THE LIVING AGE: 71. SEVENTH SZaUZS. Volume LV. (FOUNDED nr E. LITTELL L& 1844.) NO. 2869. JULY ~, ~8nn rROE BEGIxNJZrG 77 Vol. CCXXIl. 4 THE OLD HOUSE: A ROMANCE. TRANSLATED FOR THE LIVING AGE FROM THE iTALIAN OF NEERA. I. The veil of fog in which the city had been closely muffled was beginning to yield to the power of a pallid Novem- her sun. Against a uniform background of mellow gray sky Milan stood forth in solid and tranquil beauty, her nu- merous chimneys appearing but as faintly darkened lines, while the sharp- er angles of roof, bell-tower and church-facade were all softened, suf- fused, and as it were, lulled into har- inony by the general morbideeca of earth and sky. That delicious transition-time of the year, when the heats are past and the cold has not yet come, made its influ- ence felt in the universal aspect of rec- ollection and repose; and the stilT, sub- dued light imparted a pleasing color to every object. In the busy heart of the town. indeed, the scale of gray tones was broken and varied by the move- ment of rapidly passing throngs and the gay display of wares in the shop windows; but in the more deserted quarters the scheme of neutral color prevailed on the long walls of gar- dens and convents and the straggling boughs of. plane tree or chestnut, clothed with fading yellow foliage which here and there overtopped them. Through one of the oldest streets of the old city a boy was passing with timid footsteps, and keeping . always close to the wall. A mere child he seemed at first sight, but his thin limbs and outgrown garments, and the pallor and pathetic expression of a somewhat super-sensitive young countenance, made him look the more juvenile. There was in his aspect a sort of re- signed melancholy, more dreamy than dolorous, organic rather than depen- dent upon outward circumstances, which harmonized curiously with his environment and with the pearly tints of the still misty sky. He climbed the ascending street, looking out warily for whoever might be coming toward him, and now and then casting a hasty glance over his shoulder, as if to make sure that he was not followed. His gray jacket was too short for him, his delicate featurea~ were almost hidden by a frayed and shapeless hat, and he carried some books in a strap. Half way up the slope he stopped suddenly in an un- conscious attitude, curiously expressive both of timidity and daring. The gymnasium from which he had slipped away between two recitations was now far behind him, and no pro- fessor had as yet made his appearance 2 The Old House: A Romance. on the narrow street. An awful vision had frozen his blood for one instant, and he had slipped under a portico to avoid the oblique glance of a long, lean personage dressed in black; but a sec- ond look reassured him, and he re, emerged upon the street, saying to him- self with conviction, No, its not he! A few steps further on he turned a corner, and found himself opposite the venerable church of Saint Ambroglo; and now he paused again, frightened no longer, but trembling with a new emotion which seemed to tighten his heart like a vise. The old temple was dressed in mourn- ing. A long strip of something black fluttered over the entrance to the atrium, and within, beyond the court- yard, other black draperies fringed with gold partially veiled the main por- tal of the church. He ought to have known that it would be so; he did know it, but the sudden sight of these visible tokens of mourning seemed to renew his own grief. That vague in- credulity which always lingers in the mind after the first announcement of the death of a loved one, gave place to certitude before this piece of positive proofthe black banners fluttering over the house of God. Pale with awe, the boy advanced slowly, gazing at the announcement posted upon the front of the church, eager and yet dreading to read it. The letters seemed to run together. He would not begin at the beginning hut would rather have taken it in at one flash of intuition than be forced to de- cipher it word by word. Something burned under his lids like sparks of fire, but at last he rubbed his eyes clear, and read: To Gentile Lamberti; -. A Soul of Fire; A mind never clogged By the burden of the flesh. That the earth may lie light above h~m In the last resting-place wnere he s1eeps In Hope Is the prayer of nis daughters. Nov. lhtb, ...... The impression conveyed was less painful than the boy had feared. Along xvith the lump that rose in his throat, there came a sort of sublime consola- tiona vague and visionary uplifting of the heart to the thought of immor- tality. The words, A. ,~out of Fire. evoked a natural and vivid image of what Gentile Lamberti had been, and gave a glimpse of the possibility of surviving oneself in an invisible world where souls are married with no out- ward rites, that they may people the earth with whatevei~ lives above it in the light of thought. A life of loneli- ness and long inward discipline had prepared this youth to receive an au- gust impression of the great mystery. The man who was to be buried to-day had been the brightest apparition in his own orphaned and colorless existence. He always felt when he came near him that here was a man unlike all others, and he longed in his heart to have been his son, or some near rela- tive, so deep was the need which he ex- perienced of communion with the ideas and sentiments which Lamberti ex- pressed. Over and over again the su- per-sensitiveness of the child had been reproved, punished or derided by his masters and other superiors, but by Gentile Lamberti, never! Gentile Lamberti, he kept repeat- ing, fascinated by the mere name which no longer belonged to any hu- man form; which no longer correspond- ed to any ring of the human voice, or light of the human eye; a dead name, with no further significance in the world, a few syllables associated with- out sense or reason; nobodys name nothing. No, he exclaimed with a sudden and, overpowering reaction of his own living will, such a man as that does n~ot die. He knew not whence came the faith which gave him The Old House: A Romance. 3 such courage in the midst of his dis- tress, opening such a new spring within him of hitherto unknown energy, but he welcomed it as a refreshing draught and a healing dew. He then entered the still empty church. The catafalque was erected before that old altar which has a gilt bas-rellef on a background of bright, crude blue, and the old sacristan was still trotting about it, arranging the folds of the black drapery. A couple of benches also covered with black cloth flanked the altar upon either side, and tall candelabra were set up at the angles. Half unconsciously the boy observed these preparations, until a woman appeared from behind a pil- lar, to whom the sacristan said: The funeral is at four; and though the words were spoken in an undertone, their deep and sinister echo from the high vault of the temple made the boy start. He knew that fact also, of course, but it sounded almost brutal when thus stated by another. Seating himself upon a bench not far from the catafaique, he gazed intent- ly at it, taking in every slightest par- ticular of color and form, straying from sensation to sensation and from thought to thought, in a way he had of ]ending the life of his own imagina- tion to the visible objects around him. Going back, unconsciously in this ~ from his grief to his love for the dead, and to the cause of both, he saw him- self as he had been a few years be- fore, when he first came to Milan from his remote province, without a tear shed for his departure nor a caress to welcome his arrival. An orphan brought up by the charity of rather distant relatives and too poor to be of any assistance to them, later trans- ferred to the surly guardianship of an- other unknown relative, who treflted him with great severitythe only per- son who ever gave him a really good and sustaining word was Gentile Lam- berti. How could he ever forget him! He saw the hospitable house where he eventually came to pass almost all his leisure hoursan interior as much to~ his taste as the m~nage of his own kin- dred was repugnant to it, and it was. with deep emotion and melting tender- ness that he dwelt upon the wise and fatherly indulgence of Lamberti, and the countless times when his unques- tionable authority had mitigated the punishments which he had incurred. The funeral isnt till four oclock, whispered the sacristan, as he passed~ his dusting-cloth over the bench where the boy was sitting. Blushing a little, as though he had been detected in a fault, the intruder rose, and began slowly to make the round of the other altars. The paint- ings were what specially attracted his attention, and when he discovered in the nave at the right of the high altar a little Jesus preaching to the doctors, he stopped before it for a long time, his brain teeming with visions. Meanwhile the great church clock told off the hours, and now and then some person came in, exchanged a few subdued words with the sacristan, and went out again. The boy felt no impa- tience. He made a complete circuit of the altars, and then went out into the court-yard, and hung about the open atrium; attracted first by the massive sarcophagi, on whose stone covers he timidly laid a little nervous, trembling hand, and then by the fragments of fresco which appeared upon the walls; grote~que and mysterious figures, with. their broken lines and sombre color- ing. One of the sepulchres, as high as a mans head, was arranged to look as though it concealed the entire body of a saint, except the feet, and these detached feet impressed the boy as if they had been alive. Strangely enough they seemed to him real feet, and not images of feet; but he was subject to these violent and vivid illusions. The Old House: A Romance. i delicate female head, smeared rather than painted, struck him as ex- ceedingly sweet. She seemed by her attitude and the gentle droop of her shoulder to be straining a baby to her breast. He contemplated this paint- ing steadfastly for a long time, while there awoke in his breast a perfect tu- mult of confused and dreamy desires, till the thought of Gentile Lamberti recurred again to make him sad. He remembered one evening not long be- fore, when he had been sighing over the hard grammar lesson, which the Inflexibility of his teacher made pecu- liarly odious to him. Dried-up old Sig- nor Pompeo had rolled his eyes, and predicted the horrible consequenees of The pupils negligence, observing that no good was likely to come of one who lacked intelligence, will and memory, merely! It seems to me, remarked Gentile Lamberti, that you overlook one quality without which no fine de- velopment is possible. This child has feeling. Oh, indeed! was the contemptuous rejoinder of Signor Pompeo; and what sort of a profession will his feelings fit him for? And after a short silence Why should he not be a poet? said Gentile Lamberti. This fragment of a conversation tame back among the boys other recol- lections, and, with a thrill of mingled sorrow and enthusiasm, he asked him- self excitedly: Shall I he a poet? He was not ambitious. He cherished ~no wild dreams of fortune or of fame. But neither was his a practical mind, ~nd when he put this question to him- self it was less by way of seeking to solve the problem of his future than because it was sweet to linger over the mysterious words pronounced by so ilear a friend; and it seemed to him that if he could become a: phet he should be fulfilllng that friends wish- es. Unhappily, there was an exercise in literature shut in at that moment between the covers of his school note- book, and he reflected with shame that he could not remember more than fifty verses of it. He hung his head con- trite, but not conquered. The waves of emotion continued to surge over his being, bitter and strenuous. He felt that life and the world are something more than common report would make them; and that in the big universe, which is designed for all, there are smaller, secret and secluded worlds in- to which the crowd never penetrates. Smitten by that rare and exquisite emo- tion which we call reverence, he lin- gered in his walk, gazing on the pre- cious relics about him with an intense and fervid sympathy, which seemed to waken them from the sleep of ages, and inform with palpitating life every granite fragment and fading profile. He knew nothing of the history of that church and that ancient court,that it was considered a precious work of art, and that foreigners flocked to see it. The heroic figure of Bishop Ambrose, about whom he had not yet studied in his course at the gymnasium, was not evoked by this monument to the churchmans greatness. He knew nothing of the hordes of shouting peo- ple who had surged in and out between those columns when the Roman emper- ors came to receive the iron crown at the hands of the Archbishop, nor that the great central door of the temple is commonly considered as the very one which Ambrose closed in the face of Theodosius. He knew nothing of dry doctrine, but he could hear the voice of the stones; he seemed to see the tears of ancient and incurable sorrows trickling down the marble; he felt the heart of the universe beating in unison with his own, in a sort of quivering harmony of mingled grief and joy. He loved the invisible mystery within the visible world, and opened his arms to it with a confidence he did not him- self understand. The Old House: A Romance. 5 The fog, which had lightened during tbe midday hours, was now slowly gathering again, and the boy surmised that the appointed hour could not be far distant. Slipping out into the open square before the courtyard of the church, and looking up the street that led northward he could in fact discern the dark and slowly increasing mass of humanity, which swelled the vanguard of the funeral procession. At the same time a few stragglers from other quar- ters, impelled by curiosity merely, came in and took their places within the atrium or along the colonnade. The boy remained outside, passing over to the corner of the street which led to the front of the church, and shrinking in- to a recess from which he had to thrust out his head in order to observe the cort~ge, dim at first in the gathering mist, but presently growing more dis- tinct, with the dark draperies of the mutes and the white surplices of the clergy under the pallid glimmer of a swaying silver cross, and finally the car itself smothered in flowers. The child clung to the wall with an invol- untary spasm of pain. That was Gen- tile Lamberti being carried past him dead! He covered his face, and began to weep. When he looked up again, the car had turned toward the church, with its following of relatives, friends and prominent citizens. Many who had known the dead man only a short time, and many who had never known him personally, but honored the rare blend- ing in him of mental and moral worth, had come to pay him the last tribute; and the crowd increased at every turn. Some who had merely chanced to meet the procession paused in the pursuit of their own affairs, out of sympathy or curiosity, or that they might be able to tell others about the funeral; while a seemingly endless line of carriages lost itself in each of the adjacent streets. The lad then abandoned his post of observation, and slipping back unper- ceived into the crowd, crossed the courtyard and once more entered the now crowded church. Here, finding it impossible to move forward, he took refuge in a side chapel, where he braced himself against a pillar, and so awaited the conclusion of the re- ligious ceremony. By raising himself upon tip-toe, he could overlook the whole mass of bowed and uncovered heads, amid which he soon discerned the elf-locks of Signor Pompeo planted stiffly in the fronk ranks, and in the full light of a great window, that ev- erybody might see that he was there. Henceforth, the chief pre-occupation of the pupil was to escape the notice of that formidable pedagogue, who be- lieved him to be still at school; and no sooner were the prayers ended and the crowd beginning to sway back with a sea-like motion toward the portal of the church, than the boy slipped in once more among the last and humblest of the dead mans followers, careless of his inferior place, and content with having secretly offered to the beloved man the warm homage of his youthful heart. - Meanwhile the strange, fantastic fog of the Milanese November was growing ever thicker and softer. The houses around the square of Saint Ambrogio and along the broad tree-bordered ave- nue lost all precision of outline, and seemed to expand into vague visions of cyclopean mass, towering to the very heavens. Some were like inaccessible palaces, the abode of fates and genii; others took on the aspect of hyper- borean mountains, thrust up suddenly to guard the confines of the earth. The funeral procession, with its serpentine motion, was like a tremulous blacli shadow in a motionless waste of gray. To the boy it secmed as though it were Gentile Lamberti himself moving tow- ard the awful mystery, accompanied 6 The Old House: A Romance. by veiled phantoms; impelled by in- visible forces into the ever-deepening murk of the dim and vast unknown Possessed by a fearful fascination, the lad stuck close to the group of peo- ple immediately preceding him, feeling that if he lagged an instant he should become hopelessly bewildered. Softly and timidly he travelled on, his eye fixed as if by a sort of magnetic attrac- tion upon the flaming torches, which were like tiny yellow points, around which the rosy reflection of their flame upon the mist traced a zone of exceed- ingly delicate violet, fading off by im- perceptible gradations into pale green and pearl-gray, and then into a dark- er gray, and penetrating the surround- ing vapors with a mysterious iridescent radiance. All the circumstances of the funeral, the church draped in black, the catafaique, the flowers, the crowd, all the real and stable objects, all the material manifestations, disappeared from the lads memory. A new world was born for him, out of those mysteri- ously illuminated shadows; a world of ghosts, of hearts of men beating against their barriers, of sobbing wom- en; a world of tears, flowing far away from the eyes which had first shed, and the hands which had first wiped them; in search of other eyes to flood, other hands to bedew; and he quaffed these tears thirstily in the dense and humid air, whose breath upon his cheek was like the icy touch of death. All at once he saw no more: neither the vague throng of people which he had been following, nor the bright points of the torches, nor the widening reflection of their flames; and a blank wall of inky blackness rose before him, [ent and terrible. The thing he feared had come upon 1dm. The ever-dwindling funeral pro- cession had suddenly vanished 4n a pe- culiarly dense stratum of fog: and he was alone, and lost in the darkness. T{e moved forward for a few paces in the same direction; then closed his eyes desperately, and thrust out his hands as though to repel an enemy; but his enemy offered only the soft resistance of an imponderable phantom, involv- ing, penetrating, suffocating him with an intangible veil. His eye could not discern one gleam of light, nor his agi- tated ear detect the faintest sound. A sort of purplish penumbra, renewed from step to step, as though emanating from a lantern carried by an invisible hand, enveloped his own person as he walked, and furnished a mysterious guide for his footsteps. But in vain he paused from time to time, trying to guess in what part of the city he was. That insurmountable wall still hedged him in. He pursued his course in abject be- wilderment, missing every clue. TJn- consciously, however, he had veered, and was retracing his steps; and as he drew near the familiar places, a certain sense of reality returned to him, and he thought of the master who was on the watch for him, and the punishment he would have to take for his truancy; and a childish sense of grievance arose within his breast, contracting his throat with a sob. When, at last, he had wandered back into his own ward, he stood still for an instant before the door of the house where he lived, then summoned all his courage and plunged in. He climbed the broad, stately staircase, which end- ed at the first floor, and was about to mount the dark and narrow one which led to his preceptors rooms upon t~ie upper story, when the voice of Signor Pompeo himself was heard with mighty wrath in its accents, and that worthy appeared in the entrance door- way of the first-floor apartment, fol- lowed by the servant, who had opened the door. The lad had barely time to spring aside into a dark corner, while Signor Pompeo paused. and said over his shoulder to some one: Baizac. 7 That boy needs a lesson. An exceedingly sweet girls voice, an angelic voice, though tremulous with tears, answered beseechingly and with indescribable emotion: Oh, not to-day! Not to-day! And, as if distrusting the power of her verbal plea, the speaker stretched out her hands toward the man who had already crossed the threshold, and followed him, entreating some Nuova Autologla. pledge of clemency. It was then that she discovered the boy shrinking in a corner of the staircase, and exclaimed: Oh Flavio, poor child! What are you doing here? She drew him toward her with gen- tie, motherly arms, and when she found him shaking with fright she swift- ly and softly pressed his head against her breast, repeating, Poor child!, while Flavio felt that he was saved. (To be continued.) BALZAC. I. The first man who has completely un- derstood Balzac is Rodin, and it has taken Rodin ten years to realize his own conception. France has refused the statue in which a novelist is rep- resented as a dreamer, to whom Paris is not so much Paris as Patmos; the most Parisian of our novelists, Frenchmen assure you. It is a hun- dred years this month since Baizac was born: a hundred years is a long time in which to be misunderstood with admiration. In choosing the name of the Human Comedy for a series of novels in which, as he says, there is at once the history and the criticism of society, the analysis of its evils, and the discussion of its principles, Baizac proposed to do for the modern world what Dante, in his Divine Comedy, had done for the world of the Middle Ages. Con- demned to write in prose, and finding his opportunity in that restriction, he created for himself a form which is perhaps the nearest equivalent for the epic or the poetic drama, and the only form in which, at all events, the epic is now possible. The world of Dante was materially simple compared with the world of the nineteenth century; the visible worid had not yet begun to exist, in its tyrannical modern sense; the complications of the soul in- terested only the schoolmen, and were a part of theology; poetry could still represent an age and yet be poetry. But to-day poetry can no longer repre- sent more than the soul of things; it has taken refuge from the terrible im- provements of civilization in a divine seclusion, where it sings, disregarding the many voices of the street Prose comes offering its infinite capacity for detail; and it is by the infinity of its detail that the novel, as Balzac created it, has become the modern epic. There had been great novels, indeed, before Baizac, hut no great novelist; and the novels themselves are scarcely what we should to-day call by that~ name. The interminable Astr~e and its companions form a link between the fabijaux and the novel, and from them developed the characteristic eighteenth- century conte, in narrative, letters, ~r dialogue, as we see it in Marivaux, La- dos, Crebillon fils. CrebilIons longer works, including Le Sopha, with their conventional paraphernalia of 8 Baizac. Eastern fable, are extremely tedious; but in two short pieces, La Nuit et le Moment and Le Hasard du Coin du Feu, he created a model of witty, naughty, deplorably natural comedy, which to this day is one of the most characteristic French forms of fiction. Properly, however, it is a form of the drama rather than of the novel. La- c-los, in Les Liaisons Dangereuses, a masterpiece which scandalized the society that adored Crebillon, because its naked human truth left no room for sentimental excuses, comes much nearer to prefiguring the novel (as Stendhal, for instance, is afterward to conceive it), but still preserves the awk- ward, traditional form of letters. Marl- vaux had indeed already seemed to suggest the novel of analysis, but in a style which has christened awholeman- ner of writing, that precisely which is. least suited to the writing of fiction. Voltaires contes, La Religleuse of Diderot, are tracts or satires in which the story is only an excuse for the pur- pose. Rousseau, too, has his purpose, even in La Nouvelle H~loYse, but it is a humanizing purpose; and with that book the novel of passion comes into existence, and along with it the de- scriptive novel. Yet with Rousseau this result is an accident of genius; we cannot call him a novelist; and we find him abandoning the form he has found, for another, more closely personal, which suits him better. Restif de la Bretonne, who followed Rousseau at a distance, not altogether wisely, de- veloped the form of half-imaginary au- tobiography in Monsieur Nicolas, a book of which the most significant part may be compared with Hazlitts Liher Amoris. Morbid and even mawkish as it is, it has a certain uneasy, un- wholesome humanity in its confessions, which may seem to have set a fashion only too scrupulously followed by mod- ern French novelists. Meanwhile, the Abbd Prdvosts one great story, Man on Lescaut, had brought for once a purely objective study, of an incompar- able simplicity, into the midst of these analyses of difficult souls; and then we return to the confession, in the works of others not novelists: Benjamin Con- stant, Mine. de Sta~l, Chateaubriand, in Adoiphe, Corinne, Ren~. At once we are in the Romantic movement, a movement which begins lyrically, among poets, and at first with a curi- ous disregard of the more human part of humanity. Baizac worked contemporaneously with the Romantic movement, but he worked outside it, and its influence up- on him is felt only in an occasional pseudo-romanticism, like the episode of the pirate in La Femme de Trente Ans. His vision of humanity was es- sentially a poetic vision, but he was a poet whose dreams were facts. Know- ing that, as Mine. Necker has said, the novel should be the better world, he knew also that the novel would be nothing if, in that august lie, it were not true in details. And in the Hu- man Comedy he proposed to himself to do for society more than Buffon had (lone for the animal world. There is but one animal, he de- clares, in his Avant-Propos. with a confidence which Darwin has not yet come to justify. But there exists, there will always exist, social species, as therc are zoological species. Thus the work to be done will have a triple form: men, women, and things; that is to say, human beings and the material representations which they give t~ their thought; in short, man and life. And, studying after nature, French society will be the historian, I shall need to be no more than the secretary. Thus will be written the history for- gotten by so many historians, the his- tory of manners. But that is not all, for passion is the whole of humanity. In realizing clearly the drift of the composition, it will be seen that I as- Baizac. sign to facts, constant, daily, open or secret, to the acts of individual life, to their causes and principles, as much im- portance as historians had formerly at- tached to the events of the public life of nations. Facts gathered together and painted as they are, with passion for element, is one of his definitions of the task he has undertaken. And in a letter to Mine. de Hauska he summar- izes every detail of his scheme. The Etudes des Morurs will repre- sent sociaL effects without a single sit- uation of life, or a physiognomy, or a character of man or woman, or a man- ner of life, or a profession, or a social zone, or a district of France, or any- thing pertaining to childhood, old age, or maturity, politics, justice, or war, having been forgotten. That laid down, the history of the human heart traced link by link, the history of society made in all its de- tails, we have the base. Then the second stage is the Etudes philosophiques, for after the effects come the causes. In the Etudes des Mocurs I shall have painted the senti- ments and their action, life and the fashion of life. In the Etudes philoso- phiques I shall say why the sen~rnents, on what the life. Then after the effects and the causes, come the Etudes analytiques, to which the Physiologie du marriage be- longs, for after the effects and the causes. one should seek the principles. After having done the poetry, the demonstration, of a whole system, I shall do the science in the Essai sur les furces humcine.q. And on the bases of this palace, I shall have traced the im- mense arabesque of the Cent Contes drolatiques ! Quite all that, as we know, was not carried out; but there, in its intention, is the plan; and after twenty years work, the main part of it, certainly, was carried out. Stated with this pre cisc detail, it has something of a scien- tific air, as of a too deliberate attempt upon the sources of life by one of those systematic French minds which are so- much more logical than facts. But there is one little phrase to be noted: La passion est toute lhurnanihi. AU. Baizac is in that phrase. Another French novelist following, as he thinks, the example of the Human Comedy, has endeavored to build up a. history of his own time with even greater minuteness. But Les Rougon- Macquart is no more than system; Zola has never understood that detail without life is the wardrobe without the man. Trying to outdo Baizac on his own ground, he has made the fatal mistake of taking him only on his own systematic side, which in Baizac is sub- ordinate to a great creative intellect, an incessant, burning thought among men and women, a passionate human curiosity for which even his own sys- tern has no limits. The misfortunes of the Birotteaus, the priest and the per- fumer, he says, in his Avant-Pro- pos, taking an example at random, are, for me, those of humanity. To Baizac manners are but the vestment of life; it is life that he seeks; and life to him is but the vestment of thought.. Thought is at the root of all his work,. a whole system of thought, in whiclr philosophy is but another form of poet- ry; and it is from this root of idea that the Human Comedy springs. 11.. The two books into which Baizac ha~ put his deepest thought, the two books which he himself cared for the most, are S~raphita and Louis Lambert. Of Louis Lambert he said: I write it for myself and a few others; ~of S~raphita: Jy mets ma vie! One could write Goriot any day, he adds; S~raphita only once in ~ lifetime. I have never been able to feel that 10 Baizac. S~raphita is altogether a success. It lacks the breadth of life; it is glacial. True, he aimed at producing very much such an effect; and it is, indeed, full of a strange, glittering beauty, the beauty of its own snows. But I find in it at the same time something a little facti- tious, a sort of romanesque, not alto- gether unlike the sentimental reman- esque of Novalis; it has not done the impossible, in humanizing the most ab- stract speculation, in fusing mysticism and the novel. But for the student of Baizac it has extraordinary interest; for it is at once the base and the sum- mit of the Human Comedy. In a let- ter to Mine. de Hanska, written in 1837, four years after S~raphita had been begun, he wrItes: I am not orthodox, and I do not believe in the Roman Church. Swedenborgianism, which is but a repetition, in the Christian sense, of ancient ideas, is my religion, with this addition: that I believe in the in- comprehensibility of God. S~ra- phita is a prose poem in which the most abstract part of that mystical system, which Swedenborg perhaps materialized too crudely, is presented in a white light, under a single superhu- man image. In Louis Lambert the same fundamental conceptions are worked out in the study of a perfectly human intellect, an intellectual gulf, as he truly calls it; a sober and concise history of ideas in their devouring ac- tion upon a too feeble physical nature. In these two books we see directly, and not through the colored veil of human life, the mind in the abstract of a think- er whose power over humanity was the power of abstract thought. They showed the novelist, who has invented the de- scription of society, by whom thevisible world has been more powerfully felt than by any other novelist, striving to penetrate the correspondences . .which exist between the human and the celes- tial existence. He would pursue the soul to its last resting-place before it takes flight from the body; further, on its disembodied flight; he would find out God as he comes nearer and near- er to finding out the secret of life. And realizing, as he does so profoundly, that there is but one substance, and one ever-changing principle of life, use seule ptan,te, un seut animat~ mais dee rappo~-ts continue, the whole world is alive with meaning for him, a more in- timate meaning than it has for others. The least flower is a thought, a life which corresponds to some lineaments of the great whole, of which he has the constant intuition. And so, in his con- cerns with the world, he will find spirit everywhere; nothing for him will be in- ert matter, everything will have its particle of the universal life. One of those divine spies, for whom the world has no secrets, he will be neither pessi- mist nor optimist; he will accept the world as a man accepts the woman whom he loves, as much for her defects as for her virtues. Loving the world for its own sake, he will find it always beautiful, equally beautiful in all its parts. Now let us look at the program which he traced for the Human Com- edy, let us realize it in the light of this philosophy, and we are at the begin- ning of a conception of what the Hu- man Comedy really is. III. The visionary then, who had appre- hended for himself an idea of God, set. himself to interpret human life more elaborately than any one else. He ha~ been praised for his patient observ& - tion; people have thought they praised him in calling him a realist; it has been discussed how far his imitation of life has the literal truth of the photograph. But to Balzac the word realism was an insult. Writing his novels at the rate of eighteen hours a day, in a feverish solitude, he had never had the time to observe patiently. It is humanity seen Baizac. 11 in a mirror, the humanity which comes to the great dreamers, the great poets, humanity as Shakespeare saw it. And so in him, as in all the great artists, there is something more than nature, a divine excess. This something more than nature should be the aim of the artist, not merely the accident which happens to him against his will. We require of him a world like our own, but a world infinitely more vigorous, interesting, profound; more beautiful with that kind of beauty which nature finds of itself for art. It is the quality of great creative art to give us so much life that we are almost overpowered by it, as by an air almost too vigorous to breathe: the exuberance of creation which makes the Moses of Michael An- gelo something more than human, which makes Lear something more than human, in one kind or another of divinity. Baizacs novels are full of strange problems and great passions. He turned aside from nothing which pre- sented itself in nature; and his mind was always turbulent with the magni- ficent contrasts and caprices of fate. A devouring passion of thought burned on all the situations by which human- ity expresses itself in its flight from the horror of immobility. To say that the situations which he chose are often ro- mantic is but to say that he folloWed the soul and the senses faithfully on their strangest errands. Our probable novelists of to-day are afraid of what- ever emotion might be misinterpreted in a gentleman. Believing as we do now, in nerves and a fatalistic heredity. we have left but little room for the dig- nity and disturbance of violent emotion. To Baizac, humanity had not changed since the days when ~Edipus was blind and Philoctetes cried in the cave: and equally great miseries were stiTf possi- ble to mortals, though they were French and of the nineteenth century. And thus he creates. like the poets. a humanity more logical than the aver- age life; more typical, more sub-divided among the passions, and having in its veins an energy almost more than hu- man. He realized, as the Greeks did, that human life is made up of element- al passions and necessity; but he was the first to realize that in the modern world the pseudonym of necessity is money. Money and the passions rule the worid of his Human Comedy. And, at the root of the passions, de- termining their action, he saw those nervous fluids, or that unknown sub- stance which, in default of another term, we must call the will. No word returns oftener to his pen. For him the problem is invariable. Man has a given quantity of energy; each man a differ- ent quantity; how will he spend it? A novel is the determination in action of that problem. And he is equally inter- ested in every form of energy, in every form of egoism, so long as it is fiercely itself. This preoccupation with the force rather than with any of its mani- festations, gives him his singular im- partiality, his absolute lack of preju- dice; for it gives him the advantage of an abstract point of view, the unchang- 1mg fulcrum for a lever which turns in every direction; and as nothing once set vividly in motion by any form of hu- man activity is without interest for him, he makes every point of his vast chronicle of human affairs equally in- teresting to his readers. Baudelaire has observed profoundly that every character in the Human Comedy has something of Baizac, ht~ genius. To himself, his, own genius was entirely expressed in that word will. It recurs constantly in his let- ters. Men of will are rare! he cries. And, at a time when he had turned night into day for his labor: I rise every night with a keener will than that of yesterday. Nothing wearies me, he says, neither waiting nor hap- piness. He exhausts the printers, 12 Baizac. whose fingers can hardly keep pace with his,brain; they call him, he re- ports proudly, a man-slayer. And he tries to express himself: I have al- ways had in me something, I know not what, which made me do differently from others; and, with me, fidelity is perhaps no more than pride. Having only myself to rely upon, I have had to strengthen, to build up that self. There is a scene in La Cousine Bette which gives precisely Baizacs own sentiment of the supreme value of energy. The Baron Hulot, ruined on. every side, and by his own fault, goes to Jos~pha, a mistress who had cast him off in the days of his prosperity, and asks her to lodge him for a- few days in a garret. She laughs, pities, and then questions him. I~st-ce vrai, vieux. reprit-elle, que tu as tud ton fr~re et ton oncle, ruin~ ta famille, surhypoth~qu~ la maison de tes enfants et mange Ia grenoulile du ,~.ouvernement en Afrique avec la prin- cess? Le Baron inclina tristement la tate. ~Eh bien, jamie cela! s~cria Jo- ~pha, qui se leva pleine denthou- siasine. Cest un bri~lage g~n~ral! cest sardanapale! cest grand! cest complet! On est canaille, mais on a du cceur. The cry is Baizacs, and it is a char- acteristic part of his genius to have given it that ironical force by uttering it through the mouth of a Jos~pha. The joy of the human organism at its high- est point of activity: that is what inter- ests him supremely. How passionate, how moving he becomes whenever he has to speak of a real passion, a mania, whether of a lover for his mistress, of a philosopher for his idea, of a miser for his gold, of a Jew dealer for master- pieces! His style clarifies, his words be- come flesh and blood; he is the lyric poet. And for him every idealigm is equal: the gourmandise of Pens is not less serious, not less sympathetic, nor less perfectly realized, than the search of Clai~s after the Absolute. The great and terrible clamor of egoism, is the voice to which he is always at tentive; those eloquent faces always l)roclaiming a soul abandoned to an idea as to a remorse, are the faces with whose history he concerns himself. He drags to light the hidden joys of the amateur, and with especial delight those that are hidden deepest, under the most deceptive coverings. He deifies them for their energy, he fashions the world of his Human Comedy in their ser- vice, as the real world exists, all but passive, to be the pasture of these su- preme egoists. I--. In all that he writes of life, Baizac seeks the soul, but it is the soul as ner- vous fluid, the executive soul, not the contemplative soul, that, with rare ex- ceptions, he seeks. He would surprise the motive force of life: that is his re- cherche do lAbsolu; he figures it to him- self as almost a substance, and he is the alchemist on its track. Can man by thinking find out God? Or life, he would have added; and he would have answered the question with at least a Perhaps. And of this visionary, this abstract thinker, it must be said that his thought translates itself into terms of life. Pose before him a purely mental problem, and he will resolve it by a scene in which the problem literally works itself out. Tt is the quality proper to the nov- elist, but no novelist ever employed thi~ quality with such persistent activity, and at the same time subordinated ac- tion so constantly to the idea. With him action has always a mental basis, is never suffered to intrude for its own sake. He prefers that an episode should seem in itself tedious rather than it should have an illogical interest. It may be, for he is a Frenchman, that his episodes are sometimes too logi Baizac. 13 cal. There are moments when he be- comes unreal because he wishes to be too systematic, that is, to be real by measure. He would never have under- stood the method of Toistol, a very stealthy method of surprising life. To Tolstoi life is always the cunning en- emy whom one must lull asleep, or noose by an unexpected lasso. He brings in little detail after little detail, seeming to insist on the insignificance of each, in order that it may pass al- most unobserved, and be realized only after it has passed. It is his way of disarming the suspiciousness of life. But Baizac will make no detour, aims at an open and unconditional triumph over nature. Thus, when he triumphs, he triumphs signally; and action in his books, is perpetually crystallizing into some phrase, like the single lines of Dante, or some brief scene, in which a whole entanglement comes sharply and suddenly to a luminous point. I will give no ~stance, for I should have to quote from every volume. I wish rath- er to remind myself that there are times when the last fine shade of a sit- uation seems to have escaped. Even then, the failure is often more apparent than real, a slight bungling in the ma- chinery of illusion. Look through the phrase, and you will find the truth there, perfectly explicit on the other side of it. For, it cannot be denied. Baizacs style, as style,is imperfect. It has life, and it has idea, and it has variety; there are moments when it attains a rare and perfectly individual beauty; as when, in Le Cousin Pons, we read of cette predisposition aux recherches iui fait faire ~ un savant germanique cent licues dans ses gu~tres pour trou- rer une vdrit~ qul le regard en riant, assise ~ Ia marge du puits sous le jas- mm de la cour. But I am -far less sure that a student of Balzac would recognize him in this sentence than that he would recognize the writer of this other: Des larmes de pudeur, qul roul~rent entre les beaux cils de Ma- dame Hulot, arr~t~rent net le garde na- tional. It is in such passages that the failure in style is equivalent to a fail- ure in psychology. That his style should lack symmetry, subordination, the formal virtues of form, is, in my eyes, a less serious fault. I have often considered whether, in the novel, per- fect form is a good, or even a possible thing, if the novel is to be what Baizac made it, history added to poetry. A novelist with style will not look at life with an entirely naked vision. He sees through colored glasses. Human life and human manners are too various, too moving, to be brought into the fix- ity of a quite formal order. There will come a moment, constantly, when style must suffer, or the closeness and clear- ness of narration must be sacrificed, some minute exception of action or psy- chology must lose its natural place, or its full emphasis. Baizac with his rap- id and accumulating mind, without the patience of selection, and without the desire to select where selection means leaving out something good in itself If not good in its place, never hes- itates, and his parenthesis comes in. And often it is into these parentheses that he puts the profoundest part of his thought. Yet, ready as Baizac is to neglect the story for the philosophy, whenever it seems to him necessary to do so, he would never have admitted that aform of the novel is possible in which the story shall be no more than an excuse for the philosophy. That w~s becarihe he was a great creator, and not merely a philosophical thinker; because he dealt in flesh and blood, and knew that the passions in action can teach more to the philosopher, and can justify the artist more fully, than all the unacting intellect in the world. He knew that though life without thought was no more than the portion of a dog, yet 14 Baizac. thoughtful life was more than lifeless thought, and the dramatist more than the commentator. And I cannot help feeling assured that the latest novelists without a story, whatever other merits they certainly have, are lacking in the lower to create characters, to express a philosophy in action; and that the form which they have found, however valuable it may be, is the result of this failure, and not either a great refusal or a new vision. V. The novel as Balzac conceived it has created the modern novel, but no mod- ern novelist has followed, for none has 1)een able to follow, Balzac on his own lines. Even those who have tried to follow him most closely have, sooner or later, branched off in one direction or another, most in the direction indi- cated by Stendhal. Stendhal has writ- ten one book which is a masterpiece, unique in its kind, Le Rouge et le Noir; a second, which is fi.ill of ad- mirable things, La Chartreuse de Parine; a hook of profound criticism, Tiacine et Shakspeare; and a cold and penetrating study of the physiology of love. De lAmour, by the side of which Balzacs Physiologie du Marl- age is a mere jeu de8prit. He discov- ered for himself, and for others after him, a method of unemotional, minute, slightly ironical analysis, which has fascinated modern minds, partly be- cause it has seemed to dispense with those difficulties of creation, of crea- tion in the block, which the triumphs of Balzac have only accentuated. Gori- ot, Valerie Marneffe, Pons, Grandet, Madame de Mortsauf even, are called up before us after the same manner as Othello or Don, Quixote; their actions express them so significantly that they seem to be independent of their creator; Balzac stakes all upon each creation, and leaves us no choice but to accept or reject each as a whole, precisely as we should a human being. We do not know all the secrets of their conscious- ness, any more than we know all the secrets of the consciousness of our friends. But we have nly to say Valerie! and the woman is before us. Stendhal, on the contrary, undresses Juliens soul in public with a deliberate and fascinating effrontery. There is not a vein of which he does not trace the course, not a wrinkle to which he does not point, not a nerve which he does not touch to the quick. We know ev- erything that passed through his mind, to result probably in some significant inaction. And at the end of the book we know as much about that particular intelligence as the anatomist knows about the body which he has dissect- ed. But meanwhile the life has gone out of the body; and have we, after all, captured a living soul? I should be the last to say that Ju- lien Sorel is not a creation, .but he is not a creation after the order of Bal- zac; it is a difference of kind; and if we look carefully at Frfid6ric Morean, and Madame Gervaisais, and the Ab- b6 Mouret, we shall see that these al- so, profoundly different as Flaubert and Goncourt and Zola are from Stend- hal, are yet more profoundly, more rad- ically, different from the creations of Baizac. Balzac takes a primary pas- sion, puts it into a human body, and sets it to work itself out in visible ac- tion. But since Steadhal, novelists have persuaded themselves that the primary passions are a little common.4 or noisy, or a little heavy to handle, and they have concerned themselves with passions tempered by reflection, and the sensations of elaborate brains. It was Stendhal who substituted the brain for the heart, as the battle-pla~ce of the novel; not the brain as Baizac conceived it, a motive-force of action, the mainspring of passion, the force by which a nature directs its accumu Bal~ac. 15 lated energy; but a sterile sort of brain, set at a great distance from the heart, whose rhythm is too faint to disturb it. We have been intellectualizing up- on Stendhal ever since, until the per- sons of the modern novel have come to resemble those diaphanous jelly-fish, with balloon-like heads and the merest tufts of bodies, which float up and down in the Aquarium at Naples. Thus, coming closer, as it seems, to what is called reality, in this banish- ment of great emotions, and this at- tention upon the sensations, modern analytic novelists are really getting further and further from that life which is the one certain thitig in the world. Baizac employs all his detail to call up a tangible world about his men and women, not, perhaps, under- standing the full power of detail as psychology, as Flaubert is to under- stand it; but, after all, his detail is only the background of the picture; and there, stepping out of the canvas, as the sombre people of Yelazquez-step out of their canvases at the Prado, is the living figure, looking into your eyes with eyes that respond to you like a mirror. The novels of Balzac are full of elec- tric fluid. To take up one of them is to feel the shock of life, as one feels it on touching certain magnetic hands. To turn over volume after volume is like wandering through the streets of a great city, at that hour of the night when human activity is at its full. There is a particular kind of excite- ment inlierent in the very aspect of a modern city, of London or Paris; in the mere sensation of being in its midst, in the sight of all those active and fatigued faces which pass so rap- idly; of those long and endless streets, full of houses, each of which Is like the body of a multiform soul, looking out through the eyes of many windows. There is something intoxicating in the lights, the movement of shadows un der the lights, the vast and billowy sound of that shadowy movement. And there is something more than this mere unconscious action upon the nerves. Every step in a great city is a step into an unknown world. A new future is possible at every street corner. I never know, when I go out into one of those crowded streets, but that the whole course of my life may be changed before I return to the house I have quit- ted. I am writing these lines in Madrid, to which I have come suddenly, after a long quiet in Andalusia; and I feel already a new pulse in my blood, a keener consciousness of life, and a sharper hi~aan curiosity. Even in Se ville I knew that I should see to-mor- row, in the same streets, hardly changed since the Middle Ages, the same people that I had seen to-day. But here there are new possibilities, all the exciting accidents of the mod- ern world, of a population always changing, of a city into which civiliza- tion has brought all its unrest. And as I walk in these broad, windy streets and see these people, whom I hardly recognize for Spaniards, so awake and so hybrid are they, I have felt the sense of Baizac coming back into my veins. At Cordova he was unthinkable; at Cadiz I could realize only his large, uni- versal outiines, vague as the murmur of the sea; here I feel him, he speaks the language I am talking, he sums up the life in whose midst I find myself. For Balzac is the equivalent of great cities. He is bad relding for solitude, for he fills the mind with the nostalgia of cities. When a man speaks to me familiarly of Baizac I know already something of the man with whom I have to do. The physiognomy of women does not begin before the a~e of thirty, he has said; and perhaps before that age no one can really un- derstand Baizac. Few young people care for him, for there is nothing in 16 Baizac. him that appeals to the senses except through the intellect. Not many wom- en care for him supremely, for it is part of his method to express senti- ments through facts, and not facts through sentiments. But it is natural that he should be the favorite reading of men of the world, of those men of the world who have the distinction of their kind; for he supplies the key of the enigma which they are studying. VI. The life of Baizac was one long labor, in which time, money, and cir- cumstances were all against him. In 1835 he writes: I have lately spent twenty-six days in my study without leaving it. I took the airnly at that window which dominates Paris, which I mean to dominate. And he exults in the labor: If there is any glory in that, I alone could accomplish such a feat. He symbolizes the course of his life in comparing it to the s~a beat- ing against a rock: To-day one flood, to-morrow another, bears me along with it. I am dashed against a rock. I recover myself and go on to another reef. Sometimes it seems to me that my brain is on fire. I shall die in the trenches of the intellect. Balzac, like Scott, died under the weight of his debts; and it would seem, if one took him at his word, that the whole of the Human Comedy was written for money. In the modern world, as he himself realized more clearly than any one, money is more of- ten a symbol than an entity, and it can be the symbol ~ every desire. For Baizac money was the key of his only earthly paradise. It meant leisure to visit the woman whom he loved, and nt the end it meant the possibility of marrying her. There were only two women in Bal- zacs life: one, a woman much older than himself, of whom he wrote, on her death, to the other: She was a mother, a fri& nd, a family, a compan ion, a counsel, she made the writer, she consoled the young man, she formed his taste, she wept like a sister, she laughed, she came every day, like a healing slumber, to put sorrow to sleep. The other was Mine. de Hans- ka, whom he married in 1850, three months before his death. He had loved her for twenty years; she was married, and lived in Poland: it was only at rare intervals that he was able to see her, and then very briefly; but his letters to her, lately published in the Revue de Paris, are a simple, perfectly indi- vidual, daily record of a great passion. For twenty years he existed on a divine certainty without a future, and almost without a present. But we see the force of that sentiment passing into his work; ~96raphita is its ecstasy, every- where is its human shadow; it refines his strength, it gives him surprising intuitions, it gives him all that waa wanting to his genius. Mine. de Hans- ka is the heroine of the Human Com- edy, as Beatrice is the heroine of the Divine Comedy. A great lover, to whom love, as well as every other passion and the whole visible world, was an idea, a flaming spiritual perception, Balzac enjoyed the vast happiness of the idealist. Con- tentedly, joyously, he sacrificed every petty enjoyment to the idea of love, the idea of fame, and to that need of the organism to exercise its forces, which is the only definition of genius. I do not know, among the lives of men of letters, a life better filled, or more appropriate. A young man, who, fo~ a short time, was his secretary, declared: I would not live your life for the fame of Napoleon and of Byron combined. The Comte de Gramont did not realize, as the world in general does not realize, that, to the man of creative energy, creation is at once a necessity and a joy, and, to the lover, hope in absence is the elixir of life. Balzac tasted more than all earthly pleasures as he sat Birds. 17 there in his attic, creating the world over again, that he might lay it at the feet of a woman. Certainly to him there was no tedium in life, for there was no hour without its vivid employ- ment, and no moment in which to per- ceive the most desolate of all certain- The Fortnightly Review. ties, that hope is in the past. His death was as fortunate as his life; he died at the height of his powers, at the height of his fame, at the moment of the ful- filment of his happiness, and perhaps of the too sudden relief of that delicate burden. Arthur Symons. BIRDS. Sure, maybe yeve heard the storm-thrush Whistlin bould in March, Before theres a primrose peepin out, Or a wee red cone on the larch: Whistlin the sun to come out o the cloud, An the wind to come over the sea, But for all he can whistle so clear an loud, Hes never the bird for me. Sure, maybe yeve seen the song-thrush After an April rain, Slip from in-undher the drippin leaves, Wishful to sing again; Och, low wid love when hes near the nest, An loud from the top o the tree, But for all he can flutter the heart in your breast, Hes never the bird for me. Sure, maybe yeve heard the cushadoo Callin his mate in May, When one sweet thought is the whole of his life, An he tells it the one sweet way. But my heart is sore at the cushadoo Filled wid his own soft glee, Over an over his me an you! Hes never the bird for me. Sure, maybe yeve heard the red-breast Singin his lone on a thorn, Mindin himself o the dear days lost, Brave wid his heart forlorn: The time is in dark November, An no spring hopes has he: Remember, he sings, remember! Ay, thons the wee bird for me. Blackwoods Magazine. LIVING AGE. VOL. IV. 178 Moira ONeill. 18 The Ethics of War. THE ETHICS OF WAR. War hated of mothers was the standard classical denunciation. Now, in this fag end of the nineteenth cen- tury, we may say with almost more pro- priety, War hated of stockbrokers.