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nous and long-drawn hours, the wanderers return to their old haunts. It is generally supposed that they move southward to get more abundant food; but why, asks Runeberg, do they leave their rich hunting-grounds to return to the north? The central regions of Europe are in every way more desirable than the wastes of Scandinavia. Only one thing is richer there, and that is light. The same instinct that makes plants firmly rooted in the ground strain towards the light, spreading upwards in search of it, works in the birds, who, on their free wings, fly after and follow it. This very suggestive and poetical notion is further carried out by reference to various analogies in natural history, and the final sentence is quite epigrammatic: "The bird of passage is of noble birth; he bears a motto, and his motto is Lux mea dux."

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WE thought the gas-companies of the United States were rather autocratic institutions; but it seems that the English gas companies could give ours a lesson in oppression. The Pall Mall Gazette remarks: Perhaps the most absolute form of government which now exists in Europe is that of the London gas-companies. All that was hitherto known on the subject by the unfortunate gasconsumer was that they supplied him with an article of low illuminating power and high price the former constant in amount and the latter variable, and readjusted from time to time subject to the performance of certain little illusory formalities called an inquiry,' at the discretion of the gas-company. It now appears, however, that the quality of the article supplied is equally discretionary with the companies, and that they claim not only the right to vary it at their will, but to compel the consumer to adapt his gas-fittings to the alteration. A Bromptonian' states that he has received a circular from the Gaslight and Coke Company informing him that the directors, having at the urgent request of the Kensington Vestry changed the supply of gas in that district from cannel to common, give notice that except where an argand burner is fixed the common gas requires a burner slightly larger than those used for cannel gas.' It is probable that no cooler notice than this ever emanated even from a gascompany. It amounts, in fact, to saying to each of their customers, As we have resolved to supply you with inferior gas in future, you will be good enough to alter your gas-burners in order to make use of it.'"

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"MR. TENNYSON," says Sylvanus Urban in The Gentleman's Magazine, "is probably as well aware as any of his critics can be of the strong tendency existing in his own mind to touch and retouch even his finished work in a fidgety and unsatisfied way. Indeed, to those who read him thoughtfully he has given one or two hints of his knowledge of this particular failing. In Will Waterproof's Lyrical Monologue' - a poem full of deep autobiographical interest - he writes in evident allusion to his own method of working, —

Nor add and alter, many times,

Till all be ripe, and rotten.

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The grand old gardener and his wife

Smile at the claims of long descent.

That held the pear to the gable wall.

The pear on the gable wall may perhaps be more literal to some original in the poet's mind, but is it quite fair on his part thus to confuse the lines of so perfect a picture, every touch and detail of which has found a place in the living memory of hundreds of readers? I am glad to find on the other hand that the magnificent epical fragment Morte d'Arthur' is restored to the reader. We are glad of 'The Passing of Arthur' as an addition to our stock; but we could not well accept it as a substitute for our earlier love."

6

DR. SCHLIEMANN describes in the Allgemeine Zeitung an ascent, made by him last month, of Mount Parnassus. He did not see any snow until he had gained an altitude of 6000 feet, and even then only in clefts of the mountain. At nine in the evening, after repeatedly losing his way, he arrived at one of the highest of the shepherds' huts; but the place was so filthy that he preferred to sleep with his companions in the open air. This he did with comparative comfort, though when he left Delphi that morning the temperature was at 32 deg. Réaumur, while at his sleepingplace the thermometer showed 4 deg. only. At two A. M. they proceeded on mules for an hour and a half, after which they had to climb with hands and feet up the Lykeri, which is the highest peak of the mountain. They reached the summit with much labor at five o'clock, just as the sun was rising. To the east they saw the green fields and meadows of Boeotia, Lake Copais, Attica, the island of Euboea, and the Egean Sea; to the north, the mountain chains of Othrys and Eta, Pindus, Olympus, Ossa, Pelion, and Athos; to the south, the high table-land they had visited on the previous day, the ravine of Pleistos, in which Delphi lies hidden, the beautiful plain of Krysso, the bays of Cirrha and Anticirrha, and the magnificent mountain range of the Helicon, the bay of Corinth, Acrocorinthos, the mountains of Achaïa, descending precipitously to the sea, the high mountains of Arcadia, and in the background the gigantic Taygetos; to the west, the mountains of Locria, Ætolia, and Acarnania, and behind them the Adriatic. Dr. Schliemann adds that on the summit of the mountain he found only one kind of plant, with small thick leaves, but that at the foot of the Lykeri there were six different species, giving abundant food to the sheep. Some of the shepherds have 2000 sheep, which is equivalent to a property of 30,000 drachmas, or 7500 thalers. Everywhere on the mountain-tops there are high stones of various shapes which serve as landmarks to the shepherds in foggy weather. The women carry about with them a very primitive spinning apparatus, with which they are continually spinning wool, whether they sit, stand, or walk.

