AMERICAN SKETCHES By Charles Whibley William Blackwood & Sons - 1908 AMERICAN SKETCHES. NEW YORK. To land at Hoboken in a quiet drizzle is to sound the depths ofdesolation. A raw, half-finished, unkempt street confronts you. Along the roadway, roughly broken into ruts, crawls a sad tram. Thedishevelled shops bear odd foreign-looking names upon their fronts, andthe dark men who lounge at their doors suggest neither the spirit ofhustling nor the grandeur of democracy. It is, in truth, not a street, but the awkward sketch of a street, in which all the colours are blurredand the lines drawn awry. And the sense of desolation is heightened bythe memory of the immediate past. You have not yet forgotten the pomp ofa great steamship. The gracious harbour of New York is still shiningin your mind's eye. If the sentiment of freedom be dear to you, you arefresh from apostrophising the statue of Liberty, and you may have justwhispered to yourself that you are breathing a clearer, larger air. Even the exquisite courtesy of the officer who has invited you in theblandest terms to declare that you have no contraband, has belied thevoice of rumour and imparted a glow of satisfaction. And then you arethrown miserably into the leaden despair of Hoboken, and the vision ofLiberty herself is effaced. But Hoboken is an easy place where-from to escape, and the travellermay pass through it the more cheerfully, because it prepares him forthe manifold and bewildering contrasts of New York. The towns of theold world have alternations of penury and affluence. In them alsopicturesque squalor obtrudes itself upon an ugly splendour. But NewYork, above all other cities, is the city of contrasts. As America isless a country than a collection of countries, so New York is not acity--it is a collection of cities. Here, on the narrow rock whichsustains the real metropolis of the United States, is room or men andwomen of every faith and every race. The advertisements which glitterin the windows or are plastered upon the hoardings suggest that allnationalities meet with an equal and a flattering acceptance. The Germanregrets his fatherland the less when he finds a brilliant Bier-Hallewaiting for his delight. The Scot no doubt finds the "domestic" cigarsweeter to his taste if a portrait of Robert Burns adorns the boxfrom which he takes it. The Jew may be supposed to lose the sense ofhomesickness when he can read the news of every day in his familiarYiddish. And it is not only in the contrast of nationalities that NewYork proves its variety. Though Germans, Italians, and Irish inhabittheir own separate quarters and frequent their own separate haunts, there are many other lines of division. Nowhere in the world are theresharper, crueller distinctions of riches and poverty, of intelligenceand boorish-ness, of beauty and ugliness. How, indeed, shall you finda formula for a city which contains within its larger boundaries FifthAvenue and the Bowery, the Riverside Drive and Brooklyn, Central Parkand Coney Island? And this contrast of race and character is matched by the diversity ofthe city's aspect. Its architecture is as various as its inhabitants. In spite of demolition and utility, the history of New York is writtenbrokenly upon its walls. Here and there you may detect an ancientframe-house which has escaped the shocks of time and chance, and stillholds its own against its sturdier neighbours. Nor is the memory ofEngland wholly obliterated. Is there not a homely sound in Maiden Lane, a modest thoroughfare not far from Wall Street? What Englishman can feelwholly abroad if he walk out to the Battery, or gaze upon the austerehouses of Washington Square? And do not the two churches of Broadwayrecall the city of London, where the masterpieces of Wren are stillhedged about by overshadowing office and frowning warehouse? St Paul'sChapel, indeed, is English both in style and origin. It might have beenbuilt in accord with Sir Christopher's own design; and, flanked by thethirty-two storeys of the Park Row Building, it has the look of a smalland dainty toy. Though Trinity Church, dedicated to the glory of Godand the Astors, stands in an equally strange environment, it is lessincongruous, as it is less elegant, than St Paul's. Its spire falls notmore than a hundred feet below the surrounding sky-scrapers, and were itnot for its graveyard it might escape notice. Now its graveyard is oneof the wonders of America. Rich in memories of colonial days, it is aslucid a piece of history as survives within the boundaries of New York. The busy mob of cosmopolitans, intent upon trusts and monopolies, whichpasses its time-worn stones day after day, may find no meaning in itstranquillity. The wayfarer who is careless of the hours will obey theancient counsel and stay a while. The inscriptions carry him back to thedays before the Revolution, or even into the seventeenth century. Herelies one Richard Churcher, who died in 1681, at the tender age of five. And there is buried William Bradford, who printed the first newspaperthat ever New York saw, the forefather in a long line of the YellowestPress on earth. And there is inscribed the name of John Watts, the lastRoyal Recorder of New York. Thus the wayfarer may step from Broadwayinto the graveyard of a British colony, and forget, in contemplatingthe familiar examples of a lapidary style, that there was a tea-party atBoston. These contrasts are wayward and accidental. The hand of chance has beenmerciful, that is all; and if you would fully understand New York'sself-conscious love of incongruity it is elsewhere that you mustlook. Walk along the Riverside Drive, framed by nature to be, what anenthusiast has called it, "the finest residential avenue in the world. "Turn your back to the houses, and contemplate the noble beauty of theHudson River. Look from the terrace of Claremont upon the sunlit scene, and ask yourself whether Paris herself offers a gayer prospect. And thenface the "high-class residences, " and humble your heart. Nowhere elsewill you get a clearer vision of the inappropriateness which is the mostdevoutly worshipped of New York's idols. The human