~ Nothing can equal the delicate sensi- bility of the Stock Exchange to the faintest rumor of war, for war means the depreciation of investments, and a depreciation to which no limits can be assigned. With the Stock Exchange a very real, though not the highest, fac- tor in our nature must ever be in sym- pathy: moreover, we willingly allow that peace should have its premium, war its penalty, with an appeal to the pocket, which is ever tender, even when the heart is hard. The next few months may easily find us in a state of war with one or more of the Continental Powersa condition which we have hardly known since the war with Napoleon, for the Crimean War and the Indian Mutiny Campaign and our various frontier wars partook rather of the character of a punitive expedition, and at least involved no very comprehensive risks. It is with the war sentiment and its ethical character, its illusions and its disillusions, that I should wish to ~leal in this paper; on its equipment in the way of arms or alliances, and on its conduct, should an opinion escape me, I would be understood to speak under due correction. In this country every view concern- ing war, I will not say flourishes, but at least finds occasional expression, from that of the Society of Friends, which condemns all war, even when purely defensive, as forbidden by the Gospel of Christianity, to that.of the Jingo who, having equipped a fleet out- matching the united fleets of Europe, would still find in the building of ev ery alien warship a casus beth. If war were declared to-morrow it would but furnish a fresh text for every form of warlike or unwarlike discourse. Meetings would be held in which war in general and this war in particular would be denounced as unchristian and unproductive; we should be challenged to show how war is compatible with the Pax Christiana, and again what had been gained by our outlay on any of our wars ancient or modern. Meanwhile the big guns speak in thunder and the deadly game waxes none the less furi- ous for its accompaniment of domes- tic babble, until something serious gives way somewhere and the world relapses into peace. Although English want of logic is proverbial, and we are almost come to accept the impeachment as a com- pliment to our common sense, yet we shall most of us admit that if, in the intervals of practical business, such as brewing beer or moulding chocolate, we can knock a speculative solecism on the head, especially if this be couched in religious language, we shall promote the cause of moral sanitation and deserve well of the country. Foi~, after all, a false rtremise, however its action may be controlled in practice by the improvisation of common sense, yet in the immortality of uncontrolled iteration does really constitute a pere~- nial source of mischief, first as an ad- vertisement of what is false, second- ly as a provocation to the opposite ex- treme. I am convinced that Jingoism flourishes on nothing so well as upon such an Appeal to the Nation~~ as was issued on the third of December, 1897, by the Society of Friends. I should be the last to depreciate the many good qualities and the many no- The Ethics of War. 19 ble works which have distinguished that society from the seventeenth cen- tury down to the present day. I am convinced that they have made no statement in their Appeal which they do not hold to be true; and I am more than touched by the outspoken fervor of their protest, To us it seems clear that when once satisfied as to what that teaching [Christs] is, it is our duty to obey it, regardless of consequences. But none the less I am also convinced that the two assertions upon which their Appeal is mainly basedviz., that Christ has taught that all war is unlawful, and that the earliest writers in the Christian Church were agreed that nothing less than this was their Masters doctrineare false, and inca- pable of justification by any serious student either of his Bible or of Chris- tian antiquity. It is necessary that we should be- gin by insisting upon the common ground taken by Christians in regard to war in order to distinguish from it the special contention of the Quakers. We all admit that war is extremely un- congenial to the Christian temper; that the character engendered by Christian teaching will tend to the avoidance of war; to a reluctance to embrace it in lieu of such other alternatives as, let us say, arbitration. Where we join issue with the Quakers is in this, that We assert whilst they deny that war is sometimes neither more nor less than a duty; that it is the duty of a nation to stand up for itself even at the risk of war; that a contrary behavior is not only base, but to the last degree im- politic as tending inevitably to the Toss of independence. This is the common verdict of every age and every race; and yet if I were once assured that Christ taught the contrary, believing as I do that Christ is God, I should repudiate the common sentence of mankind as delusive, and regardless of consequences take my stand with the Society of Friendsat least I hope I should do this. But, on the other hand, considering how uni- versal is the common sentiment, and seeing that God is the author of nature as well as of grace, of reason as well as of revelation, we have every right to demand nothing less than an abso- lute proof that it has been condemned by Christ before we consent to abjure it. There is really only one passage see Matthew v. 39 and Luke vi. 29 that has been produced with any effect, in which Christ exhorts His Apostles, If any one smite thee on one cheek, turn to him the other also. But this is obviously a counsel of~ perfection ad- dressed to the Apostles in their char- acter of missionaries, who are sent out as sheep amidst wolves and are to win their way by the rhetoric of invincible meekness. It will always indicate a principle of Christian progress; but as a hard and fast rule addressed to all men and collections of men under all circumstances it carries its absurdity on the face of it. It is impossible, and even if possible would be pernicious, involving as it must frequently do a negative violation of the moral law. What would be the action of a Friend were his mother or wife or daughter smitten on the cheek? Can we doubt that the phrase of Uncle Tom noto- riety, Friend, thees not wanted here, would not only be enunciated, but en- forced in some sudden and effectual way with fist or foot or staff. One is almost ashamed to have pursued such a topic; and yet what would the So-s ciety have? They must be taken seri- ously if at all. Not only is the supposed prohibition of war in the New Testament wholly defective, but we have in the words of Christ, recorded John xviii. 36, a recognition of the lawfulness of war. If my kingdom were of this world, verily would my servants have fought, so that I should not be delivered into 20 The Ethics of War. the hands of the Jews, which is as much to say, If I had come to restore the temporal kingdom of Israel in the way generally expected of the Messiah, my people would have fought. Whence it may be fairly argued that if an earthly kingdom be justifiable at all, as even Quakers admit that It is, we have Scripture warranty to fight for it. Then cx abundante the Scripture of both Testaments is full of the imagery of war, which would never be the case were war essentially criminal. With respect to the teaching of the earliest Christian writers, a foolish list has gone the round of the papers of some thirteen authors ranging from the second to the fourth century who are supposed to have taught the abso- lute unlawfulness of war for a Chris- tian. I have called it foolish advised- ly, for it consists merely of names col- lected more or less haphazard and without a shred of reference. St. Am- brose figures in it, whose rejoicings in the victories of Theodosius are notori- oiis :1 again, Thou hast the soldiers fortitude in which no mean form of righteousness and nobility is exhibited in choosing death rather than slavery and disgrace;2 and St. Cyril, but we are told not wh9ther of Alexandria or Jerusalem; and Archelaus, a mere name for a dateless fragment of doubt- ful authenticity. In St. Cyril Alexand. we have a passages forbidding armed resistance to persecution, and again in St. Ambrose.4 Archelaus5 thus har- monizes the Mosaic eye for an eye with Christs turn the other cheek, Behold a progress from justice to charity. Irenseus and Cyprian yield nothing to the purpose. In Tertullian and Origen, however, there are strong passages deprecating Christians be- 1 Orat. In oh. Theod. op. t. II. p. 1200. 2 De Offic. op. t. 1. p. 54. Joan. c. 18. In Luc. lib. x. n. 58. Ap. Galland, t. III. p. 597. 6 De Idolat. 117 a. coming soldiers. But the strongest of these passages does not amount to an assertion that all war is unlawful, and each of these writers in one place or another implies or asserts the contrary. Thus Tertullianwho6 exclaims, How then shall a Christian fight, nay, how even in peace shall he play the soldier, without that sword of which the Lord deprived him ? viz., in His rebuke of Peteron the other hand,7 when enu- merating the imperial burdens shared by the Christians, insists, With you we take ship, with you we serve in the army.~~ Origen8 claims for Christians the im- munity from military service enjoyed by the Pagan priesthood, and describes them whilst keeping their hands un- stained, yet by the pouring out of their prayers to God as fighting for those who are engaged in a just war; but if war is necessarily criminal, such participation would be unlawful and there never could be a just warY He admits that such as secretly combine and slay the tyrant who is invading their city do well ; and10 in the warfare of bees finds an exemplar of how wars may be orderly and justly waged. It has been urged that these are argu- ments ad homin ; nay, they are ap- peals ad liuinanitat , our common hu- man nature against which Christians were no traitors. St. Athanasius11 does not hesitate to write, To slay adversa- ries in war is lawful and worthy of praise. There is, of course, no lack of patristic passages deprecating per- sonal vengeance or armed resista~ce to persecution, but the following from Lactantius2 is, I believe, the only text that covers, and it more than covers, the Quaker contention: Neither shall it be lawful for the righteous man to ~ Apolog. p. 28. Cont. Ceis. lib. vii. a. 73. 9Llb. 1. a. 1. 10 LIb. lv. a. 82. 11 Ep. ad Amun. op. t. ii. p. 960. CDlv. Instlt. 1. vi. c. 20. The Ethics of War. 21 engage in warfare whose warfare is neither more nor less than righteous- ness. Neither may he accuse any one of a capital crime. For it makes no differ- ence whether you slay with the sword or with the tongue, since the slaying itself is forbidden. Wherefore to this commandment of God there must be no exception, hut always is it sinful to slay man, whom God has elected to be an inviolably sacred animal. As to the position taken by such writ- ers as Tertullian and Origen, it must be remembered that for twovery serious reasons military service was grievous- ly distasteful to the early Christians: first, beeause it frequently involved or at least risked a participation in idolatrous cultus; second, because it was a conspicuously secular occupa- tion, an entanglement with a world which according to their conception was hastening to its dissolution. With the exception I have mentioned, I can find no absolute condemnation of war in the writings of the early Church, and most certainly there is no consensus to that effect. I would entreat the Society of Friends no longer to overweight theIr laudable efforts for peace with the un- tenable hypothesis upon which I have felt it my duty to comment. If it is of importance that those who have Christian objects at heart should un- derstand one another; should agree where they can, and where they can- not, at least have a distinct idea of their line of difference, then it is every ones concern that this extravagant misconception of the doctrine of Christ and of the early Church should be final- ly evicted from the manifestoes of the seel:ers after peace. Let it be assumed then, in accord- ance with the common sense of man- kind, that war is sometimes just and to be entered on with soberness indeed, and a deep sense of responsibility, but yet with the confidence that, under the circumstances, it is a work like other works of danger and difficulty, which it has been given into our hand to do. When, however, we go on to ask as a practical question what kind of war is lawful, that is to say, what are the objects and conditions justifying war, it is exceedingly difficult to give an answer that shall be at once precise and comprehensive. Still we may, per- haps, discuss intelligently what we are unable to define. Many persons will be inclined to take their stand upon the distinction be- tween defensive and offensive warfare, and to insist that the former is always, the latter never, justifia%le. No doubt there is truth underlying this position, and the distinction is of ethical value. But is the position thus absolutely stat- ed capable of being maintained? I think not: neither member appears to me unassailable. I recollect when the Franco-Prussian war had entered up- on its second stage, after Sedan, and had become on the French side of a purely defensive character, it was de- bated in the English press how far France had any right to maintain a hopeless conflict. The general princi- ple was admitted on all sides that for a nation to fight absolutely without hope of success was immoral; but the papers that defended France, the Spec- tator and the Pall Mall, if I am not mistaken, defended and applauded her precisely because, having an off chance, though of the slenderest, she took it at the extremest risk for honors sake. Analogously a woman to defend he~ chastity may risk her life to any ex- tent so long as the barest chance of escape discriminates her action from suicide. No one, I suppose, to take an example at hand, would justify Spa4n in renewing her war with America to save the Philippines unless she could find an efficient ally. Not all defen- sive war, then, can be pronounced jus- tifiable. 22 The Ethics of War. As to the second member of the po- sition, must we await the attack of a wild beast before we fire, and may not a barbarous or semi-barbarous na- tion, or even a civilized nation in a cer- tain stage of excitement, fall under the same category? Thus what is tech- nically a measure of offence may be in reality an act of anticipated defence. In the Franco-Prussian war the French, who struck the first blow, al- ways maintained, and with considera- ble plausibility, that the situation was forced by their adversary. So curi- ously elusive is sometimes the term defence that I am reminded of the quaint Vulgate rendering in the Book of Judith, cap. 2: Factum est verbum in dome Nabuchodonosor regis Asuyrio- rum ut defenderet se. l7ocavi:tque umnes majores natu omnesque beflatores sUOS, et habuit cum cis mysterium consilii sui: diccitque cogitationem suaim in CO esse ut omnem terrinn 5U0 sub jugaret imperio. I must confess to some searchings of heart lest a Continental critic should apply this passage to England. As I have already admitted, there is a serious ethical value in the distinc- tion of aggressive and defensive war- fare; the difficulty lies in the applica- tion to particular cases. A war in which a nation defends its fatherland, or such extensions thereof as are ad- mittedly its own, is altogether just and righteous. Dulce et decorum est pro patria mon; and to this judgment of mankind God Himself does not refuse His sanction. On the other hand, a mere war of conquest, in which the ob- ject for which a nation or its ruler fights is merely material aggrandise- ment, must lie beneath the censure both of earth and heaven as an offence against humanity and a violation of the Jypa7rra KaO-cf~aXr) Oe& 5v vo7Lt/La. So far without further particularization it is easy enough to pronounce with con- fidence. But how about hinterlands and legitimate spheres of influence? Here with candid minds it is not difficult injicere scrupulum, and hence a copious harvest of commissions of inquiry and arbitration. Still, of all this sphere, supposing it acquired by a natural quasi-necessary process without ob- vious unfairness, it may be said that it is practically aggregated to the fath- erland in defence of which a nation may justly fight. Yet, even as we are told in Ecciesiasticus that between buying and selling, sin cleaveth like a stake in the wall, so indubitably is it with many such acquisitive transac- tions and their issues in war. It may tend to clearness of view, if, putting aside the two instances al- ready mentioned of the obviously just and the obviously unjust, the palmary examples of defensive and aggressive warfare, we turn our attention to the various objects that have motived war since the Christian era, though our list can hardly be an exhaustive one. In considering the war sentiment throughout the Middle Ages, one is struck with the extent in which war is accepted as a natural condition of things. Kings hunt a good deal be- tween whiles to keep themselves in wind, but fighting is the serious en- gagement of their life. Thus theolo- gians, commenting on the sin of David, insist that he fell precisely because at the time when kings go forth to war he was lounging idly in his garden af- ter his noonday sleep. Then, if you have an army, and kings were bound to have armies, you must exercise it, or its armor will grow rug~y and its horses wanton or weary in their stalls. And then what a shame to pos- sess. so noble an instrument and make no adequate use thereof! Marmions sentiment found on all sides a ready echo, its profanity apart, For, by Saint George, were that host mine, Not power infernal nor divine Should once to peace my soul incline, The Ethics of War. 23 Till I had dimmed their armors shine In glorious battle fray! Or, to turn to a sordid comic counter- part, we have Falstaff! What! a young knave, and beg! Is there not wars, is there not employment? doth not the King lack subjects? do not the rebels want soldiers? Though it be a shame to be on any side but one, it is worse shame to beg than to be on the worst side, were it worse than the name of rebelion can tell how to make it. Nevertheless, a medheval war was almost always carefully based up- on a legal plea, often very slender and eminently disputable, but at least serv- ing as a badge of pretensive justice. On the whole, such of these wars as were not mere brigandage deserve the name of war for wars sake, in which the motive of war is the actual fighting. Another very prevalent form of war was respectably motived as frontier preservation, such as for centuries pre- vailed on the marches of England and Scotland. The object was defence, but it was carried out by a succession at longer or shorter intervals of what were called warden raids; each country in turn invaded the other, with the object, it would seem, of empha- sizing the blessings of peace, and of impressing upon its neighbor the necessity of practically confining itself to its own land; the limitation of the ebbing and flowing tide ultimately con- stituting a barrier. This is on a strict- ly Conservative principle, and, regard being had to the wild habits of the time, may pass. On the other hand, rectification ot~ frontier, though cherishing a flavor of Conservatism, inasmuch as the ideal is supposed to be there already in the logic of the status quo, in fact imports an element of conquest; at least, I nev- er knew of any one fighting for leave to withdraw in deference to the claim of an ideal boundary, although the sit- uation is by no means an inconceivable one. It has been maintained that the Franco-Prussian War was a war for the rectification of frontier, the one country feeling the necessity of being girdled by the Rhine, the other by the fortresses of Alsace and Lorraine. Another form of war we may term the war of redemption, a war un- dertaken for the deliverance of a sub- ject population from slavery or mal- treatment, physical or spiritual, or from the isolation of barbarism. Un- der this head will fall many of the medheval wars of religion. The Cru- sades in a large measure come under this category, although in these there enters a factor analogous, though in a very different order, to one we are familiar with in modern war, viz., the exploitation of some great good which is lying idle. In the Crusades it was the recovery of the Holy Places, with their storage of pious emotion which was lying useless, and worse than use- less, in the hands of the infidel. In mod- ern times, when Christianity is regard- ed as of dubious or at least of quite subjective advantage, we have instead the exploitation of trade, of agricultural and mineral resourcesa civilization, in fact, lying together beyond the reach of the aboriginesto justify or excuse conquest. Although there is here an ample field for delusion, and avarice often mas- querades in the garb of philanthropy, I do not deny that the pioneers of civ- ilization representing the great Euro- pean Powers have a right to open u~ countries in the name of progress. I cannot pretend that savages, who do but abrade the surface of the earth like so many fowl, have established any exclusive and inviolable right to its possession; at the same time I should like to insist oh the amendment urged by Las Casas and his brethren against Sepulveda and others, that the right to open up new countries to the infin 24 The Ethics of War. ence of religion, or, I would add, to that of civilization, does not justify their absolute conquest, still less their enslavement It may be interesting to note that the policy of the religious wars of the Middle Ages, equally with that of our humanitarian and mercantile wars of to-day, was an advocacy of the open door; but then it was thought to be the door of heaven that was in debate, whilst now it is the door of trade. Both then and now motives were exceeding- ly mixed; a Crusader occasionally made a terribly good thing of it, and it can hardly be denied that, in spite of the genuine sentiment of philanthropy evoked by the desperately cruel mis- management of the Spaniards in Cuba, the war sentiment in America was largely, I will not say inspired, but at least controlled, by commercial specu- lation of a selfish kind. If, however, power has its duties, it also has its rights. Although might is not right, it is often its condition, its sine qua non. If one has neither strength nor wealth sufficient to perform the duties apper- taming to the government of a colony, the right to govern it lapses, and, where the colony cannot govern itself, must devolve upon the competent neighbor who has both. A lheure quette e8t, the system prevailing in Spain and Portu- gal, in which colonies are treated like milch cows for the sole benefit of the mother country, and cruelly at that, may be no longer tolerated. Whilst this is so we cannot fail to mark, and thereat to hang our heads, that there is so little of the hero as a rule in the representative of modern philanthropy. He is certainly no Cru- sader. To him indeed, the feeble tyrant must pay the uttermost farthing, but the strong tyrant is suffered to pass by not unfrequently with marks of dis- tinguished consideration. Whilst the Cuban half-caste is triumphantly vindi- cated from the Spanish lash, none have taken thought for a long century to deliver the noble Polish nationality from the far more grinding tyranny of the Czar. But here, perhaps, Moral Theology may interpose her plea of a grave incommodum; of course, no such war may justly take place until the resources of diplomatic representation have been exhausted. We might hope that questions con- cerning boundaries and hinterlands and spheres of influence, with the pro- gress of civilization, might be once for all submitted to other arbitrament than that of the sword, were it not for a factor in human nature to which I would now direct attention. If a na- tion consent to retire within itself like a hedgehog within its prickles, as we see Switzerland within its mountain fastnesses, with little or no cosmopoli- tan outiook, modern nations are well content to leave it under its ancient laurels without putting its prowess to the test. In the case, however, of a na- tion like England, which is everywhere en evidence, and everywhere secures an ample share of what good things may be going, whilst at the same time it is conspicuously free from the least as- pect of militarism, it is obvious that John Bulls puzzled companions must from time to time ask themselves whether the fat placid fellow is still able and willing to fight. I am afraid the credit accruing to us from our great war at the beginning of the century is a rapidly diminishing quantity, and that it does not admit of much reinforcement either from essa~s on Nelson and Wellington, or even from the explosion of many Dervishes. In the political as in the mercantile world credit will do much, nay, almost anything; but in the one case tpere must be the hard cash behind the hon- ored name to be now and again ex- hibited, in the other to back the brave words there must be an occasional dis- play of hard knocks. The Ethics of War. 25 It is humiliating but certainly true and very dangerous to forget that na- tions may hardly pretend to more than the morality of the average schoolboy, who must win and keep his place in public estimation by showing his read- iness to fight for it, and who may only convince his public of that readiness by occasional fighting. The moment comes when it is for the interests of the scholastic community that the aggres- sive bravo should be taught in the only way open to him that his peaceful rival is not a coward, and the authorities, if they are wise, discreetly look anoth- er way. Though a state contain amongst its subjects as many practical Christians as you choose to suppose, the State as such, so far as its external relations with its neighbors are concerned, will be little other than a brute, a generous, kindly, temperate brute if you will, at best furnishing as it were the equine substratum of a centaur in which the individual may be absorbed waist deep, but hardly further. In other words, a State in its exter- nal relations is an imperial entity, not a human personality. Its Christian statesmen must restrain its action within the broad lines of justice, and bring about as far as may be an iden- tification of its interests with cosmo- politan interests; but its primary para- mount interest is self-protection, and the self-sacrifice which is so often the crown of individual perfection can in a State never be other than an imbecil- ity. Wiatever men can invest in a common stock must needs be some- thing. short of their highest interest and aspiration, which appertains to an incommunicable individuality. State interests are, as it were, a deposit in which individuals in accordance with a natural law have invested what they are able to regard as a common prop- erty, and it must be administered on strictly business principles. The State, then, is not a function of the highest ethical centre, even in the order of na- ture, still less in the supernatural order to which Christianity belongs. It may be controlled by, it cannot be reconsti- tuted on, purely Christian principles. Neither has the most Christian states- man the right so to reconstitute it, or to deal with It as so reconstituted, for he is concerned with a property which is not his own but anothersviz., the communitys. It was from forgetting this that Eng- land, after its defeat in the Transvaal, was submitted to the opprobrium of the Boer Convention and baulked of its final victory. The warmest -admirer of Mr. Gladstone must needs shudder at the outcome of this ghastly attempt to foist a Sunday-school conscience be- hind the iron ribs of war. Whatever good reason there may have been for recognizing that our claims of sover- eignty in the Transvaal rested on a mistaken view of native sentiment, and however fairly such recognition might have been allowed to affect the ultimate settlement, the game of war once entered upon should have been played out until it was either lost or won. To this the honor of the country was fully pledged; for this much she stood engaged to the young soldiers who fell in her inauspicious preludes, that their loss should either be redeemed in the full blood of their countrys victory, or solemnly accepted in her defeat. Nev- er before in our history has an English Minister thus misapplied a Gospel test, and turned his countrys - cheek to the smiter. The most common, the most inevita- ble of the causes of war in our day promises to be the collision between undemonstrative assurance on the one side and witless contempt on the other; the precise distribution of explosive matter between box and match is un- important. If our doves, as The 26 The Ethics of War. Times of Crimean days called the Quakers, who at the last moment be- sieged Nicholas with entreaties for peace, are allowed to clothe us in their drab, and attune our voices to their mellifluous cooings; if Mr. Gladstones conscience is still to whisper in the Im- perial Council; or, more unseemly still, if the hy8terica pa8sio of certain noto- rious agitators be allowed to engage attention, it will take a long course of heavy fighting for the text of Englands mind to be fairly read and understand- ed of the nations. The problem which peace-loving per- sons have to face is this: how they may entertain such peaceful alterna- tives as arbitration, to which they in- stinctively incline, yet so as not inevi- tably to accumulate in the near fu- ture an irresistible momentum towards war. Let us suppose that before the cur- rent year is out we find ourselves at war with France and Russia; it may be well, before concluding this paper, to give a glance at its probable condi- tions. We shall be almost certai~iIy without allies; at best Germany will stand neutral. America will yield us her good-will, which I conceive to im- ply that she would stretch a point in our favor by way of systematic block- ade-running, supposing that after a se- vere naval defeat the cutting off of our food supply was to begin. We must realize that a great change has taken place in naval warfare since the day when for every ship we lost we captured five, and were thus able to rehabilitate our fleets largely from for- eign dockyards. Now it would seem that where ironclads are seriously handled they may indeed be wiped out but hardly captured. The survival tends to be an arithmetical remainder, and victory a result rather than an achievement. Modern fleets resemble too closely the fleet of glass Tenny- son sings of in Sea Dreams, the brittle fleet . . neard, touched, clinked and clashed, and vanished. The war marine of to-day knows nothing of the stout timbers which the old-world tars had so often to thank for their safety after their ship had gone to pieces. Assuredly an added pathos and solemnity invests its freight of men and boys, as a modern battle- ship clears for action, that for them no chapter of accidents is likely to be in- terposed between to be and not te be. I have often wondered whether a wooden fleet under international pro- tection might not assist with modern appliances to rescue ihe crews of ex- ploded battleships. The increased destructiveness of mod- ern warfare has often been used to ag- gravate the repulsiveness of war. On the other hand, it must be remembered that under the touch of civilization war has lost some of its most offensive fea- tures. The condition of nowcombat- ants is immensely relieved, and we may regard the sack which gave de- fenceless women and children to the mercy of a maddened soldiery, and the bombardment of unfortifled towns and harbors, as henceforth excluded from the casualties of civilized warfare. I believe that the state of war is not only by no means the greatest of all evils, but that it is calculated to evoke some of the best qualifies of human nature, giving the spirit a predomi- nance over the flesh. This is not only true of the actual belligerents, but al~ so in its measure of all those who cart~ for them at home. I remember asking a little boy from one of our orphanages why he had chosen to be a sailor. lie answered very simply, I thought that as a sailor I should always be in dan- ger of death, and so should always be able to make a good act of contrition. Fear has been sometimes expressed amongst us as to whether the preva- lence of scientific destructive machin 27 The Record of a L~/e. ery, especially on shipboard, has not neutralized the once predominating value of British pluck. At first the tendency may be in this direction, but ultimately I do not believe in the sub- jection of soul to matter. No doubt our pluck must become more and more intelligent and more and more at home in the realm of scientific force. If with the Dervishes we too in our turn have to charge Maxims, it must be by the path of least exposure, and with a clear knowledge of what Maxims can do. In the long run I do not think that British pluck will be either calcined by elec- tricity or pulverized by dynamite. It will remain what it has always been, keen, cool, and, along the line of the best chance open, absolutely regard- less of consequences. Alas! much hero- ic effort, more than ever before, will be sterile except for example, but a per- centage will succeed and it will suffice. To this I hold until outfaced by experi- ence, for, if this fail me, from a na- tional point of view there would be lit- tle worth holding. With Rudyard Kip- ling in his ballad of the Clampher- down, I believe that a British crew is still capable of tearing victory from the jaws of death, As it was in the days of long ago, And as it still shall be. And is this all, and can the Church and the Churches, as they call them- selves, do nothing towards peace? Ha~ every nation an unchristened right hand? I do not venture to say what the Church can do and what she cannot do in such a matter. I know she has some- times brought about arbitration when otherwise arbitration would have been impossible. But if I am right in think- ing that certain wars are in the nature of things inevitable, I would suggest that where the Church might most suc- cessfully intervene is not before but after the war, in order to prevent it degenerating into a traditional hatred between the combatants. For it is not the loss of fleet or army that consti- tutes the unforgiveable offence, but the extravagant conditions exacted by the victor. It is hopeless, I suppose, to ask that each of the belligerents should pay his own expenses; but in such wars as I have been last considering, where the objective is so largely to have thq mat- ter out and clear the atmosphere, is it too much to expect the successful one to be emphatically generous? In such a case the Church might intervene with advantage. It is right to pray for peace, for thts supposes peace with honor. But a self- ish turn might easily be given to the prayer if we emphasize the phrase in these our days, as though relegating an accumulation of war to our pos- terity. H. I. D. Ryder. The Nineteenth Century. K THE RECORD OF A LIFE. An autobiography, or a confidential diary, affords an opportunity for the display of many attractive and engag- ing qualities. It may be instructive, amusing, and ingenious. It may con- tain interesting facts not hitherto re vealed to the world, or valuable judg- ments passed by the writer upon 1iis contemporaries, or vivid descriptions of choses vues. But there is one virtue without the presence of which all oth- er excellences are as naught, and that 28 Tke Record of a virtue is candor. Any attempt to pose, any tendency to strike an attitude, is fatal. It is notorious how apt autobi- ographers are to be lacking in this one essential. In analysing his own char- acterthe other fellow (to wit him- self), as Laurence Lockhart used to saya man, consciously or unconscious- ly, sets down what he desires to set down. In discussing the motives which prompted a particular action, he col- ors his picture with tints borrowed from subsequent experience and reflec- tion. Thus he never comes to close quarters with his readers, who are quick to detect the ring of insincerity. Whatever merits or defects this re- markable volume1 may possess, no one can deny its absolute straightforward- ness. You feel instinctively, that the writer is in good faith; and, whether you approve or disapprove, whether you censure or applaud, you cannot help acknowledging the frankness of the record. No one line is written for mere effect; not one sentence but is stamped with the unmistakable hall- mark of the writers mind and heart. Mrs. Oliphant had originally designed her autobiography for a legacy to her sons; but after their death she con- tinued the work, avowedly with a view to posthumous publication. How strange it is to me, she ex- claims, to write all this with the effort of making light reading of it, and put- ting in anecdotes that will do to quote in the papers and make the book sell! It is a sober narrative enough, heaven knows! and when I wrote it for my Cecco [her younger son] to read, it was all very different; but now that I am doing it consciously for the public, with the aim (no evil aim) of leaving a little more money, I feel all this to be so vul- gar, so common, so unnecessary, as if I were making pennyworths of myself. It is difficult to believe that the.parra- tive could have been more free from affectation and pretence, more open and more intimate, if the original pur- pose of the writer had not been altered by the crushing blow which made her once happy home empty, cold, and si- lent, and left her waiting, longing, in earnest expectation, for the ohe event to come, which will, I hope and believe, do away with all the suffering past, and carry me back a happy wom- an to my family. We will not call this book a human document; we will not say that it echoes with the true on du owur. Such phraseology would have moved Mrs. Oliphant to just in- dignation and disgust. She detested all cant, and none more .than that of in- trospectionthe jargon of the psy- chotogues. But here is, no question, that combination of qualities which those slang terms so inadequately ex- press. He who seeks an elaborate ex- position of changes of beliefa pom- pous recital of how a first reading of Hegel made the writer think this, and a prolonged study of Mr. Herbert Spencer made her think thatwill, ln~ deed, go empty away. Those who care for complacent whimperings over the loss of a creed never seriously held, or who love the lucubrations of such as brood, with a self-pitying, self-satis- fied melancholy, upon the ruins of a faith which has yielded to the pres- sure of the German historical move- ment (Mesopotamic phrase!)such persons may be directed to go else- where. To them this must needs ap- pear the eminently prosaic little nar- rative which Mrs. Oliphant avows t~ to be. But over the more ordinary members of the human race, who have little taste for reasoning high on such matters, it will cast an irresistible spell. Its power and attraction are not to be gauged by mere extracts. It must be read as a wholethe correspondence (so admirably selected and arranged by 1 The Autobiography and Letters of Mrs. M. 0. Ha~ Coghull. william Blackwood & Sons, w. Oliphant. Arranged and Edited by Mi~s. Edinbnrgh and London: 1899. The Record of a 29 Mrs. Coghull) illustrating Mrs. Oil- phants own story; and, so read, it cannot, we should imagine, appeal in vain to any save the most stolid or the most supercilious of mankind. Mrs. Oliphants was not a life of in- cident or adventure. Chance brought her acquainted with a certain number of celebrities, and made her intimate with a very few; but she was no lion- hunter, and she admits, with great good-humor and enjoyment, the justice of the complaint made by a Jewish patroness of the fine arts, who used to ask her to her parties, that she never did herself any justice in gen- eral society. Her father had a small place in the Customs; his means per- mitted him to live only in the quietest way; and he nourished a strong and ever-growing dislike to the company of people outside his family circle. Hence, though by no means bred in a mental greenhouse (for her mother seems to ha~e been a typical Scotswom- an of the best school) Margaret Wil- sons sole amusement in youth was found in books, newspapers, and mag- azines; and hence, no doubt, the habit of writing, which she formed early in life, became to her almost a second na- ture. I always disliked paying visits, she says, and felt myself a fish out of water when I was not in my own house. During the last thirty years of her life, when her position in the world of letters was assured, she re- sided principally at Windsor, and this effectually precluded the possibility of dining-out in London. Luncheons and afternoon parties in town were, of course, practicable, and these she some- times attended, much against her will. In spite, however, of her distaste for the commerce of society, she had con- siderable knowledge of the world, ac- quired, no doubt, partly from ff~tural shrewdness, and partly from frequent travel. That she was a keen judge of character the present vorurne alone makes abundantly plain. She pos- sessed the faculty of making people talk, and with it (one may conjecture) the more dangerous art of pulling peo- ples legs, as it is elegantly termed nowadays. True, she repudiates with some warmth the impeachment of hav- ing been a student of human nature, or of having acted as a spy upon her friends in any way. But, both in the autobiography and in the letters, there are thumbnail sketches which disclose the same gifts of observation and hu- mor as characterize her best novels. Such a sketch, for example, is her ac- count of Mrs. Duncan Stewarts en- tertainments in Sloane . Street, or her description of the people whom she came across when in pursuit of infor- mation about Edward Irvingpeople who were eager to impart much, if not all, about themselves, but were quite oblivious of the object of her inquiries. There are also many charming vig- nettes of men and womenof Mr. Sto- ry, now Principal of Glasgow Univer- sity, of the Tullochs, of Montalembert, of John Ruffini, of Mr. and Mrs. Black- ett, of Robert Macpherson and his wife, of Lord Tennyson, and, above all, of Miss Isabella Blackwood, a constant correspondent and intimate friend of Mrs. Oliphants, and a woman of sin- gular ability. The picture of the Car- lyles, that much maligned and much misunderstood pair, is charming. From the Sage she received nothing but perfect courtesy and kindness. He praised her Life of Edward Irv- ing in very handsome termsterms so~ gratifying that, as she writes herself to Mr. John Blackwood, for the space of a night and a day I was uplifted and lost my head. I was never more de- lighted with any man, she continues; I am ready henceforth to stand up ~or all those peculiarities which other peo- ple think defects, and to do battle for him whenever I hear him assailed. To his wife Mrs. Oliphant became 30 The Record of a L~fr. strongly attached, recognizing in her something of the strong sense and ready wit which had distinguished her own mother. But admirable as these interludes are, and excellent as are the anecdotes (not put in to quote in the papers) with which many of the letters are enlivened, it is upon Mrs. Oliphants own personality that the in- terest is chiefly concentrated, and it is the development of her character that the reader watches most attentively. Mrs. Oliphant was born on the 10th of June, 1828, and was married on the 4th of May, 1852. On the morning of her marriage she received the proof- sheets of Katie Stewart: an outward and visible sign, as it were, of the be- ginning of a connection with Maga which lasted for more than five-and- forty years. Katie Stewartthat ex- quisite little workwas not, however, Mrs. Oliphants first effort in litera- ture. Margaret Maitland had been published by Colburn in 1849, when the author was twenty-one, and had been followed by other novels of decidedly inferior merit. Lord Jeffreys letter of congratulation to the anonymous au- thor of Margaret Maitland will be read with much interest. The veteran critic was acute enough to guess the sex of the writer. Mrs. Oliphant her- self did not display the same sagacity when the Scenes of Clerical Life and Adam Bede took the reading public by storm. Lord Jeffreys praise must have been intensely gratifying to the beginner, whose early associations and surroundings, by the bye, were all Whig, if not Radical; but, considering his lordships letter with a cool mind, we think that his eulogy was not one whit too strong, and that, in his fault- finding, he was, if anything, hypercrit- ical. It was well for Mrs. Oliphant that her barque was thus safely and satisfactorily launched upon the sea of letters, for, after her marriage, she was the main support of the household. Her husbands businessthat of an artist and designer of painted windows proved the reverse of remunerative. Finally his health broke dbwn, and af- ter the removal of the household to Italy in the vain hope that Mr. Oil- phant might there recover health, he died at Rome in 1859. During their stay in Italy the family, which now in- cluded a son and daughter, were prin- cipally dependent for subsistence upon advances made by Mr. John Blackwood on the faith of articles to be written by Mrs. Oliphant for his Magazine. Probably Mr. Blackett also made sim- ilar remittances. At her husbands death Mrs. Oliphant found herself in these circumstances: I had for all my fortune about 1000 of debt, a small insurance of, I think, 200 on Franks life, our furniture laid up in a ware- house, and my own faculties, such as they were, to make our living and pay off our burdens by. A posthumous child was born, and then, with the as- sistance of Mr. Blackwood and Mr. Blackett, Mrs. Oliphant returned to this country, where, after staying for some months with her brother at Birken- head, and afterwards at Elie in Fife (the scene of John Rintoul), she set- tled for the winter in Fettes Row, Ed- inburgh. It was during her residence there that, when things seemed at their very worst, she began the Carlingford seriesthe most satisfactory and the most popular group of her novels. They almost made me one of the populari- ties of literature, is her wistful com- mentary upon them. She retells t~e story of her interview with Mr. John Blackwood and the Major, which readers of the Annals of a Publishing House are not likely to have for- gotten. Truly the tide turned for her at the right moment. She flev- er made so much out of her writings as some of her contemporariesas An- thony Trollope, for example, or Miss Muloch. Yet I have done very well, The Record of a L~fr. 31 she admits, for a woman, and a friend- less woman with no one to make the best of me, and quite unable to do that for myself. I never could fight for a higher price, or do anything but trust to the honor of those I had to deal with. After a winter in Fettes Row, she moved to Ealing, which was her headquarters until she went to Wind- sor for the education of her boys. Now let the reader mentally place himself or herself in the situation in which Mrs. Oliphant stood after her husbands death, always postulating, of course, a certain faculty for writing, and a certain established position in the world of letters. What course would he pursue? We imagine that a prudent person, on arriving in England from abroad, would seek out some low- rented house in some country-town where education was cheap, or even in some altogether rural district; would cut down expenses as far as possible and live with the strictest economy; would direct his or her efforts to paying off outstanding debts and thereaftei to laying something by, as the phrase runs, for a rainy day. Not so Mrs. Oliphant. Deliberately and with open eyes she adopted a policy which neces- sarily involved her being always be- hindhand with the world. Her avow- als as to this plan of campaign are astoundingly outspoken. Nothing but the best of everything was good enough for her. She hated small economies. To travel expensively was her way. She never would travel second-class. I never liked second-class jourueys nor discomforts of that kind. Rather than face a twelve hours passage across the Channel she drove from St. Malo to Boulogne. She had none of what she calls the faculty of econom- ics in her. She stayed at the very best and most expensive hotels;~~ she dressed in the richest of silks and sat- ins; she Insisted on producing cham- pagne for her guests at dinner. To most people in her circumstances a main-door in Fettes Row and the boys going to the neighboring Edin- burgh Academy would have represent- ed the summit of ambition. Fettes Row is uninviting enough in all con- science. But the Academy had re- vived classical learning in the Scottish secondary schools; it had introduced athletics into Scottish school-life; and it holds its own to-day in the face of severe competition. Yet the Academy, which was good enough for most Scot- tish parents five-and-thirty years ago, was not good en~ugh for Mrs. Oh- phant. It must be either Eton or Har. row, and Eton it turned out to be. But that was not all. . Shortly after her removal to Windsor in order that her boy Cyril might go to Eton, her brother was ruined, and without an in- stants hesitation she took upon her- self the charge of his family. It meant the addition to her household of four people. No doubt, friends remonstrat- ed with her for undertaking this enor- mous additional responsibility. Mr. John Blackwood, at all events, indulged a few years afterwards in a kindly warning, which elicited from her the following candid statement of her po- sition: My money is almost always spent be- fore I get it, or received just in time for pressing necessities, so that the pleasant sensation of feeling even three months clear before me is one which rarely occurs to me. I have four people, an entire family, three of them requiring an education, absolutely on my hands to provide for. My only chance of ever escaping from this bur-~ den is to train and push on my nephew into a position in which he can take this weight upon himself. This process is of course a great additional expense, and I cannot let my own boys suffer for what I am obliged to do for him. For the next three years, during which I shall have all three at work, I can look forward to nothing but a fight ~ o~trance for money.... Now per- haps it would he wiser, with this tre 32 Tke Record of a L~fe. mendous struggle before me, to retire from my pretty house and pleasant sur- roundings and go to some cheap village where I could live at less expense. I hold myself ready to do this should the necessity absolutely arise; but you will easily understand that while still in the full tide of middle life, I shrink from such a sacrifice, and would rather work to the utmost of my powers than withdraw from all that makes exist- ence agreeable. . . . I never can save money, but if I can rear three men who may be good for something in the world, I shall not have lived for noth- ing. That this course involved the sacrifice of the ambition to do the very best work, Mrs. Oliphant was well aware. At the time, she tells us, with extra- ordinary frankness, it seemed rather a fine thing to make that resolution; but now I think that if I had taken the other way, which seemed the less no- ble, it might have been better for all of us. It was really easier to her, she says, to keep on with a flowing sail [the inappropriate adjective- is char- acteristic], to keep my household and a number of people comfortable, at the cost of incessant work, and an occa- sional great crisis of anxiety, than to live the self-restrained life which the greater artist imposes upon himself. Time after time she repeats this view in the autobiography. The easy swing of life was what she loved. I had enough to carry me on easily, almost luxuriously, but not enough to save. A little extra expense could always be made up for by a little extra exertion. What wonder that life for her was always at hard, if not at high, pres- sure? Well, indeed, might she liken herself to Prometheus, the man chained to the rock, with the vultures swooping down upon him! Think of it: always forestalling money earned, so that the price of a book was gen- erally eaten up before it was printed; always owing somebody, though never owing anybody to any unreasonable amount; and with awful moments when some dreadful corner seemed im- passable, which somehow was always rounded! Was it tempting Providence or trusting God? she herself asks. Who shall say? It is assuredly not for us to decide. We may note, at all events, that in one respect her calculations were justified; the power of work last- ed practically as long as life. Never was her skill more conspicuous than in the interval between Ceccos death and her own. Her sons, for whom she thus slaved, were-taken from her. They no longer required a provision. If the. line she followed was mistaken, surely she suffered a more than adequate pen- alty in the exquisitely bitter reflection that to some extent their failure to find a footing in life was due to her solic- itude and indulgence. There is, however, one consideration which rises irresistibly to the mind in reviewing the course which Mrs. Oil- phant mapped out for herself and con- sistently followed. If she was able to ride in first-class carriages, to stay at the best hotels, to educate her sons at Eton, to travel all over the Continent, to make a pilgrimage even to Jerusa- 1cm, whence came the money to meet the inevitable expense? The answer is very simple,from her publishers. They acted as her bankers: they ad- vanced money to her on the security of her health of body and vigor of mind. It may very well be that if Mrs. Oliphant had been beforehand with the world, she might have commanded better prices. You cannot expect, a capitalist to let you have the use of ~is capital for absolutely nothing. Dickens has explained this aspect of a much- debated question with great force and clearness.2 But it is certain that, as He was equally intolerant of every magnifi- cent proposal that should render the literary man independent of the hookseller. . - - what does it come to? he remarked. You and I kuow very well that iu uiue cases out of ten the author is at a disadvantage with the pub- The Record of a L~fr. matters actually stood, Mrs. Oliphant Would have had to forego most of the luxuries and comforts by which she set as much store as anybody else, had it not been for the ready aid of those who financed her. In what other calling would she have been so fortu- nate? Perhaps, if she had been a painter, a picture-dealer might have ad- vanced her a few guineas. But we know of no profession other than let- ters in which remuneration can be an- ticipated to the same amount and on the same terms. Solicitors do not finance barristers to the tune of sev- eral thousands. A struggling surgeon will probably fail to raise a five-pound note on the strength of a promise to cut off the lenders leg if called upon to do so. When the countless iniquities of the trade are rehearsed by pros- perous and ~vell-fed authors, let not the recording angel fail to note that pub- lishers have long done, and still con- tinue to do, what is asked and expect- ed of no man in any other kind of busi- ness. From the point of view of Literature, it would be affectation to pretend not to regret that Mrs. Oliphant drove her- self so hard. She resented compliments to her industry; but she sometimes ran a serious risk of leaving nothing but her industry for people to compliment her upon. How remarkable it was, the present volume, with its full and ~x- cellent bibliography, gives ample indi- cation. She had always an article on hand for Maga in the midst of her heaviest work. No other contributor, except Aytoun, approached her ver- satility and diligence, and the term of his connection with the Magazine was considerably shorter than hers. With the exception of purely political sub- usher, because the publisher has caplt~l and the author has not. We know perfectly well that in nine cases out of ten money is advanced by the publisher before the book Is producible often long before. Forsters Life of Dickens, lii. 451. LIVI1~G AGE. VOL. IV 179 jects, there was almost no topic on which she was not prepared to write. Old-fashioned in her ideas, she pre- ferred the system of anonymous to that of signed articles; but she held out vig- orously for her own views when they were not in harmony with the Editors, as the correspondence sufficiently tes- tifies. She was extremely plain-spoken in her comments on the Magazine upo~ occasion, and in writing to the Editor did not hesitate to stigmatize any ar- ticle as dreadful nonsense if she thought it so. As a critic she was fair and open-minded: not averse from a little slashing when that operation seemed necessary, and w~ell able to ap- ply the rod to serious delinquents. Her opinions were strongly held, and some- times, perhaps, prevented her from catching the true drift of ideas with which she was unfamiliar. Yet she had no fads or eccentricities, no logs to roll, no axes to grind; and in the great majority of cases her views were both sensible and sound. Long prac- tice had endowed her with a species of instinct for discovering the salient points of a book at a mere glance and on the first turning over of the leaves. The knack of what is called journal- ism she possessed in an unusual de- gree. Her copy, particularly in the case of her more important articles, was often delayed till the last possible moment, but never longer. She was extraordinarily apt and ready at tak- ing up a hint, and at working into her articles any new line of thought or ar- gument suggested to her, provided al- ways that It did not conflict with her own prejudices or convictions. In that case she was tenacious to the point of obstinacy; nor did she face the task of recasting a completed work with any more equanimity than her neigh- bors. Yet, when the first shock of an- noyance was past, she was often wise enough to profit by distasteful advice; and The Beleaguered City is a strik -34 The Record of a ing instance of judicious, though at the time, perhaps, reluctant, deference to the counsels of another. She wrote currcnte calamo. It was Impossible to foretell what length her articles would run to: she herself had probably lit- tle notion when she took up her pen. Hence a slight readjustment of balance or proportion might sometimes have effected a perceptible improvement. But these shortcomings were trivial indeed in comparison with her abound- ing merits. No periodical was ever better or more loyally served by a con- tributor: not the Quarterly by Crok- er, not the Saturday Review by Yen- ables, scarce even Maga herself by John Wilson or Professor Aytoun. Mrs. Oliphants attitude to her art was eminently sane and healthy. I have written because it gave me pleas- ure, she says, because it came natu- ral to me, because it was like talking or breathing, besides the big fact that it was necessary for me to work for my children. She never knew that freedom from human ties which she notes as one of the most singular traits in Laurence Oliphant and his wife. I have always had to think of other peo- ple, and to plan everythingfor my own pleasure, it is true, very often, but always in subjection to the necessity which bound me to them. She had none of the airs and graces of those who take themselves seriously. You make me nervous, she writes to Mr. John Blackwood about Miss Majoribanksone of her very finest novelswhen you talk about the first rank of novelists, etc. Nobody in the world cares whether I am in the first or sixth. I mean I have no one left who cares, and the world can do abso- lutely nothing for me except giving me a little more money, which Heaven - knows, I spend easily enough as it is. But all the same I will do my 1~st, on- ly please recognize the difference a lit- tle between a man who can take the good of his reputation, if he has any, and a poor soul who is concerned about nothing except the most domestic and limited concerns. Yet it would probably have been rash to take her at her word; and a homolo- gation, express or implied, of that view by another would in all likelihood, as she herself owns, have discovered the artists pride in the work of her hands. Unfavorable criticism she could en- dure, without in the least professing to be unscathed by its arrows. What is the reputation of a circulating libra- ry to me? she asks. Eulogy did not turn her head, a fact which she attrib- uted to her strong Scotch sense of the absurdity of a chorus of praise. If such a sense were truLy Scottish once. it has now, we fear, become expatriat- ed. Laudari a lau4atis gave her unal- loyed pleasure. The applause of men like Mr. Hutton or Mr. Kinglakemen whom she respected and whose work she admiredwas indeed worth earn- ing. What she could not tolerate was the patronizing approbation so often bestowed upon her by the press, and sometimes by thoughtless persons in private lifethe contemptuous com- pliments, as she describes them, which it was customary to pay to her indefatigable industry, and the like. One may sympathize thoroughly with this feeling, while refusing to acknowi edge that such a strain of praise wa~ either unnatural or necessarily ill-na- tured. In glancing at Mrs. Oliphants ca~ reer, we have confined our attention, ~s far as possible, to those aspects of~t which are more directly of public in- terest, or which are closely associated with this Magazine and those respon- sible for its conduct. Upon its more pri- vate side, as disclosed in the pages be- fore us, we confess that we have not the heart to enter, though in a sense it forms the distinctive feature of the hook. The story is inexpressibly mel In Siberia. ancholy. As we read, we seem to hear the despairing cry of the Psalmist: Will the Lord cast off for ever? Will he be favorable no more? Is his mercy clean gone for ever? Doth his prom- ise fail for evermore? Hath God for- gotten to be gracious? Hath he in anger shut up his tender mercies? Yet, bereft of husband and children, in the very midst of her awful desolation, Mrs. Oliphant, we are satisfied, would have echoed the inspired words in whi9h the sacred writer answers his own agonizing doubts: And I said, This is my infirmity; but I will remem- ber the years of the right hand of the most High. Her hearts desire was granted. Not long did she survive her younger son. Death came on the 25th of June, 1897,almost at the very peri- od at which she had prayed for its ar- rival. Felix opportunitate mortis, we may well call her. When I die (such is her prediction), I know what people will say of me: they will give me credit for courage (which I almost think is not courage but insen- sibility, and for honesty and honorable dealing; they will say I did my duty with a kind of steadiness, not knowing Blackwoods Magazine. how I have rebelled and groaned under the rod. Scarcely anybody who cares to speculate further will know what to say of my working power and my own conception of it; for, except one or two, even my friends will scarcely believe how little possessed I am with any thought of it all how little credit I feel due to me, how accidental most things have been, and how entirely a. matter of daily labor, congenial work, sometimes now and then the expres..