"No little anxiety," says the Pall Mall Gazette, " has been caused in the neighborhood of London during the last few days by the sudden appearance of myriads of ants. A vanguard of these insects has even been seen marching over Waterloo Bridge, and it is impossible to deny that our position is at the present moment one of extreme peril. At any moment the invading army may be upon us, and we shall then be exposed to all the horrors of an antplague. Those who are accustomed to look on the ant as an industrious but insignificant creature will probably smile at the idea of its presence even in swarms being a source of serious inconvenience. Without any wish to cause an unnecessary panic, but merely with the view of

In the new edition the first line is altered, and the epi- preparing Londoners for possible contingencies, it may be thets are dropped for the literal simplicity of

The gardener Adam and his wife.

The other alteration is in the poem Mariana in the
Moated Grange.' The verse ran thus in earlier editions:

With blackest moss the flower-pots
Were thickly crusted, one and all:
The broken nails fell from the knots
That held the peach to the garden wall.
The last line of the first verse now reads, -

as well to call attention to the proceedings of an army of ants that some years ago invaded the island of Grenada. The ants on that occasion 'descended from the hills like torrents, and the plantations, as well as every path and road for miles, were filled with them. Rats, mice, and reptiles of every kind became an easy prey to them, and even the birds, which they attacked whenever they lighted on the ground in search of food, were so harassed as to be at length unable to resist them. Streams of water opposed only a temporary obstacle to their progress; the foremost rushing blindly on certain death and fresh armies instantly

following, till a bank was formed of the carcasses of those which were drowned sufficient to dam up the waters and allow the main body to pass over in safety. Even fire was tried without effect. When it was lighted to arrest their route, they rushed into the blaze in such myriads as to extinguish it.' To such straits was the unfortunate island reduced by the ants that a reward of £20,000 was offered, but in vain, for an effectual means of destroying them; and it was not until a hurricane in 1780 came and blew them away and drowned them, - doing, by the way, almost more mischief than the ants, that Grenada was freed from these terrible destroyers. Happily, in London we have the steam-roller, which should be kept ready for immediate action in the face of the calamity with which we are now threatened."

A GERMAN paper publishes a curious account by Herr Von Fries, an Austrian employed in the Chinese Customs service, of an official Chinese banquet at which he was present. The guests, he says, having all assembled in the outer court-yard of the house, the doors were thrown open by two coolies, who admitted them into a second court-yard. Here they were received by a flourish of trumpets, some discordant Chinese music, and the firing of mortars. They then proceeded to the third court-yard, where the master of the house received them and showed them into the diningroom, which is only divided from the court-yard by a glass partition. In the middle of the room was a large round table, and against the walls were chairs with a small table before each, to put teacups on, tea being served immediately before dinner. The walls were covered with Chinese pictures, and numberless lamps and lanterns hung from the ceiling. After a short conversation in the Chinese language, the table was laid in the presence of the guests. When all was ready, the host asked each guest to come to the table, pointing out his seat, and handing him with many compliments a set of red lacquered chopsticks. When this ceremony was completed, the company sat down to dinner. Rice wine was first brought up, together with ham, eggs, and various cold vegetables. The next course consisted of bird's-nest soup, and thirty-four dishes followed, among which were sharks' fins, a soup made of diminutive snails of the size of small beans, which came from Lake Tahu, a ragout of ducks' tongues, fishes' brains with brown sauce (a most disgusting dish to a European palate), and puddings baked in oil. Roast pork and ducks were also served; these were eatable, and the fish was particularly well cooked, but Herr Von Fries came to the conclusion that the simplest European dish is far preferable to the most elaborate delicacy of the Chinese cuisine, and he says that after dinner he felt as if he had eaten boiled guttapercha. The best part of the entertainment was a dish of excellent fruit. Champagne was served towards the end of the dinner; this is the only wine drunk by the Chinese, and only the wealthy can afford to buy it, as a case costs from ten to fifteen Mexican ducats. Cigars were handed round after the soup, and it is the custom to go away directly after dinner. It is also remarkable that at a banquet of this kind the host only appears in official costume, the guests being all in mufti.

