ÉMILE SOUVESTRE, novelist and essayist, was born in Morlaix, Brittany, April 15th, 1806. He began life with no other means of support than his daily labor, and it was only after years of struggle as bookseller’s clerk, schoolmaster, and journalist, that he finally won the reputation as a writer for which he had industriously striven. He wrote novels and dramas which were more popular during his life than his essays; but while the novels are now seldom read, his “Attic Philosopher in Paris” (Un Philosophe sous les Toits) continues to go through one edition after another. It is a collection of essays in half narrative style, with just enough plot to give the characters in them vitality. Souvestre died July 5th, 1854.