- sion of my own heart, almost always. the work most pleasant to me, this has- been. We believe that the judgment of the public upon Mrs. Oliphants life and character will be conceiyed in terms infinitely more favorable than she thus anticipated. But what, after all, does the verdict of her contemporaries or of posterity matter? She has passed to the bar of a Tribunal whose Justice and whose Mercy are infinite; and, in so far as it is permissible to mortals to attempt to penetrate within the veil, we may rest assured that she is reap- ing the reward allotted, by the express promise of the Almighty, to all those who in their day and generation have been good and faithful servants, IN SIBERIA. Dark sky,and white dead earth,famine and cold, Held to chained labor in the accurs~d mine. Lostkindred, home and fortune, here to pine, Nor any more Gods sunshine to behold. Such doom is ours whose miseries are told Where no man heeds or marks them. Line on line We march like herded cattle in confine, Our manhood crushed,our honor robbed and sold. We once had struggled when they ruthless brake All that was precious,now, that higher part, Which stays the suiclUe for conscience sake, Alone remaineth to the broken heart. As sinks a river lapped in snow and frost, We, too, must sink from sight,forgotten,lost. .36 A Muddy Corner. A MUDDY CORNER. Ai~he sun is at its highest and pouring down its rays directly on me as I crawl feet foremost through the grass, and down the gentle slope to Muddy Cor- ner. I have tried in vain leaving the gate ajar and going through it bent double, as the click of the latch has al- ways started the birds off, even if the sight of me in the distance has not done so. While I am crawling, I can quite understand how it is that being rubbed the wrong way is the typical illustration of being subjected to ir- l~itating processes. As I go fiat, inch by inch, inch by inch, face downwards ~I weigh fifteen stone), not daring to breathe hardly, much less pant, I ihink I scrape up with my chin every bit of straw and every Little stone that there is in the parish. And then, When I am through the railing, and get amongst the slush and mud, oh dear! my poor clothes! and the stickiness, and the sliminess! and I have to keep on crawling still! The long spear grass tickles my neck and scratches my face, but thank goodness it is beautifully cool now, as the copse and the bank are between me and the sun. Ah! there they are: I have beaten them this time. Even the old cock blackbird does not see me, or, if he does, he thinks it is either a veritable Goliath of ~ mole that is creeping along, or some ~strange creature without a face, that cannot do him any harm. There are three plovers, several water-hens, two red-shanks, two snipe, five blackbirds, a woodpecker, and, by all the mud that is on me, there are two thick-knees! Some wood-pigeons and a turtle-dove are promenading on the edge of the crowd, and two rats, with eyes so bright that I can see them shining here, where I am, quite twenty yards away, keep stealing in and out, or sit on their haunches watching. It is a happy lit- tle Eden of mud, and there is no ser- pent nor anything like one near, for even the frogs have left the spot and gone to the pond round the corner of the Corner. The swallows fly over all, their white breasts and swift gliding motion sending flashes of light and purity on the black, oozy mud that make one forget how rotten and filthy it is. The glorious sun gleams in, too, betwixt the last post of the rails and the gray moss-covered tree that stands at the edge of the Corner, .... and plays the alchemist, Turning with nplendor of his precious eye, The meager cloddy earth to glittering gold. This must have been a muddy oar- ncr of some kind or other for count- less generations, as two summers since. when it was all but dry, I picked up two rough flint ice picks from the mid- dle of it, that had, no doubt, been ly- ing there since they were dropped by the men of that time, so far back, of which the poet speaks: By the swamp in the forest The oak branches groan, As the savage primeval, With russet hair thrown Oer his huge naked limbs, his hatchet of stone. swings On the swamp in the forest One clear star is shown And the reeds fill the night with A long troubled moan And the girl sits and sobs in the darknesa~alone. Why, one of my flints may be the very one that the sabre-tooths victim let fall! This whole piece of land was, no A Muddy Corner. 37 doubt, a swamp before it was drained, and the waters gathered into the run- let that made the moat of the Old Hall. Muddy Corner in its present form is a wide depression made in the moat for the servants from the Hall to come down to and get water from. When the ditch which now represents the moat is dry, this spot remains a quag- mire and becomes the favorite resort of all kinds of birds, and especially of those that forage on the fens. In the early morning they gather round it, and fill the air with their cries. All day long, at such a time, there are birds hanging about it; but, lying as it does next the open on all sides but one, and on the wooded side next to a gate with a latch that goes off like a gun when it is opened, I have never been able to get near the wary creatures by upright means, and therefore I have been obliged to adopt the crawling method of doing so which I have just described. Watching them at leisure as I am doing now, I can well see what fine, handsome birds green plovers, other- wise lapwings, are. The brown purplish green of their plumage shines in the sun as they take their short, quick runs up and down with their narrow, three-inch-long crest erect, and every now and then rapidly put- ting their bills to the ground at the end of each little run, and then raising them again without picking anything up. The robin has a somewhat simil- ar habit, but he stoops his whole body as if gathering himself up for a longer leap. Does the lapwing do this as an aid to stopping himself short? The common name of the lapwing, pee- wit, has given it a fame beyond that of most birils, as it and the cuckoo are the standing examples with philol- ogists of the school that fioutiag op- ponents call the school of the bow- wows, of the truth of their theory that language arose from man mim icking natural sounds. The peewit, however, is by no means as good an example as might be chosen, as this designation of the bird is national and modern. It is also indefinite as it does not exactly describe the cry of the bird. Our East Anglian pee-weep comes much nearer to the querulous sound it makes when disturbed. Cuck- 00, and hoopoe, however, are as old, and apparently as universal, as language itself, and also represent with fidelity the cries of the birds so named. The lapwing is one of the birds that lays its eggs on the bare ground, frequently in the hollow made by the foot of a horse or cow that has been pastured on the marsh in wet weather, and sometimes in a dent on the top of a moley hill or between the ridges of growing corn. Now and then the nest is lined with a few leaves or pieces of dry grass, but very often even the making of this scanty bed is too much trouble for the lap- wing to take, and the eggs are placed, on the naked soil. I wonder how many epicures know that four out of every five of the plovers eggs they eat are not plovers eggs at all, but gulls eggs, generally those of the black-beaked gull? I cannot under- stand why a soft-headed person should be called a gull, as the gull is one of the cleverest of birds, and far more likely to gull than to be gulled. I always feel when I read such lines as the following how much the beautiful birds are slandered by them, and that gull, when used in the sense of be- fooling any one, or to describe the per~- son befooled, does not mean the bird; but that in reality it is gulp, clipped short, and that the witlings described are so called because they are ready to swallow anything. A gull is he which weares good has- some clothes And stands in presence stroaking up his hycre; 38 A Muddy Corner. And fills up his unperfect speech with oathes, But speaks not one wise word through- out the years. But to define a gull in terms precise, A gull is he which seems and is not wise. Old translation of Ovid. Not very far from here a gentleman makes quite a nice little annual for- tune out of the eggs of the black-head- ed gulls that nest in thousands on an island standing in the middle of a mere on his grounds. They are sold in the London shops as plovers eggs. The gulls generally lay a clutch of three eggs. Two clutches are removed, and the gull is allowed to hatch the third. I think of birds treated thus we may say with emphasis, Poor gulls! The thick-knees are each of them comfortably standing on one long leg, with a quiet enjoyment of the sun- shine and the flickering shadows it casts on the mud, which I, lying flal, and my chin well caked with the last, cannot attain to. I can see their re- markably prominent eyes, and also the thick knees that give them one of their names, for they have many. Here we call them stone-curlews. In other parts of England they are known as Norfolk plovers, or the great plov- er, or the thick-kneed bustard. The French call this bird lostardeau eriard and le planer gran,d, the former name being given to it from the sharp wailing note it makes in the morning and evening twilight. The Germans call it Grosser Braach Vogel, because it is in the habit of frequent- ing uncultivated ground. Indeed, these two thick-knees are quite out of their usual beat here, as they live on the Warren, laying their two eggs amongst the pebbles and flints on the surface of the soil. The eggs assimilate so closely to the surrounding stones that it is generally the foot and not the eye that discovers them. They vary in color, according to that of the stones among which they are placed. The clay-color eggs, with dark blotches on a ground of smoky purple, and ends of nearly equal breadth, look so much like gravel-stained flints that I think the old bird herself must occasionally make a mistake and try to put some warmth into some of the flints of that description which are scattered about their breeding ground. They have come down here after the tadpoles and small frogs, no doubt. It is said that, unlike other birds of the same genus, they eat the flesh of warm-blooded small animals, catching mice and young rats when they get the chance. They are, according to Gilbert White, the earliest migrant to arrive. He says that in 1788 they were heard at Selborne, as early as February 27. I have not, however, heard them calling here till early in April. This agrees with Whites list in his flr~t letter to Dames Barrington, in which he says that the stone-curlews usually appear at the end of March. The young thick-knees vie with the eggs they are hatched from in their desire to be unobtrusive. When first hatched the nestlings are clothed in russet grey; by-and-by, a streak of brown shows itself in the center of each feather on the back, the whole plumage having a peculiar silky shine on it, exactly the same as that of the flints amongst which the fledglings run to cover at the approach of dan- ger. As autumn advances the old birds become duller in appearance, 141e clear brown splash in the center of the feathers on the after parts becoming almost as russet as the other parts of the feather, and all the plumage, with the exception of the white underparts and the white line on each wing, grad- ually assuming a dingy appearance, so as to harmonize with that of soil and stones under a wintry sky. The thick- A Muddy Corner. 39 knee is found all the year round in the south of France, and the countries ly- ing south of it. It leaves England, northern France and Germany in Oc- tober, and never travels farther north in England than the North Riding, where it is occasionally found. Like the nightingales, it objects to go far- ther west than Dorsetshire and Som- ersetshire. Like them, also, it is un- known in Scotland and Ireland. The pair that are meditating in the mud are full-grown birds, weighing nearly a pound each, I should think, and are about eighteen inches long. Each of them is standing on a leg that is at least six inches in length. The two rats are the only creatures that seem to suspect any danger. They evidently are aware that a strange an- imal of some kind or another is near at hand, and dart into the bank every half-minute, and then creep gingerly out again. What pretty ereatures they are, and how pitiful it is to think that they are merciless cannibals, slayers of the young and everything else that is bad, except that they seem to have a great reverence for the aged of their own kind when they are alive! There are numerous instances recorded of blind rats being guided by other rats to their food; and some years ago I fre- i~uently watched a rat, which was either infirm or blind, as it was being taken across a rather wide yard by two other rats, from its hole under the stable wall to the trough in the pigstye on the other side of the yard. And yet if a rat is killed in a trap it is at once eaten by other rats in prefer- ence to any other food that may be ly- ing about. I doubt if rats eat eggs, and rather imagine they have to bear the sins of larger thieves, some of whom at least pose as honorable men. I have known them constantly to run in and out of fowl and pigeon houses, and have never missed an egg. They will take pigeons out of their nests and off their perches, and will wait twenty days till a clutch of chickens is on the point of being hatched, and then scoop them out of the eggs, and also make off with the hen if it is a bantam. After my ex- perience this last summer I must give rats pre-eminence over all other ani- mals for mental ability. I had been accustomed to their jumping clean through a hole in a wall, in the middle of which a trap was placed. I had heard on good authority that they would sweep the fan of a trap long- ways with their tails, so as to get the bait off without starting the trap; and I had known bait that bad been nailed to a fallen tree repeatedly cleared off without the trap beneath being sprung. I could only account for this last feat being accomplished by one rat standing on anothers shoulders and eating the bait while he was lean- ing over the trap and resting his fore- paws on the trunk of the tree. As I also caught Mr. Rat at last by his two forelegs, I feel the more certain this is what he was doing. The only other way he could possibly have got the bait without being caught was by tak- ing flying leaps at it lengthways, as the trunk of the tree had no bark on that he could scramble along, and it was also lying several inches off the ground. There were no footmarks or other signs of that having been done. This year, however, my rats excelled themselves. Several times the rat traps in the fowl-pens had gone off without anything bein~ caught in them. On observing the traps closely I noticed that there were thick quill feathers in them. As I al- ways placed the traps under carefully sifted sawdust, I, although it seemed incredible, was obliged to conclude that the rats had started the traps with feathers held in their mouths. I, there- fore, most carefully swept a fowl-pen 40 A Muddy Corner. out, leaving some feathers and pieces of stick lying outside, and set the traps again. The next morning two were sprung, one gripping a feather and the other a piece of wood, -and the bait had disappeared. That day I carefully cleared away every feather or piece of stick that I could see lying anywhere near the fowl-pens. The next morning I found small bunches of short pieces of grass laid crosswise on the fans of the traps, so that if a rat had been caught in the bows of the trap it could easily have withdrawn its leg without injuring it. If this was not a proof of the exercise of reasoning faculties, I do not know what reason is. Anyhow I left the rats on that side the glebe almost entirely alone for the rest of the summer, as I felt they had earned the right to live. In spite of this kind- ness, one of them pulled from under the old hen three white chickens that were the pride of Harriet the poultry womans heart! Unsparing vengeance did overtake that rat the next night As I lie here I can see the sunshine, as it falls between the branches, mak- ing great patches of light on the bark of the trees; these patches have flick- ering edges as the branches sway in different directions, and sometimes they disappear altogether. While they remain one can see how full the air is of insects, and what plentiful larders the trees are for the birds. These white patches are continually being crossed and recrossed by tiny spots of shadow that are cast from insects flitting backwards and forwards, or darker black spots go up and down them, these darker spots being insects that are crawling on the surface of the bark. The copse is quite still, and the insects have it all to themselves, as the swallows cannot get between the close branches, and it is too hot for other birds to be busy. The reflection from the leaves of the trees and the bright moist-growing grass in the copse gives an olive hue to the atmosphere that is most uncanny. I can remember, that, as a boy, I always felt a creeping ter- ror when in such places lest some strange creature should come out of the unearthly light and dreadful si- lence. I never felt this terror either in the dark, or when alone on the vast- est stretch of open land, and lest it should overtake me now as it used to in the old days, I turn my eyes to Muddy Corner again. I wonder if these are the snipe that rest in Snipe Corner, a good mile away, where the stream that goes through our parish joins the Eastmoor stream. I have never heard a snipe buzzing at this end of the fen, but at the Eastmoor end there are always two or three to be heard on a shining spring afternoon, buzzing away, some- times in and sometimes out of sight. This buzzing of the snipes is one of the mysteries of bird life. Is the sound which is something between the humming of a humble bee of Brob- dingnag and the noise made by beat- ing an Indian tom-tommade by the air whizzing through the pinions of the bird as it drops slantwise to the ground in its rapid zig-zag flights, or is it made by the bird forcibly expell- ing the air from its lungs through its closed mandibles? The Unsociable Snipe would be a good name for the bird when once its family is off its hands, because, while it is gregarious in the winter, it recognizes no leader, as rooks and geese do, and ia search- ing for its food it pursues its oW~sI course without paying the least at- tention to the other members of the flock. There are three English species of snipe: the common snipe, the jack snipe, and the great snipe. The last is But I can bear my cramped .position no longer, so all at once my elbows give way, and I go squash on the wet The Very Rev.. Canon Domenico Pucci, D.D. 41 soil. There is a scutter and rustle a scream of pee-weep; and I am left for a moment, a wild rush of wings, a spluttering and all alone in Muddy shrieking laugh from the woodpecker, Corner. Robert C. Nightingale. Good Words. THE VERY REV. CANON DOMENICO PUCCi, D. D., DOMESTIC PRELATE TO HIS HOLINESS. I had told myself many a time that it was spendthrift folly to travel first-class. I even asseverated contin- ually the fatuous lie that second-class was quite as nice as first. But to-day, a fit of good conduct being upon me, I was firmly resolved to go second. The queue at the ticket-office was long, my place in it very far back, the ticket clerk, even for a Tuscan railway official, unusually slow. There were but five minutes to spare when I got to the window. A second single to Pistoia, please! I said, wincing as with an effort I got out the objectionable expression sec- ond. The ticket-clerk was grieved but po- lite. I only distribute third-class tickets here, signore, he answered. Have the complacency to step to the adjoining window. I glanced at the adjoining window. There was another long queue there, another very deliberate clerk. If I took up my place at the end of the tail I should certainly miss the train. There was no time to hesitate, and so in despair I plunged, a glorious glow of heroic virtue suffusing my whole being. Then favor me, I said, with a third single to Pistoia! But the prospect was not alluring. There are no padded third-class car- riages on the Adriatic line. A number of hilimen back from the winters work in Corsica were returning to their mountain homes above Pistola; each carried a large sack of unfra- grant wearing apparel; some of them had dogs between their knees; all of them spades, hoes, rakes, walking staves, great gourds, ant a variety of impedimenta that littered the car- riages across and across. It was near the dinner hour, too, and windows would be all tight shut, and (oh, hor- ror!) garlic would be consumed and its redolence would remain. I walked up and down the train anxiously spying into every carriage. Near the engine I noticed a compartment nearly emp- ty, and I noticed, what decided me to enter, a priest in one corner of it, for the Tuscan peasant still respects the priest, and I felt he would be some sort of protection. I got in and sat down opposite to him. He was deep in the Florence Ul- tramontane paper, the Unit~ Cattolica, but raised his eyes as I seated myself and acknowledged my presence. I bowed in return, but he was already back in his paper, so I had nothing better to do than to observe and study him. He was an old man with close- cropped white hair, and the mildest pair of old eyes that I have ever seen. His forehead was low and narrowish, but the nose was large, aquiline and finely cut, indicating intellect and a certain firmness of purpose. He wds refined-looking to the finger-tips, nay, aristocratic, with the clear mark of old family stamped on his whole be- ing. What struck me was the ex 42 The Very Rev. Canon Domenico Pucci, D.D. treme neatness and cleanliness of his apparel. The white Roman collar and white cuffs were spotless, the steel buckles on his shoes shone brightly, the long black cassock with its my- riad buttons, the broad-brimmed plush hat, seemed cared for and well brushed. A little bit of Roman purple silk, showing at the top of the cassock below the collar, agreeably set off the thin, white, wrinkled face. I could not help thinking what a pleasing picture he would make against the green vel- vet cushions of an Adriatic first-class compartment, and, priest though he was, how much more natural it would have been for such a refined gentle- man to be there. I wished that we were both there. Also, I wished to talk to him, but knew not how to be- gin. Before we reached Pisa he neatly folded his paper and commenced to gaze out of the window in an upward direction as if he were concerned with the things of Heaven rather than the beauties of the landscape. His thoughts were pleasant evidently; a faint smile played about the lips, and the whole face reflected a good con- science and a sanctified interior. Death might come and welcomethat, too, the face seemed to convey. The pale, blue eyes, I saw, were milder and more beautiful than I had supposed; they spoke of the gentlest manner of clemency and illimitable loving-kind- ness. Yes, I really must get into con- versation with him. But there was no time, even if my unready tongue had found a suitable phrase, for he produced a big breviary and began to read in it earnestly, al- most audibly, his lips moving the whole time. A pang of annoyance shot through me. I wanted more and more to talk to him. You ar~reading that big book to impress me, I said to myself, for it is the laymans birth- right to suspect every ecclesiastic of hypocrisy. And you are moving your lips to impress me, I went on4 Only it doesnt. I should think more of you if you were less ostentatious. Charit- able thoughts indeed, and how unjust I now know well enough. The Roman Church obliges her priests to read the Canonical Hours every day, and the priest may not read the Office to him- self; if not actually said aloud, he is obliged at least to form every word with his lips, and that alone was the reason why the good man opposite me was moving his lips. As the train lumbered into Lucca Station, the priest closed his book and crossed himself. Then he rose to leave us. From underneath the seat, willing hands preventing him, his bag was dragged forth, a real carpet bag with mauve roses on a black ground, and with a slight bow to me and a cheery buona sera and buon viaggio to the whole company, he alighted, and I saw him no more. Why did I not speak to him? If I had, what would his con- versation have been like? If I had, I should have prevented him from the better entertainment of saying his Office. I went on musing about him for a while, but he passed out of my mind and thoughts altogether at the sight of the rich beauties of the Valley of the Nievole which the train had now entered. * * * * * * * I returned home from Pistola a fort- night later, and on the afternoon of the same day noticed an unusual stir in front of the cathedral in the ~ig piazza. The lintel of the main entrance was draped with black silver-fringed hangings. A continual stream of peo- ple of all classes was passing in and out of the cathedral. There was a hush upon them and a look of coficern in every f~ice. What could be the matter, I thought? What is the matter? I asked of an old beggar-woman, who was seated on the steps lustily beseeching the pass- ing buoni Cristiani for alms. Do you not know, signore? she re- plied. The Canonico Pucci is dead! A feeling groan escaped her lips. And who was the Canonico Pucci? I inquired. The woman looked at me in amaze- ment. You are a stranger, signore. or you are rich. Otherwise you would know. He was the friend of the poor, a saint, a man of great family, who stripped himself of everything for the poor. He was poorer than the poor, for all he looked such a great gentle- man. We beggars took all we could get when he was rich, but for a long time we have hidden away when we saw him coming. He would give us his last soldo, and you dare not refuse he was such a gran signore. But of- ten he had not food to eat. He was a real saint, I tell you, and people have found it out now that he is dead. His body is lying in state in there. Go in and see; he looks such an angel, bless his dear face. I dropped a coin into her hand and stood a while under the portico, listen- ing to the copversation of animated groups. What nonsense, I tell you! He rich! Why, the Canons of the Duomo get but four hundred francs a year. They say there were but five soldi found in his room when he died. But he was of the family of the Counts Pucci of Prato, and he was a prelate of his Holiness. Maybe! But he was a prodigal, only he spent all hi~ patrimony on the poor as you or I might do on pleasures. You couldnt trust him with money for himself. He had a hole in his hand, as the proverb says. He used to keep twenty families going out of the allow- ance his cousin the Count mad~him and when the Count found out what he was doing, he stopped it. As for being a prelate of his Holiness, that 43 brings you in no money. I tell you he was living on a franc and a half a day, and giving charity out of that! But I have been in his comfortable sitting-room! said another voice. Nonsense! That wasnt his sitting- room. He had but one room, a small bedroom with a little iron bedstead in it. The padrona di casa used to lend him her sitting-room to receive people in. He was very proud, was the Can- onico Pucci. He loved to be poor, but not to seem poor. He was a very fine gentleman, the Canonico; look how neat and bright his clothes always were. Well, the truth is coming out now. There were many who thought him rich. The poor knew well enough he wasnt. Nonsense, I tell you! The sisters never paid him a half-penny for his services as chaplain to the Childrens Hospital. The Sisters gave him a bit of car- pet for his bedroom, but he sold it for the poor. The Mother Superiors just found it out. Therell be weeping and wailing among the children at the Spedalino to-day. They say he dearly loved the little ones. They say it was cancer he died of. And no one knew of it. He hadnt an armchair to sit in, or a bit of fire all through the winter. And he should have been having good nourishing food. But you couldnt do anything for himeven the Sisters couldnt. ( Hes lived poor, but hell have the funeral of a cardinal. All the confra- ternities are coming. they say, and all the Orders and the parochial commit- tees. Well, his souls in paradise. thats certain! My pulses stirred by this Hosanna of highest praise, I passed into the cathedral. What an immense stream The Very Rev. Ganon Domenico Pucci, D.D. 44 The Very Rev. 61anon Dornenico Pucci, D.D. of people, to be sure! What excite- ment! What a number of poor and ragged creatures! They cannot keep si- lent. There is a hum of talk sounding irreverent in the sacred edifice but be- ing in reality only a hymn of praise. At the far end of the cathedral I saw a tall, stately catafalque of black and gold, and underneath it, on a black- draped bier, an open coffin in which lay the body of an ecclesiastic. Six towering candlesticks with lighted candles stood round the catafalque. I neared it with difficulty, and then a pang gripped my heart and a mist came over my eyes. I might have guessed it surely from the disjointed talk I had heard a moment before. But I did not. It came as a surprise, a shock, and it left me with the heart- ache. There before me, clad in pur- ple cassock and grey fur amice, the buckles on his shoes shining brightly in the flickering candle-light, a divin- ity doctors biretta on his head, and a silver crucifix pressed In the thin hands clasped across his breastthere before me, lay in the calm sleep of death the old priest with whom I had travelled in a third-class carriage little more than a fortnight before! I could not stop to gaze long at the placid face, to wonder what words would have crossed the smiling lips had I spoken to him, to reproach myself for my hard thoughts of him; the constant stream carried me forcibly back to the door. Therell be a grand funeral to-night. Shall you go, Gianni? Eh? Rather! And you? Eb? I should think so! And so shall I, I resolved. I got back to the cathedral at eight oclock. There was no getting in for the crowds. But I could look in, and I saw that the bishop himself, in black cope and plain white mitre, was.offlciat- lag. The coffin, still on the bier, was closed now and covered with many gar- lands of flowers. There were wreaths. too, hanging on the four posts of the catafaique. Voices were chanting the Libera; the whole of the vast crowd took it up: Libera me, Domine, do morte eterna in die illa tremenda: Dum veneris judicare saeculum per ignom. It seemed needless to pray for a soul that must surely be already in Para- dise. The procession began to form and the crowds poured out of the church. It was a wonderful procession. Children of several orphanages, Sisters of sever- al Orders, the Sisters of St. Vincent of Paul from the Spedalino, with their big starched white caps; Brothers of the Archconfraternity of the Miseri- cordia, in black linen gowns and black masks, Brothers of the Purification, with their broad white collars, all the parish confraternities, representatives of many Orders in their habits Franciscans, Capuchins, Dominicans. Crutched Friars, Augustinian Friars, Barnabites and Vallombrosans from the monastery on the hill; a long file of the secular clergy, the bishop and full chapter of canons, and, closing the pro- cession, the state hearse of the Miseri- cordia Brothers smothered in a pro- fusion of flowers. Every man and woman in the long array carried a flaming torch. Behind the hearse there walked a multitude of the Canons best friendsthe blind, the maimed, the halt, the ragged and tattered, the scum and off-scourings of the city, struggli~~g for precedence. From the crowd which followed and the crowds which lined the streets there surged an uncomfor- table sound of sobbing which rose to loud-voiced, heart-piercing lamentations as the procession defiled through the poorer quarters of the town. I followed to the city gates, where the procession broke up. All the streets of the city were animated with the returning At Saint Helena. 45 crowds, and the ilosanna of praise con- tinued to swell on every side. It had indeed been an imposing demonstra- tion, and all for a man who had never written a book or made a speech or done a single public act, who the day before had been unknown to half the city, whose fame was not of his seek- ing but the creation of the poor, whose only claim to public honors was that Temple Bar. he had been beloved of the poor and had lived like one of them. Blessed indeed is the holy land of Tuscany, where the love of poverty and its unostentatious practice is still a claim to public distinction, and where a simple love of the poor and an un- failing charity towards them is title sufficient to all the pomp and glory of a heros funeral! Montgomery Oarmichctel. AT SAINT HELENA.* What dreams allured the imagination of the great prisoner of Saint Helena upon the rock to which he was con- signed by the panic fears of Europes demoralized sovereigns? By what spasms of helpless wrath were his days tormented and eventually shortened? What hopes haunted his brain? in what reflections did he indulge, and what sort of judgments did he pass upon men and things,on the history which he had turned topsy-turvy and the human drama wherein he had l)layed so colossal a part? What mern- ones, what images, what mirages did he see shaping themselves out of the mists that enveloped his isle? Wbat words of reproach or pity, what prom- ises of vast renown, what mysterious voices did he hear in the roar of the waves? For twenty-five years now we have been asking questions like these of anybody and everybody who might by chance have caught some of the sighs of that long agony. The narra- tives of the Emperors companions, Las Casas, Montholon, OMeara; those of attendants, like Sttirmer, Balmain and Montcheau, those of a numl~r of his officers and keepers have one after another been given to the world, until * Translated or The Living Age. now there are no more to come, and still our curiosity is not satisfied. The latest publication of all, the Journal of Gourgand, will lose none of its in- terest through the abundance of pre- vious documents. It comes at a mo- ment when the figure of the first Na- poleon is imposing itself on the imag- ination as never before, and claiming, with tyrannous insistence, a larger share in the studies of the historian and the moralist. We have speaking proof of this in the almost simultaneous -ap- pearance of M. Nenery Noursayes Waterloo, M. Chuquets Toulon, and the Josephine of M. Fr6d~ric Marson. The fact is that we have just reached the point from which the man and his work are first seen in all their enormity. Never, perhaps, has man- kind witnessed so close and so aston- ishing a union, in one individual, of imaginative, initiative and executis-d power. Napoleon stimulated so won- derfully the energies of all about him, he moved mens minds so profoundly, he required of our old world so many efforts and sacrifices, which he reward- ed by so signal an increase of glory; he has left the mark of his genius so 1 General Baron Goorgand Joornal inedit de 1S15 a 1515. 2 vol. Paris, Flammarion. 46 indelibly impressed upon our national life, that, after having by turns extolled and anathematized, we feel absolutely forced to make a strenuous effort to comprehend him. The Journal of Gour- gand will help us to do so. It consists of notes jotted down from day to day, utterly without order, arrangement, care for literary form, or design of pub- lication. The most important conversa- tions were set down in brief as soon as they had taken place; the most trivial details of every-day existence were re- ported with equal assiduity. We are thus admitted into the very heart of the Saint Helena life, and made ac- quainted with the Emperors inmost thought. In the first place, these notes cast a glaring light upon the person of the man who dashed them off, hurriedly, feverishly, sometimes furiously. Gour- gand was the youngest of Napoleons companions in captivity; one of his bravest officers, one who had rendered him immense personal service. He was the first person inside the Kremlin, and destroyed with his own hands the mine which was intended to blow up the whole imperial staff. At Brienne he shot a Cossack who had all but slain the Emperor. But it is best to let Gourgand himself enumerate Gour- gands titles to gratitude,which he does with remarkable exactitude of memory in the course of a conversation with Bertrand. I have been with the Emperor nine years, and I should have been only too happy to die for him in Russia, Saxony or France. I have been three times wounded: twice at his side while executing his commands. I un- earthed three hundred thousand weight of powder at Moscow, and I swam the Beresina. It was on the strength of information furnished by me that the Emperor marched upon Dresd~ii with the greater part of his army: and if he had not done so Dresden would have been lost. I had the Golden Cross for At Saint Helene. that; and I am far, M. le Mar6chal, from desiring to reproach the Emperor with the services I rendered him at Brienne on the 29th of January, 1814. Anybody, in my place, would have done as much; but it is none the less true that if I had not opportunely drawn my pistol upon a Cossack the Emperor would have gotten a terrible lance- thrust in his loins. At Lutzen my horse was shot under me, and rolled over at his Majestys feet. At Laon I was named in the despatches. At Rheims I forced an entrance into the town. It was I who seized Troyes on the retreat. I stayed with the Emperor at Fontaine- bleau, when everybody else had aban- doned him. He sent me to Paris twice. You saw me at Waterloo; I was the bearer of a letter to the Prince Regent. Selected by the Emperor to accom- pany him to Saint Helena, Gourgand did not hesitate for a moment; but he found that the form of devotion there demanded of him differed essentially from the services which devolve upon a gallant general. Intrepid upon the battlefield, he was less abundantly en- dowed with the qualities which make for peace in every-day life. Moody, suspicious, even rancorous, he had that sort of jealous passion for the Emperor which tolerates no rival; and every man who approached the Emperor seemed a rival to him, and every rival an ene- my. Hence quarrels and recrimina- tions without end, and an insensate vio- lence of language. He really suffers: he is very unhappy; and resignation is not in his line. Sometimes he sulks j.j~ silence, stands upon his dignity, and puts on tragic airs; then he bursts out into reproaches, makes a terrible scene, recapitulates his services, recounts his wounds, recalls that everlasting pistol- shot at Brienne.and makes a parade of all his sacrifices. He is thirty-two years old; he has thrown up his career, compromised his future, abandoned his mother, his country, his profession, At Saint Helena. 47 and all for what? Does anybody thank him? It appears to him that the truth is never to be spoken to sovereigns in this world, and that there is no such thing as success for any but plotters and flatterers. Why, even Las Casas is treated better than he; and who, pray, is Las Casas? A cowardly, hypo- critical fellow, who has done nothing but blunder! He is a Jesuit with his mysterious airs! a perfect Tartuffe! As for Montholon, Gourgand will have it out with him, and actually provokes him to a duel. The Emperor has to intervene and forbid the affair in writ- ing. This was the last straw. The Em- peror, who was not particularly patient himself, and whose patience had cer- tainly been abused, lost his temper, and treated Gourgand like a brigand and an assassin; then repented, apologized, and begged that his expressions might l)e forgotten. It was high time that so tempestuous an intimacy should end, and that a sentiment of devotion so lia- ble to revolt should be relieved of an in- tolerable strain. Gourgand quitted Saint Helena after a three-years resi- dence, and his departure gave rise to the most fantastic rumors. It was said that Napoleon had urged him to commit suicide, in order that Europe might be moved to pity by the suffer- ings of the exiles. Gourgands journal would refute this ridiculous charge, if it did not refute itself. It was also claimed that the differences between Gourgand and his companions were a mere comedy gotten up expressly to put the English on a wrong scent, and en- able Gourgand to fulfil a secret mis- sion in Europe. That some sort of~ reconciliation was patched up between Gourgand and Montholon, and that ad- vantage was taken of the departure of the former to charge him with various missions, appears altogether natural and probable; but the true cause of his going was that it was impossible for him to stay. He was the man for great days and decisive hours: one of those heroic servants who are quite lost and uncomfortable when there is no call for their heroism. He was one of those terrible friends who may be counted on with equal certainty to save your life, and to make it insupportable. We thus get a stronger light than ever before on what must have been one of the Emperors worst miseries, and one resulting directly from the presence of his companions, There were a half-dozen Frenchmen who had come expressly to soften the bitterness of exile to their fallen master, and neither the beauty of the part. assigned them nor the greatness of the misfor- tune which they had undertaken to assuage could lift them above mean jealousy and petty rivalries. In that court, which was a prison, there were still Courtiers. They watched one an- other just as narrowly; they fought for a look of the Prince as fiercely as they would have done in any court. More- over, they had neither the resource of intrigue, nor the amusement of splen. did pageants, nor the perspectives of ambition. Their horizon was bounded, their glance perpetually turned inward upon themselves, and they were restive under the necessity which confined them to the society of one another. The long days were all exactly alike, and the problem was what to do and how to while away the hours until bed- time. A walk, a dinner in the town, a review of English troops, meeting a lady on horseback: such things were important events; a few letters, fewer visits, and, now and then, a belated Eu ropean newspaper, bringing fragmen- tary, inexact, untrustworthy news. Their pastimes were those of small bourgeois, and tragedy was their fa- vorite reading. They tried tricks at cards; they measured their height on the door-panels; they talked of getting weighed; they were horribly bored. 48 Ennui, sadness and spite are words that occur on almost every page of the journal. They serve as punctuation marks. In such an atmosphere tempers deteriorate, differences are emphasized, quarrels protracted, an~ discussion soon becomes bitter. The hatefulness of the life makes the victims hate one another. The Montholons are in raptures be- cause Las Casas is going. I am dining with Montholon and his wife, who are very sour because the Emperor has been working with me. Mine. Bertrand said to me: If you keep a journal you had better set down some of Mine. Montholons nasty speeches. The spite- ful creature said yesterday that my milk was bad and my baby growing thin. The Emperor paid a visit to Mine. Bertrand, which made Mine. Montholon so jealous that he had to promise to go and see her the next day. What an end! To grow old amid such petty squabbles after having held the destinies of the world in his hands! Whenever Gourgand allows the Em- peror to speak, his text at once be- comes luminous. Recent events are naturally those of which Napoleon most inclines to talk. Again and again he recurs to the incidents of his return from Elba. The first stages of his journey were anything but encourag- ing. Then the children began t~ sing songs for the Emperor, and against the Bourbons, which was considered a good sign. The people who flocked to see him showed their astonishment. One Mayor, commenting on the small nuni- ber of my followers, said grumblingly: We were just beginning to feel happy and comfortable, and now you are go- ing to spoil it all. I cannot tell you how these words disturbed and dis- tressed me. And what an important avowal is this to have fallen from the lips of the vanquished, concerning the loss of the battle of Waterloo! The rain of June 17th had more to At Saint Helena. do with the loss of the day at Waterloo than is commonly supposed. If I had not been so exhausted I should have ridden all night at the top of my speed. Little by little he begins to call up more distant memories. He fights his old battles over again, and passes judgment on his most celebrated vic- tories and the troops with which he gained them. The soldiers of Italy, of Lena, of Austerlitz, he reviews them all once more. There passes once more be- fore his mental vision a dream which never lost its fascination: his dream of conquering the Orient. If I had only taken Acre,and it all depended upon three miserable ships which did not venture to trim sails,I should have gone to India. My intention was to as- sume the turban at Aleppo. My popu- larity would have carried me through, and I should have found myself at the head of a noble army of two hundred thousand allies. All the Orient needs is a man. He dashes off with a few clever touches the portraits of all the principal actors in the Revolutionary drama: terrorists, members of the con- vention, members of the directory: Barras, a Proven~al of good birth, made his reputation on the strength of his lungs. He had only two or three phrases, which he perpetually repeated. but they came like thunder-claps. He boasted and swaggered, and had the manners of a fencing-master. He in. dulged in shameless dissipation and pilfered openly. Yet he was the only member of the Directory who could ap- pear like a gentleman, and knew frpw to receive an embassy and conduct a negotiation. He was as false as possi- ble, and would press the hands of men whom he would have liked to stab. He was excessively ignorant, and knew nothing of history except the name of Brutus, which he had heard bandied about the Conventional Assembly - Talleyrand made money out of ev- erything. He had no thought, save for At Saint Helena. 49 his private interest. The project which might be useful to the state but could not profit himself, was at once set aside. Concerning his predecessors on the throne of France, the Emperor cher- ished some very peculiar ideas. His views were, to say the least of it, one- sided and extravagant. - . Henry IV. never did anything greater than to give fifteen hundred francs to his mistress- es. Saint Louis was an idiot. Louis XIV. was the only King of France worthy the name. - . - He judges, and frequently dispatches with one word, his lieutenants and companions in arms; Kl~ber, who loved glory only as a means of pleasure, and who would change color at the mere mention of Paris and its delights; Moreau, who was exactly capable of commanding a single division; Massena, very brave personally, but a bad general: Ney, who was a treasure on the battlefield, but a creature too coarsely immoral ever to succeed elsewhere. He discuss- es, in a tone of authority all his own, the campaigns of Cond~, Luxembourg, and the great Fr~d~ric. He pays hom- age to the genius of Turenne, whom he considers a consummate warrior. And finally, though we may not be able quite to follow him through the tech- nical explanations in which Gourgand revels, we can at least appreciate the great importance of some of his dicta concerning the art of war. We are at least constrained to believe him, when he offers his own case as an illustration of the truth that military skill is much more a matter of divination than of cx- perience:I have fought sixty great battles, and I give you my word that I know no more now than I did when I began. Look at Ca~sar! He fought his first battle exactly as he fought his last. According to Napoleon, firmi~ess and common sense are the chief quali- ties of a good general, which would lead one to believe that though men LIVING AGE. VOL. IV. 180 may have different aims, they succeed always by the same methods. The one thing needful to a general is firmness. All else is as Heaven pleases. The art of war does not con- sist in complicated man~uvres. The simpler a generals disposition of his forces, the better. Good sense is the great thing. When a general blunders, it is usually because he tries to be too clever. Now if Napoleon takes to himself no more than half the credit for his victories, maintaining that it is the army which wins the day, and that the strength of an army lies in its moral stamina~ his testimony is far too precious to be disregarded Certain of the Emperors personal characteristics come out clearly in the course of these conversations. His power of physical resistance, of endur- ing fatigue, for example, is truly won- derful. He says and repeats that when- ever he felt ill, or exhausted by labor, he had but to take a smart ride on horseback, and a hearty meal, and he was cured. What killed him at Saint Helena was chiefly the want of exer- cise. During the first weeks he did take horseback exercise, but after the English governor had ordained that he must be escorted by an English soldier, he considered it inconsistent with his dignity to appear in public at all; and shut himself up in that wretched house at Longwood, where he never left his bedchamber save to snatch a hasty meal in the dining-room. Confined to these two rooms and deprived of mo- tion in the open air, his health soon be- gan to decline. He had trouble in his legs, his liver, his heart. It was easy to see that he must soon succumb, and that his end would be delayed only by the strength of his constitution. But his intellectual activity and his power of work were undiminished, and his memory was something amazing. He knew the names of all his officers, just where their regiments were recruited, 50 At Saint Helena. the spirit which animated each half of a brigade. He was exceedingly proud, vain even, of this prodigious memory; and not being the man to use such a power for purposes of mere amuse- ment, he found his account in it, and made it an instrument of authority and a means of success. He was remarka- ble for the lucidity of his ideas and the regularity of his mental processes. His powers of organization and classi- fication were almost miraculous. I used, he says, to be able to discuss a question for eight hours at a stretch, and at the end of that time take up an- other, with a mind just as fresh as when I began. He had the rudeness, the coarse language, brutal fashions and trivial pleasantries which belong to the soldier of fortune. But, on the other hand, he had also his friendly and familiar moments; winning modes of address, great personal charm. Hudson Lowe says I am the most crafty man he ever knew; and I certain- ly can put on an innocent little air when I want to wind any one round my finger. The Emperor had wound much greater personages round his fin- ger than Hudson Lowe. The trouble was that, in him, he had to deal with a man of a narrow cantankerous mind, who was very nearly reduced to idiocy by the weight of the responsibility laid upon him. But how few of those whom he really cared to please were ever able to resist him! In his most furious outbursts he preserved so much self-control that even when he was angriest one never quite knew whether his transports were involuntary or cal- culated. His attitude was histrionic. He had an instinct for the telling phrase; a constant eye to effect. The Emperor thinks it will have a good effect for him to receive no one. It will look sombre and sinister. . . The -food be- ing very bad, the Emperor says that he will go to the English camp and say to the soldiers: The oldest soldier in Eu- rope desires to share your mess. He is a tragedian always, even in the clos- est privacy; though to be sure his was a privacy upon which the eyes of the world were fastened. He continued, as in his proclamations to the army of Italy, and in his later bulletins, to em- ploy the sort of terse phraseology suit- able to a monumentaL inscription. He perfectly understood the mysterious in- fluence of words over men; and he com- prehended the power of imagination for the reason that the gift which great poets and great conquerors have in common was his own dominant facul- ty. it was never idlethat great imag- ination of hisbut kept on, as of old, constructing plans of campaign, ar- ranging the strategy of batties, plan- ning alliances, devising schemes of government. For as the Emperor re- views his career his mistakes become clear to him. He knows that they have been many and great, and his keenness in discerning is only equalled by his candor in avowing them. The Spanish war, the Austrian marriage, the Rus- sian campaign, the convocation of the Chambersthese, and a host of trivial errors and futile manceuvres haunt him perpetually. Now, supposing these blunders had not been committed; that he had lost less time at Moscow; that the order sent to Grouchy had arrived in season! Every one of these hy- potheses opens a vast field for ideal com- binations. Fancy is quickened, and it is not one campaign merely, but his entire reign and the history of Europe for twenty years that Napoleon g~es on to reconstruct. The imagination which had previously wrought in the future, insomuch that he seemed al- ways to be living two years in advance of his time, now busies itself with th& past. But it is the seLf-same imagina- tion, owning the same richness, the same precision, the same creative power. It rarely happens that one who has At Saint Helena. 51 used the human race to any great ex- tent retains a high respect for it; and the power of the greatest managers of men comes in part from their contempt for the stuff they have to manipulate. Such is the case with Napoleon. He does not rightly appreciate the real at- tachment of his followers. He takes account only of outward manifesta- tions; and once when I undertook to show him that he acted as though all men were cheats, his answer was: 1 am not bound to think well of them. I defy anybody to catch me napping. Men must be scoundrels indeed if they are any worse than I think them. I imagine he was thinking of the Fouch6s and the Tafleyrands, the cour- tiers, diplomatists and sovereigns, who were his friends one day and combined against him the next; or maybe of the mob of generals and other officers, al- ways ready to rally to the stronger side, without regard to the character of him who chanced to wield the power. He for- got the people. He always forgot the enthusiasm and devotion of the humble; the sacrifices made, and the blood shed for him. Hence his favorite political maxims: Men are not won by grati- tude, but by self-interest; nor will ben- efits keep them loyal. They simply serve to gild their treason in advance. The best way is to seduce them by promises, and lure them on by expecta- tion. Promise and not perform; that is the way to get on in this world. Napoleon was a hearty despiser of men, and what he thought of women all the world knows. I consider it ridiculous that a man can have but one legitimate wife. Women are much too highly considered in France. They ought nev- er to be regarded as the equals of men, being in fact only machines for produc- ing children. When a man talks of women in this way, make no mistake! He is destined to be their dupe; and the example of Napoleon shows it,af- ter an imperial fashion. Setting aside the adventures in which he engaged for some definite purpose, or for the grati- fication of the moment, it may be af- firmed that few men have been more simple, more sincere, more faithful in love than he. He can recall, after a lapse of twenty years, the most trivial circumstances which attended the be- ginning of his romantic passion for Jo- sephine. After the 13th Vend6miaire, he caused the sword of Gen. Beauhar- nais, who had been guillotined, to be returned to his widow. The next day Mine. de Beauharnais left her card on me, and a few days later she came again. I then sent Le Marrois to call upon her, and he was avery well re- ceived. He Yrought me back word that she was an extremely beautiful and at- tractive woman, living in her own ho- tel. I then sent her my card, and soon after she invited me to dinner. I found myself among persons well known in society: the Duc de Nivernois, Mine. Tallien, Ellevion; I think that Talma also was present. She treated me with the utmost consideration, and rather annoyed me by placing me beside her- self. Trite and insignificant details, but steeped in undying poetry because associated with the awakening of a tender sentiment! The poor officer is fascinated by the elegance of the wom- an of the world; dazzled by the splen- dor of a more than dubious luxury. It is the romance of an imperial Grieux, and a crowned Manon. Even then, after the divorce, after Josephines own death, Napoleon could not talk of her otherwise than as lovers talk. She dressed so well! Her movements were so graceful! She would have been such a perfect model! He knew that she had deceived him, involved him in debt, lied to him, but he bore her no grudge. She was a woman, essentially a wom- an; and he loved her because he found in her an epitome of that feminine per- versity in which the men of all ages have delighted to find themselves 52 At Saint Helena. voluptuously ensnared. There is no reason why we should be more severe with Josephine than her husband was. We find it much more difficult to be as indulgent as he toward the soft, senu- ous, selfish Marie-Louise. After it be- came certain that she had deserted him, he took up, and steadfastly maintained, even in his last will and testament, the attitude of an apologist for the mother of his son. He attributed all her treachery to external influence. Marie-Louise, he declares, was innocence itself. She was the reverse of Josephine; she never lied. She loved me, and would have liked to be always near me. If she had been well advised and had not had always about her that wretched Corvisart and that infamous rascal M . . . , she would have stayed by me. But they told her that her aunt had been guillotined, and cir- cumstances were too strong for her. And then her own father had attached that contemptible Neipperg to her suite! Is this illusion, or is it policy? Ca~sars wife must be above suspicion. We have Caesars word for it. As a child of the eighteenth century, Napoleon was, of course, both a materi- alist and an atheist. He expresses himself about nature, the soul, God, a future life and religion generally with a cynicism which is quite shocking to the orthodox Gourgand. He reiterates in twenty different ways the expression of his belief that matter is all; and he finds himself confirmed in this persua- sion by Monge, Laplace, Berthollet, and the whole atheistical Institute. He sees proof of it in the dismal sights of all the battlefields, where men pass so swiftly from animation to annihilation. Like the stag, like the ox, like all the lower animals, man is composed of or- ganic matter. He is a product of the combination of sun-warmed cla-iy, with certain electrical fluids. Man is the re- sult of a certain temperature in the surrounding atmosphere. This is why, if it were necessary to adore any God, Napoleon would choose the sun, though well aware that this would not be re- ligion. This habitual materialism of his Is quite compatible with all manner of superstitious beliefs. For example, he believes in presentiments. The eye is a mean term between the hand and the presentiment. The hand says to the eye, Now can you see anything two leagues off, when I can only reach two feet? The eye says to the presenti- ment, How can you see into the future when I cannot see beyond two leagues? His Majesty told us that on the day of the fire at the Schwartzenberg ball he was struck by the idea that it was a bad omen for him. And you know, Gourgand, he added, that when they told me, on the day after the battle of Dresden, that Schwartzenberg was killed, I was enchanted. It was not that I desired the poor mans death, but my spirits rose distinctly when I perceived that that unfortunate con- flagration had presaged misfortune for him and not for me. This faith in presentiments was accompanied by a strong belief in the Antique Nemesis. We must not ask too much of Fortune. Napoleon had done so, and this was the Fatality which lost him Waterloo. Fatality, Fortune, Chance :he sin- cerely believes that they govern all the affairs of the world. This conviction underlies his whole conception of his- tory and his formal political opinions. It was his grand mistake. He is the theorist of the accidental. He lays4t down as a principle that great events depend upon slight causes. If an ord- nance officer had not blundered, the battle of Waterloo would have been won. If Louis XVI. had had a good Prime Minister, the Revolution would have been i~verted. And was there, really, any Revolution at all? I have my own views, remarked the Emper- or, concerning that matter. I think At Saint Helena. 