ONE DEED OF GOOD.

IF I might do one deed of good,]
One little deed before I die,

Or think one noble thought, that should
Hereafter not forgotten lie,

I would not murmur, though I must
Be lost in death's unnumbered dust.

The filmy wing that wafts the seed
Upon the careless wind to earth,
Of its short life has only meed

To find the gem fit place for birth;
For one swift moment of delight
It whirls, then withers out of sight.

F. W. BOURdillon.

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EVERY SATURDAY:

A JOURNAL OF CHOICE READING, PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY H. O. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY, 219 WASHINGTON STREET, BOSTON;

NEW YORK: HURD AND HOUGHTON;
Cambridge: The Riverside Press.

Single Numbers, 10 cts.; Monthly Parts, 50 cts.; Yearly Subscription, $5.00. N. B. THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY and EVERY SATURDAY sent to one address for $8.00.

TEN PER CENT.

THE bargains made by publishers with authors are various, but from what we can learn, the half profits system, as it is called, predominates in England, and the ten per cent. system in America. Mr. Spedding, at any rate, in his little book, "Authors and Publishers," implies that the half profits system is the one most in vogue in Eng

land, and he is delighted at the discovery he made when he came to receive copyright from the American publishers of his edition of Bacon's works, that in America authors were free from the entanglements of a system which always seemed to halve their half, and received a clear ten per cent. on the retail price of all copies sold; that they had nothing to do with the intricate accounts

pertaining to manufacture and advertising, but simply needed to know how many copies had actually been sold since the last settlement; the retail price was advertised, and they had at least arithmetic enough to reckon ten per cent. on the product of the number of copies and price

of each copy.

The usual mode of dealing with authors for whom publishers are freely disposed to publish would seem to be that the publisher, taking upon himself the expenses of publication, collects the proceeds of the sale and hands to the author ten per cent. of the retail price of each copy sold. Why should not the author, when he has the money to invest, himself bear all the expenses, receive all the proceeds, and pay the publisher ten per cent. for his labor in publishing the book? This is by no means an uncommon arrangement. It sometimes is made when the author is rich and the publisher poor; sometimes when the publisher does not regard the book as a safe investment and the author is willing to assume the risk; and sometimes, though less frequently, a successful author prefers this method as insuring him a larger share of the profits, the publisher in this case receiving an agent's commission.

The answer in general which we should make to the question is that the author by this course becomes a capitalist, and it is for him to consider whether his money thus invested will bring him in a better return than if put out at interest in some other form. He is entitled to his copyright as payment for the labor of his brain, and if he wishes to reckon the profit upon publishing his own works, he must deduct the copyright which he would in any event receive.

good profit from it, and with which he is supposed to be thoroughly familiar. If he be agent, he has limited responsibilities and limited control; he risks little, and his commission bearing a fixed ratio, he makes something out of every transaction, whether his principal makes a good or a poor sale. Of course the more successful he is in his management of the trust, the more he receives in commission, and his interest is appealed to. Yet there is a difference, not to be ignored, between the activity of a person who is simply the agent for another, and that of one who ventures property and business reputation. As between the author owning his books and the publisher owning them, we think the latter more likely to make the investment pay.

Another reason has already been implied. The author makes his investment, but he is compelled to entrust the management of it to another. It is impossible that he matter, and his partial knowledge, he is constantly tempted should personally direct it, yet from his interest in the to take a share of the management, and his agent, for one pecting his principal to fulfil quite important functions. reason or another, is very likely to fall into a way of exIt is easy to see that between them both there might be some irregularity in the movement of the machine.

