nothing
daunted, he persisted in his resolution to perform the feat on the
morrow. All Strasbourg was assembled in the open places of the city on
the next day; and, although admiring his courage as they saw him ascend,
they most prudently refrained from cheering him as he deserved. Few who
were then shading their eyes from the sun, in order to gaze on the
spire, but must have envied him the scene of surpassing loveliness that
was spread below him, although it is probable that neither the green