53 there was no real Revolution, and that the men of 1789 were the same as those of the reign of Louis XIV. It was the Queen and the ministers who went astray and adopted unfortunate meas- ures. We French are no such unprin- cipled villains as foreigners imagine, but they must follow the fashion. The man who was a convinced Bonapartist yesterday is a convinced royalist to- day, and will be a convinced republican to-morrow. Great changes of historic scene are therefore dependent on the will of individuals. The inspirations or blunders of the principal actor decide everything. This conception of the un- limited rOle of the individual in history explains how it was that Napoleon un- dertook his work, and it also explains the remarkable fragility of that ill- founded structure. What if the Em- peror had better profited by the blun- ders of Wellington? What if he had crushed Bliicher?he would have gained but a two weeks respite! What stopped his advance upon the plains of Belgium was not merely the coalition of all modern Europe. He was con- fronted by a whole historic past. He had dared an unequal conflict with that mysterious adversary who was fore- ordained to bring about the inevitable d~nouement. The individual, however great, even though he be Napoleon, cannot hurl himself with impunity against the collective might of the na- tions and the ages. Such was the mighty lesson brought home by degrees to the prisoner of Saint Helena in his lonely meditations. Here is the clue to his meaning in cer- tain phrases which appeared to escape him involuntarily, and which would otherwise be quite incomprehensible, History will hardly speak of me . . I shall be soon forgotten. The historians will have very little to say about me. We must not take these words too lit- erally. He who uttered them under- stood men too thoroughly; be knew too well how they adore brilliancy atid noise, really to have expected that the echo of so many conflicts and the glare of so many triumphs would pass away like those rivers which disappear in the sand. Let us not degrade his latest anxieties into a mere vulgar craving for celebrity. In spite of the famous anathema, Rien 4humain, ne battait 80U3 ton ~~paisse rmure. this great man was a very man; his egotism passed all narrow bounds; he communed, in his last hours, with the nation which he had identified with himself and the human race which had accorded him such enormous credit. He caught glimpses of that higher or- der of glory, which lives not in the splendor of any single name, but in the survival of a thought which has be- come blent with the common and anon- ymous life of a people. The men are not truly great, he said, who leave no institutions behind them. If I had been killed by a cannon-ball from the Kremlin, I should have been as great as Casar or Charlemagne, because then my institutions and my dynasty would have lived on in France; whereas now I shall be next to nothing. But the more he reflected, the more it seemed to him that the title to immortality, which he had not secured by success, he might win through the anguish of his last trial. One by one he renounced the chimeras of a return to Europe, an escape to America,a possible repet~ tion of his old adventures. In the spirit of the artist who loves his work better than himself, he embraced the suffer- ings which were to be its final conse- cration. They have crowned me with thorns, as they did Jesus Christ . - but the religion of Christ would never have survived till now without the crown of thorns and the crucifixion. He lived long enough to see with his 54 Khartoum. own eyes the beginning of his cult. part of the mystery of that far-off The cruelty of England, the apathy of isle that thence there should have as- Europe, the stupid malice of Hudson- cended into the heaven of legend a Lowe, all helped unwittingly to estab- mythical hero leading Latin chivalry lish it. What the sun of Austerlit~ to the assault of the North, amid the could not do, the fogs of Saint Helena blare of Gallic trumpets. were destined to accomplish. It is a Ren6 Doumic. The Revue des Deux Mondes. KHARTOUM. By the old Egyptian river, on the shore is a white-walled city built by men of yore: There, amid the desert sands, like a monument it stands With a bloodstain on its memory evermore. Theres a palace roof in Khartoum, where at bay Chafed a hero, as he gnawed his heart away: Where he heard the jackal cry, and saw armies in the sky: Come they then, at last, the rescuers? Is it they? Oh, that morning as the light began to grow, When the cruel East all crimson was aglow; When with shout and shot and flame like a hurricane they came, The innumerable spearmen of the foe! Oh, that evening shout of triumph ten years on, When the bloody field a deeper crimson shone! When, amid the Dervish dead, twas an English soldier said~ Such our vengeance for the hero that is gone. And yet nobler shout of triumph and more sweet, When, the peaceful river rolling at our feet, The last fetter of the slave shall lie broken at his grave, And the day of Gordons vengeance be complete! So we move on, now in gladness, now in gloom, And a hero oft is greatest in his doom; And to Englishmen for ever shall that old Egyptian river, Be the glory still of Gordon, and his tomb. The 5pectater. A. O~ B. La Rive Gauche. 55 LA RIVE GAUCHE. Boxes of books line either side of the Seine, and stooping figures hover about them: but the Rive Droite and the Rive Gauche have little in common. The first is blas6, or it is bourgeois. It does nothing, or it bawls at the Bourse. It is prematurely old, or it totters on a stick. It is pale, and must use rouge. It has tasted every joy; strained every nerve; exhausted every sense. Youth possesses the other side. Blithe figures caper about. Upon this Jeunesse, Notre Dame casts her shadow; the dome of the Pantheon rises proudly above it. Faces are fresh, voices gay: no one mumbles about his liver, or is conscious of having one. Dissipations, too, are different. Theatres stop glittering be- fore you have crossed the bridge; the Noctambules and Muse, artistic cabar- ets, begin. No one pulls on white gloves. No one sits in a stall before a ballet. Toasts and blessings are de- livered in the Caf6 Harcourt, mad measures performed at Bulliers: Paul and Pierre, wild lights of the Latin quarter, rejoice. Both love to clothe themselves in corduroys, and wear ties and capes that fly. Both are given to dancing down the street, arm-in~arm, linked to Gaston and Georges, an amaz- ing row. Both prefer song to study, bocks to books, pipes to pens, and night to day. Some trials, nevertheless, torment the Latin Quarter: four of them, quarterly events, when landlords come out. They arrive at mid-day; and find Paul in bed. He Is polite. He is pale. He is sorry, andforth comes his plea, harrowing but simple, full of promise, of infinite hope, prepared overnight. It is~ursed and refuted; it grows in melancholy. It soothes; it moves; a final vow: It wins! Touched by this mercy, Paul immediately starts a hoard. He lays a foundation sou. He tells his friends. He is proud of his thrift. For days he nurses his store, but no sooner is it one franc old than he covets, and falls. He confesses his crime to Gaston, and Gas- ton grins, and shows him nine sous, and says he has had them as many months, and secretes them again before Paul can see that they are Argentine and English, worthless and worn. Or Paul buys an account book. He carries it with him. He forgets its existence. He is surprised to find it a week later, and fills it in a night with card scores and character sketches. Next quarter Pauls circumstances require a change of landlords; he is seen moving. A seedy man with a seedier truck takes his goods: pathetic rubbish, wanting in varnish and legs, a crazy wreck. It is escorted through the streets by Paul and friends. Passing students salute the cort~ge. Sad song is chanted over it. In a side street, at a poor little wine-shop, it stops, and Paul and friends toast and christen and cheer it. A modest room near the Seine is its new home, conveniently close to Pore Pognons. His meals are popular In the Latin Quarter; with a bottle of wine, one franc. Wonderful stews and the queerest curries appear twice a week; Paul and Pierre proclaim them lpatant. Both have a slate that record5 their weeks eatings. Every SaturdEiy they give the sleeveless gar~on half a franc. A rival establishment stands next door, emblazoned Cr~merie, hung with portraits and sketches left by needy painters in ex~hange for a steak. Other treasures are held in pawn; poems, the first act of a tremendous tragedy in- tended for the Od~on, a pair of bursting boxing-gloves, a meerschaum pipe. On 56 ,La Rive Gauche. a grander scale is the diner des Princes, equipped with thinner glasses, napkins, and a table-cloth. This feast costs one franc fifty, and includes a variety of dishes, far from plain, steeped in sauces, magnificently named. Each has its surprises. None are natural. You meet amazing trifles wherever you stab; even your beef has been tampered with. Other feasts occur from time to time, royally conducted at the Harcourt. Feasts in honor of an inheritance, or of a triumph, or, grandest event of all, in honor of a departure. Gaston was the last to give one: Gaston ~etat. 25, summoned home to Rouen to commence his professional career. He calls meet- ings. He concocts menus. He consults wine lists. The Quarter starts hoards that do not dissolve prematurely, and makes Gaston gifts. He accepts them with emotion. He feels very sad. He issues invitations to supper, at which every guests arm must be bound with crape. Of all ceremonies this is the saddest. By it you bury your youth, your past, and your follies. You are old when it is over. It is the last mad moment of your career. Memories haunt the room in which you sup. It has heard you sing; it has felt you dance. What grim change has come over you! How transformed it is! Fes- toons of flowers have given place to cords of crape. The mirror is draped with it; the chandelier shrouded in it. Knots and bows are about, all black. Gaston enters, thick in crape. The mourners follow, armed with crape. And waiters appear, with bows of crape. Every mustard-pot wears mourning, every menu a black rosette. There are sombre threads round every spoon and fork. S6up is served from a vessel grimly adorned. Bottles ar- rive; alas! their slender necks bear further symbols of Gastons fleeting youth. No one has much to say. Laughs are faint; jokes rare. Each new dish is clothed in crape. As the bottles circulate, Paul revives. He wins the first laugh; he begins to smile. He calls Gaston mon vieux, meaningly: and Gaston sighs. Bold voices refer to Ronen as a place in which no one ca- pers. its cafes are dim; its people glum. More bottles appear; alas! their once golden stems have gone black: they are labelled Carte Noir. Coffee comes, and liquors. Every one whis- pers, watches, waits. And Paul, draw- ing on a pair of black gloves, rises, calls for silence, proposes the first toast. A tribute to old age is his topic, coupled with the name of the venera- ble form who sits at the top of the ta- ble. Gaston, he says, your eye is dim, your frame feeble, your voice weak: you will rejoice no more. Rouen claims you; carefully clothed and combed, you will practise law, take a wife, and con- duct a home. Alas! poor Gaston, we, the jeunesse of the Latin Quarter, la ment your transition to bourgeois spheres, grieve over the putting-away of your corduroys, and pray you leave them and your tie behind you as relics of your brilliant youth, now dead. Think of us, Gaston, as your fire burns and your respectable clock ticks, as you lay your head on your pillow at the worthy hour of ten: pray for us, Gas- ton, and we will pray for you. Slowly the old one replies, with emo- tion. He thanks the Jeunesse, he en- vies the Jeunesse, of whom he is now doyen. He will scatter his raiment among them; each shall have his share. He mourns his youth: spent, he admi~, wildly, but free of stains and scars. Looking back on the five years he has spent in the Latin Quarter, he remem- bers no mean or dishonorable action committed by either his friends or him- self, and he is proud of this and thank- ful for it, and, thinks that principles and honor have more home with the Jeun- esse of the Hive Gauche than with the rakes and bourgeois of the other side. The Warnings. 57 He drinks to this Jeunesse, to the Quar- ter, to the Sorbonne, the Harcourt, and Notre Dame. Every one rises for the toast, drinks it in silence. And slowly -the students pass by Gaston one by one, a long line, and wring his hand and say something affectionate in a husky voice, then collect their hats and coats, and go out into the night, noisy again, an amazing row. Dawn breaks over the Latin Quarter, and policemen yawn. Ge somt les ~tu- diaats, they growl when voices ring out Good-hearted bourgeois are dis- turbed: la jeunesse qui samuse, they say. And the students dance on. Down the Boul Mich they go, to sip hot coffee at Madame Bertrands, open The Saturday Review. all night. She serves it herself, a moth- erly soul. She lectures Paul if he reels from bock; reproves Pierre for being out if he has an examination to under- go. When they have gossiped them- selves hoarse, she tells them to seek their homes. And the students dance out. Arms join again, legs go on, stop- ping only on the bridge. Notre Dame, great and gray, stands to the right of this Jeunesse, and it is to her that Paul and Pierre and Gaston lift their hats, to her towers, over which a cloudy sky Is breaking. Hat in hand, they linger, dishevelled dreamers. Gaston sighs; every one sighs. Gaston takes a last look at the towers he l6ves. And the students dance -home. THE WARNINGS. I was milking in the meadow when I heard the Banshee keening; Sweet slept the little birds of Maythe young lambs on the lea; Upon the crag of Slievenamon the round, gold moon was lean- ing, She parted from the hillside as the Banshee keened for me. I was weaving by the window when I heard the death-watch beating, The silence started tingling like the wind within a tree; High and fair through cloud and air the silver moon was fleeting, But the night began to darken as the death-watch beat for me. I was sleepless on my pillow when I heard the dead man calling, The dead man who lies drowned at the bottom of the sea; Westward away through gloom and gray I saw the dim moon falling. Now I must rise and go to him, the dead who cries on me. Alice Fwlong. The Speaker. 58 Irony. IRONY Bolingbroke was a holy man, that, says Dr. Johnson, is an example of irony. For once the great man nod- ded, since this bald statement, though it sets forth one of the Doctors many hatreds, is a very foolish specimen of its class. Irony, in brief, is a subtler trick than the mere writing of good for bad; it is an artifice of style, the expression of a temperament, the de- liberate and delicate masking of a plain meaning. But it is not, and has never been, a common interchange of opposite words. For instance, you can- not call Artemus Ward a master of irony when he flashes the red flag in your face: This is writ sarcastick. To frame a definition of irony is al- most impossible, since the figure has been so variously employed. A hinted concealment of the truth, either from the personages of a drama, or from the dramas audience, is essential, and this concealment permits us to attri- bute the same quality to Swift and Sophocles alike. It is cEdipus the Kings ignorance of impending doom, for example, which imparts an ironic character to the Sophoclean master- piece. The audience knows, what the hero of the play knows not, that the Kings honorable anxiety to discover the criminal who pollutes the State will recoil upon himself. Every speech of CEdipus has one meaning for him, an- other for the audience, and it is this contrast between the word and the sense that makes ~he irony of the sit- uation. The Socratic irony, again, was different in kind; it was no ignorance of the past or future; it was rather a lack of knowledge assumed by the omniscient, that his opponents might the more eas.ily be entrapped. But the same contrast is there; the Greek phi- losopher pretended to know nothing, because he was at all points superior to the Sophists; and his smile was as ironic as the constant smile which played upon the face of Voltaire. So the irony of modern times is marked by a similar contrast. Words and sense are opposed, though with a dif- ferent end and purpose. The enraged satirist states what Is not in order that what is shall be more violently ex- pressed. Black may be represented as grey, or even white, but the represen- tation must be effected by the spirit as well as by the word. When Vol- taire tells you that in the face of un- exampled disaster all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds, he is preaching a sermon against the folly of optimism. When Swift sets forth the reasons why the abolition of Chris- tianity may be attended with some inconveniences, the very frame work of the essay proves that in his view Christianity may never be abolished, and that the reasons given are one and all frivolous. But the perfect master of irony must never be untrue to his method. The inverted seriousness must be sustained unto the end. One word of direct information, a single hint of didacticism, will destroy the effect of what might have been a mas- terpiece. Candide itself would have perished had its author returned even for a breathing-space to the com- mon earth. But he never returns .~-un- til the last phrase, for he knew that the language of irony is a language apart, in which thought, to be under- stood, should be freely and consistent- ly translated. Shifting our metaphor, we may say that to sustain irony is to change the terms of lifes equation. Who, then, are the masters of irony? Shakespeare, who knew all things, practised the artifice with the utmost Irony 59 skill. While Sophocles is matched in Othello and Macbeth and the Merchant of Venice, the Antony of Julius Csesar might rival Doctor Pangloss. (The passage wherein Por- tia declares, with the full conscious- ness of what is to come, that there is no power in Venice can alter a de- cree established, and Shylock ac- claims a Daniel come to judgment, yea, a Daniel, satisfies all the condi- tions of the art, as it was practised at Athens.) But Shakespeare, if he touched irony, as he touched all forms of humor, with the finger of genius, was not a professed master of it. He merely stooped from the height of a serene intelligence to sport with satire. And it is not with him that we associ- ate this figure of flouts and jibes. Yet it is in England that the art has been followed with most conspicuous suc- cess. With a single exceptionand that may be the greatestthe master- pieces of irony belong to our own lit- erature. We have already ment~oned Candide, the miracle of wit in which word and sense are ever at var- iance; and if the ironic palm were to be awarded to one work, the award would not be doubtful. For nothing in the whole range of letters is so as- tonishing as the perfect consistency of Voltaires satire. From beginning to end there is no note of hesitancy; the characters are wrapped in the very at- mosphere of irony; they speak the same cunning language without flaw or failure; and you lay aside the book in the full consciousness that you L~ve assisted at a unique display of leger- demain. It seems to have been writ- ten in one sentence, said a critic; and with perfect truth he might have said in two. For the last phrase breaks the spell,the immortal IL faut cuLtiver notre jardin. All that precedes might truly appear in one sentence; this parting injunction is absolutely separ- ate. It is written in perfect seriousness and with no thought of an inverted meaning. IL taut cultiver notre jardin with those words does Voltaire leave the satire he has sustained, and point the moral of his own irony. One work, however, does not make a liter- ature, and against Voltaires single masterpiece we may weigh the whole achievement of Swift. Now, Swift was born with irony in his blood. His temperament compelled him to ap- proach truth by its opposite, and there is no one of his works which does not bear testimony alike to his supreme genius for the most difficult of literary artifices and his savage hatred for meanness and stupidity.~ The irony of Swift and Voltaire is the irony of conviction; there is also an art of ironic presentation. When Fielding wrote the History of Jona- than Wild, he had no need to preach so obvious a lesson as the sacredness of property, nor to encourage the crime of highway robbery. He was only con- cerned to paint the portrait of a great man and he chose the thief-catcher for his subject, in order doubly to dazzle the reader with an amazing contrast. Nor does he, any more than Voltaire, descend from his purpose. In his hands vice and virtue change places; folly of Heartfree is a perfect foil to the villainy of Jonathan Wild; while the one is incapable of wickedness, the other is superior to a good action; and so evenly is the balance held that the readers mind is never befogged, and never for an instant misunder- stands the authors ambition. In brief~ the presentation of the hero, being ironic, is a pure triumph of the intelli- gence, which is concerned for the mo- ment not with morals but with wit, not with the facts of life but with the delicate art of grotesque portraiture. And Fielding was not without distin- guished rivals in his own field. De Quinceys Murder as a Fine Art may be set side by side with Jonathan 60 The Lonely of Heart. Wild, while Barry Lyndon is sus- tained at the masters own level of passionless satire. Thackeray, maybe, but half understood the excellence of his own work, when he told his daugh- ter not to read it. You will not like it, he said; yet nothing is needed to the appreciation of Barry save the proper temperament. And this brings us to the hatred of irony professed by the most of men. For irony is, as we said last week in writing of Swift, the boomerang of literature, which re- turns upon him who wields it. Like the honorable cynicism, which often masks a tender sensibility, it presents a truth of conviction, or a truth of por- traiture in an inverted guise. So, like cynicism, it is doomed to misunder- standing. Much has been written, for instance, of Mr. George Merediths unpopularity. This novelist, you are told, has acquired the appreciation which was his due after thirty years of patience. And many reasons are assigned for the tardiness of the honor paid him. He is obscure, says one; he is fantastic, says another; yet we be- lieve that he too has been misunder- stood, because he has always aimed at The Spectator. an ironic presentation. What are Harry Richmond and Evan Har- rington save experiments in irony, not consistent like Candide, but in- terspersed with passages of true sen- sibility? What else is The Egoist than a portrait ironic as Jonathan Wild ? This, then, is the secret of the worlds neglect of Mr. Meredith. He, too, masks his meaning, or conceals from his characters their true villainy. Sir Willoughby Patterne, in brief, is perfection in his own eyes, and the casual reader does not easily endure the deliberate complacency of a per- sonage whom he condemns. From the irony of. Sophocles to the irony of Mr. Meredith is a long jour- ney, yet each is distinguished by the same purposed and purposeful con- trast between the truth and the phrase. But irony is so profoundly a part of human nature, that we detect it in life as well as in letters. Where in literature could you better exempli- fy the irony of fate than in the spec- tacle of Disraeli, once despised, gov- erning with an iron hand the aristoc- racy of England? THE LONELY OF HEART. The wind blows out of the gates of the day, The wind blows over the lonely of heart; And the lonely of heart are withered away, While the fairies dance in a place apart: Shaking their milk-white feet in a ring, Tossing their milk-white arms in the air; For they hear the wind laugh and murmur and sing Of a land where even the old are fair, And even the wise are merry of tongue; But I heard a recd of Coolaney say: When the wind has laughed and murmured and sung, The lonely of heart shall wither away. W. B. Yeats. The Living Age.Supplement. JULY ~, ~899. READINGS FROM NEW BOOKS. THE FRAU PASTORJN.* As the Frau Pastorin sat complacent- ly stitching in the resplendent after- glow of the departing sun, she was a tonic for the weary soul to look upon. Time certainly had been a-nodding since she was young. Her cheeks were as rounded, as rosy, and as smooth as a babys. The dimple in her chin came and went with the calm placidity of her thoughts. A white mull cap, adorned with broad lilac satin ribbons, sat lightly upon her ash-blond hair, parted Madonna fashion in the middle, from which it rippled behind her rosy ears into broad plaits, wound around the back of her head. A young girl may be beautiful by virtue of her grace, her youth, her vitality. The Frau Pastor- ins beauty was the matronly queen- liness of middle age, with the frolics of young girlhood still lurking in her dimples; the gayety of a heart which had never come into contact with any- thing unclean, and a purity of habit which shone on her brow and beamed from her well-opened gray eyes. The impression she made was that of im- maculate purity. If ever in Gods world there lived a being who practiced cleanliness next to godliness, in the very spirit of the letter, it was the Frau Pastorin, not alone in her own personal habits, but in all her sur- roundings. Everything in the parson- age, from attic to cellar, smelled sweet *~j~jm A Tent of Grace. By Adelina Cohnfeldt Lust. Copyright, 1899, by Houghton, Muffin & Company. Price, $1.50. and shone resplendent with purity; and the Frau Pastorins mind was as clean as her body. Filth, whether men- tal or physical, was abhorrent to her. She held that all vice had its strong- hold in dirt. There would be no need of doctors or hospitals, if only every one would be cLean. We cannot all be princes in station or wealth, she was wont to say, but every one may be a prince in cleanliness and behav- ior. When a beggar came to her door, she first gave him a piece of soap and a towel. When he had made lav- ish use of both at the yard pump, he got his fill of bread and meat and wine. If the women stood gossiping at their doors and the Frau Pastorin was spied coming down the street, they would make a hasty dash for their young, and immediately their howls of protest made music in the distance, as their faces were scrubbed and they were quickly hustled into clean pinafores. For the prevention of every ill flesh is heir to, the Frau Pastorin had but one universal remedy,it was cleanliness. The pleasing twilight was fast fad ing into dusk. The Frau Pastorin, mindful of her eyesight, folded up her work and put it into her large wicker work-basket. The broad window-sill was filled with myrtle, rosemary, and jasmine, and monthly roses. Since Fritz was growr~ up, and no longer in need of her motherly care, these flow- ers were the Frau Pastorins children. Strong, sturdy, and healthy they were, 62 Tke Frau Pastorin. perfuming the whole house with their fragrant blossoms. For miles around, the myrtle in the Frau Pastorin~ wiu- dow furnished the wedding crowns for the peasant maidens. It was consid- ered to bring luck to the wearer. Ev- erything that came from the parsonage savored of a benediction. The Frau Pastorin plucked a leaf here and a leaf there, then looked out of the window into the gathering dark- ness. The Herr Pastor had slipped out, as was his wont, after drinking his af- ternoon coffee and eating his cake. He had lounged forth in his down-at-heel slippers and his Schiafrock, with his shabby black velvet skull-cap, which he always wore in the house in cold weather, pushed back on his scant gray hairs. It was growing cold. He should have been home long ago in his warm, comfortable Stube, where a roaring fire leaped in the large Herrenhuter sto ye, and the fine silver sand on the snow white floor glistened like flecks of stray moonbeams. The Herr Pastor~s chess- table, with the red and black chess- men, stood just as he had left it in front of the cushioned settle in the warm inglenook. Surely it was more inviting within than without. The Frau Pastorin wondered what could kcep him. -~ she continued to peer into the darkness, she saw him staggering along, bearing a heavy burden in his arms. Another rescued sheep, she thought, with commiseration. They often tumbled down from the hill where they were browsing into the stream below. Many a four-footed pa- tient had the Herr Pastor nursed back to health and restored to its owner, a rich cattle-dealer in the village, who re- ceived back his property as a matter of course. This sheep must be terribly heavy, she thought. The HeFr Pastor could hardly stagger along. She hasti- ly called to Babbett, and flinging her shawl across her shoulders, went to meet him. It was time. Unable to pro. ceed further, panting, he had braced himself against a stout tree, for the houses were sparingly scattered. No one had seen him. Lights were lit and curtains drawn long ago. The villagers were at their Abenbrod-supper. Bab- bett came clattering behind her mis- tress in her wooden shoes. Help thy master, said the Frau Pastorin, quickly. He has rescued another sheep, and the weight is more than he can bear. Babbett gave an amazed cry. Tis a two-legged one this time, she said; the same as you and I, mistress. The Herr Pastor held the child Jette in his arms. Alone and unassisted he had carried her from the woods. Her hair, matted with blood, had coiled it- self like a cobra around his throat, Great streaks of blood smeared his face and hands. He motioned Babbett to take hold of the childs limbs. He was too exhausted to speak. The Frau Pastorin, greatly troubled, led the way to the back entrance into the kitchen. They laid the unconscious child on the wooden settle. The light from the lamp fell upon her battered face, closed eyes, and bruised limbs. Holy Jesus, cried Babbett, tis Jette, the Jewish skin girl. The Frau Pastorin sickened with hor- ror. Isis she dead? she faltered. She may be saved, I think, if some- thing is done for her, and quickly, said the Herr Pastor; the village youth fell upon her and maltreated her. As you see her now I found her~Jn the woods. They were beating her to death. I could not leave her there alone, and there was no one to help me. So I carried her home the best way I could. While he spoke, the Frau Pastorin had been busy tearing up strips of fine old linen. Babbett placed a soft sponge, some towels, and a pot of oint- ment on the kitchen table, taking care The Future of Africa. 63 first to spread papers over its immac- ulate surface. Then she lugged in a big tub. She knew as well as if her mistress had spoken what would be the first preliminary. The huge copper boiler atood on the stove, filled to the brim with hot water. It was always there, summer and winter, ready for use at a moments notice. The Frau Pastorin took down a large pair of shears. Papachen, she said cheerfully, do thou go and change thy linen and clothing. Thou art sadly in need of it, I assure thee. Go to the cup- board and refresh thyself. This sheep thou must leave to me. The Herr Pastor was tall and gaunt, with something of a stoop in his angular shoulders. He bent down to kiss his wife on the forehead. Usually he kissed her on the lips. But in his present state he knew she would not have liked it. He went, and left the two women to their task. THE FUTURE OF AFRICA.* Beyond all question it is to the inter- est of America and the Americans that the British should expand in Af- rica. As a colonizing power, England stands supreme; and she should be en- couraged in the acquisition of African territory, to which she is entitled by the right of her ability properly to util- ize and justly to govern. The Euro- pean powers are bitter in their denun- ciation of the British in their greed for dominion, and in their methods of ac- quiring possessions, although similar methods are usually approved by them when put into execution by other na- tions than the English. For my own part, I do not see that one European power has any less of an itching for territorial dependencies than another; nor do I see that one is more scrupu- lous than another in its mode of obtain- ing new domains. England is brought into prominence by the fact that she is securing the more valuable portions of the globe, thus causing consternation and jealousy among her rivals. Every part of Africa is certain to come under the control of one or another of the European states, hence, before con *From On the South African Frontier. By william Harvey Brown. Copyright, 1899, by Charles Scribners Sons. demning Englands policy of expansion, we should consider what flag will yield the greatest good to mankind. With British rule in Africa come equal priv- ileges and justice to men of every na- tionality. The Portuguese are antag- onistic to all except those of their own blood, a characteristic which is also true of the French, the Belgians, the Boers, and the Germans. Furthermore, we should inquire what the nations are doing to develop the resources of their African possessions. With the excep- tion of England, practically nothing! Although the French have no surplus population with which to colonize, they first open their gold-fields to French- men only. Germanys rich mineral iind agricultural territory in the neighbor- hood of the Victoria Nyanza and Lake Tanganyika is lying fallow for the want of a railway from the coast, the ~C building of which was opposed in the German Parliament on the ground that it would not pay dividends. The Portu- guese have practically nothing to show for their four hundred years of Afri- can occupation, except the record of the facts that great wealth was taken from the country, and that their ter- ritories drifted again into the hands of savages. 64 The Future of Africa. On the other hand, we find England and the English expending millions in the opening and developing of new ter- ritories, and that with small hope of immediate returns from investments. With the advance of General Kitchen- ers army in Lower Egypt, a railway has been pushed forward which will soon reach Khartoum, while the Brit- ish Parliament is building a road from the African east coast to Uganda. In Eastern Rhodesia the Mashonaland Railway is nearing Salisbury. Novem- ver 4, 1897, saw the arrival of tlie Bechuanaland Railway at Buluwayo; and still more recently two million pounds sterling have been advanced in London for the purpose of its continua- tion northward to Lake Tanganyika. The Trans-Continental telegraph line is far beyond Blantyre, on its way from Cape Town to Cairo, and the present indications are that the capital is cer- tain soon to be guaranteed for the com- pletion of the great trunk line of rail- way which will bind Egypt to the Cape of Good Hope. Thus are being created actually with astonishing rapidity the great instruments which will foster the innumerable smaller enterprises undertaken in the development of the rich regions in the interior. In view of the active agencies which are thus at work, there can be no ques- tion as to future race supremacy in Africa. The Transvaal may or may not become de facto a British posses- sion; but that the Anglo-Saxon will gain the supremacy there is inevitable. The spirit of commercial enterprise of which Mr. Rhodes is the living type, and which is sweeping from the south over the Dark Continent, is certain to revolutionize all the old conditions. The sturdy Dutch blood firmly estab- lished on African soil will serve as an important element for good irrthe de- velopment of that continent; but the English are rapidly outstripping the Boers, and the laws and customs of the former will soon gain the ascendency. Even the Dutch language which seems so tenaciously rooted in South Africa will, in all probability, lose its popu- larity with the newer and more enlight- ened generations, and eventually give way to the English tongue, except in secluded rural districts. It is foreordained that the British are to wield a gigantic influence in the fu- ture development of Africa. The heroic fidelity with which the missionaries are working among the aborigines, ought to bring about the rapid advancement of the native tribes; but infinitely more potent than the noble philanthropy of the missionary, as a factor in moulding the future of races for good or for evil, is the active commercial spirit which now pervades the world. To this, and to the inevitable laws which impel a people of high intelligence to work for their self-preservation, must we trust for the future of both whites and blacks. Since the North American Continent is narrowing as an outlet for the over- crowded countries of Europe, it is no idle dream to predict that with the at- tractions of climate, soil, and mineral wealth, and cheap and quick methods of transportation, the tide of migration will soon begin to flow to the Dark Continent, where a prominent part of the worlds drama is likely to be en- acted during the coming century. The native races may awaken from the lethargy in which they have been sleep- ing for more than five thousand years; but the transformation which civili~a- tion enforces will probably be too rapid for them, and before the new order of things they are more likely to vanish than to remain. Be the question of the future of the aborigines what it may, it will be as easy to check the flo* of the Zambe~i River as to change the course of those events which the spirit of the age is forcing forward, and which decrees that South and Centra! Allah Dads Farewell. 65 Africa shall become a great English- tiny for which Providence seems to speaking country. In the mature and have chosen the Anglo-Saxon racethe rounded development of this new em- wielding of the balance of power for pire will be completed one step more the world. toward the accomplishment of the des- ALLAH DADS FAREWELL.* Among the many hardships of the lot of the sepoy is the fact that he has no friends: unlike the European, the In- dian makes no friends outside his home circle. His country fires him with no patriotism; but the Sirkars steady pay and assured pension buy his blood for all the world over. It is not very wonderful that the un- selfish kindness of his English officers should often win them all the Spare friendship the Indian soldier has to give. He knows that the rough and peremptory tone does not mean dislike; he appreciates the real kindness under it all. He has ceased to dread the ready Damn! when he knows that his sick- bed is tended daily by the very men who so freely pitch into him on parade. Little does he heed this bluntness of ~ speech when he knows that there is a ready ear into which he can pour the petty story of his home affairs. In gen- eral he looks to his Sahib as his father; and one word of cheerful greeting, a pat on the back to a recruit, a ready jest at his expense even, bind a sepoy more closely to him than the English- man often knows. Curiously, too, the deepest reverence is paid to the stern- est and hardest, provided he be just. as nearly every English public-school boy learns to be. I have seen old se- poys stand and salute a pieture of a Sahib who commanded them thirty or *From On the Edge of the Empire. By Edgar Jepson and captain D. l3eames. Copyright, 1899, by Charles Scrihners Sons. Price, $1.50. LIVflTG AGE. VOL. ill. 181 forty years ago. I have seen tears in their eyes, and heard the muttered prayer as they gazed on the picture of the leader they loved, though they will tell you that he was a Wery hard Sa- hib. Few men in this world enjoy the sort of fame that the iron Nicholson (Nikalsen Sahib) and the stern Mac- gregor enjoy to this day in the Panjabi villages. Every one knows the fame of Laranz Sahib (John Lawrence), the beloved god of the Panjabi. Let a just officer rule with iron, and be as iron in the field, and his men will storm hell and out on the far side at a nod from him. Of all the fools in the regiment, Allah Dad was probably the densest. He simply could not understand anything. He had grasped his drill somehow in fifteen years service, and was always indeed the picture of a clean and per- feetly accoutred soldier; but there It ended. He was an excellent marks- man, having learned how to shoot once; but he never learnt the incessant changes in the musketry regulations, and we always got him out of the way ~ when the Inspecting D.A.A.G. for Mus- ketry came round. He never did any- thing except exactly what he was told, and was therefore a regular nuisance when asked to do anything requiring brains, such as outpost duty. Many ~ time he was sworn at by Subadar and Wing Commander for his hopeless stu- pidity, and many the extra guard he got. His dull, camel-like face expressed Alkz~k Dad s Farewell. nothing, not even a sense of weariness or confusion. He took his punishment exactly as he did his orders. Once he told the Wing ~Jommander, after a more than usually bad blunder, that he felt a little ill; and that very afternoon he was carried to the hospital with a fever that did not leave him for three months. He took his illness like everything else. He refused sick-leave, on the ground that he had no relations and that his wife and baby son had died six months before. It was this that had prostrated him; but he had never thought of telling any one of it. Mo- hammedans are averse from discuss- Ing their private affairs of that kind, and only in a few cases confide them to their English officers. The poor man had eaten his heart out in solitude in obedience to the etiquette of his reli- gion. His only remark which had any savor of ilfe in it was with reference to this very subject four years later. It had been a very long and tedious double march, and when the rear- guard came in, they had been fourteen hours on the road.. Allah Dad limped In, carrying two rifles and a double set of accoutrements and allowance of rounds; the recruit to whom they be- longed crawling along dead-beat behind him. On inquiry it appeared that he had refused to put the things on a bag- gage-cart because There was no order to put on any more load; also neither would he ride l~iself, nor let the re- cruit ride, because it was forbidden by regulations; nor would he himself go to the hospital dhoolies nor let the re- cruit go, because it was against the reputation of the regiment Surely, said the Colonel, you must have known that your burden was too great for you, that it was never meant that you or any man should be so bur dened. -. Perhaps it is so, replied Allah Dad; but I am a Raiput; and it is the will f God that I bear the load of my stu pidity and of my own grief as well. Why, then, should I hesitate to bear the small burdens of the Sirkar be- sides ? And not another word was to be got out of him. He threaded his blistered feet with worsted yarn, and the next daybreak saw him in the ranks as ready for duty as usuaL At last he got his discharge. In Biluchistan supplies are scanty, and in the outposts more scanty than at head- quarters. For three months the garri- son of Mogul Kot had been suffering for want of vegetables, and scurvy had~ broken out badly. Lime-juice was very little good; even the nauseous scurvy grass did little to check the disease, and the malignant fever of the land slew the scurvy-stricken daily. One day it was reported to the officer that Allah Dad was down with scurvy, and a bad case. A look at the blue and bleeding gums and ulcerated throat showed how bad. He had refused to go to hospital, saying that he felt fit enough for duty. But this day he was taken violently sick, and the officer saw that Allah Dads end was come. Everything pos- sible was done to save his life, for he was a favorite with his fellows as well as with his officers. For four days the officers goat was devoted exclusively to the sick mans use, milk being all he could swallow, and he seemed re- viving. He said nothing, but promised to get well in his usual solemn way. On the morning of the fifth day he sat up unaided, and sent for the Subadar and the English officer. In their p~es- ence he divided his little worldly goods among his comradesthree rupees due to him on pay-day, his Koran, his clothes, and such kit as had become his own property. To the officer he gave his signet-ringa lead hoop with Al- lah Dad rudely cut on a flattened por- tion of it. Then he spoke clearly: I have obtained release and peace from Allah. I am a fool; but I am a soldier Some American Verses. 67 of the Great Queen and always faith- ful. I am dying. I have no foes. I am not afraid. He lay back; there was a deep rattle in his breathing; and his face grew gray. Half an hour passed. Suddenly he raised his head a little and cried in a loud clear voice, In the name of God! There is no God but God, and Moham med is the prophet of God! Salaam to the Great Queen! Another pause, and they held the cup of milk to his lips; but he turned his head away, Say Salaam to the Sahibs! he mur- mured. Then he fell back, and was not stu- pid any more. SOME AMERICAN VERSES. AFTER BUSINESS HOURS.* When I sit down with thee at last alone, Shut out the wrangle of the clashing day, The scrape of petty jars that fret and fray, The snarl and yelp of brute beasts for a bone; When thou and I sit down at last alone, And through the dusk of rooms divinely gray Spirit to spirit finds its voiceless way, As tone melts meeting in accordant tone, Oh, then our souls, far in the vast sky, Look from a tower, too high for sound of strife Or any violation of the town, Where the great vacant winds of God go by, And over the huge misshapen city of life Love pours his silence and his moonlight down *From Along the Trail. By Richard Hovey. Copyright, 1898, hy Small, Maynard & Co. Price, $1.50. FERTILITY.* Clear water on smooth rock Could give no foot-hold for a single sower, Or slenderest shaft of grain: The stone must crumble under storm and rain The forests crash beneath the whirlwinds power And broken boughs from many a tempest-shock, *From Ilermione and Other Poems. By Edward Rowland Sill. Copyright, 1899, hy Honghton, Muffin & Co. 68 Books and Authors. And fallen leaves of many a wintry hour, Must mingle in the mould, Before the harvest whitens on the plain, Bearing an hundred-fold. Patience, 0 weary heart! Let all thy sparkling hours depart, And all thy hopes be withered with the frost, And every effort tempest-tost So, when all lifes green leaves Are fallen, and mouldered underneath the sod, Thou shalt go not too lightly to thy God, But heavy with full sheaves. FORGIVENESS LANE.* Forgiveness Lane is old as youth You cannot miss your way; Tis hedged by flowering thorn forsooth, Where white doves fearless stray. You must walk gently with your love Frail blossoms dread your feet, And bloomy branches close above Make heaven near and sweet. Some lovers fear the stiLe of pride And turn away in pain, But more have kissed where white doves hide, And blessed Forgiveness Lane. *From Within the Hedge. By Martha Gilbert Dickinson. Copyright, 1899, by Donbieday & McClure Co. BOOKS AND AUTHORS. A memoir of the late Duchess of Teck, based on her diaries and letters, Is promised for this summer. Readers of David Harum, who number a good many thousand by this time, will be glad to hear that the author left the manuscript of another story, called The Teller, which the Lippincotts will publish. The announcement that Mr. Micha~1 MacDonagh has undertaken a biog- raphy of Daniel OConnell, will be re- ceived with more than ordinary inter- est. This work is certain to be done carefully and sympathetically. The pathways of literature are thorny in Austria as well as in Ger- many. The well-known Austrian Books and Authors. 69 novelist, Oscar Meding, better known ~s Gregor Samarow, has been con- victed of les~-rnajest~ for insulting the Austrian imperial family in a recent novel. Lord Rosebery, in a recent speech, expressed his ideal of a perfect paper as a well-arranged Times, without the leading articles. Tolstoys English agent complains bitterly because Tolstoys latest novel has been freely edited and a good deal expurgated as published in America. In England, the novel was published just as it was written. The Etchingham Letters have been published in London by Smith, Elder & Co., and are meeting with the cordial reception which theIr unusual quality deserves. Sir Frederick Pol- lock writes to the editor of The Living Age that Dodd, Mead & Co. will pub- lish the American edition. It must be with mingled emotions that the reading public learns that Victor Hugos literary executor is ed- iting a volume containing the poets love-letters, which were written out in little notes and slipped into the hand if his betrothed, during visits when the lovers had no opportunity of priv- ate speech. It has been recently stated, with great particularity, that Queen Natalie of Servia was engaged on a novel, for which her own melancholy ex- periences were to form the material. The story is happily contradicted. The royal lady has suffered much, but has no intention of turning her sufferings to literary acount. The old school grounds at Rugby have been adorned with a marble statue of Thomas Hughes, whose Tom Brown has added so much re- nown to the famous school. The statue was unveiled by the Archbishop of Canterbury, once a head-master at Rugby. Mr. Cy Warman has made the field of railroad fiction and description pe- culiarly hi~ own; and his short stories have shown so much dramatic power that his novel of railroad life, Snow on the Headlight, which the Apple- tons are about to publish, will be awaited with keen expectation. Mrs. Charlotte Perkins Stetsons Woman and Economics has reached a second edition, the value of which is enhanced by a full index of subjects. Small, Maynard & Co., who publish it, are issuing also Mrs. Stetsons story, The Yellow Wall Paper, which was published as a magazine serial some time ago. Richard Whiteings No. 5 John Street (The Century Co.), from which the extract entitled The Princess and Her Poor in the last literary supple- ment, was taken, is attracting increas- ing attention on both sides of the At- lantic. Looked at as fiction or as keen social satire, it is almost equally attractive. Mr. William Harvey Brown, from whose work On the South African Frontier a quotation is made on an- other page, went out to Africa as a naturalist connected with a Unite~l States expedition; and his volume the fruit of eight years residence there. He is about to return to make his home in Rhodesia. There are certain disadvantages of a reputation for humor. Just as the Hon. Joseph Choate, American ambas- sador at the Court of St. Jnmes, was be- 70 Books and Authors. ginning to establish himself in British society and diplomacy, a London pub- lisher announced a volume irreverently called Joe Choates Jest Book. At the urgent solicitation of Mr. Choate the book was suppressed. To the lengthening but not too long list of bird books Small, Maynard & Co. have made an addition in the form of a book called On the Birds Highway, written by Reginald Heber Howe, Jr. The highway~~ is along the eastern coast from Maine to Maryland, at all points of which Mr. Howe has studied the birds with close and affectionate interest. Beginning next October, The Speaker will enter on a new career as the organ of a group of young Oxford Liberals, among whom are Mr. Philip Comyns Carr, Mr. C. Trevelyan, and Mr. Belloc, the author of the striking volume on Danton, an extract from which was recently printed in this department. Sir Wemyss Reid, the present editor, is to retire from active journalism, but will retain a proprietary interest in The Speaker. Mr. William Waldorf Astor, who owns the Pall Mall Magazine, used the June number of that periodical as the vehicle for an article on his great- grandfather, John Jacob Astor. The reader learns from this that, although the subject of the memoir was born in a peasants cottage, he was of exalted lineage. The great-grandsons middle name perpetuates the name of the for- tunate village in which the great- grandfather was born. A new and thoroughly pleasing Na- ture Study volume, and one that will prove delightful summer reading for children, is Margaret Warner Morleys study of bee and flower life, which has the charm of a fairy tale, and mer- its its title, The Bee People (A. C. McClurg & Co., publishers). The value of the book is decidedly enhanced by the illustrations, which are drawn by Miss Morley herself, and are not only truthful, but have a good decorative quality. Since the birds have come to be re- garded as so pre-eminently our fellow- creatures, it is only fitting that the very young people should have their own especial text books in bird lore as well as in botany. A delightful litti& book, with its appropriate share of col- ored plates, is Olive Thorne 1~flhler~ The First Book of Birds (Houghton, Muffin & Co., publishers), which occu- pies itself with the manners and cus- toms of bird life, and proves a guide of the most accurate ~und pleasing sort to older beginners as well as to the chil- dren for whom it was planned. A successful attempt to provide schol- ars below the academic grade with a compact and yet comprehensive dic- tionary is the new abridgment of the Funk & Wagnalls Standard Dictionary, known as the Standard Intermediate- School Dictionary of the English Lan- guage. The definitions especially give evidence of remarkable common sense on the part of the editor, James C. Fer- nald, and are in themselves excellent examples of clear and forcible English, the simpler words being used whonever it is possible to do so without sacri- ficing brevity or exactness. As an aid to the gaining of a good English style the dictionary is valuable. A volume of letters ai~d verses of more than usual human interest is that entitled Poems of Nature and Life, published by George H. Ellis, and edited by Francis E. Abbot, from material left by the late Dr. John Witt Randall. The letters are in themselves an earnest and at times touching expression of a strong per- Books and Authors. 71 sonality, but the poems alone would merit collecting. They are woodland verses, and are of rare dignity, com- bined with musical charm. A special interest attaches to them from the fact that they were printed in a small collection a number of years ago, and were then appreciatively noticed by Bryant, who recognized a poet of a mood not unlike his own. From the just-published Life of Wil- ham Morris it appears that Mr. Morris was sounded by a member of Mr. Glad- stones cabinet, with the Premiers 5 knowledge, to see if he would accept the Laureateship in succession to Ten- nyson. Mr. Morris was pleased, but answered that the position was one which his principles and tastes alike made it impossible for him to accept. This information is surprising, but scarcely as much so as the fact that Mr. Morris suggested the Marquis of Lorne as laureate, his view being that the proper function of a Poet Laureate was that of a ceremonial writer of offi- cial verse, and that in this particular case the Marquis of Lorne was pointed out for the office. It is announced that Mr. Lewis Mel- ville has nearly ready a two-volume biography of Thackeray. What his qualifications for such an undertaking may be, and why he has felt authorized to violate the expressed wish of Thack- eray in this venture, are questions which remain to be answered. The Academy tells us that he is not thirty years old, and that he has amassed such a quantity of information that he finds it hard to get it into two volumes. That may be, but probably most lovers of Thackeray would ask nothing better than that the publishers of the bio- graphical edition of Thackera~ys writ- ings should gather into a single volume the biographical introductions written by Thackerays daughter. which are marked by reserve and delicate feeling and are delightfully illuminating. The old order changes in The Spectator. Mr. Huttons death re- moved the writer who had been most widely known in connection with that journal, and now Mr. Meredith Town- send, co-editor and co-proprietor with Mr. Hutton since 1861, is retiring to private life, after an active newspaper career of half a century. The paper will be hereafter in the hands of younge.r men, especially of Mr. St. Loe Strachey, who is, however, so familiar with its traditions, and so well grounded in its methods, that there is no reason for apprehending any startling changes in the journal which is, on the whole, the ablest, kindliest and broadest of the London literary and political week- ly papers. If it is confusing when different books are published under the same ti- tle, as has happened once or twice dur- ing the last few months, it is confusion worse confounded when authors of the same name publish books simultaneous ly. There are, for example, two Rob- ert Bridges now contributing to gen- eral literature, one of them an English- man and the other an American. More remarkable still, there are two Win- ston Churchills who are writing fiction, and in this case also one is an English- man and the other an American. Both have been journalists. The English Winston Churchill is a son of the late Lord Randolph Churchill. He is tlie author of a serial story now in cou~se of publication in Macmillans Maga zine. and he has written a history of the Recovery of the Soudan, which is to be published in the fall. He is en- dowed with a middle name, Spencer, by the use of which he may distinguish himself from the American Winston ChurchIll. who Is the author of Rich- ard Carvel. BOOKS OF THE MONTH. Arm of the Lord, The. By Mrs. Coin- Individualist, The. By W. H. Mallock. yns Carr. Duckworth & Co. Chapman & Hall. Asiatic Studies, Reli~1ous and Social. By Sir Alfred C. Lyall, K. C. B., D. C. L. John Murray. Birds, The First Book of. By Olive Thorne Miller. Houghton, Muffin & Co. Price $1.00. Buds and Stipules, On. By the Right Hon. Sir John Lubbock. Kegan Paul. Century, Half a, Memories of. By the Rev. R. W. Hiley, D. D. Longmans, Green & Co. Cure of St. Philippe, The: a Story of French Canadian Politics. By Fran- cis W. Gray. Digby, Long & Co. Dictionary, of the English Language, The Standard Intermediate School. Abridged from the Funk & Wagnalls Standard Dictionary, by James C. Fernald. Funk & Wagnalls Co. Price $1.00. East, Light from the: Or, The Witness of the Monuments. By the Rev. C. J. Ball, M. A. Eyre & Spottiswoode. East, Near, Travels and Politics in the. By William Miller. T. Fisher Un- win. Factory System, The Effects of the. By Allen Clarke. Grant Richards. Field Floridus, The, and Other Poems. By Eugene Mason. Grant Richards. France, Old, An Idler In. By Tighe Hopkins. Hurst & Blackett. Goshen, The Land of, and the Exodus. By Major R. H. Brown, C. M. G. Edward Stanford. Hooligan Nights, The. Edited by Clar- ence Rook. Henry Holt & Co. Index, Cumulative, to a Selected List of Periodicals. Edited by the Public Library, Cleveland. The Holman- Taylor Co. India, Imperial Rule in. By Theodore Morison. Avchibald Constable & Co. Ireland, A Literary History of. By Douglas Hyde, LL. D. T. Fisher Unwin. Jean DArras, From, to Rodin. By Rose G. Kingsley. Lougmans, Green & Co. Literature, Bohemian, A History of. By Francis, Count Lflzow. W. Heinemann. Literature, Foreign, Studies in. By Virginia M. Crawford. Duckworth. & Co., publishers. Modern Adam, The: Or, How Things are Done. By Arthur W. a Beckett. Hurst & Blackett. Philosophy, Vedanta. Lectures by the Swami Vivekananda. Baker & Taylor Co. Price $1.50. Poems of Nature and Life. By John Witt Randall. Edited by Francis Ellingwood Abbot. George H. Ellis. Possessions, Our New, Everything About. By Thomas J. Vivian and Ruel P. Smith. R. F. Fenno & Co. Price 60 cents. Pro-Consul, The Romance of a Great. By James Mime. Chatto & Windus. Pure Causeway, The. By Evelyn Harvey Roberts. Charles H. Kerr & Co. Price 50 cents. Rifle Man, A British. The Journals and Correspondence of Major George Simmons. Edited, with Introduction, by Lieut.-Colonel Willoughby Ver- ncr. A. & C. Black. South Africa, the History of the Re- public in, Fifty Years of. By J. C4 Voigt. T. Fisher ljnwin. Students, Nature, Rambles with. By E. Brightwen. Religious Tract So- ciety. Winchester College, A History of. By Arthur F. Leach, M. A., F. S. A. Duckworth & Co.