We have not ventured to say how good or how poor a how it would rank as an investment to tempt an author, piece of property a moderately successful book may be, but we are inclined to think that the profits of a publisher are from two sources: books on which there is no copyright, but which sell steadily year after year, and books which run up into large editions, where the advertising ceipts, and the stereotype plates have been paid for out has come to bear an exceedingly small ratio to the reof the profits.

In our judgment, if an author wishes to invest money in his books, he cannot do better than own the stereotype plates from which the book is made. That gives him control of his book as nothing else can, and so long as his book sells, the plates are property. If his publisher fails or gives up his business, the plates cannot fall into the hands of any one who would use them ill, and without the plates the book cannot be printed. In this way, too, he shares risks with the publisher. His own risk is a simple one; the manufacture of the plates is not attended with complicated calculations, and once made, there need be but trifling expense of repair ever called for; the merest tyro can own the plates, but the printed stock, as we have before explained, is of much more variable value, and requires to be under the control of an expert. A not uncommon mode of publishing, where the author owns the plates, is for the publisher to assume all other expenses and pay him a copyright of fifteen per cent. on the retail price of all copies of the book sold, ten per cent. being regarded as copyright and five per cent. as interest on the investment: five per cent be it observed on the retail price of the book, not on the amount invest

It makes no difference whether the pub-ed in the plates. lisher pays it to him or he pays it to himself. That being subtracted, will his investment of money in his books pay him as well as if invested in some other way? That is the question which he must ask himself.

We may say for one thing that it will not pay him as much as it would pay the publisher, were that person to be the capitalist, and not, as we are now supposing, the agent. The reason is obvious. The publisher, if he be capitalist, is a person with full responsibilities, engaged in using his money in a business of which he has control, which he must manage economically in order to extract a

NOTES.

The Journal of Social Science, No. VII., is nearly ready for subscribers and the public. This journal is issued by the American Social Science Association, through Hurd and Houghton, New York; The Riverside Press, Cambridge, and some notion of the scope of the Association, and the valuable character of the contributions to its meetings and journal may be formed from an examination of the contents of this new number. Dr. Woolsey writes upon "The Exemption of Private Property upon the Sea

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from Capture," Dr. Harris upon "Public Uses of Vital Statistics," and Dr. E. Jarvis upon "Vital Statistics of Different Races." "The Ventilation of Dwellings of the Poor" is discussed by Dr. Kedzie, and “ Animal Vaccination" by Dr. H. A. Martin. Dr. D. F. Lincoln reports on "School Hygiene," and Dr. A. L. Carroll on "Hygiene in Schools and Colleges." Dr. J. Foster Jenkins, at one time Secretary of the U. S. Sanitary Commission, has a long paper on "Tent Hospitals," and Pres. A. D. White's now famous paper on "The Relation of National and State Governments to Advanced Education is given in full, together with the discussion that followed, which was engaged in by Dr. McCosh, Principal Tulloch, and others. "Free Public Libraries" is a paper by W. W. Greenough, one of the trustees of the Boston Public Library, and Cephas Brainard writes of the "Social Science work of the Young Men's Christian Association." These papers are accompanied by reports of the discussions created by the reading, and the impression produced upon the reader is that here is a body of capable men, really in earnest about their work, and that work of very great importance.

Mr. George Cary Eggleston, lately editor of Hearth and Home, and author of the series of papers "A Rebel's Recollections," now publishing in The Atlantic Monthly, is to be editor of Our American Homes, a monthly published by Henry L. Shepard & Co., of Boston. Mr. Eggleston

is a brother of Edward Eggleston, author of "The Hoosier Schoolmaster," and other Western stories.

-Mr. A. A. Hopkins, editor of The Rural Home, of Rochester, has nearly ready for publication, "His Prison Bars; and the Way of Escape," a temperance story of his own, which he has been publishing in the columns of his

paper.

We spoke lately of the desirability of tablets or other memorials to aid in localizing personal traditions in our towns and cities. We noticed a simple and suggestive tablet of this sort, lately, in the entrance-way of a building on Tremont Street in Boston. That part of the street which faces the Common has slowly been yielding to the pressure of trade, and there are now but few dwellinghouses in what was once a favorite locality. Mr. Amos Lawrence was once a resident there. His house has been removed and a business building raised in place of it. Let into the wall as one enters is a marble tablet with the inscription

Amos Lawrence and his family lived on this estate XLVI years.

This building was erected

MDCCCLXVIII.

The Bric-a-Brac series, which has come gayly along amongst books, like a literary humming-bird, say, grows rapidly and with considerable variety. The next volume to be issued will contain "Prosper Mérimée's Letters to an Incognita," selections from Lamartine's Memoirs of himself, and from George Sand's Recollections. The volume to succeed that will go back to England again, and be taken from the chatty reminiscences of Barham, of Ingoldsby fame, Hodder, and Harness. Theodore Hook will figure largely in the book, a scapegrace of a joker who combined wit and impudence in a singular degree.

At the recent Millennial celebration in Iceland one of the specially large guns was Mr. Bayard Taylor, who acquitted himself admirably, as he always does upon large occasions. In a speech of welcome by Professor Magnussen (a native Icelander, though now Librarian of Cambridge University, England), America was mentioned, and Mr. Taylor was introduced as the Scald Poet from America. He quite surprised the people by addressing them briefly but fluently in Danish. When he had concluded, the king, who was standing in the thick of the crowd, led the cheering, giving the Scald the full and regular three times three, and on a subsequent occasion told him he was exceedingly surprised to hear him speak in Danish, and complimented him on his command of the language.

-A correspondent of a Boston journal, alluding to the private picture-galleries of New York, says that the largest and best is probably that of Mr. James Lenox, from which the public gain no advantage, its doors being closed against visitors, as is the superb library of that gentleman. He possesses four genuine Turners, of which there are few in America, to view which some of the more enthusiastic artists of Gotham would be delighted. There are also specimens of Gerard Douw, Teniers, Cuyp, Ruysdael, and other famous artists of the Flemish school; while in pictures of the French, Italian, and Venetian schools the in American art, and consequently few of our native collection is especially rich. Mr. Lenox has little faith

artists are represented. Church's "Cotopaxi," for which $6000 was paid, is the principal exception to this rule. In 1863 the ladies of New York appealed to Mr. Lenox to open his gallery to the public at an admission fee of $1, in behalf of the Sanitary Commission. It was estimated that at least $10,000 could be raised in that manner. Several other gentlemen had responded favorably to a like request, and the devotees of art in New York, feeling assured that no refusal could be made under the circumstances, were felicitating themselves upon the unbolting of the mysterious doors, when a note to the committee from the owner blasted their hopes and left them to suffer the pangs of disappointment. Mr. Lenox pleaded that to accede to the request made would be to break a rule from which he had never deviated. The refusal was softened by a check for $25,000, a sum which the sender thought not too exorbitant to pay for peace and privacy. He intends to endow the Lenox Institute with these art treasures at his death.

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- Mr. John T. Lacey, of Bridgeport, Conn., has recently made a voyage of twenty-two miles on Long Island Sound, in the space of three and a quarter hours, in a row boat towed by a kite. The boat was twelve feet long, and the kite ten feet high by eight feet wide. About six hundred feet of cord was let out. The speed of the boat is stated to have been considerably greater than that of a small sailing craft which attempted a race. This was probably due to the greater velocity of the wind at the elevated position of the kite. The towage of boats by kites is a very old amusement, but it is a slow method of navigation. The boat and kite can only travel in one direction, directly before the wind; whereas the ordinary sail boat can move obliquely, in various directions.

EVERY SATURDAY.

A FOURNAL OF CHOICE READING.

VOL. II.]

HIS TWO WIVES.1

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 10, 1874.

BY MARY CLEMMER AMES.
CHAPTER XXVI. SUCCESS?

66

[No. 15.

Ben. "I am that troubled to know what is best-to send you this notice or to keep it. My captain says 'tis my duty as your true friend to send it, as I do. If it can only bring you back to us in peace and happiness, I shall never be sorry; but that, I am afraid, is not to be, though Lotusport can never be what it was once to me, without you."