THE LIVING AGE: (FOUNDED ~ E. LITTELL IN 1844.) SEvF~rH SERIEe. Volume LV. NO. 2870. JULY 8, 1899. FROM BEGINNIIG Vol. CCXXI1. -4- CARDINALS, CONSISTORIES, AND CONCLAVES. The concern felt recently throughout the world when the dangerous condi- tion of Pope Leo XIII. was made pub- lic, has, considering his advanced age, led people to speculate as to his prob- able successor. Fortunately, the ~nona- genarian Pontiff has, to some extent, recovered his health; and although a Conclave does not seem likely to meet for some time to come, the following uccount of how these secret councils are organized may not be deemed inap- propriate, at this time when everything connected with the election of a suc- cessor to ~ne who occupies so unique a position as the Head of so vast a religious body as the Latin Church must be of general interest. In order to understand, however, the true na- ture of a Conclave, it will be necessary for me to give some account of the real position occupied by those who exclu- sively compose it, i.e., the Cardinals. The title of Cardinal makes its first appearance in history in the fourth cen- tury, when Constantine assembled the Council of Rome. Lselius Za~cchius, in his De Repub. Eccies. (Part. II.), as- sures us that in his opinion the word means principa!: Nomen Cardinalis idem Jere significat quod principalts, etc.,-and that it was also derived from the Latin cardo, the hinge or pivot of a door, for, continues he, the Cardinals are the pivots of the door of.the Church. Cardinal Bellarmin, a great authority, tells us that in the earlier ages of Chris- tianity the word Cardinal was be- stowed upon the pr~ncipal Churches of Italy, which were known as Cardinalis. From these churches the title, in course of time, became synonymous with the chief pastors who directed them; and to this day the Canons of the Cathedrals of Milan, Ravenna, Salerno, Naples, Cremona, Compostella and Ban, wear scarlet robes when officiat- ing in the Sanctuary, a~nd, moreover, they used to be addressed, until the middle of the sixteenth century, as Car- dinals by courtesy. Pope Pius V.. however, by a constitution dated 13th March, 1567, ordered them to relin- quish this title in favor of the chief priests of the Church of Rome; but they were allowed to retain their scarlet robes. Sixtus V. compares the Sacred College to that assembly of the Elders selected by Moses to assist him to lead the Chosen People into the Promised Land, and he seems to have been so much struck by this similarity that he decided to limit the number of Cardin- als to sevaity, a number corresponding with that of the Israelitish Elders. Pope Eugenius IV., in a letter ad- dressed to the Archbishop of Canter- bury says, The dignity of the Cardi 74 Cardinals, Consistories, and Conclaves. nal is superior to that of Archbishop; for whereas the latter is established for one country, the former is of utility to the entire Christian people. The Archbishop directs only one church, the Cardinals, with the assistance of the Pope, direct them all. The Cardinals can only be judged by the Pope, where- as they possess power over Patriarchs, Archbishops, Bishops, and Priests of every degree. We may therefore con- clude that, after the Pope, their Emi- nences are the first dignitaries of the Hierarchy, and they alone can elect the Pontiff, who can be chosen only from their ranks, an exclusive privilege granted to them by Alexander III. (1159), in the Eleventh ~IEcumenical Council, known in history as the Lat- eran Council. He issued this decree in order to put a stop to the confusion which then existed at every fresh elec- tion on account of the ever-increasing number of persons who considered themselves entitled to interfere in the business of the election. The number of spiritual and temporal privileges granted by successive Popes to the Sacred College varies, according to different authorities, from thirty to forty-one. Of these, by far the most important is that of electing the Pope, and the following, mentioned by St. Thomas of Aquinas, who tells us, that before the Council of Rome, A.D. 324, Pope Sylvester ordained that, before the sentence of excommunication can be pronounced upon a Cardinal, he must be accused by seventy-two wit- nesses if he belongs to the Order of Archbishops, or by sixty-four if he be merely a Priest, and by twenty-seven if of the inferior Order of Deacons. The title of Cardinal was first used in 767, under the Pontificate of Stephen III. In 1630, Pope Urban VIII. gave the members of the Sacred College the title of Eminence, which they retain to this day, together with a social rank and precedence equalling that of a Prince of the Blood. They had been previously addressed as Reverend, Illustrious, Honorable, etc., etc. Since Stephen III., A.D. 769, the Popes have been invariably chosen from among the Cardinals, excepting under very peculiar circumstances. The following Popes have been elected with- out having previously received the pur- ple, and were either Bishops or Priests at the time they ascended the Chair of St. Peter:Gregory V., 996; Sylvester 11., 999; Clement II., 1046; Damasus II., 1048; St. Leo I., 1049; Victor II., 1053; Nicholas II., 1058; Alexander II., 1061; Calixtus II., 1119; Eugenius IV., 1145; Urban IV., 1261; Blessed Gregory, 1271; St. Celestin V., 1294; Clement V., 1305; Urban V., 1362; Urban VI., 1378. The three Orders of CardinalsBish- ops, Priests, and Deaconshave been likened to the Three Orders of the Ce- lestial Hierarchy, the Seraphim, Cheru- bim, and Thrones. Each Cardinal is granted a church in or about Rome, distinguished either for the relics it contains, or as being erected over the scene of some conspicuous martyrdom. The Sacred College at present, when complete, consists of seventy members: six Cardinal-Bishops, fifty Cardinal- Priests, and fourteen Cardinal-Deacons. The newly created Cardinal receives, as a sort of life-gift, one of the afore- said principal Roman churches, whose altars he is obliged to keep in repair, and it is also a rule that, during his term of office his hat and coat-of-arms must be hung up over the principal en- trance. The Cardinal, in taking ~os- session of this church, adds its name to his title. Thus Cardinal Wiseman was known as the Cardinal of Santa Pudenziana, and Cardinal Vaughan a~ the Cardinal of San Gregorlo a Monte- cal. Indeed it often happens that the Cardinals, among themselves, drop their family name and call themselves by their churches only, and thus are often designated in history. As, for Cardinals, Consistories, and Conclaves. 75 example, the English Cardinal of Es- ton, who was Envoy to Rome from Henry II., and who is buried in Santa Caicilia, invariably figures in the Ro- man Chronicles as the English Cardi- nal of Santa Ciecilia. In medlaival times the number of Car- dinals was not defined. Thus in 1331, under Urban VI., there were only twenty; under Sixtus IV. there were sixty-three. Leo X. increased the num- ber to sixty-five. Paul V. never al- lowed the Sacred College to exceed sixty-three members, but under Pius IV., in 1599, it rose to sixty-six.1 Sixtus V., in the second year of his remarkable Pontificate devoted himself to systematizing the reorganization of the Sacred College. He regulated thatits members might be selected from both Orders of the Clergy, the Regular and Secular, and from among the Ecciesi- astics of all nations and races. He, moreover, determined that the College should include at least four Doctors of Theology, belonging to the religious congregations, or to the mendica~nt Friars. He, moreover, decreed that no two near relatives should sit together in the Conclave. The Council of Trent fixed the age at which a person can re- ceive the dignity of Cardinal at thirty years, below which no one can be con- secrated Bishop. Sixtus V., however, made an exception to this rule in favor of the Cardinal-Deacons, whom he per- mitted to receive the scarlet hat at even as early an age as twenty-two. Butheal- so enjoined that those Cardinals who were not ordained Deacons at the time they were raised to the purple were to be so, during the first year of their ad- mission into the Sacred College, other- wise they were to have no voice what- ever either in Consistory or Conclave. Notwithstanding these decrees, since, as before Sixtus V., many Eceleslasties 1 Some authors affirm that in the time of St. rontianus A. D. 230, there were as many as two hundred and thirty Cardinals. have been created Cardinal-Deacons under twenty years of age, of which the most notable are Giovanni de Medi- ci, afterwards Leo X., who received hiSR hat in his twelfth year; Antonio Fad netti who was created Cardinal by In- nocent IX., in 1591, before he was eighteen; Joseph Deti, in his seven- teenth year by Clement VIII., and Sib- vestero Aldobrandini, a boy of sixteenr who, in 1605, received the dignity from the same Pope. Paul V. created Mau- rice of Savoy a Cardinal in 1607, at the- age of fourteen, Carlo de Medici at nineteen, Ferdinand of Austria, son of Philip III. of Spain, received the scar- let hat when a mere lad, of ten. In 1647, under Innocent X., Francis Mal- dalchini, aged seventeen, was elected CardinalClement XII., in 1735, at the request of Philip V. of Spain, bestowed the title of Eminence on His Majestys son, Don Luis de Bourbon, an infant eight years of age, who was immediate- ly appointed Archbishop of Toledo. It must, indeed, have been a curious sight to have seen this little creature arrayed in his robes of office endeavor- ing to perform his stately duties and ceremonies with becoming gravity and decorum. He soon afterwards, how- ever, relinquished the Mitre of Toledo to an older and wiser head. This cus- tom of creating juvenile members of the Sacred College was much more fre- quent previous to, than after, the Ponti- ficate of Sixtus V., who, nevertheless, just before he promulgated his numer- ous decrees affecting the Cardinals, be- stowed the scarlet hat upon his own nephew, Alessandro Paretti, a youth of but fourteen, whose brother Felix, the favorite of his Pontifical uncle, was cruelly and mysteriously murdered with the connivance of his beautiful wife, Vittoria Accoramboni, the famous White Devil of Websters powerful tragedy. The Cardinals are elected in what l~ termed a Consistory, or meeting of the 76 Cardinals, Consistories, and Conclaves. Sacred College, of which there are two kindsprivate and public. At the se- cret one none but the Pope and their Eminences are present. On the con- trary, in the public Consistory, when the Cardinals receive their insignia of office, that is to say, the scarlet beret ht, txilotta, etc., the foreign Ambassadors and Ministers, the Roman aristocracy, -and strangers of distinction, are al- lowed to attend the strikingly pictur- esque ceremony. It used to be on the evening of this public Consistory that the principal palaces of Rome were brilliantly illuminated, and bands of music performed in front of the resi- dences of the new members of the Sa- cred College; for in Rome the creation of a Cardinal is regarded precisely in the same light as, in other parts of the world, the birth of a Prince of the Blood, since he may, in the course of time, become a sovereign Pontiff. If the newly elected are of Royal blood. or relatives of the Pope, their nomina- tion used to be announced by the boom- ing of the cannon from the fortress of St. Angelo. The Pontiff bestows upon them the beretta, or cap, and the calotta, or skull-cap, with his own hands, as, we are assured, took place when Bene- dict XIV. elevated to the grade of Car- dinal-Deacon Henry Stuart, Duke of York, brother to the Young Pretender, thereby recognizing his Royal preten- sions. If a Cardinal lives at a dis -tance from Rome, as was the case -when the American Archbishop Mc- ~Dloskey, of New York, entered the Sa- i~red College, a Noble Guardsman brings him the letter and the calotta, or skull-cap, from the Secretary of State, announcing his nomination, and an ab- legate conveys to him the beretta, the expense of these gentlemen being de- frayed by the Papal Treasury. According to Panvinius, it~ was Alex- ander VI. who instituted the Pontifical right of creating Cardinals in petto, that is, of selecting certain persons for the Cardinalate whose names may be kept secret until a fitting opportunity oc- curs for publishing them. If the Pope dies before these Cardinals in petto are officially appointed, their creation is considered null. The reception of the red hat is an in- dependent ceremony, which generally takes place some time after a Cardi- nal is admitted into the Sacred College. and immediately before his Eminence takes possession of his titular church. Both of these ceremonies are most pic- turesque and stately, but a description of them would be irrelevant to the main subject of this paper. The ordinary dress of a Cardinal con- sists of a long frock buttoned down the front with many little red buttons, and a light cloak, cape, and train of vivid scarlet silk. The majority of writers are of opinion that the choice of this color is derived from the fact that it was worn in classical times by the Roman senators, of whom the Car- dinals are the successors. It has, how- ever, a mystical signification, being the color of blood (or martyrdom), and is intended to remind their Eminences that they are expected to die, if neces- sary, in the defence of the faith. The first mention of the use of this color will be found in Cardinal Ostians works, in which he Informs us that it was universally worn by the Sacred College in the previous year to the one in which the book was written, i.e., 1274. The famous hat makes its first appearance in history at the Thirteenth General Council, when, in 1244, ~Enno- cent IV. ordered the Cardinals pi-eseut to wear scarlet hats, to commemorate the massacre of several of their number by the Emperor Frederick II., in 1219, under the Pontificate of his predeces- sor, Honorius III. Their Eminences first woi~e these hats at Clugny, in 1246, during the session of the Council of Lyons, when Innocent IV. went in state to that city to visit St. Louis, Cardinals, Consistories, and Conclaves. 77 King of France. The hat is now rarely worn. Formerly it used to be in con- stant use, and figures very picturesque- ly in the frescoes of the early Italian painters, and in the old pictures and engravings of processions of Cardinals on horseback, accompanying the Pope either to his coronation or to pay a state visit to some church. At present the usual hat worn by a Cardinal is the black three-cornered beaver hat common to all priests on the Continent, but having a scarlet ribbon round it and gold cords and tassels. The beretta is a small three-cornered cap, made like that which every Catholic priest wears when in church and not officiating at the altar; it is, however, scarlet instead of black. The calotta is merely a little scarlet skull-cap. The Cardinals who l)elong to the religious Orders do not wear the same scarlet robes, but retain their own distinctive costume. They, however, possess the hat, and wear the red beretta and skull-capa privilege accorded them by Gregory XIV. Paul II., in the fifteenth century, added the custom of bestowing upon the newly elected Prince of the Church a scarlet cap, or beretta, and a skull-cap of the same colorcalotta; and he moreover ordained that any one found wearing such a head-dress, unless he were a member of the Sacred College, should be rigorously pursued and punished. He also granted the Cardinals the right to caparison their horses with scarlet, and Urban VIII. gave them the privi- lege of decorating their carriages with those long scarlet tassels called ftocchi, which used to form such a very pictur- esque ornament of those grand old coaches which unfortunately have en- tirely disappeared from the streets of Rome. It was Innocent IV. who, as already stated, decreed that the Cardinals should wear scarlet hats, and this he did to commemorate the massacre of several members of the Sacred College. by order of the Emperor Frederick II., in 1219, under his predecessor Honorius 111. On ordinary occasions the costume of a Cardinal is of black cloth edged with scarlet-worked buttonholes and buttons, and a wide black or scarlet silk cloak floating from the shoulders. This robe must be made of plain silk, without figures of any kind upon it, but the train and cape may be made of watered silk, moirb antique, or even of velvet lined and edged with ermine. When the Cardinals wear violet, as in Lent, for instance, their hats must be of the same color. When a member of the Sacred College loses a near relative, he cannot put on black or any other sign of mourning, and can only, in to- ken of respect for the memory of the dead, suppress the tassel on his hat and the narrow golden cord which sur- rounds it. On the third Sunday in Ad- vent, and on the fourth of Lent, called respectively La~tare and Gaudete Sun- days, their Eminences assume light pink robes to express the joy experi- enced by the Church at the approach of Christmas and Easter, but they imme- diately resume their sombre garments, as the penitential season is not passed. When a Cardinal dies, his hat is hung over the place where his body rests, and there remains until removed either by accident or by the effect of time. The oldest hat thus suspended in Rome is to be seen in the Church of Santa Maria Nuova, and is that of Cardinal Mariano Volpano, who died in 1390.a The word Conclave, properly an apart- ment which can be closed with one key (cum ci e), is applied not only to the ~ place where the Cardinals assemble for the election of a new Pope, but to the assemblage itself. During the earliest periods of Church History, and certain- ly until the time of Gregory X., in the thirteenth century, who finally settled 2 For a much more exhaustive account of cardinals see an article on them hy the writer. Antiquary for 1882. 78 Cardinals, Consistories, and Conclaves. the mode in which a Pope should be elected, the secular rulers of Rome, and those foreign potentates who, in their turn ruled them, as I have al- ready pointed out, interfered with the freedom of Papal election, whereby much confusion arose. The statement, however, that Charlemagne received permission from Pope Leo III. to nom- inate a Pope, and even to veto his elec- tion by the Cardinals and Clergy of Rome, has been satisfactorily proved to be the invention of Sigismund of Gemblours, a staunch advocate of Im- perial pretensions, and as it is paen- tioned in his Chrc~nicles, it has misled many early historians, notably Gentian, who quotes and comments upon it. Nicholas II., in 1059, assigned the elec- tion of Popes to the Cardinal-Bishops with the consent of the other Cardinals, and the Clergy and people of Rome. He, however, admitted a clause reserv- ing a right of veto to Henry, King of the Romans, and to his Imperial suc- cessors, and this clause eventually led not only to confusion, but to the elec- tion of numerous Anti-Popes. Alexan- der III., after his long struggle with Frederic Barbarossa, deprived the Im- perial House of its usurped privilege, and in 1179, it was decreed at the Lat- eran, that the Pontifical election should rest henceforth with the Cardinals only, and, in order to become canoilical, the said election must be confirmed by two-thirds of the number of Cardinals assembled in Conclave. A hundred years later, at the Council of Lyons, which was presided over by Gregory X., the Lateran Decree, as it is called, was finally accepted and confirmed. The struggle of the Popes against the persistent interference of the Empire in the matter of their election, in real- ity began in A.D. 740, under Gregory III., and although it is true that the Franks, in the time of Charlemagne, lent the Papacy their powerful assist- ance, nevertheless, the Papacy, in its turn, was much too cautious to grant Charlemagne the privilege of interfer- ing in the Conclave, and was deter- mined, even at that early period, to keep the matter as much as possible in the hands of ecciesiastics; so that when, in 1172, Gregory the Great as- cended the Pontifical throne in the Church of St. Peter in Vincola, no lay- man had interfered in any way in his election. Having delivered themselves from Imperial interference, the Cardi- nals, as electors of the Pope, had next to sustain a long struggle with the Ro- man people who, in the earlier times, had enjoyed the privilege of voting. However, in 1126, the Cardinals broke loose from all popular interference, but nevertheless allowed the lower Clergy to retain their ancient right of voting; little by little these lay privileges were abrogated, and in 1143, Celestine II. was the first Pope elected by Cardinals only. Alexander III., in 1178, at the Council of the Lateran, definitely settled that Cardinals should exclusively vote at a Papal election. The number of Cardi- nals, however, at this time, had not been determined, nor was it so, as we have already seen, for a long time af- terwards; for we find Boniface VIII. (1012) elected by a Conclave consisting of only eighteen Cardinals; Boniface IX. (1389) by thirteen; Gregory XII. (1406) by fourteen; Nicholas V. (1447) by eighteen, and so forth. Gregory XII., at the Council of Lyons in 1274, ordained that the Papal elections should absolutely take place in a Coun- cil or Conclave expressly arranged for the purpose. Before this time, the ~a- cred College had assembled for the Papal election sometimes in St. Peters, at St. John of Lateran, or even at the Minerva. During the past three cen- turies, and especially the first half of the present, many Popes have been elected at the Quirinal, which contained one suite of apartments admirably ar- ranged for the purposes of a Conclave. Cardinals, Consistories, and Conclaves. 79 It was at this Palace that Pope Pius IX. was elected in 1846. It will be re- membered that the Quirinal was, be- fore the unification of Italy, the sum- mer residence of the Popes. If by chance the Pope died away from Rome, the Conclave took place in the Cathe- dral of the city in which he expired. Innocent V., in 1276, was the first Pope elected in a properly organized Con- clave. From the time of Adrian V. (1276) to Urban VIII. (1623), the cere- monies connected with Papal election have undergone a gradual and thought- ful transformation, as have also many important details connected with all Pontifical ceremonies. The Council of Lyons ordained that the election of a new Pope should not take place until ten days had elapsed after the death of his predecessor. Since Sergius II. (844), the Popes have been in the habit of changing their names after an elec- tion, Adrian VI. being the only excep- tion, reigning under his own name. Benedict XII. (1334) is the first Pope who wore the famous Triple Tiara, the first crown signifying the spiritual power, the second the temporal, and the third the combination of the two powers, the spiritual and temporal. As to the limit of age for election to the chair of St. Peter, it does not seem ever to have been definitely defined. The youngest Pope who ever assumed the keys was Benedict VIII., who was, it is said, only twelve years of age at the time of his election. John XII. was nineteen, Leo X. was thirty-seven years of age, Pius IX. forty-two years of age when he ascended the throne. Most of the men who have occupied the Chair of Peter, have, however, as a rule, reached an advanced age before their appointment. The shortest reign on record is that of Stephen II., which lasted only a few hours; and the long- estalways excepting the Pontificates of Pius IX. and of his present Holiness was that of Adrian I., who reigned twenty-three years, ten months, and seventeen days, his reign being six days longer that that of Sylvester I. Since Martin V. (1417), the Holy See has never been vacant longer than six months. Seven monks have occupied the Papal throne in succession, from Alexander II. (1062) to Calixtus II. (1119). So soon as the Popes death is certi- fied by his physicians, the Cardinal Camerlengo, or High Chamberlain, en- ters wearing his purple robes and ac- companied by the relations of the de- ceasedif there be any in Rome at th~ time of the deceasehis chaplains, chamberlains, and personal attendants. Approaching the bed upon which the body lies, the Cardinal calls the de- ceased three times by his Christian name. Formerly he used to tap thrice lightly upon the forehead of the corpse with a little ivory mallet. This cere- mony has been discontinued as anti- quated and superfluousit certainly did not take place on the occasion of the death of Pius IX. An officially attest- ed certificate of the cause of death is now drawn up by the doctors and signed by the Cardinal High Chamber- lain, and all present. A copy of this is subsequently enclosed, together with a number of coins, etc., in a lead box, and buried with the Pope. Just before the body is washed and prepared for the coffin, a duty generally performed by the principal members of the Noble and Swiss Guards, the Grand Master of Papal Ceremonies, generally a Car- dinal, removes from the fourth finger of the left hand of the dead Pontiff the C ring of the Fisherman, which is subse- quently broken up to prevent posthu- mous forgery. These ceremonies ac- complished, every one retires excepting the Cardinal High Chamberlain, who is responsible for all matters connected with the deceased until the election of his successor, and the persons whose duty it is to prepare the body for bur 80 Cardinals, Consiszories, and Conclaves. lal. Whilst this is proceeding, an in- ventory of the personal effects and pa- pers of the dead Pontiff is taken and a seal affixed upon them. They remain, however, in loco, until after the read- ing of the will, when they are distrib- uted according to the wishes of the de- ceased among his relations and friends. The body, after being washed, is wrapped in a winding-sheet and sol- emnly consigned to the Captains of the Palatine Guards. It is now robed in episcopal vestments and a silver mitre upon its headnot the Triple Tiara. The corpse being arranged upon a state lieter or bed, after certain prayers, and followed by all the Cardinals, prelates, dignitaries, and also by the Ambassa- dors and Consuls, and principal mem- bers of the Roman Aristocracy, is con- veyed with much ceremony to the Sis- tine Chapel, where a Requiem is chant- ed. It remains here three days, during which time Masses and Vespers for they dead are snng or said throughout the day, and the body is watched, or waked, during the night. On the evening of the third day it is taken into the Basilica of St. Peter and placed in a chapelle ardente, whose iron railings are closed so as to prevent the people from touching it, but with the right foot exposed in order that the faithful can kiss the cross on the embroidered slipper, an observance introduced by Adrian I. as a sign of submission to the Head of the Church. For several days the people are admitted to view the Lying-in-State from an early hour until it is time to close the Basilica. Meanwhile, Masses of Requiem are celebrated, not only in St. Peters but in all the Churches of Rome, and, in- deed, throughout Christendom, and sim- ultaneously at every altar in each church where the supply of priests suf- fices. On the tenth day after the de- misc the final and most solemn Requi- em is sung in St. Peters, and in the evening the Pope is buried, or, rather, his body is taken to the crypt and there placed in a temporary vault, where it remains a year, after which it is final- ly disposed of in the tomb selected by the Pontiff during his lifetime, and us- ually designated in his will. Thus, when Pins IX. died, most people thought he would be buried in St. Peters, but when his will was opened, it was discovered that he had decided to be interred in San Lorenzo, whither his remains were accordingly translated with much state, and by night, some two years after his death, an event which gave rise to a shameful riot, which the Italian police were un- able to quell, although instigated by a mere handful of rascals of the lowest class. This outrage upon the dead body of the Head of the Church has covered the Italian Government with ineffaceable shame, and excited a uni- versal suspicion that it was secretly connived at for some obscure political purpose. The Conclave should, by rights, as- semble as soon as possible after the Popes burial, even in the afternoon of the same day, as has been frequently the case. The first formally organized Conclave was convoked at Viterbo, in 1270, and lasted longer than any other on record, and resulted in the election of Gregory X. Concerning it some very amusing stories have been told. Tt appears that the Cardinals who were in Viterbo at the time of the death of Clement IV., and who composed the Conclave, could not, for their lives, ar rive at a conclusion as to who was to succeed him. After sitting many months, they were about to pack up and return to Rome, when St. Bona- ventura persuaded the Viterbans to surround the Palace so as to prevent their leaving it, a proposal which ~vas hailed with glee by the people, who in- timated to the Cardinals that they should remain shut up where they were until they had accomplished their mis- Gardinals, Consistories, and conclaves. 81 sion. However, even this expedient did not haste matters, and two years elapsed before the prelates could make an end of their session, they remain- ing virtually prisoners all the time. One day, the Cardinal Da Porto de- dared that the Holy Ghost would nev- er descend upon them so long as there was a roof over their heads; whereup- on the populace, taking the worthy pre- late at his word, unroofed the edifice. The winter was bitterly cold, and soon the Cardinals began to feel its effects, and were nearly frozen to death. But even this severe expedient had not much effect, and at length it was de- cided to starve them out. They were to be deprived of all provisions, espe- cially wine, without which no good Italian can endure life. The poor Car- (linals had withstood rain, snow, wind, and cold, but this last deprivation was the straw which broke the camels back, and they speedily elected Gregory X. When the famished and reverend gentlemenso says the legendeventu- ally quitted the Conclave, they were absolutely ravenous. The townsmen, wishing to show them that they bore them no ill-feeling, entertained them at a sumptuous banquet, with the unfortu- nate result, however, that four or five of them ate so voraciously that they ex- pired on the spot. Another exceeding- ly lengthy Conclave was the one which assembled in Rome in 1691, after the death of Pope Alexander VIII., when the Cardinals remained in session five months and twelve days. They finally elected Cardinal Pignatelli, who was proclaimed the same day as Innocent XII. In the meantime Rome had got into the most dreadful state of disor- der, and the very palaces of the Cardi- nals sequestrated in Conclave had to be guarded by soldiers in order to pre- vent pillage. The new Popes election was therefore hailed with great accla- mation, as a chance of re-establishing order, and especially as His Holiness was well known for his benevolence and charity. An exceptionally long Conclave was the one already men- tioned as having met at Venice in 1799, a curious account of which is given in the little-read memoirs of Cardinal Consalvi, who was the Secretary on this occasion. It assembled in the Pa- triarchal Palace on the 30th November, 1799, and was not raised until the 14th March, 1800, when Cardinal Chiaria- monte left it as Pope Pius VII., in suc- cession to the unfortunate Pius VI., his former patron and friend. There are three methods of Papal electionballot, compromise, and n- spiration, or acclamatiQn. .Acclanm- tion, or adoration, is the term gener- ally employed to describe cases in which nearly all the Cardinals after special prayers believe themselves in- spired by the Holy Ghost simultane- ously to proclaim one of their number Pope, but there has been no instance of this system of election occurring since the middle ages. Compromise has been still less frequently resorted to, and signifies when all the Cardinals agree to trust the election of their Chief to two or three of their members only, the rest swearing to abide by their de- cision. Ballotage is the system in pres- ent use, and to which I shall refer more fully presently. Since the occupation of Rome by the Italian Government all the great cere- monies of the Church have undergone considerable modification, and even the future Conclave, when it meets, is sure to suffer in a measure, especially in its more picturesque but possibly super- fluous details. Still, it is sure to fol- low pretty closely time-honored tradi- tions, and to be a reproduction of the similar assembly which met after the death of Pius IX. and which elec~~4 Leo XIII. The proceedings commence, as al- ready stated, by the closing of the outer gates of the wing of the Apostolic 82 Cardinals, Consistories, and Conclaves. Palace, set aside for the assembly. Their Eminences at once proceed to hear Mass in the Sistine or Pauline Chapel, expressly arranged for their accommodation. The Cardinal-Regent or Vicar-General of Rome, who, for the time being, represents the lately deceased Pope, occupies the Pontifical throne, and the Cardinals as they pass before him make three genufiections, precisely as if he were the successor of Peter. They then chant the Inter nos est, amongst us is the future Pontiff, but incognito. Business now begins in earnest. There are two principal en- trances to the Conclave, one opening into the palace, the other into the Con- clave proper. The key of the first is handed over to the Grand Marshal of the Conclave, who, in former times, was invariably a Prince of the House of Savelli. At present a Colonna has this honor. Outside this door, which is guarded by five Masters of the Cere- monies, the Ambassadors of the vari- ous powers accredited to the Vatican have a right on the first day of the gathering to speak with their Emi- nences through a small aperture called La Rota. The attendants and servants inhabit other suites of small rooms be- yond those occupied by their superiors, and finally the cooks who supply this multitude with meals are shut up and not allowed to have any communica- tion with the outer world other than is absolutely necessary in order to pro- cure provisions, which are brought ev- ery morning fresh from the market. The Cardinals are allowed to bring with them a supply of wines, cordials, sweetmeats, but as there are three doc- tors provided and shut up with them, they are requested not to introduce any medicines, as a perfectly well-organized pharmacy is at their service. This regulation was evidently intended to prevent the least suspicion of foul play. Every morning their Eminences have a cup of coffee, or of chocolate, and a small loaf of bread brought into their study or bedroom by a servant accom- panied by another attendant, who is expected to report to the Cardinal Chamberlain if any conversation or any accident, such as sickness, has oc- curred. The Cardinal is not expected to speak with the servants unless obliged to do so. At noon their Emi- nences breakfast, and at seven oclock they have their supper. These meals are substantial but frugal, and consist of soup, fish, meat, poultry, and des- sert, but no sweet dishes are served. On the day of entering the Conclave the Cardinals are permitted to sup to- gether in small parties in one anothers rooms for the last time. At midnight the bell rings, and such persons as have no business to remain in the Conclave, and who are there only as visitors or gossips, have to take their leave and depart. At two oclock in the morning the bell tolls again, and at three it rings for the third and last time, and the gates are finally closed until the new Pope is elected. On the occasion of the Conclave which elevated Pius IX. to the throne, a medical gentleman was belated and had to remain shut up with the rest until the Conclave closed. A Chamberlain and three Cardinals next visit each room, hall, and Chapel, to see that no one is left behind or concealed who has no business there. On the following morning the little army of Cardinals and Conclavists attend Mass. and then matters begin to fall into the prescribed routine, and each candidate is more or less sequestrated. r It is here necessary to describe the manner in which the chambers, or rath- er cells, for the accommodation of the Cardinals are arranged. The apart- ments in the Apostolic Palaces, whether at the Quirinal or the Vatican, or at the Lateran, are so enormous that it is easy to partition them off by means of boards into as many of fair-sized chambers as there are Cardinals who Cardinals, Consistories, and Conclaves. 83 are expected to attend. So soon as they are arranged, and they have been in preparation since almost immediately after the Popes death, a number is af- fixed to each door, and the Cardinals draw for possession. They next send to their Palace or apartments for the furniture necessary for their com- fort, beds and bedding. Their coat-of- arms is then placed over their door and they are solemnly handed the key to take possession. These improvised apartments are generally hung and car- peted with green or purple baize. I have been assured on authority that the furniture at the last Conclave was of the simplest description, consisting generally of an iron bedstead, a wash- ing-stand, two wooden chairs, an arm- chair, a table, pen, ink and paper, a lamp, a crucifix, and a few books. The Conclavists, as they are called, may be sub-divided into three divisions. Firstly their Eminences, then their im- mediate secretaries and attendants, and thirdly the servants, cooks, valets, mes- sengers, etc., etc. No doubt the future Conclave, which will be illuminated, by the way, with the electric light, will include typewriters, but certainly not telegraphists or telephonists, as all communication with the outer world is paralyzed until after the election. Needless to say that in this wonderful world, secluded from the other one, many curious and comical incidents oc- cur, not to mention one or two in past ages of a highly tragical nature, for on two memorable occasions at least, mur- der strayed even into the sacred pre- cincts of an Apostolic Conclave. Quar- rels too have broken out, and loud wrangling; but things have changed for the better in our times, and we may be sure that the election for the suc- cessor of Leo XIII. will proceed with all the courteous decorum whi~h ac- companied the election of his distin- guished predecessors. During the first day, and late in the morning of the following, many priv- ileged persons, such as the Ambassa- dors, especially those of the Powers who have the right of veto, are allowed to visit their Eminences, as already stated elsewhere. Some days, however, often elapse before voting begins or any serious business is done. It is pos- siMy owing to the intricacy of the cer- emonial that this system of ballot is. as a rule, so exceedingly impartial, and that the man who enters the Conclave as Pope usually leaves it as Cardinal a very old Roman saying indeed, said to date from the time when Sixtus V. entered the Conclave an apparent in- valid and left it a hale a~nd hearty Pon tiff. Few, indeed, were the people, ev- en among those who were behind the scenes, who thought it possible that the austere and unworldly Cardinal Pecci would ever be elected successor to Pius IX., for he possessed few of the qualifications necessary for the po- sition, at least, according to the lights of this world. Yet, to the surprise of all Rome, but not to that of my old friend Mr. Shakespeare Wood, then Times correspondent in the Eternal City, he being among the very few to predict Peccis election. The method of making a Pope now in use follows very closely the rules laid down by Popes Gregory XV. and Urban VIII. Before their time the voting was free and open, and there was no law laid down as to the number of persons to be voted for. In our times the voting is free and secret, and only one man can be balloted at a time. If the Conclave~ meets at the Vatican, the balloting gen- erally takes place in the enormous Pauline Chapel. After hearing Mass their Eminences, being robed in pur- ple, take their seats in the stalls ar- ranged in front of the Altar, and hav- ing an open space between them, oc- cupied by a large table. Each prelate in his turn proceeds to a small table in the corner of the chapel, at which are 84 Cardinals, Consistories, and Conclaves. seated three official Scrutators. He is now presented with a piece of paper of a peculiar shape, in the centre of which he writes the name of his candi- date in a feigned hand. in the extreme right corner he in~cribes his own name in his usual caligraphy, turns it down and carefully seals it. On the opposite corner he inscribes a verse from the Scriptures which he likewise folds up and seals. This being done he rolls up the whole document and proceeds to the Altar, where, after genuflecting, he drops it into a chalice covered by a paten. Before doing so, however, he turns to the assembled Cardinals, and holding up the paper in his hand sol- emnly swears that he votes according to his firm belief and hope in the in- terests of the Church only. After hav- ing put the paper into the chalice and again genuflecting he retires to his stall. In the case of a Cardinal being lame or infirm, one of the Scrutators takes his voting paper from him and puts it in the chalice, but should he be too ill to attend in the chapel three Car- dinals proceed to his chamber to fetch the voting paper, which they after- wards band to the principal Scrutator to drop into the chalice. When all the Cardinals have finished voting the chal- ice is taken from the Altar and placed on the table in the centre of the chapel, and after more prayers, formally emp- tied of its contents, and a process of verification commences. The first Scru- tator opens that part of the ballot paper which has not been sealed, and which bears, in feigned handwriting, the name of the prelate proposed for elec- tion. He passes it in turn to the sec- ond Scrutator, who hands it to the third. This gentleman reads it out loud to the assembly, each Cardinal writing down the name on a printed form which be has brought witl~ him into tbe Chapel. If at the close of the ballot it is discovered that any one sin- gle candidate has received exactly two thirds of the votes of those present., he becomes, there and then, ipso facto Pope. On the other hand, if he lacks but a single vote the ballotage has to recommence. Meanwhile, all the use- less papers are immediately taken and burnt in a little stove supplied with a funnel opening in a conspicuous man- ner, on to the Piazza of St. Peters, so that the assembled multitude below~ seeing the smoke issue thence, become aware of the fact that no Pope has as yet been elected. The ceremony is re- peated, and the Cardinals can vote for a totally different member of the Sa- cred College than the one they have al- ready named, but their vote becomes invalid if they name the same person twice, so that the names of the candi- dates are constantly changing hands, whereby it is presumed that a greater amount of impartiality is secured. If a Cardinal, on this second voting, ob- tains two-thirds of the votes he be- comes Pope. This second ceremony is called accessit. Three Powers have the right of veto: Spain, France, and Aus- tria. If a Cardinal is elected against the wishes of the Powers, his election can be cancelled, but only before proc- lamation. It is an error to imagine that once their Eminences are assembled in the Conclave they cannot communicate with each other. Under certain restric- tions they are able to do so, but neither they nor any of their servants are sup- posed to have any communication what- ever with the outer worLd. At the same time, especially in the sixteenth, seven~ teenth. and eighteenth centuries, much irregularity undoubtedly occurred in this direction, and if we may believe the contemporary evidence of the Vene- tian envoys, and even of Dr. Clarke who represented England in Rome~ in the time of Henry VIII., many amus- ing intrigues occurred, the traditions of which have never been forgotten. Sometimes the election of a Pope has 85 Cardinals, Consistories, and Conclaves. proved exceedingly displeasing to the Roman people, as happened when the Dutch Adrian VI., of Utrecht, became Pontiff in 1522, between the reigns of Julius II. and Leo X. He was known as a pious and excellent man, but parsi- monious to a degree, and so angry were the Romans at his election that, when he proceeded from the Vatican to the Late- ran, the street decorations consisted not of the usual sumptuous tapestries, silks, with garlands of flowers, but of cartoons at almost every window bearing the le- gend, This house to let, whereby it was intended to intimate to his Holi- ness that, if he were to persist in being too austere and parsimonious, they would migrate elsewhere. He, fortu- nately for himself, lived only one year, and was succeeded by the warrior Pope, Julius II. The Coronation of a Pope occurs at the High Altar of St. Peter, after a High Mass solemnized with all the pomp and majesty of which the Church is capable. Ills Holiness receives the Triple Tiara from the hands of the Car- dinal Dean on the steps of the Altar. standing, not kneeling, as is the case of Emperors and Kings, the Cardinal be- ing on the steps nearest the altar. This takes place in the presence of the en- tire Pontifical Court, the Ambassadors and aristocracy, as well as of a multi- tude which fills not only the vast Basil- ica. but also the enormous Piazza with- out, where people have been stationed from a very early hour in order to re- ceive the Pontifical blessing from the principal balcony. The enthronization follows, during which the Te Deum is sung. and the whole stupendous func- tion used to conclude with a solemn procession, either on mule-back or else in the magnificent Pontifical state car- riages to the Lateran Basilica, which, being the Cathedral of the Eternal City. the new Pontiff took formal pos- session of as Bishop of Rome. What pen can describe the splendor of this The Fortnlghtly Review. procession, in the good old times, when the Pope, robed in cloth of gold, and wearing his Tiara, and riding his gayly caparisoned mule under a canopy up- held by the six principal Princes of Rome, and followed by the whole Sa- cred College on mule-back, each Car- dinal wearing his scarlet silk capa may- no and hat, and escorted by the most brilliant cortege conceivable, passed through the gayly decorated streets of Rome, wound by the Coliseum to the wonderful old Basilica which Leo XIII. has chosen for his place of sepulchre? Triumphal arches spanned the streets at intervals, and every palace and ev- ery house was draped with costly tap- estry, rich silks, and ~fiowers. At the Lateran the Archbishop of that Basilica presents the Pope with the keys of St. Peter on a golden salver, one golden and the other silver. The new Pope now receives the homage of the Cardi- nals, Archbishops, Bishops, Abbots, and Clergy, and, after giving the Papal benediction from the balcony over the church door, he returns in the same state to the Vatican, where a great ban- quet is given which is attended by the Foreign Ambassadors, the Pope, how- ever, dining by himself under a canopy of state. The whole city of Rome for- merly, on these occasions, was brilliant- ly illuminated, and even the famous girandola was fired off from the sum- mit of the castle of St. Angelo. Bands of music paraded the streets, and un- til a late hour Rome presented a most animated brilliant, and picturesque scene, such as, it is much to be feared, will never be seen again, for it is qu~s- tionable, even if a reconciliation be- tween the Papacy and the Italian Gov- ernment ever takes place, that these grand old ceremonies can be revived in their former completeness; the ~pirit of a utilitarian age being unfortunately opposed to such gorgeous manifesta- tions of ecclesiastical pomp. Richard Darcy. 86 The Old House: A Romance. THE OLD HOUSE: A ROMANCE. TRANSLATED FOR THE LIVING AGE FROM THE ITALIAN OF NEERA. II. The house in which the Lamberti had lived for more than fifty years was not very large, but the warm, grey tint of its walls gave it a kind of living personality, and it had all the charac- teristics of the more modest aristo- cratic mansions of the olden time. It had little outward magnificence; the portal was only just high enough to permit the easy entrance of a carriage, and it comprised only two floors, both delightfully sunny. Its first ownr, the cadet of a noble family, had con- trived, in spite of limited means, to give it the stamp of distinction which belonged to his own ancient race; and this cachet it had preserved unchanged through all its vicissitudes of owner- ship. The small mansion in an out-of- the-way and well nigh deserted quar- ter had escaped the covetous gaze of the modern architect. No one had conceived the idea of transforming it into a new-fangled pyramidal palace, and as it stood, without caiorif~res or any other modern improvements, no up-to-date lady would have wished to live in it. It had thus passed quietly from one to another of the simple and dignified heirs, who had not cared to alter its appearance, but had allowed the great fig-tree to spread its limbs in a corner of the court-yard and the grass to grow between its paving-stones; and had never meddled with the curly ro- coco ornamentation of the grand stair- way, and the broad terrace where every sort of vegetation sprouted and bour- geoned in the springtime, invading walls, windows, and tiles as well with an audacity which time had converted into a vested right. Even the dragon- shaped gargoyles, which had once pointed into the street their cascades of accumulated rain-water, had only been removed at the formal instance of the city government, and not with- out resistance. It seemed as though the house and all its appurtenances were held together by an invisible bond, which protected them from la- ter-day innovation. Even the original proprietors had not succeeded in at- taching their name to the mansion, and it was known throughout the par- ish of Sant Ambroglo simply as the Marcheses house. Of late years only it had sometimes been called Casa Lamberti; and this was the more re- markable because the Lamberti had never owned it, and it seemed almost a miracle that even the honored name of Gentile Lamberti should have had power to displace the tradition of s~ many years. Beginning with the sin- gular line of the slightly bulging facade, the house preserved in all its features the same strange and sugges- tive look of vitality, and absolutely defied criticism. The main entrance, which was not in the center of the facade, was flanked by fiat granite pilasters, and surmounted by a shield showing the half-effaced outlines of a coat-of-arms. Passing under the short archway closed midway by a woodet~ gate, you discovered under the colon- nade a coffered ceiling, of which the painting was very well preserved, and where the artist had employed the same scrolls and flourishes and spirals which the sculptor was to repeat in the balustrade of the stairway;the whole conveying that impression of warmth and languor, almost of caress~ The Old House: A Romance. 87 which is the special charm of the pure barooeo. No echo of the busy town life out- side penetrated within the gate. The visitor was irresistibly reminded of the innumerable convents once crowd- ed into that quarter of Milan; of sev- ered and secluded beings gazing wist- fully at a narrow door from the small court-yard cloister: a fleeting vision of nuns at prayer diffused a mystical breath over the fervid impression pro- duced by the theatrical architecture. But it was a sweet, serene kind of mysticism, which seemed almost gay when summer clothed the terrace and the wall with green, and the perfume of honeysuckle, wisteria and geranium was wafted about the court-yard. Through the archway, over a low op- posite wall, a glimpse was obtained of a series of homely little gardens, rare- ly invaded by the spade, which greatly enhanced the illusion of solitude. The house, which had been built for the use of a patrician family, con- tained only one apartment worthy of that designation; the one which was approached by the broad barocco stair- case. A few rooms on the second floor had been fitted up for the use of Sig- nor Pompeo, and opposite, on the side to which the servants staircase led, a lodging had been found for an old pensioner and his sister, but that was all. The atmosphere of privacy about the dwelling was intensified by the fact that only a few persons, and those always the same, went in and out. Year after year the Lamberti windows were thrown gaily open, and sounds of the laughter and singing of young girls came through them; the old pen- sioner came out into a certain small balcony to warm his rheumatic limbs in the sunshine, and the old sister hung up the swallows cage over his -head; Signor Pompeo stalked through the portico every morning, scanning the heavens and forecasting the weather for the day; while Flavio had passed many a heavy hour there on his own account, and many a delightful one in the Lambertis drawing-room. Every spring, as soon as the fig-tree began to leaf out, the porter would mount a ladder and examine the state of its branches. He would also stretch a few wires for the support of the wisteria, which fell in cascades from the terrace, coaxing it to cover so much of the wall as was not over- shadowed by the fig-tree. About twenty big vases, all of the same pattern, and set in straight lines, completed the summer adornment of the courtyard, where the good man invariably sowed basil and gilliflowers. Later, when the hot suns of July and August had begun to shrivel the plants in the pots, he would carry them in under the por- tico during the mid-day hours, and the methodical repetition of the same ac- tions, the scrupulous care to keep everything in its old shape and place imparted a sort of monastic air which was in perfect harmony with the sur- roundings. The porter being a bachel- or, there was no chatter of women- folk, nor crying of children, to break the silence of the court, and this also made it possible for the grass to grow between the paving-stones, and the figs to hang on until they were ripe; for the earthen vases never to be dis- placed by a hairs breadth, and for the delicate discoloration of time slowly to spread itself over walls, columns and the fantastic sculpture of stair- way and terrace, creating inconceiv-, able effects of chiaroscuro; while ori the north wall, which was clothed from head to foot in the light greenish mould, appeared saltpetre spots with strange ramifications like old incised inscriptions partially corroded by time. A great section of open sky arched over this place of complete solitude, and beyond the range of gardens, when the leaves had fallen from the trees, 88 The Old House: A Romance. appeared a high convent wall, with a dial. The sudden and terrible bereave- ment which had fallen upon this hap- py dwelling dimmed, for the moment, its smiling aspect. The persistent fog was like a veil thrown by the hand of death itself, muffling court, portico and terrace in the same dense mystery. But in the room where Gentile Lam- berti had died there was a keener and more active pain. Grief abode there in personsilent, profound; no shadow or symbol, but a living shape. Into this chamber, still so full of him and his ways, came the elder daughter Anna as into a church. rfhe room had for her the same large and soothing effect as a temple of worship, and she was consoled by what, for many, is a source of intolerable an- guish: the evocation of the departed. She had no thought of that species of consolation which time inevitably brings, and which is really a partial forgetfulness. She did not want to forget. On the contrary, the ~ne drop of sweetness in her bitter sorrow was the certainty she felt of undying re- membrance, of an unbroken bond unit- ing her to the spirit of him whose life she seemed still to feel pulsating in her own veins. Her father had not been to her merely the author of her being, a person whom tradition, habit and self-interest constrained her to love and obey. Bone of his bone, in- deed, and flesh of his flesh, she was above all things the continuation of his thought, the perpetuate i essence of that moral ego which no material accident can destroy. She was the embodiment of his conscience, of his aspirations. She was what he had de- sired to make her, and so she must re- main. No weakness mingled with her deep sense of the loss she had sustained, but rather a concentrated fervor. She seemed to feel germinating in the in- most depths of her own being the strong seed of the fallen tree. Every day since he died she had passed long hours in her fathers chamber; she seemed to see him and hear him. She seemed to feel, though very strangely, the light penetrating touch of those thin hands of his, which were, after all, slender rather than thin, and al- ways a little feverish. She could hear him say Anna, and the short name seemed to flash like a drawn sword, and thrilled her with a sense of pride in him. Many a time, sitting there on the small sofa between the two windows, he had talked to her of the essential nobility of human nature, stimulating her girlish mind to the comprehension of magnanimous ideas, setting them forth, not as exceptional flights of spec- ulation, but as the sole true guide of a worthy life. Such thoughts were, for the rest, a heritage with the Lamberti, handed on from generation to genera- tion with a constancy which had con- ferred upon them a species of moral nobility. Always identified with the innermost life of the country, the name of Lamberti was perpetually coming up, whether at the tragical crisis of that foreign domination which occasioned so many deeds of immortal heroism, or in those intervals of quiet, when to the violence of active rebellion succeeded the calm of intellectual meditation. Some Lamberti or other was sure to be associated with the most sympathetic and generous enter- prises; and that aureole of popular ~e- nown which represents the tribute of thousands of softened and reverent hearts had shone too brightly about the brows of Gentile for his departure not to leave a ghastly void in the life of the daughter who had existed~ for him, and carried her enthusiastic love to a pitch of positive veneration. Desolate and alone even among th~ friends who were all unlike herself, The Old House: A Romance. 