"Defend her own interests!" Drag the bitter truth which had desolated her heart and life before the

It was not the actual man who had just gone from her life that she mourned. It was the man that he should have been, for whom she cried. In his fading out she had lost the absorbing thought of her life. A portion of herself seemed to have been struck from her, world's eyes for its inspection and cruel comment, while to be drifting farther and farther from her, out somethe waste of happiness, the wreck of life, remained? where upon the face of the earth. She often unaware Never. She would put no plea against his desire. What that desire was she was all too sure for her own held her hand tight over her heart, as if to stop its aching for what it had lost. This loss was not the peace. If she were mistaken, would he have made no effort in all these months to discover the retreat of his real man now sundered from her. It was for her lost wife and child? That he had made no such effort she faith, for sympathy and accord of soul, the consummate crown of all human companionship, that her nature had every reason to believe, if only from the letters of called. Without these no human life could be comMary Ben. Her home was rented to strangers, and plete. Yet it was these, the very reward of being, that her husband never spent a day in Lotusport that the she had missed. They were not hers, they could never exigencies of public business did not demand. She be hers; yet her life went on. But if she had never could endure, but she could not fight against fate. The divorce must go on. This was indeed the end. comprehended to the utmost what a human life in the fulness of its multiform being could be; if she had had Once her husband, always her husband. He could a less keen realization of what had escaped herself of its never be less to her faithful soul. Nevertheless, to the most potential sweetness; if she had not learned that world she had already ceased to be his wife. At last hardest of all lessons, to endure in patience, to grow in she had lost not only him, but hope. At last in exthe graces of the spirit,—not in the repletion of happi-tremity she was alone; alone as she had never felt ness, but through loss and dearth and want, through herself to be before. loneliness and sorrow of heart, yet no less through love and faith and ever-kindling hope, she would have been poor indeed. She would have had nothing to give, whereas she now gave bounteously of soul-wealth to her kind. She poured forth of her largess without stint. Nevertheless the heart within her ached and yearned even while it gave.

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She ministered and would not cease; but in her utmost need who was there to minister to her? No one. She never asked this question. But no less the want was there, and the hope, though she was scarcely conscious of it, that sometime, perhaps in the dim Hereafter, yet sometime, - he whose right it was would return to her, redeemed from the infirmities of flesh and spirit, to bind up the bleeding heart that loved him with the faith that it had lost and that lived again. This hope received a heavy shock one day. It came in a letter from Mary Ben, in the shape of a newspaper notice, an official announcement of a plea for divorce on the part of Cyril King from his wife Agnes King, on the ground of desertion. The defendant was summoned in behalf of her own interests to appear by such a date, else the plaintiff's suit would proceed and the divorce be granted to him.

66

My mind is twisted this way and that," wrote Mary

1 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by H. O. HOUGHTON & Co., in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

The only visible sign of this interior desolation was the whiter face, the swifter hand. The spring came, the summer waxed and waned, the autumn blazed and died, the northern winter piled its inviolate snows,

and the heart within her had never made another outward sign of its inward life.

66

Meanwhile, even to the log-house within the forest beside the Pinnacle had penetrated the eager questioning of the reading world concerning Ulm Neil.” Who is Ulm Neil ?" This was the latest conundrum put forth in the realm of letters. Like other conundrums its interest deepened proportionately with the difficulty of its solution. Many persons "knew as well as they wanted to" just who Ulm Neil was; but "Ulm Neil was a man." "Ulm nobody was sure. Neil was a woman." Ulm Neil was an already wellknown author who chose to put forth this remarkable series of stories now published in a book called "The Annals of a Quiet City," under a new signature, that their revelations of life and character might not be traced to a definite source. "Ulm Neil was a man of fortune and leisure, who chose to give his observations of gay life and fashionable society incog." Neil was a young woman, self-educated, who had not escaped the sting of maligning tongues nor the cruel probings of poverty, herself; as her abiding and tender sympathy with the poor, the wronged, and the sorrowping, which made the very atmosphere and aroma of he

“Ulm

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