89 every object reminding her of the ir- reparable character of the loss she had sustained, Anna could yet fortify her soul in that room which was so steeped in her fathers ideas, in the impas- sioned enthusiasm, the delicate fan- cies, and the loving assiduities, which for twenty years had formed the nu- cleus of their dual existence. The same room was haunted by the slight, elegant figure, yet further spir- itualized by the haze of memory, of Annas paternal grandmother; and cer- tain memorials of her remained there in the shape of a few delicate pastels relieved against the dull red tapestry of the walls, the little divan between the two windows, which has been al- ready mentioned, and a chest of draw- ers in light varnished wood, painted with flowers, which smiled out of a corner, as though it preserved in its shining rotundity a memory of the old ladys serene philosophy. The chain of love in that family had remained so long unbroken, that early ancestors lived again in their youthful descendants, having transmitted to them not merely their tastes and hab- its, but certain peculiar gestures and expressions. Three generations had been born under that vaulted ceiling bordered with a band of pale blue, be- tween those walls whose doorways were surrounded by garlands of paint- ed flowers tied with azure ribbons to gilded columns and surmounted by pictures in tempera, representing cheerful scenes. A story of some kind was attached to every spot, every com- er old and young had laughed and wept, rejoiced, suffered, thought and dreamed, under that tranquil roofin those large, light and stately rooms, where, however, all glare of sunshine was softened by the tender, greenish tint reflected from the garden below. An open book lay upon Gentiles desk, one which he himself had left LIVING AGE. VOL. IV. 183 there on his very last day. It lay a little sideways, and Anna remembered well seeing him push it back in a mo- ment of weariness, but without clos- ing it, as though he expected soon to resume his reading. Her attention was now attracted by a red pencil mark upon the margin which must, she thought, indicate his latest thought, for it had certainly been made only a few hours before he passed away, and leaning anxiously over the volume she read, I do not like to stain my garments with the mud and slime of life. I desire to await the day that is coming in clean gala robes. Two hot tears sprang to Annas eyes, and dropped upon the page. So this had been her fathers last thought! She was so overcome that she did not hear her little sisters voice calling her from the corridor, and lifted her head only at the sound of an opening door. Flavio woutd come, said the child, and the two of them entered together, Elvira first and the boy following her, with eyes that prayed for pardon. He would come, repeated Elvira, glancing severely at the marks left by Flavios shoes upon the carpet. He was quite right, answered An- na, trying to smile upon the lad; but perceiving, by the woe-begone expres- sion of the little face, that she need not dissemble her own sadness. You should have called me, she said; I would have come. But I tell you that it was he who was determined to come here! Flavio twirled his hat between his two hands, unable to speak, and stag-.~ gered by the stress which Elvira was laying upon his exceedingly timid re- quest. Hes so silly! added the latter, and escaped into the corridor. Anna had not quite caught her sis- ters words. She was looking at ~he boy, much struck by his dejected ex- pression. 90 The Old House: A Romance. I understand, she said, you want- ed to see his room. Isnt it so? A gleam of gratitude at being under- stood sprang to the lads eyes, and he silently edged a few steps nearer his protectress, who took his hands and drew him close, whispering with emo- tion, Did you love him so much? Ohwas the only answer; and for an instant they stood so, with locked hands, looking into one anothers eyes, while the beating of the two hearts was almost audible. You are so very young, Flavio, said Anna suddenly. You cannot un- derstand what we have lost. But I do, was the simple answer. And as Anna gazed intently into the pale face of her visitor, it occurred to her that he was not so young as he looked. There were traces at any rate, in the grieved curl of his lip, of a sensibility beyond his years, and the kindness with which she had always treated him developed in that instant into a deeper sympathy which made her look upon him almost as a brother. Of all the people who had wept for Gentile Lamberti, none seemed to her to have come so near to loving and feeling like herself as this boy. Obey- ing a sudden impulse, blended strange- ly of sweetness and of pain, she said, Look, and drawing Flavios atten- tion to the open volume, she pointed with her finger to the marked passage. As the boy read it silently, Anna fan- cied that he turned even a little paler than before. In clean, gala robes, she repeated in a fervent voice, and Flavio felt vaguely that he had received a great mark of distinction; and this proof of affection and confidence on the part of a lady so much above him, thrilled him with a manly pride. The de- pressed and misunderstood child whom no one ever noticed, save to deride his inefficiency, took then and there his first step in the line of civic promotion. And it was a sweet womans face that encouraged him on, and a voice en- deared by other tender memories. On the very first evening, in a moment of abandonment, Anna had strained him to her breast, and he had a most vivid recollection of the warmth imparted by .that hasty embrace. Now. as he bent over the book, Anna stood above him, much taller, her slight figure de- fined against the window by the out- line of the dark red gown she wore; and moved to a new and most unusual boldness the boy said: I want to do the same. It is the way of love, answered Anna; and the echoof their two voices in the chamber of mourning impressed them both with the feeling that they had taken a solemn vow. It was Elvira who broke the spell. Coming back into the room her eye fell upon Annas red dress, and she exclaimed, You ought to order our mourning! She spoke with an air of babyish wis- dom, positively and critically, and with that practical, good sense which Signor Pompeo professed especially to admire in the child. Anna restrained a motion of some- thing like repugnance, and merely said as her eye fell upon her sleeve, He was so fond of this gown. Then she turned to Flavio, as though certain that he would understand. To leave it off seems like putting away the thought of him; like pushing him fur- $ ther out of my life. I should like to go on, just as if he were looking aV me still. But, observed Elvira, with a slight accent of alarm, everybody does wear mourning. What would people say? Oh, yes, answered Anna, resigned- ly, we shall wear it, of course.?, There w~.s a trace of something like bitterness in her sorrowful accents. Flavio watched her intently, not ven- turing to speak, so still that his thin, A Dream of One Dead. 91 pallid nostrils could be seen to quiver like the wings of a caged bird. She, however, was contending against the feeling of weariness which she so of- ten experienced in her sisters pres- ence, which she resisted with all her might, but which returned obstinately; a feeling which sprang from sources too deep and obscure for her to ana- lyze. Elvira, too, now bent over the slop- ing desk, but for her to touch the book which Gentile Lamberti had left open seemed to Anna a sort of profanation. That strong, firm hand, not yet fully developed, though able to write beau- tifully, so strangely different from the transparent, burning hand of her fath- er, the idea of seeing it there where his had lain for the last time, gave her a shock which she could not rationally Nuova Antologia. have explained. By way of resisting a feeling which seemed to her wrong, she approached her sister impulsively and passed her arm round her neck. Were they two not alone in the world, and .was not Elvira exactly as old as she herself had been when their moth- er died with the prayer upon her lips that Anna would be a mother to the new-born infant, in her place? That was ten years ago, yet they had never come very near to one another. De- ceived by their gentle manners, people had said, How affectionate those two~ sisters are! but Anna knew that it was not true, and this was precisely why she clasped her sister close and kissed her, as she repeated, We must love one another! We must love one another! (To be continued.) A DREAM OF ONE DEAD. Last night I had a dream: I woke Out of most happy dark, And I was walking in a city street By a poor waste iron-bounded park; Sadly I went, and spoke To one whose feet Were weak against the wind that swept along And crashed a windy song Thro the sere poplars overhead that showered On us their leaves defiowered, Their pattering leaves deflowered. I know not what we said: but she ~She who is dead) Caught with one thin hand at her hat, And laughed at me, Because the wind would have his mastery, And she was wilful too: we laughed at that. Man knows, such U.ttle things have stings. A. Bernard Mialt 92 The Orphan. THE ORPHAN. Shining serenely as some immeasur- al)le mirror beneath the smiling face of heaven, the solitary ocean lay in unrip- pled silence. It was in those placid lat- itudes south of the line in the Pacific, where weeks, aye months, often pass without the marginless blue level be- ing ruffled by any wandering keel. Here, in almost perfect security from molestation by man, the innumerable denizens of the deep pursue their never- ending warfare, doubtless enjoying to the full the brimming cup of life with- out a weary moment and with no dreary anticipations of an unwanted old age. Now it fell on a day that the calm surface of that bright sea was broken by the sudden upheaval of a compact troop of sperm whales from the inscru- table depths wherein they had been roaming and recruiting their gigantic energies upon the abundant molluscs, hideous of mien and insatiable of maw, that, like creations of a diseased mind, lurked far below the sunshine. The ~school consisted of seven cows and one mighty bull, who was unique in ap- pearance, for instead of being in color The unrelieved sepia common to his kind he was curiously mottled with creamy white, making the immense ob- long cul)e of his head look like a weath- er-worn monolith of Siena marble. Easeful as any Arabian Ichaflf, he lolled supine upon the glittering folds of his couch, the welcoming waverets caress- ing his vast form with gentlest touch, and murmuring softly as by their united efforts they rocked him in rhythm with their melodic lullaby. Around him glided his faithful harem gentle, timid creatures, no one of them a third of their lords huge bulk, but still majestic in their proportions, being each some forty-five feet in length by thirty in girth. Unquestionably the monarch of the flood, their great chief accepted in complacent dignity their unremitting attentions, nor did their playful gambols stir him in the least from his attitude of complete repose. But while the busy seven were thus disporting themselves in happy security there suddenly appeared among theni a delightful companion in the shape of a newly born calf, elegantly dappled like his sire, the first-born son of the youngest mother in the group. It is not the habit of the cachalot to show that intense self-effacing devotion to its young which is evinced by other mam- mals, especially whales of the mys- tieet~e. Nevertheless, as the expecta- tion of this latest addition to the fam- ily had been the reason of their visit to these quiet latitudes, his coming made a pleasant little ripple of satis- faction vibrate throughout the group. Even the apparently impenetrable sto- lidity of the head of the school was aroused into some faint tokens of inter- est in the new comer, who clung leech- like to his mothers side, vigorously draining the enormous convexity of her bosom of its bounteous flood of milk. So well did he thrive, that at the end of a week the youngster was able to hold his own with the school in a race, and competent also to remain under water as long as his mother. Then the stately leader signified to his ~pen- dents that the time was now at hand when they must change their pleasant quarters. Food was less plentiful than it had been, which was but natural, remembering the ravages necessarily made by such a company of monsters. Moreovem a life of continual ease and slothful luxury such as of late had been theirs was not only favorable to the growth of a hampering investiture Tke Orthan. 93 of parasitesbarnacles, limpets, and weedall over their bodies, bnt it com- pletely unfitted them for the stern struggle awaiting them, when in their l)eriodicaL progress round the world they should arrive on the borders of the fierce Antarctic Zone. And besides all these, had they forgotten that they were liable to meet with man! A sym- pathetic shudder ran through every member of the school at that dreaded name, under the influence of which they all drew closer around their chief, sweeping their broad flukes restlessly from side to side and breathing inaudi- l)ly. The ontcome of the conference, de- cided, as hnman meetings of the kind are apt to be, by the commanding influ- ence of one master will, was that on the next day they would depart for the south by easy stages through the teem- ing off-shore waters of South Amer- ica. All through that quiet night the mighty creatures lay almost motionless on the surface, each the opaque centre of a halo of dazzling emerald light, an occasional drowsy spout from their ca- pacious lungs sliding through the prim- eval stillness like the sigh of some weary Titan. When at last the steel- blue dome above, with its myriad dia- mond spangles, began to throb and glow with tremulous waves of lovely van-colored light flowing before the conquering squadrons of the sun, the whole troop, in open order about their guide, turned their heads steadfastly to the south-west, steering an absolutely undeviating course for their destina- tion by their innate sense of direction alone. Up sprang the flaming sun, a vast globe of fervent fire that even at the horizons edge seemed to glow with meridian strength. And right in the centre of his blazing disc appeared three tiny lines, recognizable even~ at that distance by the human eye as the masts of a ship whose hull was as yet below the apparent meeting-place of sea and sky. This apparition lay fairly in the path of the advancing school, who, unhappily for them, possessed but feeble vision and that only at its best straight behind them. So on they went in leisurely fashion, occasionally paus- ing for a dignified descent in search of food, followed by an equally stately re- appearance and resumption of their journey. Nearer and nearer they drew to the fatal area wherein they would become visible to the keen-eyed watch- ers at the mast-head of that lonely ship, still in perfect ignorance of any possible danger being at hand. Sudden- ly that mysterious sense owned by them, which is more than bearing, gave warning of approaching peril. All lay still, though quivering through every sinew of their huge bodies with the ap- prehension of unknown ene~nies, their heads half raised from the sparkling sea-surface and their fins and flukes testing the vibrations of the mobile ele- ment like the diaphragm of a phono- graph. Even the youngling clung to his mothers side as if glued thereto un- der the influence of a terror that, while it effectually stilled his sportiveness. gave him no hint of what was coming. At the instance of the Head all sank silently and stone-like without any of those preliminary tail flourishings and arching of the back that always distin- guish the unworried whale from one that has received alarming news in the curious manner already spoken of. They remained below so long and went to so great a depth, that all except the huge leader were quite exhausted when they returned again to the necessary air, not only from privation of breath, but from the incalculable pressure of the superincumbent sea. So for a brief space they lay almost motionless, the valves of their spiracles deeply depressed as they drew in great volumes of revivi- fying breath, and their great frames limply yielding to the heave of the glid- ing swell. They had scarcely recovered 94 The Orthan. their normal energy when into their midst rushed the destroyers, bringing with them the realization of all those paralyzing fears. First to be attacked was the noble bull, and once the first bewildering shock and smart had passed he gallantly maintained the rep- utation of his giant race. Every device that sagacity could conceive or fearless- ness execute was tried by him, until the troubled ocean around the combat- ants was all a-boil, and its so recently unsullied surface was littered with tan- gled wreaths of blood-streaked foam. Whether from affection or for protec- tion is uncertain, but the rest of the family did not attempt to flee. All seven of the cows kept close to their lord, often appearing as if they would shield him with their own bodies from the invisible death-darts that contin- ually pierced him to the very seat of his vast vitality. And this attachment proved their own destruction, for their assailants, hovering around them with the easy mobility of birds, slew them at theii~ leisure, not even needing to hamper themselves by harpooning an- other individual. Instead, they wield- ed their long lances upon the unresist- ing females, leaving the ocean monarch to his imminent death. So successful were these tactics that before an hour had flown, while yet the violet tint of departing night lingered on the western edge of the sea, the last one of those mighty mammals had groaned out the dregs of her life. Flushed with con- quest and breathless from their great exertions, the victors lolled restfully hack in their boats, while all around them upon the incarnadined waters the massy bodies of their prey lay gently swaying to the slumberous roll of the silent swell. Meanwhile, throughout that stark battle, what of the youngliifgs fate? By almost a miracle, he had passed without scathe. What manner of dread convulsion of Nature was in progress he could not knowhe xvas blind and deaf and almost lifeless with terror. With all that wide ocean around him he know not whither to flee from this day of wrath. Of all those who had been to him so brief a space ago the living embodiment of invincible might, not one remained to help or shield him, none but were involved in this cata- clysm of blood. His kindred were cut off from him, he was overlooked by his enemies, and when he came to him- self he was alone. A sudden frantic impulse seized him, and under its in- fluence he fled, fled as the bee flies, but without the homing instinct to guide him, southward through the calm blue silences of that sleeping ocean. Qn, on, he fled untiring, until behind him the emerald sheen of his passage through the now starlit waters broadened into a wide blaze of softest light. Before him lay the dark, its profound depths just manifested by the occasional tran- sient gleam of an uneasy medusa or the swift flight of a terrified shark. When compelled to break the glassy surface for breath there was a sudden splash, and amid the deep sigh from his laboring lungs came the musical fall of the sparkling spray. When morning dawned again on his long ob- jectless flight, unfailing instinct warned him of his approach to shallower wa- ters, and with slackening speed he went on, through the tender diffused sun- light of those dreamy depths, until he came to an enormous submarine forest, where the trees were fantastic abut- ments of living coral, the leaves.~& tnd fronds of dull-hued fucus or alg~e, the blossoms of orchid-like sea-anemones or zoophytes, and the birds were darting, gliding fish, whose myriad splendid tints blazed like illuminated jewels. Here, surely, he might be at peace and find some solace for his loneliness, some suitable food to replace that which he had hitherto always found awaiting him, and now would find ncv The Orj5han. 95 ermore. Moving gently through the interminably intricate avenues of this submarine world of stillness and beau- ty, his small lower jaw hanging down as usual, he found abundant store of sapid molluscs that glided down his gaping gullet with a pleasant tickling, and were soon followed by a soothing sense of hunger satisfied. When he rose to spout he was in the midst of a weltering turmoil of broken water, where the majestic swell fretted and roared in wrath around the hindering peaks of the great reefa group of islands in the making. Here, at any rate, he was safe, for no land was in sfght whence might come a band of his hereditary foes, while into that net- work of jagged rocks no vessel would ever dare to venture. After a few days of placid enjoyment of this secure ex- istence he began to feel courage and in- dependence, although still pining for the companionship of his kind. Thus lie might have gone on for long, but that an adventure befell him which raised him at once to his rightful posi- tion among the sea-folk. During his rambles through the mazes and glades of this subaqueous paradise he had once or twice noticed between two stu- pendous columns of coral a black space where the water was apparently of fathomless depth. Curiosity, one of the strongest influences acftating the animate creation, impelled him to in- vestigate this chasm, but something, he knew not what, probably inherited caution, had hitherto held him back. At last, having met with no creature nearly his own size, and grown bold by reason of plenteous food, he became venturesome, and made for that gloomy abyss, bent upon searching its recesses thoroughly. Boldly he swept between the immense bastions that guarded it and with a swift upward thrust of his broad horizontal tail went headlong down, down. down. Present- ly he saw amidst the outer darkness a web of palely gleaming lines incessant- ly changing their patterns and extend- in~ over an area of a thousand square yards. They centred upon a dull ghastly glare that was motionless, formless, indescribable. In its midst there was a blackness deeper, if pos- sible, than that of the surrounding pit. Suddenly all that writhing entangle- ment wrapped him round, each clutch- ing snare fastening upon him with in- numerable gnawing mouths as if to de- vour him all over at once. With a new and even pleasant sensation thrilling along his spine the young leviathan hurled himself forward at that mid- most gap, his powerful jaws clashing and his whole lithe frame upstrung with nervous energy. Right through the glutinous musky mass of that un- thinkable chima~ra he hewed his way, heeding not in the least the wrenching, sucking coils winding about him, and covering every inch of his body. Ab- solute silence reigned as the great fight went on. Its inequality was curiously abnormal. For while the vast amor- phous bulk of the mollusc completely dwarfed the comparatively puny size of the young cachalot, there was on the side of the latter all the innate superi- ority of the vertebrate carnivorous mammal with warner instincts trans- mitted unimpaired through a thousand generations of ocean royalty. Grad- ually the grip of those clinging tenta- ~4cs relaxed as he felt the succulent gelatinousness divide, and with a bound he ascended from that befouled abysmal gloom into the light and love- liness of the upper air. Behind hinv~ trailed sundry long fragments, 4is.jecta membra of his late antagonist, and up- on these, after filling his lungs a~oin and again with the keen pure air of heaven, he feasted grandly. But in spite of the new inspiring sense of consci6us might and ability to do even as his forefathers had done, his loneliness was heavy upon him. 96 The Orthan. For, like all mammals, the cachalot loves the fellowship of his kin during the days of his strength; and only when advancing age renders him un- able to hold his own against jealous rivals, or makes him a laggard in the united chase, does he forsake the school and wander solitary and morose about the infinite solitudes of his limitless abode. And so, surrounded by the abundant evidences of his prowess, the young giant meditated, while a hungry host of sharks, like jackals at the lions kill, came prowling up out of the sur- rounding silence, and with shrill cries of delight the hovering bird-folk gath- ered in myriads to take tithe of his enormous spoil. Unheeding the accu- mulating multitudes, who gave him ample room and verge enough, and full of flesh, he lay almost motionless, when suddenly that subtle sense which, at- tuned to the faintest vibrations of the mobile sea, kept him warned, informed him that some more than ordinary com- motion was in progress not many miles away. Instantly every sinew set taut, every nerve tingled with receptivity, while, quivering like some fucus frond in a tide-rip, his broad tail swayed si- lently to and fro, but so easily as not to stir his body from its attitude of in- tense expectation. A gannet swept over him close down, startling him so that with one fierce lunge of his flukes he sprang forward twenty yards; but re- covering himself he paused again, though the impetus still bore him noise- lessly ahead, the soothing wash of the waves eddying gently around his blunt bow. Shortly after, to his unbounded joy, a noble company of his own folk hove in sight, two score of them in goodliest array. They glided around him in graceful curves, wonderingly saluting him by touching his small body with fin, nose, and tail, and puz- zled beyond measure as to how so young a fellow-citizen came to be in- habiting these vast wastes alone. His tale was soon told, for the whale-peo- ple waste no interchange of ideas, and the company solemnly received him in- to their midst as a comrade who had well earned the right to be one of their band by providing for them so great a feast. Swiftly the spoil of that gi- gantic molluse was rescued from the marauding sharks, and devoured; and thorough was the subsequent search among those deep-lying darknesses for any other monsters of the same breed that might lie brooding in their depths. None were to be found, although for two days and nights the questing le- viathans pursued their keen investiga- tions. When there remained no longer a cave unfathomed or a maze unex- plored, the leader of the school, a huge black bull of unrivalled fame, gave the signal for departure, and away they went in double columns, line ahead, due south, their splendid chief about a ca- bles length in advance. The happy youngster, no longer a stray from his kind, gambolled about the school in un- restrained delight at the rising tide of life that surged tumultuously through his vigorous frame. Ah; it was so good to be alive, glorious to speed, with body bending bow-wise, and broad fan-like flukes spurning the brilliant waves be- hind him, ecstasy to exert all the power he felt in one mad upward rush until out into the sunlight high through the warm air he sprang, a living embodi- ment of irresistible force, and fell with a joyous crash back into the welcoming bosom of his native deep. The sedate patriarch of the school looked on these youthful freaks indulgently, un- til, fired by the sight of his young fol- lowers energy, he too put forth all his incredible strength, launching his hun- dred tons or so of solid weight clear ot the embracing sea, and returning ~o it again with a sbock as of some Poly- phemus-hurled mountain. Thus our orphan grew and waxed grcat. Together, without mishap OP The Orphan. 97 any kind, these lords of the flood skirt- ed the southern slopes of the globe. In serene security they ranged the stormy seas from Kerguelen to Cape horn, from the Falkiands to Table Bay, up through the scent-laden straiu~ between Madagascar and Mozambique. loitering along the burning shores of Zanzibar and Pemba, dallying with the eddies around the lonely Seychelles and idling away the pleasant north-east monsoon in the~ Arabian Sea. By the !3ab-el- Mandeb they entered the Red Sea, if eir majestic array scaring the nomad fi:di- ermen at their lonely labor along the reef-besprinkled margins thereof. re- mote from the straight-ruled track down its centre on which the unwea- ried slaves of the West, the great steamships, steadily thrust their un- deviating way. Here, in richest abun- dance, they found their favorite food, cuttlefish of many kinds, although none so large as those haunting the middle depths of the outer ocean. And thread- ing the deep channels between the reefs great shoals of delicately flavored fish, beguiled by the pearly whiteness of those gaping throats, rushed fearlessly down them to oblivion. So quiet were these haunts, so free from even the re- niotest chance of interference by man, their only enemy, that they remained for many months, even penetrating well up the Gulf of Akaba, that sea of sleep whose waters even now retain the same primitive seclusion they en- joyed when their shores were the cra- dle of mankind. But now a time was fast approach- ing when our hero must needs meet his compeers in battle, if haply he might justify his claim to be a leader in his turn. For such is the custom of the cachalot. The young bulls each seek to form a harem among the younger cows of the school, and having done so, they break off from the main band and pursue their own independent way. The crisis in the career of the orphan had been imminent for some time, but now, in these untroubled seas, it could no longer be delayed. Already several preliminary skirmishes had taken placc with no definite results, and at last, one morning when the sea was like oil for smoothness, and blazing like burnished gold under the fervent glare of the sun, two out of the four young bulls attacked the orphan at once. All around lay the expectant brides ready to welcome the conqueror, while in sol- itary state the mighty leader held aloof, doubtless meditating on the coming time when a mightier than he should arise and drive him from his proud po- sition into lifelong exile. Straight for our heros massive head came his rivals, charging along the foaming surface like bluff-bowed torpedo rams. But as they converged upon him he also charged to meet them, settling slightly at the same time. Whether by accident or de- sign I know not, but certainly the con- sequence of this move was that instead of their striking him they met one an- other over his back, the shock of their impact throwing their great heads out of the sea with a dull boom that might have been heard for a mile. Swiftly and gracefully the orphan turned head over flukes, rising on his back and clutching the nearest of his opponents by his pendulous under jaw. The fury of that assault was so great that the attacked ones jaw was wrenched sideways, until it remained at right angles to his body, leaving him for the rest of his life sorely hampered in even the getting of food, but utterly incapa- ble of ever again giving battle to one of his own species. Then, rushing to- wards the other aggressor, the victori- ous warrior inverted his body in the sea and brandishing his lethal flukes smote so doughtily upon his foe that the noise of those tremendous blows reverberated ~or leagues over the calm sea, while around the combatants the troubled waters were lashed into ridges 98 The Orj5han. and islets of snowy foam. Very soon was the battle over. Disheartened, sick, and exhausted, the disabled rival essayed to escape, settling stone-like until he lay like some sunken wreck on the boulder-bestrewn sea-bed a hun- dred fathoms down. Slowly, but full of triumph, the conqueror returned to the waiting school and, selecting six of the submissive cows, led them away without any attempt at hindrance on the part of the other two young bulls who had not joined in the fray. In stately march the new family travelled southward out of the Red Sea, along the Somali Coast, past the frown- ing cliffs of Sokotra, and, crossing the Arabian Sea, skirted at their ease the pleasant Malabar littoral. Unerring instinct guided them across the Indian Ocean and through the Sunda Straits untii amid the intricacies of Celebes they ended their journey for a season. here, with richest food in overflowing abundance, among undisturbed reef- beds swept by constantly changing cur- rents, where they might chafe their ir- ritated skins clean from the many par- asites they had accumulated during their long Red Sea sojourn, they re- mained for several seasons. Then, sud- denly, as calamities usually come, they were attacked by a whaler as they were calmly skirting along Timor. But never tilL their dying day did those whale-fishers forget that fight. True. they secured two half-grown cows, but at what a cost to themselves! For the young leader, now in the full flush of vigorous life, seemed not only to have in- herited the fighting instincts of his an- cestors, but also to possess a fund of wily ferocity that made him a truly terrible foe. No sooner did he feel the keen thrust of the harpoon than, in- stead of expending his strength for naught by a series of aimless flounder- ing~, he rolled his huge bulk swiftly towards his aggressors, who were busi- 1y engaged in clearing their boat of the hampering sail, and perforce helpless for a time. Right down upon them caine the writhing mass of living flesh, overwhelming them as completely as if they had suddenly fallen under Niag- ara. From out of that roaring vortex only two of the six men forming the boats crew emerged alive, poor f rag- ments of humanity tossing like chips upon the tormented sea. Then chang- ing his tactics, the triumphant cachalot glided stealthily about just beneath the surface, feeling with his sensitive flukes for anything stilL remaining afloat upon which to wreak his newly aroused thirst for vengeance. As of- ten as he touched a floating portion o~ the shattered boat, up flew his mighty flukes in a moment, and, with a reflex blow that would have stove in the side of a ship, he smote it into still smaller splinters. This attention to his first set of enemies saved the other boats from destruction, for they, using all expedition, managed to despatch the two cows they had harpooned, and when they returned to the scene of dis- aster, the bull, unable to find anything more to destroy, had departed with the remnant of his family and they saw him no more. Gloomily they traversed the battlefield until they found the two ex- hausted survivors just feebly clinging to a couple of oars, and with them mournfully regained their ship. Meanwhile the triumphant bull was slowly making his way eastward, sore- ly irritated by the galling harpoon which was buried deep in his shoulders, and wondering what the hundreds o~ fathoms of trailing rope hehifr~l him could he. At last, coming to a well known reef, he managed to get the line entangled around some of its coral pillars, and a strenuous ef- fort on his part tore out the barbed weapon. leaving in its place a ragged rent in his blubber four feet long. Such a trifle as that, a mere superficial scratch, gave him little trouble, and The Orphan.. 99 with the ~vonderful recuperative power possessed by all the sea-folk the ugly tear was completely healed in a few days. Henceforth he was to be reck- oned among the most dangerous of all enemies to any of mankind daring to attack him, for he knew his power. This the whalemen found to their cost. Within the next few years his fame had spread from Cape Cod to Chelyush- kin, and whenever two whaleships met for a spell of gamming, his prowess was sure to be an absorbing topic of conversation. In fact, he became the terror of the tortuous passages of Ma- laysia, and though often attacked al- ways managed to make good his es- cape, as well as to leave behind him some direful testimony to his ferocious cunning. At last he fell in with a ship off Palawan, whose crew were justly reputed to be the smartest whale-fish- ers from Down East. Two of her boats attacked him one lovely evening just before sunset, but the iron drew. Immediately he felt the wound he dived perpendicularly, but describing a complete vertical circle beneath the boat he rose again, striking her almost amidships with the front of his head. This, of course, hurled the crew every- where, besides shattering the boat. But reversing himself again on the in- stant, he brandished those awful ~u1~es in the air, bringing them down upon the helpless men and crushing three of them into dead pieces. Apparently sat- isfied, he disappeared in the gathering darkness. When the extent of the disaster be- came known on board the ship, the skipper was speechless with raze and grief, for the mate who had been killed was his brother, and very dear to him. And he swore that if it cost him a sea- sons work and the loss of his ship. he would slay that maa-killing~ whale. From that day he cruised about those narrow seas offering large rewards to any of his men who should flr~ sight his enemy again. Several weeks went by, during which not a solitary spout was seen, until one morning in Banda Strait the skipper himself raised a whale close in to the we~tern verge of the island. Instantly all hands were alert, hoping against hope that this might prove to be their long-sought foe a I last. Soon the welcome news came from aloft that it was a sperm whale, and an hour later two boats left the ship, the foremost of them commanded by the skipper. With him he took four small barrels tightly bunged, and an extra supply of bomb-lances, in the use of which he was an acknowledged ex- pert. As they drew near the uncon- scious leviathan they scarcely dared breathe, and, their oars carefully peaked, they propelled the boats by paddles as silently as the gliding ap- proach of a shark. Hurrah! fast; first iron. Stain all, men, its him, dn him, n Ill slaughter him r he shall me. Backward flew the boat, not ~ second too soon, for with that super- human cunning expected of him, th~ terrible monster had spun round and was rushing straight for them. The men pulled for dear life, the steersman swinging the boat round as if she were on a pivot, whilethe skipperpitched over the first of his barrels. Out flashed the sinewy flukes, and before that tremen- dous blow the buoyant barrico spun through the air like a football. The skippers eyes flashed with delight at the success of his stratagem, and over went another decoy. This seemed to puzzle the whale, but it did not hinder him, and he seemed to keep instincti~e- ly heading towards the boat, thus ex- posing only his invulnerable head. The skipPer, however, had no idea of rash- ly risking himself, so heaving over h~s remaining barrel he kept well clear of the furious animals rushes, knowing well that the waiting game was the best. All through that bright day the great battle raged. Many were the 100 Wireless Telegraj5ky and Brain- Waves. hair-breadth escapes of the men, but the skipper never lost his cool, calcu- lating attitude. Finally the now ek- hausted leviathan sounded in reali- ty, remaining down for half an hour. When he reappeared, he was so slug- gish in his movements that the exul- tant skipper shouted, Naow, boys, in on himhes our whale. Forward darted the beautiful craft under the practised sweep of the six oars, and as soon as she was within range the skipper fired his first bomb. It reached the whale, but, buried in the flesh, its explosion was not disabling. Still it did not spur the huge creature into ac- tivity, for at last his strength had failed him. Another rush in and another bomb, this time taking effect just abaft the starboard fin. There was a momen- Cornhill Magazine. tary accession of energy as the fright- ful wound caused by the bursting iron tube among the monsters viscera set all his masses of muscles a-quiver. But this spurt was short-lived. And as a third bomb was fired a torrent of blood foamed from the whales distended spiracle, a few fierce convulsions dis- torted his enormous frame, and then that puissant ocean monarch passed peacefully into the passiveness off death. When they got the great carcasa alongside, they found embedded in the blubber no fewer than fourteen har- poons, besides sundry fragments of ex- ploded bombs, each bearing mute but eloquent testimony to the warlike ca- reer of the vanquished Titan who be- gan his career as an orphan. Frank T. Bullen. WIRELESS TELEGRAFRY AND BRAIN-WAVES. The wonderful discovery of wireless telegraphy tempts me to put forward again a theory which I ventured to publish thirty years ago, and to which Signor Marconis new invention seems, in some ways, to lend an addi- tional plausibility. Its republication may be perhaps forgiven for the sake of the incidents in support of it con- tributed by Lord Tennyson, Mr. Browning and Mr. Woolner, which are certainly worth preserving. Signor Marconi has proved to the whole world that, by the use of his ap- paratus, messages can be passed through space, for great distances, from brain to brain in the entire ab- sence of any known means of physical communication between two widely separated stations. To explain, or even to express, the modus operandi of what occurs it is necessary, in the present state of science, to assume the existence of that ethereal medium pervading space which has become for many reasons an indispensable scientific as- sumption, and also the existence of movements, tremors or waves of ener- gy propagated through the ether, from the generating to the receiving station. All that is in practice essentially re- quisite is, in the first place, an electric energy derived from the cells of an or- dinary galvanic batteryan energy which is regulated into a code of sig- nals under the superintendence of a human brain at a certain locality; and, in the second place, at another locality, a delicately contrived receiving appara- tus which is sensitive to those signals and can repeat them to another human brain. Now, if a small electric battery can send out tremors or waves of energy which are propagated through space Wireless Telegraphy and Brain- Waves. 101 for thirty miles or more, and can then be caught and manifested by a sensi- tive mechanical receiver, why may not such a mechanism as the human brain which is perpetually, while in action, decomposing its own material, and which is in this respect analogous to an electric batterygenerate and emit tremors or waves of energy which such sensitive receivers as other hu- man brains might catch and feel, al- though not conveyed to them through the usual channels of sensation? Why might not such a battery as the brain of Mr. Gladstone radiate into space, when in action, quasi-magnetic waves of influence which might affect other brains brought within the magnetic field of his great personality, much as the influence of a great magnet de- flects a small compaas needle? Many men some perhaps of Mr. Gladstones own colleagues) would admit their ex- perience of such a quasi-magnetic force in his case, a predisposing and persuasive influence quite apart from and independent of the influence of spoken words. The idea of brain-waves as a p05- sible explanation of the modus operandi of such and such-like influences oc- curred to me about the year 1851, when watching experiments in whatwas then called electro-biology. I saw men whom I had known long and intimately, and upon whose complete uprightness, straightforwardness, honesty and in- telligence I could absolutely rely, brought into a dazed and half-awake state by staring at a metal disc held in their hands, and who were then subjected to the will of an utter stranger, the operator, till they became his mere victims and tools and slav- ishly and maniacally obeyed whatever suggestion he put into their minds through their brains. They were as clay in the hands of the potter. and the operators brain seemed complete- ly to control and act as it were in lien of their own, driving them into actions and antics utterly and hate- fully foreign to their habits and ways. It was inexplicable except on the as- sumption that their brains were not under their own control at all, but un- der that of another quite external to theirs. When I came to find, as I did, that such control was sometimes ex- ercised from a distance and without any visible or audible signal from the operator to his victim, the thoughtcame to me which I embodied in the word Brain-waves. I discussed the theory with friends for many years, a2cumu- lating additional observations as time went on, and at length, when I came to know Lord (then Mr.) Tennyson, I talked it over with him, and asked him what he thought of my hypothesis. He said he thought there was a great deal very plausible in it; that I had at any rate made a good word in brain- waves, and a word which would live; and he encouraged me to publish the idea, as I accordingly did in the sub- joined communication to the Spectator of the 30th of January, 186g. James Knowles. BRAIN-WAVES.A THEORY. [To the Editor of the Spectator.] Sir,A collection of authenticated ghost stories relating to contemporary persons and events would not only be curious and interesfing, but might serve to throw light on one of the darkest fields of science, a field, in- deed, hardly yet claimed by science at all. The mere collocation might bring out features suggestive of a law. If to such a collection were added so many of the manifestations of mesmerists, spiritualists, electro-biologists, . and clairvoyants as have a clear residuum of fact (and after a sweeping deduc- tion of professional contributions), the indication of a common action of force 102 Wireless Telegraphy and Brain- Waves. through them all might probably be- come still more obvious. Such statements as the following, coming as they do within the scope of a single persons observation, may, doubtless, be taken to stand for yery many similar ones. In giving them as sample narratives, I do so with two objects, firstly, to commence in your pages, if you are willing to open them for it, a veracious and authenticated catalogue of such experiences; and secondly, to venture on a crude hypothesis by way of ex- planation, which, of course, will be taken merely for what it is worth, but which has appeared plausible to some. It may, perhaps, at any rate serve as a temporary thread whereon to collect illustrative or contradictory instances. Mr. Robert Browning, of whose keen study of the subject his poem of Mr. Sludge the Medium would be alone sufficient proof, tells me that when he was in Florence, some years since, an Italian nobleman (a Count Ginnasi of Ravenna), visiting at Florence, was brought to his house, without previous introduction, byan intimate friend. The Count professed to have great mesmer- ic or clairvoyant faculties, and declared in reply to Mr. Brownings avowed scep- ticism, that he would undertake to convince him somehow or other of his powers. He then asked Mr. Browning whether he had anything about him then and there which he could hand to him, and which was in any way a relic or memento. This, Mr. Browning thought, was because he habitually wore no sort of trinket or ornament, not even a watch-guard, and might, therefore, turn out to be a safe chal- lenge. But it so happened that by a curious accident he was then wearing under his coat-sleeves some gold wrist- studs to his shirt, which he had quite recently taken into use, in the absence (by mistake of a sempstress) of his or- dinary wrist-buttons. He had never before worn them in Florence or else- where, and had found them in some old drawer where they had lain for- gotten for years. One of these gold studs he took out and handed to the Count, who held it in his hand awhile~ looking earnestly in Mr. Brownings face, and then said as if much im- pressed, C ~ qualehe cosa che mi grida nell orrecch to, Uccisione, swcisione! (There is something here which cries. out in my ear, Murder, murder! ) And truly [says Mr. Browning] those very studs were taken from the dead body of a great-uncle of mine, who was violently killed on his estate in St.. Kitts, nearly eighty years ago. These,. with a gold watch and~ other personal objects of value, were produced in a court of justice as proof that robbery had not been the purpose of the slaugh- ter, which was effected by his own slaves. They were then transmitted to my grandfather, who had his ini- tials engraved on them, and wore them all his life. They were taken out of the night-gown in which he died, and given to me, not my father. I may add, that I tried to get Count Ginnasi to use his clairvoyance on this termina- tion of ownership also; and that he nearly hit upon something like the fact, mentioning a bed in a room; but he failed in attempting to describe the roomsituation of the bed with respect to windows and door. The occurrence of my great-uncles murder was known only to myself, of all men in Florence. as certainly was also my possession or the studs. Mr. Woolner, the sculptor, tells me the following story of two young men one of them a personal friend of his own, now living. These two men liver? for very long as great friends, but ul- timately quarrelled, shortly before the departure of one of them to New Zea- land. The emigrant had been absent for many years, and his friend at home (Mr. Woolners informant), never hav- ing kept up correspondence with him, had naturally almost lost the habit of thinking about him or his affairs. One Wireless Tele~graphy and Brain- Waves. day, however, as he sat in his rooms in a street near Oxford Street, the thought of his friend came suddenly upon him accompanied by the most restless and indefinable discomfort. He could by no means account for it, but, find- ing the feeling grow more and more oppressive, tried to throw it off by change of occupation. Still the dis- comfort grew, till it amounted to a sort of strange horror. He thought he must be sickening for a bad illness, and at length, unable to do anything else, went out of doors and walked up and down the busiest streets, hoping by the sight and sound of multitudes of men and ordinary things to dissi- pate his strange and mysterious mis- ery. Not, however, till he had wan- dered to and fro in the most wretched state of feeling for nearly two hours, utterly unable to shake off an intoler- able sort of vague consciousness of his friend, did the impression leave him and his usual frame of mind return. So greatly was he struck and puzzled by all this that he wrote down ~precise- ly the date of the day and the hour of the occurrence, fully expecting to have news shortly of or from his old friend. And surely, when the next mall or the next but one arrived, there came the horrible news that at that very day and hour (allowance being made for longitude) his friend had been made a prisoner by the natives of New Zea- land, and put to a slow death with the most frightful tortures. Of this same kind, though happily difficult in result, is a story of his own experience which Mr. Tennyson, the Poet Laureate, tells me, viz.: that some years ago he was induced to try (suc- cessfully) the curative effect of mes- merism by passes of the hands upon the patient, who became so sensitive as to be aware on one occasion Qf his approach by railway two hours before he reached the house, and when his coming was entirely unannounced and unpremeditated. On another occasion, the same patient positively asserted to a third person that Mr. Tennyson had been there the day before, when Mr. Tennyson himself was equally positive to the contrary, till he afterwards re- membered that he had come as far as the grounds of the house, and then changed his mind and turned back. So far as authenticated sample nar- ratives, to which, as I have said, many more may probaUly be added, with due care. To come now to my crude hypothesis of a Brain-wave as explanatory of them and of kindred stories. Let it be granted that whensoever any action takes place ~in the brain, a chemical change of its substance takes place also; or, in other words, an atomic movement occurs; for all chem- ical change involvesperhaps con- sists ina change in the relative posi- tions of the constituent particles of the substance changed. [An electric manifestation is the likeliest outcome of any such chemical change, whatever other manifestations may also occur.] Let it be also granted that there is, diffused throughout all known space, and permeating the interspaces of all bodies, solid, fluid, or gaseous, an uni- versal, impalpable elastic Ether, or material medium of surpassing and inconceivable tenuity. [The undulations of this imponder- able ether, if not of substances sub- merged in it, may probably prove to be light, magnetism, heat, etc.] But if these two assumptions b~ grantedand the present condition of discovery seems to warrant them should it not follow that no brain ac- tion can take place without creating a wave or undulation (whether electric or otherwise) in the ether~ for the movement of any solid particle sub- merged in any such medium must cre- ate a wave? 1o& 104 Wireless Tele,gra~ky and Brain- Waves. If so, we should have as one result of brain action an undulation or wave in the circumambient, all-embracing ether we should have what I call Brain- waves proceeding from every brain when in action. Each acting, thinking brain then would become a center of undulations transmitted from it in all directions through space. Such undulations would vary in character and intensity in accordance with the varying nature and force of brain actions; e. g. the thoughts of love or hate, of life or death, of murder or rescue, of consent or refusal, would each have its corres- ponding tone or intensity of brain ac- tion, and consequently of brain-wave (just as each passion has its corre- sponding tone of voice). Why might not such undulations, when meeting with and falling upon duly sensitive substances, as if upon the sensitized paper of the photograph- er, produce impressions, dim portraits of thoughts, as undulations of light produce portraits of objects? The sound wave passes on through myriads of bodies, and among a mil- lion makes but one thing shake, or sound to it; a sympathy of structure makes it sensitive, and it alone. A voice or tone may pass unnoticed by ten thousand ears, but strike and vi- brate one into a madness of recollec- tion. In the same way the brain-wave of Damon passing through space, produc- ing no perceptible effect, meets some- where with the sensitized and sympa- The experience of Admiral Beaufort when drowning (confirmed by other similar accounts) points to an extreme and marvellously intense action of the brain just before death. Some years since a ghost club existed at cambridge which sifted all the stories It could find, and concluded that those only bore the test of searching inquiry which concerned apparitious at the hour of death. 2 No doubt atomic movements, causing waves in space, must start from other parts of the body as well as from the brain, and, indeed, thetic brain of Pythias, falls upon it, and thrills it with a familiar move- ment. The brain of Pythias is affected as by a tone, a perfume, a color with which he has been used to associate his friend; he knows not how or why, but Damon comes into his thoughts. and the things concerning him by as- sociation live again. If the last brain- waves of life be frequently intensest convulsive in their energy, as the fire- flys dying flash is its brightest, and as oftentimes the lightning before death would seem to showwe may, perhaps, seem to see how it is that ap- paritions at the hour of death are far more numerous and clear than any other ghost stories.1 Such oblique methods of communi- cating between brain and brain (if such there be) would probably but rarely take effect. The influences would be too minute and subtle to tell upon any brain already preoccupied by action of its own, or on any but brains of extreme, perhaps morbid, susceptibility. But if, indeed, there be radiating from living brains any such streams of vibratory movements (as surely there must be),2 these may well have an effect, even without speech, and be, perhaps, the modus operana of the little flashthe mystic hint, of the poetof that dark and strange sphere of half-experiences which the world has never been without. There surely are brains so suscep- tible, and so ready to be affected by the slightest sympathetic touch, that from the fluctuations of all material bodies (whence Hitchcocks ingenious fancy of the Universal). But the question here is simply limited to how brains are affected by the move- ments of other brains. Just as the question of how one pendulum will make other p~ndu- lums swing with It is a fair mechanical inquiry by Itself, though, doubtless, other questions would remain Ss to how the movement of the pendulum would affect all other mateijal bod- ies as well as pendulums In the same room with it. Wb-eless Telegraphy and Brain- Waves. 105 Thought leaps out to wed with Thought, Ere Thought could wed itself with speech. Such exceptionally sensitive and susceptible brainsopen to the minut- est influenceswould be the ghost- seers, the mediums of all ages and countries. The wizards and magicians true or faisethe mesmerists and bi- ologizers would be the men who have discovered that their brains can and do (sometimes even without speech) pre-dispose and compel the brains of these sensitive ones, so as to fill them with emotions and impressions more or less at will. It will but be a vague, dim way, at the best, of communicating thought, or the sense of human presence, and proportionally so as the receiving brain is less and less highly sensitive. Yet, though it can never take the place of rudest articulation, it may have its own place and office other than and beyond speech. It may convey sym- pathies of feeling beyond all words to tellgroanings of the spirit which can- not be uttered, visions of influences and impressions not elsehow commun- icable, may carry ones living human presence to another by a more subtle aud excellent way of sympathy. Star to star vibrates light: may soul to soul Strike thro a finer element of her own? So, from afar, touch us at once ?~ The application of such a theory to such narratives as I have given above is obvious.4 In Mr. Brownings case, his brain, full of the murder-thought and overflowing with its correspon- dent brain-wave, floods the sensitive brain of the Count, who feels it direct ly. His attempt to read the second transfer of ownership is almost as il- lustrative as his closer success with the first. The death-bed thought and Aylmers Field. I need hardly say that I alone am responsl LIVING AGE. VOL. in. 184 its correspondent brain-w-ave were sufficiently strong and striking in Mr. Brownings mind to have a character of their own; the rest of the complicat- ed picture was too minute and ordin- ary, did not burn itself into or out of his brain with enough distinctness. The prominent notes of the music were alone caught by the listener. In Mr. Woolners case, the death convulsion of the emigrants brain and the correspondent brain-wave flooded space with the intensity and swiftness of a flash of actual light or magnetism, and wheresoever it hap- pened to find the sympathetic sub- stance, the substance accustomed to vibrate to it, and not too violently pre- occupied with other action to be insen- sible to such fine impressions, shook it with the terrible vague subtle force of association described. The intervening space and matter need be no more an obstacle than the 3,000 miles of Atlan- tic wire are to the galvanic current, or the countless distances of its travel to the light from Sirius. A similar ex- planation holds good for Mr. Tenny- sons story, in which the less distances seem somehow less staggering at first sight. In such a manner, too, the answers given by the so-called spirit-rapping (when not imposture) seem explicable. These are made hy the spelling-out of words letter by letter, the questioner alone knowing the reply, and the let- ter which would be right to help it. The character of his thought, and the consequent brain-wave, changes from denial to consent, when, letter after letter being pointed to in vain, the right letter is reached at last. That change of thought state is reflected in a change of brain-action and wave- movement, which the sensitive me- dium feels, and at once acts upon. Many ghost and dream stories seem hle for snch an attempt at explanation of these narratives, and not their authors. 106 A Village Semirarnis. to yield also to some such mode of in- so forth; but I have said enough to put terpretation, and much might be add- the suggestion before better minds, ed in illustration and expansion of it, whether for correction or disproof. as touching rumors, presentiments, I am, Sir, etc. panics, revivals, epidemic-manias, and J. T. K~ The Nineteenth Century. A VILLAGE SEMIRAMIS. On the day of Mrs. Rodens death I think that most of us knew that a princess had fallen in Israel, and a great woman had gone to her last home. But I doubt whether any one of us had entirely gauged the enor- mous influence which she exercised in the parish. Exactly one week has elapsed since her funeral, and to-day we still find our village in the position of an infant state which, having pro~ pered for years under what I may on the whole term a beneficent tyranny, is painfully awaking to the fact that it has suddenly become autonomous, and is expected to make its own way in the world. We have got a parish council of a sort, but up to the present date, to bor- row Job Billings phraseology, It aint been of no count at ail alongside of Mrs. Roden. Indeed, nothing but the contempt that the good lady felt for the parish council as a modern insti- tution prevented her from claiming the presidency thereof, as a matter of right: in default of assuming the dig- nity in person, she graciously delegat- ed the office to a subordinate, her cow- man. At least, that is, I believe, the position which our chairman holds in the deceased ladys establishment. And she so far condescended to take a per- sonal interest in the ele~ion as to drive some hundred electors by detach- ments to the poii. Now, there you are, she said, as she deposited each successive cargo,. and you knows what youve got to do. In you goes and you plumps for Tummas, and if so be as Tummas dont come out top of the poll, I shall know as youve voted wrong, and then! The aposiopesis might be taken to imply anything; the effect of itwas that the redoubtable Tummas was returned at the head of the poll by an over- whelming majority; and on the strength of further dark hints thrown out by Mrs. Roden was, at the initia- tory meeting of the council, unani- mously elected chairman. Having so far gained her object, Mrs. Roden fur- ther trampled on the feelings of the council by letting it be known far and wide that, in her opinion at all events, parish councils was nothing more nor less than nincompoops, and cau- tioned Tummas that if there were any messing with the rates, or mud- dling with the charities, she would be under the necessity of looking out for a new cowman. So it has come to pass that up t6 the present date, the peoples senate can hardly be said to have felt its legs, and has, under the able guidance of the chairman, refrained from taking any legislative action in the administration of parish matters. I cannot but regret that Tummas should have thought fit on the very day of Mrs. Rodens funer- al, to celebrate his manumission by A Village Semiramis. 107 getting gloriously drunk. It is, I fear me, a sign of the times, and may be taken as some indication of what we may expect under the new regime, or, to be more correct, the new want of regime. Only once, so far as my knowledge goes, did Tummas presume to make a beast of himself in the good old days, and then he was put into a horse-trough by Mrs. Rodens orders, and left there till he was sober enough to find his way out. And now for a more particular ac- count of our village Semiramis lately deceased. I have in my time had some knowledge of authoresses and poetesses; I have been on speaking terms with the wife of a head of a col- lege, with dons wives by the score. with bishops ladies a few, with a stray peeress here and there: I have seen Royalty herself in her carriage and Royaltys daughters walking in the streets, but I shall always regard my acquaintanceship with Mrs. Roden, rnie Thorpe, as the brightest spot in my social career. As I am unwilling to deal with mat- ters beyond my ken, I will not enter into a detailed account of the birth and parentage of this great woman. I will merely state that her baptismal name was Sarah, and that she was the only daughter and sole heiress of Thorpe, the great butcher, or to give him the title upon which Mrs. Roden herself always insisted, the great master- butcher, who monopolized the custom of our village, and who effectually nipped in the bud any sparks of enthu- siasm which may have existed in our old rectors mind in those far-off days when he was young and vigorous. The rector, who told me the story, explained that in years gone by there was exist- ing in the parish grave discord on re- ligious matters between two factions. The points at issue were of trivial im- port, but party feeling ran high, and one-half of the parish was hardly on speaking terms with the other. Anx- ious in the early days of his pastorate to compose these differences, the rec- tor invited the rival chiefs, one of whom was the master-butcher, to dine at the rectory and discuss matters in a friendly spirit. The invitation was accepted, and up to a certain point the prospects of an agreement looked rosy There was much unanimity in the ap- preciation of the dinnerthe rectors~ cuisine, be it said, was at all times ir- reproachableand a bottle of old col- lege port disappeared like magic. And now, gentlemen, said the rec- tor, pending the arrival of the second bottle, I think we might just talk out your little differences, and see if we cannot adjust them in a friendly spirit. It was then that the master-butcher got upon his legs. His type of ora- tory, according to the rectors descrip- tion, was incisive, and his language at the outset of his discourse favored that of the Scottish Covenanter, but later on there was exhibited a power of invective which would have aroused the admiration of a Billingsgate fish- wife. I have been a-looking forward to this meeting for days past, he com- menced, and Ive been a-contriving how I may talk to you amicable-like, Richard Cope, as the rector says. And Ive wrestled in prayer night and morn- ing so as to get the power to talk things friendly. And the power it has come, and the spirit it is willing. But Tm warned as I must fust say things to you, Richard Cope, as will make your very heart burn, and then followed the invective. The upshot of the peace conference was that the litigants had to be shown out of the rectory by different doors, and severally escorted on their home- ward journey by the rector and his man-of-all-work, in order that they might not settle their disputes by a 108 A Village Semiramis. stand-up fight in the road after having nearly come to fisticuffs in the dining- room. After this one experiment the rector made no further attempt to act as me- diator, preferring to let matters take their own course. A few years later the Cope family moved their habitation to a neighboring village, and the mas- ter-butcher remained master of the sit- uation. When he died at a good old age, his mantle, together with a double portion of his spirit, descended on to the shoulders of his daughter, who shortly bestowed herself and her worldly goods on worthy John Roden, but retained in her own hands the par- amount authority over our village. It is seldom, I should fancy, given to any one individual in any parish to com- l)ine in his or her person the offices of church-warden of the parish church, patron and proprietor of a little Bethel, censor of public morals, medical ad- visor, and sanitary inspector. Yet I may say that at the time I knew Mrs. Roden she had practically usurped all these functions. For if the title of church-warden more properly belonged to John Roden, it was his by courtesy only: and in the old days of vestry meetings it was well known to every member of the vestry that though the voice which was heard at their meet- ings was the voice of John, the~ senti- ments and ideas it uttered were the sentiments and ideas of Sarah. Indeed John so far gave himself away in the matter that he never ventured to speak at all without a constant reference to ~ lengthy table of notes and queries i~opied in his wifes handwriting, and invariably prefaced his remarks with the phrases, My missus says, or My missus thinks. But what do you think yourself, John ? he was once asked by an irrev- erent vestryman. Poor John! for the moment he wa~ completely nonpiussed. It was a popu lar saying that he never dared to call his soul his own; and he had probably long since given up the habit, or it may have been the exertion, of independent thought. He scratched his head and looked in a helpless manner at his pa- per of instructions, and feebly ejaculat- ed, Well, I dont know rightly as I think anything, and I dont know as it would be much count on if I did neith- er. But howsomever my missus thinks, etc., etc. Apart from his wifes promptings old John Roden was not a man of many words, but occasionally in the privacy of his own house,. if conversation seemed to be flagging, he would make a feeble attempt to entertain a visitor with some personal or family reminis- cences. The ready manner in which his better-half would supply emenda- tions and interpolations used to suggest to my mind the picture of an author and his critic sitting side by side and evolving a book together. Now I minds in the summer of 1860, John would begin. Why, that was the year you was ill a-bed most of the summer along of those colds you got at the sheep-wash- ing, Roden. Nothing would please John but he must take and look after the sheep-washing himself that year, Mas- ter George. So I takes and claps him in bed with a good hot mustard plas- ter, and keeps him there a week or more. Well, continued John, I minds as how me and my wifes father, as was a butcher A master-butcher, please, Roden; to hear you talk any one would think ~is youd married a journeyman butchers daughter. Well, me and my wifes father, as was a ma~ter-butcher then, we was a driving into market together Then I wonder what you~was a-drfr- ing in. Roden? My father used to ride A Village Sernirarnis. 109 to market on his cob just like any otli- er gentleman. ~Well, perhaps we was a-riding, as- sented John. Ab, thats more like it: it were a slip of the tongue, Master George; he said driving, but he meant riding all the time. That is just Johns way. What between the interruptions and the corrections and the promptings, the exact circumstances that John mind- ed never transpired; but, as Mrs. Roden subsequently explained to inc. the omission was of trivial importance. Lor bless your heart, Master George: she said cheerily, what do it matter after all? John, hes had his say, and that has pleased him. I never take no account of what John says for my own part, though I likes to hear him talk. He hasnt had what you wouldnt call no eddication, hasnt John. But there, I knew he wasnt an eddicated man when I married him. Bat he knows more now that he did then by a bit, I count. I went to a boarding-school for a matter of three years or more. Poor old John predeceased his wife l)y some ten years, and a blessing it were that he was took and not me. So moralized Mrs. Roden, and she gave me sundry good reasons in support of her theory that the fittest to live had survived. When a few days after his funeral I went to pay a visit of coit- dolence, I found her sitting in her par- lor in all the glories of widowhood. Disconsolate widowhood I will not call it, for there was an evident feeling that the widows cap with its long stream- ers and the heavily craped dress were becoming to her matronly person; and the consciousness that her attire was calculated to make a favorable impres- sion on her visitors was eminently com- forting and sustaining. She sighed deeply as she motioned me to a seat. Well, hes gone, is Roden, she said presently, ~and his end was peace. I buried him andsome, as I always said 1 would, as his family shouldnt never throw it up against me as I didnt do my duty by him. Not as I minds, Mas- ter George, what people do say, as is often blasts of vain doctrine. But theres a way of doing things, and Ive done whats proper. There were Mrs. Jakes up top of the village; it were twelve years ago come Christmas as she lost her husband same as Ive done mine, and Jakes was a man of some count in these parts too, and had made his bit of money. But was there mutes and mourning coaches at his burying, Master George? Not omle, as Im an honest woman. There wasnt no hearse, just six farm laborers carrying him down, and all a-walking. I couldn~t have done that along o John; I told im Id bury im andsome, and I done it. He were sitting by that table same as youre sitting now, Master George, three weeks back come to-morrow, and nothing will please him but he will have out the parish account-book and begins messing. Well, I stops him. John, I says, you aint no count to do that now, I tells him; youve done with parish accounts now, youve got your own accounts to make up, and not much time to do it in neither. What youve got to think of now. I says, Roden, is whether youll have a wood- en cross or a stone,not as I wouldnt have a wooden cross myself if I were you, as can be made in the village, and then youll know what youre paying for. And then, just to cheer him up I ~ shows him what Id got ready to put over him. Id like you to see it, Master George. and she handed me a paper. The best of husbands And the best of men, The village neer Shall see his like again. Hes gone and left His widow to repine. She put this cross, Helped by his children nine. 110 A Village Semirarnis. On reading this composition I was ab- solutely at a loss what to say. It has been the habit of our village to prefer original compositions to Scriptural texts, but I really did not feel that I was called upon to admire poor Johns epitaph. Still I had to say something, so I hazarded a feeble criticism. ~ didnt know that you had nine chil- dren, Mrs. Roden. ~Ah, thats what John said. But hed got two nieces, and I told him that they wouldnt like to be left out, poor things, as they rode in a coach and brought their wreaths and all. And I tells him, Abraham, he called his wife his sis- ter, and she were only his cousin after all, and what was good enough for Abraham is good enough for you, John, I says. Not that John hadnt a hankering after the other ending, and she handed me a revised version of the last four lines: His widow left, Hes gone to heaven. She put this cross, Helped by his children seven. ~But there, she continued, as I tells him, I thinks and I hopes that Ill meet him in heaven some day, but theres no knowing, and its best to be on the safe side. It was the original copy of these verses that were eventually inscribed on the handsome cross that stood at the head of John Rodens grave. I am still rather dubious as to whether the conversation on graves, worms, and epitaphs was so entirely gratifying to the feelings of the invalid as to those of his consort, but the general verdict of the village was that Mrs. Roden had, as she herself claimed, done the thing handsomely. And now, what were the ladys own religious views? A quaint medley in- deed, and yet I am sure that there was a genuine depth in her convictions, and that according to her lights she was a religious enthusiast. Her own account was that she believed in the Gospel, and she added, ~And for my own part, I dont see as it makes much difference who preaches it, so long as it is Gos- pel. And yet there is the rector, Mas- ter George,. as is always saying that the parish is getting that large as he shall soon want a curate,he dont hold by Mr. Timms preaching the Gospel on Sunday nights in my little chapel as I built on purpose. He says as how Mr. Timms aint never been properly or- dained. Why, its my chapel, and if I lets him preach there, and see that he preaches Gospel, whats it got to do with the rector or n~ one else? Why dont the rector offer to come and preach there himself? Well, I suppose, Mrs. Roden, its hardly what you would call an author- ized chapel. Authorized! I dont know what you call authorized, Master George. I give the land, I gets the money together for the chapel, I pays a man to preach there, and I tells him that I wont have nothing preached there but Gospel, and I goes every Sunday night to hear that he do preach Gospel,if all that don~t authorize, I should like to know what do. As the old lady was getting warm, it was obviously unwise to continue the discussion; for, as Job Billing once sagely remarked, When old Sarah Roden have once set her back up, ten thousand millions of osses aint a-go- ing to pull it down again. And indeed, for my own part, I hAve never found argument with woman- kind on these topics either conducive to harmony or productive of effect. And yet, notwithstanding the mother- ly pride she took in the little chapel of her own establishment, no one would have repudiated more indignantly than Mrs. Roden the idea that she was any- thing but a good Churchwoman. So far as a most regular attendance at morning A Village Semiramis. 111 service can be held to substantiate a claim to the title, she was the very best Ghurchwoman in the parish. Sun- day after Sunday, fair weather or foul, she was to be seen in her place, sitting in all the dignity that appertained to the position of being the better-half of a church-warden, and with all the importance that attached itself to the wearer of the best black silk dress in the parish, and the tenant of the one and only faculty pew. Im not one of that sort as lets yokes of oxen or bits of land stand ii~i the way of my church-going, Master George. If ever you misses me at morning church, it will be because you aint there to see me, or because I am ill a-bed. But regular attendance by no means argued entire approval of all that was said or done in our parish church in these modern days. Im true blue Protestant, she in- formed me one day, and I cant a-bear no papists. None of yer newfangled goings on, your bowings and your scrapings, and your uprisings and your down-sittings for me. I dont hold with they idolatries. True to her creed, she regularly sat down when the rest of the congregation stood up at the entrance of the clergy: sniffed long and loudly if she disap- proved of any doctrinal teaching in the sermon, and closed her purse wiIh an audible click if the destination of tue offertory money was not entirely to her liking. Therell be an extra half-crown in our little box to-night, Master George, what goes to a mothers club. Theres more good in that, I reckon, than in that propagating of the heathen in for- eign parts. Whats black by nature will be black to its dying day, and its no use sending good money out of the parish to wash it white. There spoke the spirit of the master- butchers daughter. That she closed her purse-strings on occasion arose not so much from want of liberality as from the tradesman-like feeling against good money going out of the parish. From each and every one of her pen- sionersand they numbered not a few, for there was a lamentable lack of hon- est pride among our villagers, and many of them prefetred being pauper- ized to going on short commonsmy Lady Bountiful exacted something like feudal service. The boys of the family were expected to touch their caps to her in the streets and run on errands out of school hours; the giristo abjure feathers in their hats and drop their morning curtseys; boys~and. girls alike to submit to a weekly half-hour~ s in- struction in the Gospel from her pri- vate chaplain. Parents were required to follow in Church matters the exam- ple set them by their benefactress, who never thought twice about entering a cottage and hauling a defaulter of either sex over the coals. She allowed no malingering to interfere with the duties of attendance at public worship. Church in the morning and chapel in the evening, Widow Brown, or no more shillings from me. I reckon as if youre hearty enough to tramp to my house on Monday, youre well enough to go to church and chapel on Sunday. The surprise visits of inupection which she paid to well-nigh every cot- tage in our end of the village were thus described by Tom Bull, the hunch- backed cobbler, privileged in virtue of his deformity to pass remarks on peo- r pie in high places. The old woman do be just like a maggot, he said, in and out, poking her nose and smelling in every corner, no by your leave nor with your leave nor nothing. If T am not prepared to go the wh6le length of saying that these visits were acceptable to the recipients, there was no doubt at all about the general effect being salutary in the long-run. Drastic 112 A Village Sem iranus. measures were necessary to make our villagers a comparatively clean and wholesome race. Mrs. Rodens measures were very drastic, her lan- guage on occasions marked by decision rather than refinement. Heres your monthly shilling, Mrs. Thomas, and I dont know as it isnt the last youll have. Cleanliness is next to godliness, and yours is the dirtiest cottage in the parish, so as I allers spitswhen I pass your door. With what promptitude, too, did she in her latter days suppress a contractor who had ventured to deposit a noisome heap of rubbish in our village. I had the good fortune to hear the conversa- tion between Tummas, who was her emissary on this occasion, and the con- tractors carters. Tummas, whose head had been perhaps a little turned by the new dignity which had been thrust upon him, commenced operations by trying to play a card on his own ac- count. Hi, you there, he shouted to the carters who were in the act of unload- ing the rubbish, just you drop that. Drop what? was the carters an- swer. Why, a-putting of that mess there drop it, I says. And who says were to drop it? Why, the parish council, in course. I be Chairman. Well, then, Mister Chairman of the parish council, you just trot off home again and mind your own business. We takes our orders from Slee, and not from no councils. Put out of court on his first count, Tummas wisely swallowed the affront to his official dignity, and tried a new tack. My missus, Missus Roden of the Manor House, she sent me, and she says as youve to drop it. She s~s that you can go home yourself and tell Slee as she can buy him up any day in the week, and as how if that muck is there to-morrow morning, shelL have the law on him.~~ The two carters suspended operations and looked at each other. Missus Rodent presently ejaculat- ed one. Old Sairey! murmured the other, and after a momentary silence he stuck his shovel into the heap. I dunno what youre a-going to do of, mate, he remarked, but I aint a- going on with this job. Id sooner run my old head up agin a brick wall as agin old Sairey, and I reckon as Slee d say the same. There was not a trace of that rub- bish-heap when I passed the place the next day. I feel that I have underrated Mrs. Rodens importance when I spoke of her as having usurped the functions of sanitary inspector. In matters of this sort she played the part of sanitary inspector, District Council, and Local Government Board all rolled up into one. There was no delay and uo beat- ing about the bush: h~r methods were summarya word and a blow, and not infrequently the blow came first In her capacity of medical adviser she dosed all the old men a ad women in the parish, and nearly drove the au- thorized local practitioner to despair. Her medicinesHeaven knows where she got the recipes from !were infinite- ly more popular than those of the i)oor Sawbones; there was nothing to pay and plenty to taste. I myself had a narrow escape from testing her phar- maceutical skill, and it made me very cautious for the future. Happening~o call upon her on an evening when I was suffering from a heavy cold, as ill luck would have it I was takcii with a violent fit of sneezing. I must take you in hand. Master George, she said. Ive got some stuff in a bottle as will drive away a cold in no time, and after rummaging in a cupboard, she produced a small bottle full of a black compound. The smell. A Village Sern iramis. 113 when I opened the bottle, was bad enough in all conscience, but 1 saw that she had it in her mind to pou the stuff down my throat instanter. Pleading that the taste of medicine would in~ fallibly spoil my dinner, and undertak- ing to swallow the draught before I went to bed, I beat a hurried retreat, and on the following morning succes3- fully passed the bottle on to my gar- dener, an old Devonshire man, who also had a bad cold. It did him good, so he informed me the next morning; but he showed no inclination to ask for more. As it would twist a cat, was his description of it. A great woman in these her public capacities, Sarah Roden showed herself equally great in the petty detailt of domestic life. She permitted no cir- cumstances to abash her, and from po- sitions where others with less force of character might have felt embarrassed or humiliated, she would extricate her- self without loss of caste. For in- stance, an ordinary woman might have expressed some annoyance at Mr. Hales sale when the job-lot of dessert plates, which had been knocked ~own to her for a preposLwously high price, turned out to be a very miscellaneous collection. Not so Mrs. Roden. Well, Master George, she whis- pered in my ear, and I knows as they dont match. But Lord bless yer! what do it matter when the.~ doylies is on? It is the mark, we have been told, of a well-balanced mind to feel at ease in any society. There was a morning when I found Mrs. Roden at her silver cupboard putting away some forks. As John has gone to market, she explained to me, and is very like to bring home a friend or two for supper. Plated forks is good enough for them to eat with on market-days, as half of them as John brings home cant eat proper, and bites their forks. For my own part, Master George, I says that if the Queen was to ask me to tea, I should know how to behave myself. The accent laid upon the pronoun may or may not have been intended to imply that Mrs. loden would not un- dertake to answer for Royalty coming with equal credit out of the ordeal. I daresay that you and the Queen would have plenty to talk about, Mrs. Roden. What should you call her? Mum, of course, same as I should expect her to call me. Yes, mum, she repeated, reflectively, or Majesty now and again perhaps, but mum would be good enough for me. Being then such as we are in our vil- lage, a weak-kneed but gainsaying gen- eration at the best of times, of such a woman have we been deprived. I do not pretend to be able to analyze the feelings of the whole parish on the loss that we have sustained. For my own part, I am unfeignedly sorry. I had known her worth, and gauged her mer- its as well as her weaknesses. And yet such is the want of charity in this world of ours, and such the lack of the power of due appreciation, that I fear me the reprobate Job Billing, who fills the office of sexton, struck the keynote of the line of thought that pervades the minds of too many in the lower grades of society when he thus addressed me: Looking at old Mother Rodens grave, Master George? Well, she were a masterful woman and no mistake. But she wont get up no more: I give~$ her two extra feet drop a purpose. I counted as how shed bossed the show here long enough, and as it were high time as she went and bossed it some- where else. Upstairs or downstairs, I dont envy em. nlackwoods MagaziDe. 114 Frederick the Great and Aliars/zal de Grumbkozv. FREDERICK THE GREAT AND MARSHAL DE GRUMBKOW.* On the 22d of October, 1735, Marshal de Grumbkow wrote to that Prince Royal of Prussia, who was afterward the great Frederick, as follows: Mon signeur,I was so enchanted by the letter which your Royal Highness did me the honor to address me on the 16th of October, that 1,even I, who have not a scrap of poetry about me!pro- duced, upon the spot, the following couplet, of which the purport is sincere though the poetry is very bad: Attend our vows, kind Heaven! Protect and guide Our second Titus, and our hope and pride! The two letters having been already closed and addressed to Ruhstadt, wrote my famous couplet on the out- side of the sealed packet. I have a strong box out there which contains no end of curious things; such as narra- tives of my campaigns and of all the negotiations I have ever conducted, be- sides infinite letters and anecdotes. Your Royal Highness is the only per- son in whom I have ever confided the secret of this box, and if Your Royal Highness survives meas I pray Heav- en may be the caseI would like it en- trusted to some intelligent and trust- worthy man, who might compile a very ~interesting volume of memoirs out of the material which it contains. The Marshal died in 1739. It then appeared that he had destroyed a good many of his papers, but there were still in the strong box forty-two bundles of letters, of which the covers had been removed; and the Prince Royal, who had become King in the meantiThe, had them all deposited in the secret Translated for The Living Age. archives. A portion of the correspon- dence, which the Prince kept up, in French, with Grumbkow for seven years, was published some time since. M. Koser, director of the royaL archives of Prussia, has now published it in full, adding sixty-nine hitherto unedited let- ters to the seventy already given to the world. It is a very curious correspondence. There are, in the lives of most great men, certain critical years, during which they are not yet sure of them- selves, and are chiefly occupied with the endeavor to bring order out of their internal chaos. Frederick appears, during his early youth, like an ordinary son who is kept very short and who curses the tyranny of a father with a mind as narrow as his hand is harsh and heavy. There is no question with the young Prince of kissing the rod: he rebels; he is determined to escape from slavery; he has no rule of conduct other than his own good pleasure. In 1731, the date of his first letters to Grumb- kow, he is nineteen; and though his pride has been broken by a series of humiliating experiences, his wild oats are not yet all sown. But after 1733 the tone of the correspondence changes. The recalcitrant soul has retired within himself. He welcomes discipline: his thoughts are in the future; he is re- solved thoroughly to learn his busine~s as a king, and his personal affairs 4h- terest him less than do those of the public. He is still passionately fond of literature, poetry, philosophy and the flute: but he begins dimly to foresee his own high destiny, and Prussia~and Prussian policy already claim a large 1 cor~spondt.nce Inedite de Frederic le Grand avec le Marechal Grnmbkow et le President Maupertuls, Lelpsic, 189S. Frederick the Great and Marshal de Grumbkow. 115 share of his attention. He feels the mysterious agitation of the migratory bird, haunted by a vision of the distant land, whither his fate now calls him. Marshal de Grumbkow had, as M. Koser points out, no ground of com- iAaint against Fortune, with whose fa- vors he had been loaded. A grandson of the Great Elector, he was made a general at thirty-one, and two years la- ter he was minister. It was not all good luck in his case, however; he did much for himself. His enemies might say of him that his merit consisted merely in being an excellent buffoon and an agreeable d~bauch6; the fact was, that he joined to a rare genius for intrigue, versatile talents, and a very uncommon degree of mental culti- vation. He excelled as a soldier, a cour- tier, a diplomatist, and an adminis- trator; and no matter how difficult and delicate the missions with which he was charged he always acquitted him- self triumphantly. He used to say that in order to succeed a man should have not merely a good wit, but plenty of brutality. Wit, he certainly had, and he could, upon occasion, give loose rein to his more brutal instincts. He car- ried his capacity for drinking to so heroic a pitch that his nickname was l3iberius. He once sent an audacious challenge to the hardest drinker of his time, King Augustus of Poland, and came off conqueror. The King of Po- land, wrote P5llnitz, afteI~ward was made ill by the affair, from which he never quite recovered; and even M. ~Grumbkows health was permanently impaired. But this astounding drunkard could be. when he chose, the most amiable. the most fascinating and the cleverest of men. He could make himself loved or feared as occasion required. and what more is to be expected of any man? After he had finished his studies. at the Universities of Halle and Ley- den, he lived for several years at Marl- boroughs headquarters, where he be- came acquainted with all the great per- sonages of his time, and where he had a famous opportunity to study the ma- chinery, and even touch the secret springs, of European diplomacy. It was here that he elaborated his philosophy of life, and his theory of human nature; and the cardinal point of his system, as he afterward explained to the Prince Royal, was that inter- national policy consists in the employ- ment of all manner of illicit means for mutual discomfiture. A kind of de- corum must, of course, be observed and appearances kept up to a certain extent; but those who blame -Louis XIV. for having made a distinction between the letter and the spirit of a treaty usually do the same thing themselves; that is to say, no treaty is considered binding except in so far as it subserves the in- terests of the contracting power; and it is tacitly understood among sover- eigns that a prince who piques himself on his integrity is a foregone dupe, and only lays himself open to ridi- cule. The sovereigns who employed Grumb- kow had found no fault, probably, with his political doctrine; but they did re- proach him with applying the same maxims to public and private affairs, and with using unlawful means to ad- vance his own fortunes. Absolutely devoid of scruples, his conscience was abundantly satisfied by a certain amount of decorum. The old king. Frederick I., understood perfectly, and is said to have summoned Grumbko~ to his death-bed and addressed him thus: You are a great rascal, you know! Youll have to reform or you will have no part in that everlasting bliss which I shall soon be enjoying. The queen Sophia-Dorothea detested him so heartily that nobody dared pro- nounce his name in her presence. The Margraviae of Bayreuth speaks of him in her memoirs as a clever schemer, ab 116 Frederick the Great and Marshal de Grumbkozv. solutely treacherous, who inspired all honest folk with an instinctive anti- pathy. Frederick William I. was un- der no illusion about the mans virtue, yet he told him everything, confided all his plans and projects, consulted him incessantly, and was guided by his ad- vice. There is a kind of charm which is invincible. We despise the woman we love, but love ncr none the less. The King said to himself twenty times a day that Grumbkow was a knave, yet he listened to his counsels and em- ployed him on his business. The first interviews which Frederick, as a prisoner of ~tate under charge of desertion and high treason, very unwil- lingly held with Grumbkow, were in no wise calculated to recommend to the young princes favor that extremely able officer, who was, perhaps, to some extent responsible for his own misfor- tune. The catastrophe which befell the Prince Royal in 1730, says M. Koser, the discovery of his plans for escape, his arrest, his trial, and all the miseries and humiliations to which the Queen and the Princess Wilhelmina were exposed in consequence had been so many triumphs for Grumbkow. lie was one of the examining mag- istrates who, on September 2d, subjected the Prince to a long and cruel interrogatory. lie did not know what to make of the prisoner, who seems completely to have disconcerted him by his haughty, defiant bearing and the insolence of his replies. He saw him again at Kfistrin, and found, to his great relief, that Fredericks mood had changed. The Prince had been compelled to witness the execu- tion of Katt, the beloved confidant of all his youthful follies, and the horror of that scene had overpowered him. Nothing was left him but to submit completely and unconditiOnally,.. In the summer of the next year Grumb- kow was present at the first interview between the father and son. They were reconciled; but it was a hollow peace. A few days later Grumbkow drew up for the Prince a list of instructions, in- tended to acquaint him with the means whereby he might hope to reinstate himself in the royal favor, and disarm the seemingly implacable resentment of the m~~n who had written: I have caused Fritz to be arrested, and I will treat him as his crime and his coward- ice deserve. I no longer recognize him as my son, for he has dishonored me and my house; and such a wretch as that does not deserve to live. The Marshal advised Frederick to conduct himself simply, naturajly and respect- fully, to keep a calm face and a conti- dent bearing, such as might befit a young man with a clear conscience and no guilty recollections. He counselled him especially to avoid a bantering tone, or anything approaching a jest; but at the same time to lay aside all those grand, gloomy and peculiar airs which were so very irritating to his parent. He urged him to assume upon all occasions an air of extreme modesty; to reserve his attentions for persons agreeable to the King: to be- tray no interest in those who had had the misfortune to displease him; to check the marks of affection which he might be tempted to bestow on his mother and sister. Great as are the claims of the incomparable Princess Royal on -your tenderness and confi- dence, I should advise youat least in the beginningto be extremely cau- tious. He added that it would ber well also for the young Prince to em- brace an early opportunity of profes- sing before the generals and other offi- cers of the garrison at Berlin his un- feigned repentance; and said he might even end such a confession by lifting his hand with some such adjuration as: I, Frederick of Prussia, swear to Al- mighty God, as I hope for His forgive- ness through the merits of Jesus Christ, Frederick the Great and Marshal de Grurnbkow. 117 that 1 will remain faithful unto death to my sovereign lord and father. Grumbkow concluded his exhortation on this wise: All the reward I ask of the Prince Royal for this disinter- ested advice is, that he will believe me a faithful servant of the King, and consequently of himself; and that if ever malicious persons attempt to give him unfavorable ideas of me he will hear me first before he gives them credence. For the rest, I place my re- liance on God alone. Are we to suppose that Frederick never did lend an ear to the aforesaid evil-disposed persons, and that he took all the asseverations of Grumbkow for sterling metal? He is lavish in his let- ters of the most flattering endearments, reiterating the assurance of his devo- tion and his gratitude. He swears that he trusts him utterly, and lays bare his heart to him as to God the Father. I know that you are slightly distrust- ful, and this is why I make haste to say that I not only esteem sincerely, but love you with my whole heart; and that I am, my dear friend, always and entirely your faithful friend ai~d ser- vant. We have every reason to believe, however, that he did distrust his new friend very seriously; as a man of dam- aged reputation and more than ques- tionable sincerity. But it rested with the Marshal, and with him alone, to assuage or aggravate his own misfor- tune: and necessity knows no law. Frederick William launched no more thunderbolts, but the low grumblings of his wrath were incessantly audible. He said and repeated that his incor- rigible son would certainly deal bun some new blow before long. Frederick could not fail to see that he was un- der constant espionage; his most trivial movements were watched and xeport- ed; his lightest word repeated and en- larged upon; and there were plenty of good gazetteers about him and ex cellent foragers for a sensation. He knew that no end of stories were told concerning him; that even in Pomera- nia there were unfriendly critics ready to report his actions; and that all manner of slander would find ready credence in the prejudiced mind of his devoted father. A friend writes tue that the King, who has a bad cough, said to Hacke, People will be for say- ing that the old hangman is going to die. You can tell them that the one who is coming after me will send them all to the deviland thats all they will get by the change. I do not partic- ularly mind that sort of thing. Like yourself, niy dear friend, I let folks rave, and go my own way. They can say what they like. My conscience is clear, and it is nothing to me. The truth is that he was not as indifferent to public opinion as he supposed, and that he greatly felt the need of an ad- vocate in high quarters. Grumbkow had the ear of the King, and Grumb- kow was a man to be considered. Hardly less than an advocate Fred- erick needed a money-lender. Paternal avarice drew the reins so tight that he was often terribly embarrassed. He literally knew not where to look for means to defray th~ expenses of his anything but royal establishment, or to procure recruits for the regiment of which he had been graciously made Colonel. It is fortunate for the ex- cellent Margravine and myself, he wrote, that poverty is not a vice. If it were, we should be the greatest sin- ners alive. In his pressing need, h~ applied to Grumbkow; and how di~1 Grumbkow procure him funds? In the same dishonorable manner in which he got money for himself. After hay. ing had a secret understanding both with England and France, he sold him- self to Austria. He had long been the sycophant, the informer, the accom- plice of the royal envoy at Berlin, Count von Seckendorf. his old comrade 118 Frederick the Great and Afarshal de Grumbkozv. in the War of the Succession. For him he worked; to him he systematical- ly revealed all the intrigues of the Prussian Court; all the views and pur- poses, both of the King and his min- isters. The Viennese Court, which paid the Marshal a regular pension of one thou- sand ducats, readily consented to ex- tend its liberality to the Prince Royal, in the fond hope of laying him under an obligation. We must live, first of all: and philosophy may be deferred till the morrow. Poverty is a great school of modesty: capable of taming the most irritable pride. Frederick accepted these subsidies shamelessly, well knowing whence they came. His method of preserving his dignity was to make his acknowledgments as curt as possible. On the 19th of September, 1732, Seckendorf paid him a visit at Ruppin. I was graciously received, he~wrote to his accomplice, but with a great show of reserve concerning the topics which I introduced. He spoke of the recruits he had raised, but said not a word about the money which I have advanced. Count Seckendorf was unreasonable. There are debts which cannot be acknowledged, and cases in which the sullen silence of seeming ingratitude is the sole resource of royal pride at bay. It is both the misfortune and the blessing of youth to believe that all things are possible. Frederick, who had the best of reasons for knowing that Grumbkow was in the toils of Austria. expected of him a service which he could not render without em broiling himself with the government. whose pay he was taking. The Court of Vienna and Prince Eugene were keenly desirous that the heir of the Prussian crown should espouse a niece of the Empressthe Princess Eliza- beth-Christine of Brunswick-Bevern. It would be one more hold upon Fred- erick; and Austria, as we know, has always considered marriage the maia~ spring of history. Through the efforts~ of Grumbkow Frederick-William had been won over to the same view. The year before, indeed, he had promised his son a choice among three princess- es; but he thought better of it, and. now ordered him to marry Elizabeth- Christine under pain of incurring the i~oyaI wrath and irreparable disgrace. Frederick dared not say no, and bowed to the decree; but he adjured Grumb- kow to come to his aid, and invent some sort of an expedient whereby he might be rescued from the clutches of a princess, who gave him the night- mare. This is the gist of almost all the let- ters of 1731 and 1732. He supplicates; he kicks. This man who will yet as- tonish the world by the firmness of hl~ judgment; of whom Voltaire will one day affirm that his commanding rea- son lifted him high above what he was and what he did, is as unreasonable as a spoiled child crying for the moon. He protests that he shall be the worst of husbands; that the sex does not in- terest or attract him in the least; that he detests the mere idea of a woman. The Princess of Bevern, whom, by the way, he has never seen, inspires him, he says, with peculiar aversion. If compelled to take her he shall very soon put her away; for he is certain that she is a fool, and quite inaccessible to reason. 1-le pities the ugly creature with all his heart, for she will inevita- bly be the most unhappy Princess in the entire world. There is no kind of wife he would not prefer to a stupt~ creature, who will infuriate him by her blunders, and whom he shall be ashnmed to bring forward. He would rather have a woman too free than too virtuous, etc., etc.. etc. There is eue consolation, however: he may be quit. by a pistol-shot, of all the ills of life. To all of which Grumbkow replies: how is this? You placed yourself Frederick the Great and Marshal de Grurnbkozu. 119 unreservedly in the Kings hands, and 110W you throw up everything and want me to mix myself in affairs which might cost me my head! No, Mon- sieur! My shirt is nearer to me than my doublet; and I have not forgotteil what the King said to me one day at Wusterhausen, when your Royal High- ness was in the Chateau of Thllstrin and I was trying to defend your Royal Highness. May I be damned for a liar if I think that son of mine will ever die a natural death, and God grant he may not perish on the scaffold! The marriage was ultimately ar- ranged, and Grumbkow got a gratuity of forty thousand forms. By June 12th of the next year, 1733, the money was all spent; and either out of spite or be- cause he had nothing more to gain from him, Frederick allowed nearly two years to elapse before he wrote again to Grumbkow. When the correspon- dence is resumed, it bears quite a different character. The situa- tion and the circumstances are wholly changed. By a sort of re-action, very common in the affairs of this world, the Marshal has lost something of his credit. His relations with his master have become ticklish, and that famous giver of advice now conde- scends to ask it of Frederick. He finds he has to deal with a man whom the affair of the marriage appears suddenly to have matured, and who, after hav- ing cut his young wife to the heart by his coldness, is beginning to show a certain consideration for one whom he had so far treated with supreme contempt. She is very gentle, he said to one friend, very docile; defer- ential to excess, and ready to forestall all my wishes. I should be a villain if I did not respect her. His father, to be sure, is as inimical as ever, and still distrusts his soli. The King still watches me narrow- ly, and scrutinizes my every act. N~ craftsman was ever so dissatisfied with the work of his hands as the King is with his. If this be modesty, one must admit that it is slightly exaggerated. it hardly seems a sufficient ground for making war on the French nations that I speak French, read the excellent au- thors who have written in that tongue, and have a preference for witty and well-mannered persons of French ex.- traction. Nevertheless, Frederick William, though ever suspicious of the Prince, had rewarded his obedience by allow- ing him to set up an establishment in the Castle of Rheinsberg. The heir-np- parcnt lives handsomely; he feels him- self nearer the throne, and, day by day, he devotes to his pi~ofessional du- ties more and more of the time which he had hitherto consumed upon his tastes and pleasures. I intend to keep on my fathers right side about the army, and I shall endeavor to con- vince him that I know what I am about. He had come to devote a good part of his leisure to making himself acquainted with contemporary affairs; he studied history, and prepared him- self to become a distinguished man of action by observing and criticising the actions of others. He was conscious of the change in himself, and likened him- self to that pretorian prefect, who fell into disgrace under Hadrian, and re- tired to end his days in the country, and who said just before his death that he had passed sixty-seven years on the earth and had lived seven. If I were to write my own epitaph now, said Frederick to a friend, it would read: Here lies one who lived a year. .~ Politics formed the main subject of his discussions with Grumbkow, and he always upheld the advantages of a straightforward policy against that great friend of illicit expedients. ~Ie labored earnestly to convince him that there are tricks which are unworthy of a sovereign, and things which are not allowable; that a king who respects 120 Frederick the Great and Marshal de Grumbkow. himself must have certain virtues, and be very jealous of his own renown. 1 know no law but that of honor, which will ever be the guide of my actions. We find in his letters of this period the germ of the thoughts and maxims which he afterward developed in his Auti-Machiavel, for which he was al- ready collecting the material and which appeared in 1739. When we come to examine this ex- traordinary book, the work of a man who professed a profound contempt for vain scruples of every kind, we are, at first, inclined to regard it as a mere burlesquea deliberate piece of mysti- fication; but we end by thoroughly be- lieving in the sincerity of the writer, and the correspondence published by M. Koser confirms us in this view. He spits in the pot, said Voltaire, simply to disgust other people; but the truth is that he heartily disliked the pot. He never could forgive Machiavelli for having degraded royalty by applying the same rules to usurpers and those petty princes who are a sort of cross between sovereign and subject; and to those legitimate and hereditary rul- ers who have a definite mission to ful- fill, and who must never, for a moment, allow themselves to forget that a true King is the Chief Magistrate of his people; and that since The strength of a state lies not in the possession of vast and lonely deserts, but in the num- ber and wealth of its inhabitants, a King should put the welfare of the peo- ple he has to govern above all other interests. He formulated, in these words, the primary and traditional idea of Prus sian kingship, which will have the mon. arch sink his own private ends in those of the public and become one of those masters who are as servants. Why should we question the sincerity of Frederick the Great? His practice al- ways corresponded with his theory. and he was, of all great warriors, the one who was most concerned to repair the ravages of war. Hardly was the sword returned to the scabbard when he began to rebuild villages and towns, to reform codes, to establish banks, to protect agriculture, public instruction, art, letters and science. He will afford an asylum to the Jesuits, no less than to the philosophers, provided they are wise men; he imposes tolerance on the intolerant; for peace of mind he af- firms to be the sole blessing man is capable of enjoying on this atom of a planet, and worth all your abstra~t truths put together. He laid it down as un axiom, that a conqueror should always be an evangelizer, and thus atone for his own sins of violence; and this is what has made Frederick the Great so imposing a figure in history. But it will be asked whether it was indeed in perfect good faith that the author of the Anti-Machiavel de- claimed against the knaves who trick the world; whether so accomplished a deceiver can have been sincere in treat- ing duplicity as an ugly vice and in re- viling the Florentine secretary for qual- ifying perfidy as a virtue. A more careful study of his work discloses that he esteems trickery a vice only when it is carried too far. He thinks that none but persons accomplished in in- trigue should be employed about nego- tiations; but that your true statesman ~vill never abuse the resources of arti- fice and finesse, but rather imitate those good cooks who are most discreet in their employment of spices, and that the persons who are too clever by half, and who are proud of havir~g duped the world, never dupe it but once and are never believed after that time. He considers, however, that in certain cases we are not required to keep our engagements, and that a prince may unfortunately find himself obliged to br~ak treaties and repudiate alliances. He pronounces war a great scourge, but says that a sovereign must Frederick the Great and Marshal de Grumbkow. 121 sometimes declare it without obvious provocation, and that there are wars of precaution in which rulers do well to engage. Such wars are offensive, of course, but none the less just. It is the self-same code of morals. at once loose and severe, which Fred- erick preaches in his letters to GruYnb- kow. He ever lauds an honest policy; but insists that there are dishonesties which one has, at times, a perfect right to practise. To preserve your honor, never to deceive but once in your life, and then only on a most pressing occa- sion,such is the great end and art of politics. Once he had ascended the throne, Frederick did not stop there, but lied as often as he found his ac- count in it; yet thanks to that com- manding reason, which lifted him above what he was and what he did he was always able to judge himself impartially. We must distinguish, be said to Voltaire, between the Statesman and the Philosopher. It is perfectly possible to be at the same time a philosopher by preference and a politician of necessity. From the year 1735 onward he is pas- sionately interested in the events of the dayin alL that is done and said in Europe. I do not desire to shine, but to learn; to become a storehouse of knowledge, of ligbt, of reflection. I must collect my material first, and then I can rear the kind of structure I will. The hour of building will arrive; but meanwhile he permits himself to admit that his father has been but a mediocre architect; he even ventures to say as much to Grumbkow. Frederick Wil- liams policy appears, to his son, feeble, hesitating and timid. It is a favorite maxim of his that, Prudence may be useful for holding what we already possess, but boldness only can ac- quire. A King of Prussia, replied ~rumbkow, like a King of Sardinia, will always have more occasion for a foxs skin than for a lions: but woe LIVING AGE. VOL. IV. 185 to him who cannot put on either the one or the other! Frederick, however, was destined shortly to prove that it is possible to be a fox and a lion at the same time. The affair of Berg-Juliers annoyed him deeply. He cherished an undying resentment for the insult offered upon that occasion by Austria to Prussian pride, and he resolved to avenge it. In order to induce Prussia to recognize the Pragmatic Sanction which assured to Maria Theresa the inheritance of his realm, the Emperor Charles VI. had promised to Frederick William the suc- cession of the Duchy of Berg. When the time came for fulfilling this agree- ment, he did not consider himself bound, and took back his word, having previously agreed with the Powers that Frederick William should be compelle~d to submit the case to their arbitration. The King grumbled, stormed, lost his temper, but he dared not take up the glove. He bled at the nose,to use (}rumbkows expression,and spoiled everything by perpetually contradict- ing himself, as well as by a morbid mi- patience to come to an agreement by making advances, Instead of waiting for others to come to him. His son was very severe upon this line of con- duct. I am as sensitive as any one can be about my fathers reputation, and it distresses me to perceive that the necessary measures are not being taken . . I dare not say what I fear. No one, surely, has a deeper interest than I in the safety of Prussia. The news I get from Grumbkow, he adds, is enough to make twenty English men hang themselves. He has no mind to hang himself, but he ~is dis- gusted. Why will they not take his advice? He has thought the matter all out; he has sketched a plan which he will un- dertakeif needfulto execute. Soon- er than that it should fail, he will em- ploy all the dishonest wiles of an hon 122 Frederick the Great and Marshal de Gruinbkow. est policy. He will deceive the Em- peror by affecting to be devoted to hi~ interests; he will amuse the Dutch by persuading them that he is disposed to come to terms in that quarter; and meanwhile he will promptly cause to move upon Cleves, all his regiments of dragoons and hussars, leaving all his infantry in the Marshes, prepared to attack whoever may presume to oppose his designs. At the first signal his dragoons and hussars will cross the frontier and seize the two duchies. And if they want to negotiate after that they will have no choice but to give us Juliers, and we will keep Berg; whereas if we invade Berg only, we shall get only half as much. In this plan of a military and diplo- matic campaign, the future invader of Silesia stands revealed; the man of great strokes; unexpected, but sagely prepared; the man who will begin by seizing and trust to his genius for be- ing able to keep what he has taken. Beati possidemtes! Henceforth Grumb- kow will show him greater deference and hold him more nearly for what he 15. I understand all the advantages of the quiet life Your Royal High- ness is now leading. Make the most of it, Monseigneur, for it will not last long. If I live to be reasonably old I shall yet write to you from my fire- side, You are acting, my dear Prince, and I am living. Every one takes his turn upon the great dial. Mine is over; yours is in full revolution. And a few months later he writes: I expect the time is coming when men will say with Virgil, Orietur ultor ex ossibus meis; when the houses of Bourbon and of Austria will both be made to feel that a power like that of Prussia can- not be offended with impunity. Grumbkow understood Frederick at last; and it was high time for Fred- erick to understand Grumbkow. Ob- serving an access of ill-humor upon his fathers part, the Prince did not hesi- tate to denounce the indiscretions, the slanders and the malicious insinuations of his correspondent, who was perpetu- ally injuring him with the King in an underhand manner; and when, on March 18, 1739, he learned that Grumb- kow was no more, his heart was un- questionably lightened. On the 11th off April he wrote to his sister, the Mar- gravine of Bayreuth. The Marshal is buried to-day. His memory is held in universal execration, and his death is a most fortunate event for me. The storm is over, and I can draw a long breath. At Wilhelminas request he composed an epitaph for his false friend, putting into it, as he said, the least possible amount of gall, because he desired to observe even in his verses that modera- tion which ought to characterize the ac- tions of a reasonable man. Three months later he iniormed the Margin- vine that the death of that rascal had changed everything at Berlin; that civic and domestic peace had alike been restored, and that even he was on good terms with his father. It seems amazing that for so many years he should have rashly confided in a man about whom he was under no illusion. He was a hot-headed, high-tempered man, who committed many impr~d- ences; but he knew how to repair them all. G. Talbert. The Revue des Deux Mondes. To the Czar. 123 TO THE CZAR. On the Recent Imperial Edict Destroying the Constitution of Finland. We heard thy plea for Peace, and thy praise rang round the world; We dreamed of a Truce of God, and war-stained bannera furled; And the nations paused like men who stare at a meteora flight, Beautiful, sudden, rare, across their sullen night. Many there were that joyed the gracious sign to see; Many there were that smiled to think such truce could be; But the voice of the doubters died in the p~ean of ~praise that swelled From the lips of a world that yearned for the respite long withheld. And now, 0 ruler of men, while round thy council board Statesmen of East and West are gathering at thy word, Rings in our ears a cry from the folk of a northern land, Stunned by the brutal shock of a pitiless new command. Breaking the ancient bars of a peoples rights it came, Inexorable as frost and cruel as blasting flame; Laying its grip on the best, and calling from farm and field The hands that garnered, content, the little their land might yield; Claimed, with a tyrant force that made thy sceptre a sword; Claimedin the War-gods name! the name by thee abhorred. Czar, was it well, forsooth, for thy glutted armys sake, That, now in this happy hour, a nations heart should break? That now, when the vision dawns of men for the plough set free, For the forge, and the fishing-fleets on the island-studded sea, Thy flat should strip the land of the manhood that held at bay The spectre with hollow cheeks that stalks in the Northland gray, And the bramble unstayed should trail where the furrows waved with corn, And the gaunt wolf sniff at the door of the kine-sheds left forlorn? Already thy mandate knocks at homes untenanted. Scaped from the far-flung net, they have balked thy purpose dread! 124 A Summers Dream. Far oer the Western seas, from the evil days they are flown To the wide new western lands where the knout is all un- known, And the threefold cross that waves over leagues of frosted pine S hail welcome the sturdy hearts that once, 0 Czar, were thine. Yet would they cling to the old, to the clime that gave them birth, Though bleak are the barren wolds and niggard the hard- tilled earth, To the lake-side birchen groves, and the falls where the sal- mon leap, To the fruit-tree shaded croft, and the place where their fathers sleep; And they look to thee, doubting, dismayed, for th~ justice that yet may be, For the hand that is lifted for Peace to cancel the black de- cree. Czar, thou wouldst silence the drumsyet a nation is slain by thee! The Speaker. Horace G. Groser. A SUMMERS DREAM. Like the flush of pleasure on a pale face, like the dance of delight coming suddenly into serious eyes, so are the flush and the dance of summer-flowers over the erstwhile wintry snow-fields of Finland. When I saw these clus- tering children of the soil as they shot up between the mossy stones, as they nodded along the ditches, as they rip- pled along the borders of the pools, and spread themselves swaying and billow- Ing like a broad banner, gala-wise, over the fields, I could scarcely contain my- self. I wanted to cry out beautiful, beautiful, in many languages; for in one the whole of the beauty could not be expressed, not even in th~luscious Russian kraceva, conjuring up, as it does from its derivation, a vision of harmonies in all manner of reds, that color most rare to those who look upon snow for half the year. But the har- monies here were not in red only, for the furrows were empurpled with giant bells, and limpid blue wrapped itself about the feet of the boulders; a glim- mer of gold lay over the fields and a dazzle of silver about the edges of the lakes, while pink challenged yellow and scarlet purple close under the sl~d- ow of the pines or far out in the open sunshine. The vitality of the human could not vie at all with this vegetative vitality. The pale-hued peasant leisurely hand- ling his hay, piling it high on the low sledge (now doing its summer service of sliding along stubble instead of ice) sank into insignificance amid his envi- ronnwnt of flowers girdling the shorn A Summers Dream. 125~ field like a huge garland. Perhaps the difference lay in that they had slept under the snow and he been wakeful, possibly hungry, above it, so that they, but not he, throbbed with the joy and wonder of resurrection. It seemed to me that in them the land was singing a loud, jubilant doxology, singing it in color instead of in sound, but with as just and rare a music. Never to be forgotten is that jour- ney through the flowers; they carpeted the country, while the furniture of it consisted of the mirrors of a hundred lakes, of the dark tabular stretches of a thousand pines, of the gray graces of humble wooden huts with their tawny haystacks taller than them- selves. I could not touch, I could only see and seem to hear the flowers,to hear their light flirtations with the but- terflies, the silken rustle of their petals as they danced upon the stalk with gentle deprecation to the music of the wind, the inner laughter of their hearts as they ministered with pollen and honey to the fussy bees. Though I longed to touch them, to watch per- haps the days life, a fairy life, of but one of them, I could not; for I was standing on the platform of a train, which ran indeed without hurry though a little too fast for a snatch at the flowers crowding like curious children about the steel track of the engine. But no journey could be more joyous, more open to the dash of the wind and sometimes of the shower, to the flash of the sunshine and the scent of the hayfield. At the end of the journey came new music, but no cessation of the flowers. The doxology was sung now in the foam-fall of living waters on their ex- uberant way from one great lake to auother, and eventually to flow under the quays of Petersburg, bearing their great burdens and shining more con- strainedly about the green Islands of the city. Here, however, they slid in silver current, shook in golden spray, eddied in snowy foam with a stormy joy. They gathered it from their great leap between the sentinel pines with the impetus as of a holy inspiration that surged and swayed and sang long before it could subdue itself to the si- lence of a river. When the rocks around are white in snow and all the flowers at their feet are dead or sleep- ing, the moving waters challenge that whiteness with their whiteness, that stillness with their restlessness, and their loud doxology knows no pause, nor they any resurrection. Their praise, in their continuity, is of continu- ity; they are ignorant of alpha and of omega, unlike the flowers; these get their share of spray-shower from Ima- tra as they venture, some of them, like stars out of a cloud, from the shelter of the pines, straying to look over the brink and smile at the awful raging of the waters. What a life, what a plight, this of perpetual wrath! they seem to be saying to themselves; and some of them perhaps sigh, but most of them smile with sunny eyes, never noting that the thundering wrath of the waters is a mere frolic with the rocks, like in spirit to their own dainty frolics with the wind, only that the Fall is a giant, while they are fairies. The pines In their dark battalions may be representative of Finlands winter; straight and stern in rank like well-drilled soldiers disciplined to iden- tity of pose and uniformity of move- ment, they may express the spirit of enduring strain, of the fine, stern tei~- sion of the season that locks the lakes to the land in one white bond of si- lence, and stays the pulsing waves o! water and of sap as by mesmeric pass- es imperative to induce trance. But the flowers in their turn are represen- tative of Finlands summer; theirs is the prerogative to fly first the varie- gated flags of festivity, to flutter the signal of recreative joyousness, te 126 A Summers Dream. dance over the greensward like the heralds of holiday such as Finland seems justifiably to keep all summer, not only in field but in city, not only on land but on water. Her fairest utterance of this is in her flowers, but she utters it, too, in the canoes that swing their burnished sides and silken flags in the lap of water about her isl- ets. She utters it in the turreted and towered bright wooden dachas, or chal~ts, that lift their heads, ruddy or golden, from the blue pines which are ever a tufted crest upon those islets. She utters it in the pleasure-craft that creep lazily in and out the winding sil- ver channels wrapped about the pink of the rocks, the green and gold of the sward; in the larger steamers, radiant with gay garments and jubilant with chatter and laughter, that splash their white way through the broader water- paths and over the wider lakes. She utters it in the flower-laden markets of her exquisite little towns, which them selves strike holiday-notes of color and of form in their quaint, eyeless, pre- medieval castles, ruddy of roof and weather-stained of wall, with splashes of softest harmony, while under them group the peasants, pale in face and hair, but clad in faded lilac, or pink, or blue, with an orange kerchief, or a green kirtle, or a rose-colored jacket protesting of youth and freshness through all this soft serenity of decay. She utters it in some professional march of her choirs through the boule- vards of her beautiful capital, as they go to unveil the bust of some beloved poet, to honor art and give expression to a virile nationality in open-air song, declamation, and orchestral music on a height that dominates city, gulf, and busy quay. Music, flowers, sunshine, the art of a lovely life that takes leisure to cast fine bronzes, to build fine halls of learning, to loiter about Olympus Without shame-facedness.these are characteristics of the fair little city whose commerce hides very exquisitely behind its art, not only in the manner of its markets, but also in the fashion- ing of its streets. The long line of little boats rocking under its quay with little cargoes of butter, sinitdna (soured cream), or dark red berries from the woods, all in their dainty wooden tubs, and every boat of them embellished with some little bouquet or two of flowers at prow or keel,these are as if art were sweetly simulating com- merce, as if buying and selling were a pretty pastime with the peasants, as keeping shop is with children. Such a dilettante commerce it is! Yet enough for the peasant to live by whose fare is frugal as his speech but perchance as healthful, who makes his own shoes, weaves and dyes his own cloth, builds his own house, and wears his good steel knife with a hardy brow; for so it becomes the progeny of ances- tors who must yet recently have been hunters. Thus though Helsingfors has shops with a fine aristocratic air about them, it is not they that I remember, but the green of her parks, the gaiety of her gardens, the glister of her spires, the stateliness of her columns with that red glow of quaint cone-roofs on slen- der ancient towers and that silver of the sea playing sweetly about her dis- tant pines. I remember, too, how her radiant women and light-hearted men walked with the swing of holiday in their steps, as if to music, though they were, perchance, leisurely busy, and how the bearing of her military in resplendent uniforms was courtly ai~l fine as the bearing of her pines them- selves. And these have never faltered from their dignity through the count- less centuries. They crowded round me once, these pines, thick and heavy, as it seemed, with all the stillness of the centuries, with the death and the birth that they covered under their ever-dropping needles which are first for a crown to A Summers Dream. 127 the head and then for a shroud to the feet. This was on a night spent wake- fully with burning candles because of puerile terrors in the airless cubicle of a wooden hotel, perched, as it was, on a long slope where wild strawberries straggled along the pathway and where miles 6f dark blue forest meandered behind an uneven way to the inland seas, sheltering stores of rich beauty under their swarthness. My puerile terrors were lest beetles should accost me and make night frightful, being, as it, was, fearsome. For all along the spacious corridors and- stairs of this hotel, with their striped Swedish car- pets and their prevalent odor of resin, lay the helpless forms of kicking coleoptera, floated in upon the odor of the pines doubtless and now in piteous plight, each one prone upon his black back. I had already, lifted upon the ambulance of a scrap of paper, cast one out from my cubicle window to perish or to prosper in the hot shadow of the wood. I feared much the intrusion of another such visitor, black, uncomely, and ungainly far beyond Edgar Poes Raven; and I also feared lest with it might come I knew not how great an army of mosquitoes, for these bivouac perpetually among the pines. The night was direful, breathLess, hot to suffocation. Speechless, motionless, every sigh among their tufted needles stopped, every crackle of their golden branches stilled, the pines stood round in awful steadfastness, spell-bound custodians of the yellow wooden house. The heat of their resinous breathing, a Gehenna-like zone, girdled it close. Laden with the tragedies -of the cen- turies their darkness, their coffins, their skeletons, this breath of the forest drifted into the frail light of my can- dles. fondly set there to make to the night burnt-offerings of flimsy lYisect- flesh. Such nights are long. In this one I had second-sight for all the dark secrets of the forest, all the potential horrors of its leaping, jumping, flying, fluttering, creeping, crawling, flapping things under its velvet moss-flooring, among the tangled curtains of its foliage. It was fevered with visions of a raging insect under-world, sea- soned with shudders at the whirr of metallic wings, until Nature took shape as a magician, stooped over the black furnace of the forest, with sfealthy fingers dipping into life to mix and model, make and unmake, creatures from the coiled confusion. As charnel- house, as breeding-house, the sultry wood lifted up to me her centuries, and the sameness of them in their strange activities of birth and death seemed like the gathering of a shroud over my head. I became as full fraught with the futility of being as the airy holocausts of my candlefiame. But such a night was the price and its purchase was the morning. The price was paltry, the purchase was large. Then the eternity of doing and undoing lost its futility and found its momentousness. For the face of the Infinite is sad in profile but glorious in that full forward accost which comes with the morning. The spell lifted with soft stirrings from the woods at dawning,the gentle current of cool- ness trickling through the twilight, giving the pine-needles to drink of dew in their dryness, filling fresh baths for the ever-thirsty mosses, letting drop upon the round red-golden tables of the fungi vanishing gems to roll and be lazily lost in the heart of a lily-hell, the climbing of a sun in flames up tlie$ black ladder of serried pines, thence to survey lake and creek, canal and cornered pasture where the woods divide,these - were a part of the pur- chase. But perhaps these were not enough to clench a bargain which should overreach the torment of the night? I do not know; I only know that to one who watches thus, caressive and personal becomes his hold upon the 128 A Summers Dream. full-blown flower of the day; it has opened under his eyes, it is as though he had participated in its production. And having met time, a day, full-face, he finds that he is confronting a jubi- lant eternity. The tragedy of a night too intimate with Nature may have left me asking if there were also comedy in Nature, and left me perhaps answering that there was not; and for the dignity of this abstinence I thank her, and know that I can the more fully trust her if she never jests. But human nature cannot yet sustain so noble an absti- nence; for human nature is the sport of time still, realizing but charily the limitless, whereas Nature gossips familiarly with the infinite. Such a reflection might well come home to me when I strayed into the interior of one of those tall, old-world castles which hold some entrances to Finlands many water-ways. The tides of time trickle in green and rusty stains adown their whitening walls as they stand silent, austere, with red-capped turrets, at the very waters edge, like gateways t~ the isles. Within I imagined them grim, vacant, chill, and rust-wreathed, for they keep their dignity of to-day as by courtesy for their prowess of yester- day, silent, stern, but superannuated. I was mistaken; they are not merely medieval figure-heads, but may one day yet send the thunder of cannon to reverberate through wood and lake. In this one of them I encountered a personage older than themselves, ani they are very, very old. It was in a long broad chamber once solemnized by usage as a church. Low on the walls, high around the pulpit, and be- hind the altar were many paintings. quainter in conception and in execution than T can give idea of. There were Macmillans Magazine. eager protrayals of an anguish which threw face and form awry, graphic delineations of ecstasy which threw them awry in a contrary direction; there was a portrait of the devil solidly taken from life with more fanciful, aerial, floating figures of uncomfortably winged angels, while great effort and the serious pains of a glowing imagina- tion had told the stories of the Cruci- fixion and of the Judgment with con- summately unskilful skill. Many por- traits of Old Testament celebrities pan- elled the walls, north, west, and south. It was among these that I happed upon the one which interested me the most, in that I came away from the inter- view, though laughing, with the serious impression of how much human nature is, as I said, the sport of time, how seldom it leaps the fence to find infinity. For I happened upon Noah sitting lonely upon Mount Ararat, and wearing a wide-awake hat, with other items of clerical attire. He looked forlorn and so did Mount Ararat, which I might have mistaken, had Noah and the roar- ing flood not been there, for the Pyra- mid of Cheops. But I recognized Noah throu~zh the ages in spite of the shadow of his wide-awake, of the evidences of neuralgia in hIs countenance. I could not but be sorry for him, as the sport of fashion as well as of time. And with satisfaction I left pictures and men for flowers, for the sweet un- spoiled and smiling sisterhood of the rocks, the fields, the woods, the waters, whose faces and whose frocks are the same yesterday, to-day, and for ev6r, so free from the contemptible fluctua- tions of fashion, that Noah himself in the wide-awake of to-day would know them for old acquaintances, though him certainly for a good reason they might but haltingly recognize. Pres Sales. 129 PRES SALES. Farther along the rocky coast of Fin- isterre, and away back from the cliff, one comes on a stretch of wild, lonely countrymarshy moors and bleak hill pastures. These are the pros sah~s of Brittany where grows rank coarse grass that feeds a few sheep and where green samphire flourishes. At certain times of the year the older women from Ploumazeldec come to gather the samphire and take away basketfuls to sell in the towns round about. Besides these and the shepherds or their boys, who come occasionally to drive the sheep on to different quarters, the wild, lonely landes of the Pays de Leon are rarely visited by any. Grandm~re Bonnet in her solitary hut feels herself the rightful owner of these solitudes and resents any dis- turbance. When they meet her, the women have a pleasant word of greet- ing, for she is a woman like them- selves: they pity her, knowing just a little of her history. But the shep- herds avoid her; there is something uncanny about her unwomanly figure, and the herd-boys are her dread. You cant intimidate a gamin that is bent on mischief, and he is rich in resource when his mind is given to torturing his unhappy victim. Sad days are there for Grandm~re Bonnet when the boys invade the landes. Her keen eyes detect her enemies afar off; seeing them she retires within her lonely hut and barricades her door, often as not to find another barricade of stones has been raised on the other side when she opens it again. Her hermit life began so many years ago that people have al- most forgotten her existence in any ether sphere. To the majority vhe is a grotesque figure~une insens~ebet- ter left alone, as she cannot be civil- ized. Yet a faint recollection lingers of a once thrifty bourgeoise, clever, ca- pable, hard-working; but the fell stroke which broke her heart-strings touched her reason also, and turned her into the half-wild creature who will speak to none. A rough pilots coat and cap have been her dress winter and summer these many years; heavy sabots look hugely big under the short rough skirt that is the only remnant left to tell her sex. A stout stick is her weapon of defenceone, too, that she would not hesitate to lay about the head of an unhappy offender. How she gains her scanty living is a puzzle, but one way or another she struggles along, and the inside of that lonely hill-cabin is never seen. * * * * * * H~pardi---efle ma fait peur! and the speaker drew back in affright. She had been sitting on one of the fiat boulders, resting from the constant stooping, and, busy with the caus- ette she was holding with her com- panion, had not noticed that Grand- m~re Bonnet had drawn close to them. There was an elfish grin on the with- ered face of the old woman; it pleased her to see others afraid of her, she suffered such tortures of fear herself. Rester tranquiflederangez vous pas, she said, chuckling within herself. Ill not come too near; but you are going to talk to me, do you under-p stand ? They signified their willingness, but waited for the outcast to begin. What has become of her? she de- manded. Whom do you mean? Bah, M~re Clotildeyou are not this years childyou know .1 mean herthe red-skinned girlwhat is she doing now ? 130 Pres Sales. If you mean Paul Bonnets wife, I can tell you she is a good and brave woman, and many years it is since she was a girl. She has lived hardly and worked long; it is well that she has good children to work for her now. You are wrong to hate her so, Grand- mere. The old woman made a grimace. You are a wise woman, Clotilde, and you are a very good adviser, but you have a short memory behind you. Go on: tell me about the childrenare they fishing, too? They live at Yarogues with their mother, all except Marthe and Lisette, who are married to good men and true. It is a family to be proud of, Grand- m~reand they would all be kind if you would let them. Grandm~res reply to this was a cur- ious one. She took a handful of the rank, coarse grass and thrust it into her mouth; after chewing it a moment she spat it out in disgust. There, she said, bitter as the taste of the grass on the prls sahi is the name of that red-skinned woman to me. I had a garden once, a little house with green all about it, and a husband who was good and kind to me even though he was a fool for the drink at times. All this until she came, but afterwards, she turned it to salt. Bitter tears I have shed because of her; then I left her for the solitude of the lan4es, and here at least I have peace: it seems that she has gained what she sought too. The two listeners looked from one to the other: how much of this rancorous hate was due to a disordered lirain and how much had foundation on fact they could not tell. It was difficult to be- lieve that F~licie Bonnet had ever been unkind, least of all to her hus- bands mother. Grandrn~re saw their incredulity. Eco-utez, she said: you shall hear what few people know, but you shall tell the histoire to no other! You under- stand ? They signified consent, and the old woman leaned towards them eagerly, her clawlike fingers spread out in ex- cited gestures as she went on with her tale. It was years since she had spok- en as freely as thiswhat was urging her to do so now she could not have told either. I was twenty years old when I married Am~d~e Bonnet, and for twenty years after that we lived to- gether, happy enough as married life goes. I worked hard for him, and I minded not if he gave me a touch of his hand sometimes when the drink was in himhe never knew what he was doing then, being a soft fellow and led by the nose, as they say. Paul was our only child, and he went wherever his father didto the whal- ing as soon as ever he was big enough. For months I lived alone, but when they came back they filled the house with joyous life. I was ever their first thought, and very happy was I. When Paul was twenty-one he drew a bad number in the conscription: he had five years service, and was to go out to Tonkin. When he was gone surely a bad day enough for menoth- ing would serve Am~d~e but he must go too. We quarrelled then, Am~d~e and me; perhaps we said hard things, but I was sore at being left alone. Sainte Marie, but it was hard! I was angry when Am~d~e went; I would not say him good-bye, and so, to pun- ish me, perhaps, he never came back to me. Five long years I lived in the little house all alone. When nearly six had gone by Paul came back one day,, but not Am~d~e. Instead he brought with him a girla girl with dark skin and dark eyes, a girl who could hardly speak our tongue, but who clung to Paul and would not leave him. I hat- Pres Sales. 131 ed herthe serpent thieffrom the moment she came inside my door! Paul was angry with me. He said F~licie was as good French as I was, not a Bretonne, and he said she had nursed him and Am~d~e, too, through the yellow fever, that he only lived be- cause of her care. I said, why had she not made Am~d~e to live too? But they thought me mad. Mad? Yes, I was mad; mad with her for her soft, serpent ways. She had poisoned Pauls mind against mehow did I know hut that she had poisoned Am~d~es also? One day it came to me like as in a flash that this was really soshe had killed my dear man that she might se- cure Paul for herself. I went to her and charged her to her face. Whether she understood or not I could not tell, but she fled from me in terror and went into Pauls room, and she barred the door with all the furniture she could lift. Then I laughedit was good sport to have made her fear me so! Paul came in. I told him she was frightened, that he had gotten a rare coward for a wife. I can never shut *ut Pauls face as it looked thenit was the last time I saw it, for he took me by the arm and he put meme his motheroutside the door of my own house! Stay there, he said; I will come to you presently, and he went back to his wife. But to stay outside my own house! Ah, never, not while I had strength to go elsewhere! I went fast as my feet could carry me, where I hardly knew, but the distance grew greater, and I grew quieter. After some time I found myself among these pr6s sales, and the stillness of the wide land soothed me. I went on and cam& to the hut that Lefebvre the stonebreaker had built; he was not there, so I went in. I lit a fire on the hearth and sat beside itperhaps I fell asleep. When I awoke Lefebvre had come back and he sat at the table eating his bread and onions. He was very old and bent, but he looked kind; he lifted his head when I spoke. Will you give me something to eat? I asked. He thrust the bread out. Help yourself, madame; it is yours if you will. So I took a share, and from that day until he died, two years later, I shared with him all he had. He never troubled me, nor I him; and when he was gone I stayed on in his hut. I could find food, what else did I need? There was no one to care what I looked like or what I did, and I took care that no one should come near me if I could help it. When Paul died I knew it, though no one came to tell, and his grave has been kept green, not by her care but by mine. Some day, perhaps, he might have said he was sorry, but he died, so it is too late. Why should I care for kindness from his wife or children? I want none of them. Her voice was harsh, rauque, as they say, when she finished, and the women looked at her with compassion. So it was a sorrowful end to come to. They essayed to make suggestions of comfort. Bah! she, answered impatiently, talk not so. You think I was wrong; she thinks I was wrong; Paul, yes, even Paul, thought me wicked; per- haps I was, but the Mother of Sorrows knows me better. Have I not lived out my purgatory here? What more can be asked of me? I say, what is there yet that I can do ? The harsh voice rose to almost a shriek and her frame shook. The younger of the two women came and laid a gentle hand on her shrunken shoulder. Pauvre Grandm~re, you have in- deed taut souffert, she said softly, 132 Pres Sales. yet there is one thing more the saints would have you do, and that is to say to F6licie that you are sorry. She is good. She would come many kilo- m~tres to hear such a good word from you.~~ Dame! Do you think I dont believe it? And is it likely that I should ever say such words? Aflez-vous en! both of you. Why did I tell?I will never speak again. In high wrath, shaking with the force of passion, the grotesque figure hobbled away, leaving the two to gaze sorrowfully after her. Then they wended their way back to Ploumazel- dec. A month later two women again crossed the lande8 in the direction of Lefebvres hut. This time they car- ried baskets filled, not with samphire, but with comforts to cheer the lonely outcast. Snow covered the landes, a cold wind swept over the deserted space, the sheep were gone, the last flock having been fetched away only yesterday by Yves Kester; from him they had learnt that Grandm~re Bon- net was no longer anywhere to be seen. They came to the hut at last, almost buried as it was in snow. They stove in the doorall was dark, cheerless and cold. Grandmelre, es tu ld? they called. A faint murmur came from a dark heap in the corner. Clotilde struck the match she had brought and lit a rush- light. By its flicker they saw the dark heap was really the old woman, and her eyes caught the gleam of the can- dle. She appeared to recognize their faces, and made an effort to gather her scattered senses together. I am trying to die; why don~t you leave me alone ? she groaned. The other womannot Clotilde came forward. Because you cannot, you dare not die with hate in your heart, she said in a clear, brave voice. Grandm~re, grandm~re, Paul could not die until he had said he was sorry. And far away in Tonkin your Am~d~e was sorry, too, so sorry that he wept when he thought of you! Can you, too. not forgive? The old womans gaze grew more piercing as she searched the speakers face keenly. With sudden strength she raised herself on her elbow. Say that againsay every word! F~licie repeated her plea. The lis- tener fell back, her eyes closed over. Paul was sorry, Am6d6e tooPaul and Am~d6eperhaps they will speak to me again; and I am going a long way to tell them that I am sorry; they will hear? Yes? Only I cannot call, so tired am I! F6licie laid a cool, gentle hand on the fevered head. Peace, she said softly; go thou where there is peace for allno more hatred, no sorrow, no crying. Once more Grandm~re opened her eyes. It is not the prls sal6s, this green, rich country. Ah, but it is good! she breathed. And the worn frame re- laxed as the soul vanished and peace set its seal on Grandm~res closed eyes and lips. Some days later a little cortege wound its way across the snow-covered lan4es. Pauls children were come to fetch his mother back to her homea home from which no human hand would dislodge her again. L. H. Yates. Good words. The Quid Lad. 133 THE OULD LAD. I mind myself a wee boy wi no plain talk, An standin not the height o two peats; There was things meseif consated or the time that I could walk, An whos to tell when wit an childer meets? Twas the daisies down in the low grass, The stars high up in the skies, The first I knowed of a mothers face Wi the kind love in her eyes, Och, och! The kind love in her eyes. I went the way of other lads thats nayther good nor bad, An still, dye see, a lad has far to go! But the things meseif consated when I wasnt sick nor sad, Theyre aisy told an little use to know. Twas whiles a boat on the say beyont, An whiles a girl on the shore, An whiles a scrape o the fiddle-strings, Or maybe an odd thing more, In troth! Maybe an odd thing more. A man, they say, in spite of all is betther for a wife: In-undher this ould roof I live me lone; I never seen the woman yet I wanted all me life, Nor I never made me pillow on a stone. Tis fancy buys the ribbon an all, An fancy sticks to the young: But a man of his years can do wi a pipe, Can smoke an hould his tongue, Dye mind, Smoke, an hould his tongue. Ye see me now an ould man, his work near done, Sure the hair upon me heads all white; But the things meself consated or the time that I could run, Theyre the nearest to me heart this night. Just the daisies down in the low grass, The stars high up in the skies, The first I knowed of a mothers face Wi the kind love in her eyes, Och, och! The kind lo~b in her eyes. Moira ONeill. Blackwoods Magazine. 134 Heroes and Heroines in Fiction. HEROES AND HEROINES IN FICTION. Few forms of affection are, as a rule, more fatal to their objects than is that of the novelist for those of his charac- ters whom he admires. Even the greatest of writers, whilst they animate with pungent life and individuality such of their men and women as they regard with critical coolness, leaving the reader to applaud them or condemn them as he pleases, no sooner take any of their creations under their own spe- cial protection, and obtrude them on the reader as selected objects of sym- pathy, than in place of living beings they give us empty abstractions, or liv- ing beings who are remarkable for their weakness rather than for their strength. This is a fact which is, we need hardly say, most strongly exem- plified in avowed heroes and heroines. One of the reasons of the singular strength and truth which distinguish the male characters in Thackerays Vanity Fair is to be found in the writers own description of that work, which he calls, as a second title, A Novel without a Hero. But though it is a novel without a hero, it is not a novel without a heroine. The true hero- ine, in Thackerays eyes, is Amelia; and Amelia is a young lady who alienates the admiration of the reader in precise proportion as she excites that of the au- thor. Dickens affection for his charac- ters is even more fatal than Thacker- ays. Fecksniff is a man. Tom Pinch is a phantom. The same thing shows itself throughout the novels of Scott. Lovel has no reality if we set him beside the Antiquary; nor has Miss Wardour, if we set her beside Miss Grizel Oldbuck. Few novels, in some respects, are more interesting than Wilhelm ~Eeister; but Wilhelm, as a man, has no distinct character. He can hardly be said to have an independent identity. We might multiply examples indefinitely, but these few are enough. Indeed the fact to which we refer is so notorious that it hardly requires proof. But though the truth of what we have said is notorious, the explanation of it is not generally recognized. The comparative failure of novelists in drawing heroes and heroines, is due to two distinct causesin some cases to one, in some cases to the other. One of these causes is simple enough, being neither more nor less than the fact which is clearly illustrated in painting that of all human characteristics the most difficult to portray is beauty. For one man who can make beauty characteristic, ten men can make ugli- ness. The novelist, moreover, far more than the portrait-painter, is, in the case of characters he desires to flatter, tempted to suppress defects, and with far more serious consequences. And he is so for this reasonthat whilst many faces exist which ave practically without blemish, or whose bLemishes, if they have them, are not essential to their expression, the moral nature of no one is devoid of grave imperfections; and these are invariably so essential a part of the character, that if they are suppressed or ignored, the vitality of the portrait is destroyed. But there is another reason, far more important than this, to which the want of vitality in heroes and heroines, is due. This is the fact that, in a m~ns novel, the hero, and in a womans nov- el, the heroine, is often not so much a character as a point of view: and when this is the case, the absence of the in- dividuality is not always inevitable, but is essenTial to the authors purpose. The hero or heroine is a husk into which the author slips the reader; and the husk must be of a shape sufficiently Heroes and Heroines in Fiction. 135 devoid of pecularities to allow readers of various figure to occupy it. The husk forms a kind of disguise in which the reader is submitted by the author to a certain series of experiences or has his eye directed by the author to cer- tain events or problems. Most of Scotts heroes are personages of this description; and in a very marked man- ner, so also is Wilhelm Meister. Way- erley is merely the reader witnessing, and to a certain extent participating in, a picturesque historical movement. Wilhelm Meister is merely the reader, interrogating life like a philosopher, under Goethes guidance. Any full and vital representation of either, which made his character distinctly different from the reader, would have prevented him from fulfilling his true literary function. It would have prevented the readers personality from coalescing with his. Such heroes are necessarily not objects of interest, as the other characters are; but they are representa- tives of the mind that feels the interest. Any one who considers what is im- plied in this fact will be led by it to realize many things which criticism too often forgets. In fiction, just as in painting, everything must be drawn from some definite point of view, and drawn in accordance, more or less com- plete, with certain rules of perspective. Sometimes the point of view is that of the author, or of the ideal and detached spectator. Sometimes it is the point of view of this or that character. It must be either the one or the other. It is impossible to describe, as it is to paint a landscape, without reference to a pair of eyes viewing it from some given spot In fiction these eyes may be either the authors own, or those of one of his characters. Most authors are constantly moving from one point to the other. The author, for inst2,nce, who describes a lonely landscape, from which the day is slowly failing, neces- sarily describes this as seen from some given spot by himself. He calls some hills remote, some valleys dim and be- wildering, because his own station is remote from the one, and prevents his seeing into the other. But if he intro- duces into this landscape a traveller whose movements he is going to fol- low, he will instinctively begin to draw his pictures through the travellers eye, not his own. He will speak of the un- certainties of the road, or of mysteri- ous lights in the distance, when the road is uncertain and the lights mys- terious, only because the one is not familiar to the traveller, and the origin of the other is unknown to him; and the subsequent events ~vill, either in part or wholly, be described in terms of the travellers own experience. Doors will be closed till the travellet~ passes through them. Men will be strangers till the traveller makes theii~ acquaintance. Nor does this hold good of scenery and incidents only. It is equally true with regards to morals, manners, and the whole complexion of life. The way in which these are represented, indeed the possibility of representing them at all, depends on their relation to some supposed person, viewing them from some definite moral or social stand- point. A character like Mrs. Gamp, for example, as represented by Dick- ens, is drawn, and could be drawn only, from the standpoint of a person whose breeding and education are superior to those of Mrs. Gamp herself. The prin- cipal touches by which Dickens de- scribes her would be meaningless to any one who saw her from the stand-s point of Betsy Prig. So again as to morals, nearly all the events of life have a tragic or serious, and a light or~ comic, aspect, according to the point from which we elect to view them, Or the manner in which, when contem- plating them, we focus the minds eye. Thus a drunken scene to Dickens is nearly always comic; whereas the same 136 Eros Narcissus. scene, in the hands of Sir Wilf rid Law- son, were he to become a novelist, would appear as a lugubrious tragedy; whilst if the same intrigue were de- scribed by the Rev. Hugh Price Hughes, and by a contributor to the Vie Parisienne, though the two ac- counts might be obviously accounts oC the same incident, nine-tenths of the details mentioned in each would be dif- ferent. The two writers would be deal- ing with the same fragment of life; but they would be seeing it from different positions, or their eyes would be fo- cussed differently. Any one who will consider these facts will perceive that a work of literary art, constructed merely with reference to artistic principles, is an impossibil ity. Every novel, every picture of life, however much the writer may keep his own personality in the background, implies on the writers part, and de- mands on that of the reader, certain moral, religious, philosophical, or social judgments; and can be understood only by direct reference to them. In other words art for arts sake is a chimiera. All literary art is didactic, not neces- sarily because it recommends certain points of view, or directly advocates this or that judgment; but because, in order to receive from it any intelligible impression, such and such a point of view has to be occupied by the reader, and such and such judgments have, provisionally at all events, to be adopt- ed by him. The Saturday Review. EROS NARCISSUS. If I should force the sentries of her lips, What should it profit me to shock her soul? Or see young Faith in pitiful eclipse, Or watch her don Abasements leaden stole? If I should bid her tell me all her love Bare all the rosy secret of her heart, What gain to see her spoil herself thereof? For her what gain, to see her love depart? Her lovely mystery is her loveliness, And her sweet reticence her seal of price; For what she loveth darkly that she is Priestess, communicant and sacrifice. In her own mould she fashions Love, and he Scarce knows himself, vested so tenderly. Maurice Hewlett.

THE LIVING AGE: ~ ~i~h~hh~ ~1a~a~int LIE ~rnntempnr~ui~ ~it~ratur~ ~rn~v ~nu~t. (FOUNDED BY E. LITTELL IN 1844.) SEVENTH SHRI~s. Volume IV. NO. 2871. JULY15, 1899. FROM B~oIx~rxNe Vol. OCXXI1. 4 EMILE ZOLA AS A MORALJST.* No one has yet forgotten the indig- nation aroused ten years ago by the romances of Emile Zola, the ridicule which greeted them, the Roman Ex- perimental in particular, nor the ran- cor with which certain critics, a little later, undertook to show the lack of harmony between the novelist and his Theories. These battles have abated in fury at the present time; every year when Zolas new novel appears, which happens as regularly as the astronom- ical seasons, it still finds a few good souls to raise their hands in holy hor- ror; but the public reads it, without indignation; some out of curiosity, some for pleasure, some from mere force of habit; and no one will be in the least surprised when the Academy decides to open its doors to the vigor- ous literary worker. And yet, he has in no wise softened his style, changed his methods or shown himself any more harmonious with his theories; he is still the same brutal painter of so- cial disorders, while his realistic novels continue to exhale the aroma of epics, so to speak. Is the public merely weary of bestir- ring itself to anger? Or has the tenac- ity of the industrious man, who does on his way without heeding the noise made by his footsteps, inspired a cer *Translated for The Living Age by H. Twltchell. tam respect in the minds- of those per- sons who in the beginning were most exasperated? Or has it been compre- hended at last that he has come in his own time, that he, the inveterate de- terminist is, more than any of his creations, the product of a combina- tion of circumstances, and that, for that reason, he should be understood and not abused? Emile Zola was thirty years old in 1870. He had, therefore, grown up under the Empire, at the period when the intellectual world was under the domination of that generation whose creed had just been outlined by Renan in his Avenir de la Science, and whose Voltaleean indifference was in- carnate in the person of Edmond About; a generation which, as a whole, apart from some illustrious excep- tions, the chief being Renan himself, was called positive because it was materialistic and narrow; which be- ~7 lieved itself justified in denying the existence of realities that do not fall under the senses, those of conscience, as well as others; which placed its ideal very close and very low, within reaching distance, as it were; which, from having suppressed problems, be- lieved them solved; which conceived a false, almost absurd, idea of science, calling it to account for having at- 138 Ernile Zola as a Jjfioralzst. tempted, in too great a degree, to wid- en its domain; which, lastly, summed up its limited aspirations and its blind confidence in that astonishing remark made by one of its most authoritative representatives: The world is to-day without mysteries! During these years of his formative period Zola became acquainted with science thus comprehended, a sci- ence that disposed of all difficulties, solved all problems as easily as does the travelling salesman who leads the conversation at a hotel dining-table. Doubtless if, like Renan, he had devot- ed himself to an attentive, persevering study of one of the branches of that science which he was ready to deify, he would have recognized its limitations and vanity, for his intelligence is flex- ible, broad and acut& But this was not the case: he knelt before science without investigating it, just as pros- trate crowds fail to see the priest con- cealed behind the idol uttering oracles in its name. He went still further; faith ceasing to satisfy him, he fell in- to superstition. The most fervent believers are ever ready to imagine that they are well-in- formed on the subjects of their belief. God manifests himself to them; they see him, feel him, consult him on the most trivial subjects, and receive di- rect responses. They know how the soul detaches itself from the body, how it ascends to heaven; they can de- scribe the architecture of Paradise and name the moment of the last judg- ment. In precisely this manner Zola has been persuaded by his love of sci- ence into believing that he is convers- ant with it. Some books by Claude Bernard enlightened him on religious matters; is not the Bible sufficient for Christians? In his researches he neg- lected, it is true, to dissect ral5bits and frogs; but cannot one be scientific without a microscope or a scalpel? One can surely observe and experi ment outside of a laboratory. Did not Balzac proclaim himself doctor in human sciences? Zola, whose genius for Qbservation is in no wise inferior to that of the author of the Com~di~ Humaine, has claimed for himself the same title. He assumed it after the publication of LAssommoir; this work served as a point of departure; although before its appearance he had still questioned a few things, after it, he questioned nothing. In his books belonging to this period one can find many examples of the naive and se- rene certainty with which he surveyed everything. Here is one example among many others. The subject under considera tion was the cause of immorality in the middle classes. Zola consulted his- Claude Bernard, thought of two famil- ies, perhaps three, maybe ten, that had come under his observation, and wrote in one of his novels: Yes, hysteria does play upon the middle classes, but we must under- stand the exact meaning of the word hysteria, which is generally used in an unscientific sense. According to the latest researches of physiologists and physicians, hysteria is a neurotic dis- ease seated in the brain, an attenuated epilepsy, not necessarily followed by crises of sensual mania; these crises are rather the accompaniments of nymphomania, and this distinction does not seem to have been made with sufficient clearness by the experts of this Bordeaux case to which we have just referred. Hysteria, in ten ca~es out of twelve, is merely a nervous de- rangement, occurring most frequently in women of a cold temperament, and producing as its chief effect a perver sion of all their sentiments and pas- sions. The conviction with which Zola ex- presses himself is certainly admirable; there are even statistics, ten cases; out of twelve; and the clinical oh Emile Zola as a Moralist. 139 servations in the matter of hysteria corroborate his theory, with a happy precision. But, in spite of it all, I can- not help reflecting that it is much eas- ier to be a doctor of human sciences, than to be merely a doctor of scien- ces. Zolas method of procedure, as shown by this fragment, is the same in most of his novels, and in his series taken as a whole. The theory of he- redity impressed him; he thought he could utilize it in literature and he conceived the history of the Rougon-Macquart familythat is, he began to study, as he states in the pre- face of the Fortune des Rougons, the gradual succession of propensi- ties, both nervous and sanguine, which develop in a family in consequence of a first organic lesion, and which deter- mine in each of the individuals of that family, according to environment, the sentiments, desires, passions, all the human manifestations, natural and in- stinctive, commonly designated as vir- tues or vices. This accomplished, Zola is convinced that he has given evidence of scientific accuracy. As for myself, I doubt it. Perhaps, indeed, such a study followed up in an authentic family, by a physi- ologist (a genuine one, who has dis- sected frogs) aided by a psychologist, might be productive of some useful re- sults, shed some light on our confused notions of heredity and enrich sci- ence. Otherwise, it is not very prob- able, for without mentioning the enor- mous difficulties to be met witti in such an examination, one would have observed only an isolated case, that of a single family, and an isolated case cannot warrant a general conclusion. Then, too, we cannot forget that the Rougon-Macquart ancestors and de- scendants, those who are virtuous-and those who are vicious, are fictitious personages, without any reality except that given them by their creator. He xviii tell us, doubtless, that he has ob- served them, that he has invented on- ly their names. I3ut that is an im- mense illusion; he has taken from every hand and from numberless per- son the traits he has ascribed to his characters; that alone would be enough to make his observation untrue in the strict sense of the word; he has transported them from certain sur- roundings to others; he has imagined the intrigues in which he has involved them; and, although he tries to hide himself in his romances, he is alxvays their protagonist; the Rougon-Mac- quart series give us much more infor- mation concerning Emile Zola than concerning the family he parades, and above all the theory of hered- ity. If one were to ask a person of ordin- ary intelligence who had read the eighteen volumes of the Histoire nat- urelle et socialle dune famille sous le second Empire, what he thought of the famous theory of heredity therein embodied, he would certainly be great- ly embarrassed. I have seen, he would tell us, about tx~enty persons who resemble each other in nothing, between whom I am told there is a common bond, though I cannot per- ceive it; some are respectable, others are criminal or dissipated, all on ac- count of a single original neurotic. As a whole, the family interests me great- ly because it reproduces in miniature the image of the world; but I do not succeed in getting a clear idea of the fact that it is one family; I do not see.C any more relationship between the dif- ferent members and the first Rougon- Macquart than between you, myself, other people and our first parents, Adam and Eve. By proceeding according to the Sd- cratic method, from question to ques- tion, we might lead our man to say: Ah, I see this, too; all the persons presented are what they are because of 140 Ernile Zola as a Moralist. an outside force, over which they have no control, which governs and directs them. They are merely marionettes, operated by strings and dependent up- on the hand that pulls the strings. I do not see the strings or the hand, but I am certain that the personages are not free and independent.And our man will have summed up all that can be said of Zolas work from the pres- ent standpoint.1 It is not scientific, and gives us no information concerning heredity, but it is literary, and impresses one with the conclusions of that doctrine, which are the radical negation of human lib- erty and responsibility. While Zola destroys positive beliefs, which were perhaps only prejudices, he in no way justifies, explains, or proves the nega- tive beliefs he attempts to substitute for them. We must, however, do Zola the jus- flee of stating that he is aware of the insufficiency of his preparation. He loves to style himself a moralist, and, after his first romance, Le Confession de Claude, he interests himself in what the unlitformed, those who have not read Claude Bernard, persist in calling good and evil. At this period, he asked himself: What is evil? In- stead of asserting, in accordance with his new catechism, that it is an invol- untary function, the result of a physi- ological error, the corollary of some ancestral neurosis, he replies, with an admirable optimism: Evil is one of our own inventions, one of those wounds with which we have been pleased to cover ourselves. This is not very conclusive, but, if we look at it closely, we shall perhaps find that it is as significant as the new doctrine. It is evident that on reach- ing the limit of his researches, Zola 1 wish to call attention to the fact that I am considering Zolas productions from a moral point of view only; I have not, therefore, occa- RInTI to express, as I have done elsewhere, the found himself in a dilemma; a moral- ist by instinct and temperament, he had suppressed morality. Desiring to supply a moral want, (see Lettre a la Jeunesse) he attempted to provide the documents needed to aid the world in controlling good and evil by under- standing them; but hi~ doctrine proves clearly that we pursue good or evil ac- cording to predispositions bequeathed to us by ancestors, and which are be- yond our control. He enters upon a dangerous circle, where so many others have lost their way; if good and evil are only mental conceptions, who shall take it upon himself to fix and define them? How shall we have any power over the causes which make us good or bad, since we depend upon them? It will readily be seen that the situation is embarrassing. Zola has extricated himself from it in a manner which, though not entirely satisfying to thoughtful people, is at least ingen- ious and simple; he has sought in de- terminism the antidote of the poison he owes to it, and he has constructed his romances in a way to prove by evi- dence that evil begets evil, and good good. It is, of course, to be taken for grant- ed that those old-fashioned words, good and evil, vice and virtue, that we are forced to employ to avoid inter- minable paraphrases, have only rela- tive meanings. They are really only functions; these functions are inde- pendent of all supernatural control and also of the will. We perform them without knowing it, as we per- form other animal functions. A man could not be other than he is, as the song has it; nature is the cause of everything. But, if all this is true, if we are what we must be, and could not be otherwise, if our beings, i~oral literary admiration I have always professed for the most powerful of our contemporaneous nov- elists. Ernile Zola as a Moralist. 141 and physical, are only the blind result- ant of forces that it is impossible to define, if each of us is the last link of a chain from the bondage of which no effort can free us, then it becomes evi- dent that the rOle of the think~r who observes the meaningless performan- ces of mankind, must be merely a pas- sive one. He is like a man on the summit of a hill who, with a tranquil eye, follows the incidents of a battle raging in the valley below him. Why should he call out to the struggling masses, Turn to the right! when he knows that nothing can prevent them from going in the direction into which they are forced by the mysterious pow- er directing them? Why should he warn them of the existence of a preci- pice a few feet to their left, since he knows that if they go to the left it is because they cannot go to the right? Why, above all, should he be angry at them for taking the direction of the danger which he sees awaiting them? One should merely pity the victims, for victims they certainly are; but the pity should be a mere thrill quickly sup- pressed, for what is the use of torment- ing oneself about what cannot be changed or prevented? The inevitable carries its consolation within itself; one does not curse fatality; one submits to it. But, in point of fact, this is not the attitude assumed by Zola. Occasion- ly, it is true, he seems to interest him- self in his creations and to suffer with them. But for the most part, he does not even remain indifferent to them; he seems to despise the beings he has been pleased to create, whose short- comings and infamies he has dwelt upon with such savage irony. Note, too, that this moralist, this ascetic, is at the same time a poet, adoring life in its manifestations and in its sources; in this contradiction will be found perhaps, the explanation of his taste for the violent or wanton por trayals, so unjustly attributed to low;~ speculative calculation. Zola is not satisfied with showing; himself inconsistent with his scien-- tific doctrine by hating the charac- ters he has chosen to create; he is so again in the tender affection he exhib- its for those in whom the neurosis has taken a virtuous turn. He forgets, one might say, that it is not their cred it. Examples of this are rare to be sure, as he occupies himself little with respectable people. Au Bonheur des Dames, one of the most original and successful of his series, contains quite an unexpected expression of feeling, of admiration even; it is~ the epic of the bourgeoisie; the good qualities of the French middle classes, their love of la- bor, their patience, wisdom, prudent generosity, those qualities so often held up to ridicule because they are more solid than brilliant, more honor- able than fascinating, are brought out with charming relief, and are invested with a tender ideality which no other writer has ever thought of ascribing to them. The satirist has laid down his lash, the doctor in human scien- ces is moved and allows his secret sympathies to be divined, inconsistent- ly again with his doctrine, which shou