mind cannot imagineanything less like "residences" than these vast blocks of vulgarity. Thestyles of all ages and all countries have been recklessly imitated. The homes of the millionaires are disguised as churches, as mosques, asmedieval castles. Here you may find a stronghold of feudalism cheekby jowl with the quiet mansion of a colonial gentleman. There Tourainejostles Constantinople; and the climax is reached by Mr Schwab, who hasdecreed for himself a lofty pleasure-dome, which is said to resembleChambord, and which takes its place in a long line of villas, withoutso much as a turnip-field to give it an air of seclusion or security. In this vainglorious craving for discomfort there is a kind of naïvetéwhich is not without its pathos. One proud lady, whose husband, inthe words of a dithyrambic guide-book, "made a fortune from a patentglove-hook, " boasts that her mansion has a glass-room on the secondfloor. Another vain householder deems it sufficient to proclaim thathe spent two million dollars upon the villa which shelters him fromthe storm. In brief, there is scarcely a single palace on the Riversidewhich may not be described as an antic of wealth, and one wonders whatsort of a life is lived within these gloomy walls. Do the inhabitantsdress their parts with conscientious gravity, and sit down to dine withthe trappings of costume and furniture which belong to theirhouses? Suppose they did, and, suppose in obedience to a signal theyprecipitated themselves upon the highway, there would be such amasquerade of fancy dress as the world has never seen. The RiversideDrive, then, is a sermon in stones, whose text is the uselessness ofuncultured dollars. If we judged New York by this orgie of tastelessextravagance, we might condemn it for a parvenu among cities, carelessof millions and sparing of discretion. We may not thus judge it NewYork, if it be a parvenu, is often a parvenu of taste, and has givenmany a proof of intelligence and refinement. The home of great luxury, it does not always, as on the Riverside, mistake display for beauty. There are houses in the neighbourhood of Fifth Avenue which are perfectin reticence and suitability. The clubs of New York are a splendidexample even to London, the first home of clubs. In Central Park thepeople of New York possesses a place of amenity and recreation whichEurope cannot surpass; and when you are tired of watching the antics ofthe leisurely chipmunk, who gambols without haste and without fear, youmay delight in a collection of pictures which wealth and good managementwill make the despair and admiration of the world. Much, of course, remains to do, and therein New York is fortunate. Her growing interestin sculpture and architecture is matched by a magnificent opportunity. In the Old World all has been accomplished. Our buildings are set up, our memorials dedicated, our pictures gathered into galleries. Americastarts, so to say, from scratch; there is no limit to her ambition; andshe has infinite money. If the past is ours, the future is hers, and wemay look forward to it with curiosity and with hope. The architects of America have not only composed works in accordancewith the old traditions and in obedience to ancient models; they havedevised a new style and a new method of their own. To pack a vastmetropolis within a narrow space, they have made mountains of houses. When the rock upon which their city stands proved insufficient for theirambition, they conquered another kingdom in the air. The skyscraperswhich lift their lofty turrets to the heaven are the pride of New York. It is upon them that the returning traveller gazes most eagerly, as henears the shore. They hold a firmer place in his heart than even theStatue of Liberty, and the vague sentiment which it inspires. With aproper vanity he points out to the poor Briton, who shudders atfive storeys, the size and grandeur of his imposing palaces. And hisarrogance is just. The sky-scraper presents a new view of architecture. It is original, characteristic, and beautiful. Suggested and enforced, as I have said, by the narrowness of the rock, it is suitable to itsatmosphere and environment. New York is a southern, sunlit city, whichneeds protection from the heat and need not fear obscurity. Even wherethe buildings are highest, the wayfarer does not feel that he is walkingat the bottom of a well. But, let it be said at once, the sky-scraperwould be intolerable in our grey and murky land. London demands abroad thoroughfare and low houses. These are its only defence against acovered sky and an enveloping fog, and the patriotic Americans who wouldtransplant their sky-scrapers to England merely prove that they do notappreciate the logic and beauty of their own design. What, then, is a sky-scraper? It is a giant bird-cage, whose intersticesare filled with stone or concrete. Though its structure is concealedfrom the eye, it is impossible not to wonder at its superb effrontery. It depends for its effect, not upon ornament, which perforce appearstrivial and inapposite, but upon its mass. Whatever approaches it ofanother scale and kind is dwarfed to insignificance. The Sub-Treasury ofthe United States, for instance, looks like a foolish playthingbeside its august neighbours. Where sky-scrapers are there must be nocommemorative statues, no monuments raised to merely human heroes. The effigy of Washington in Wall Street has no more dignity than a tinsoldier. And as the skyscraper makes houses of a common size ridiculous, so it loses its splendour when it stands alone. Nothing can surpass inugliness the twenty storeys of thin horror that is called the Flat-iron;and it is ugly because it is isolated in Madison Square, a place ofreasonable dimensions. It is continuity which imparts a dignity to thesemammoths. The vast masses which frown upon Wall Street and Broadway areaustere, like the Pyramids. They seem the works of giants, not of men. They might be a vast phenomenon of nature, which was before the flood, and which has survived the shocks of earthquake and the passage of theyears. And when their summits are lit by the declining sun, when theirwhite walls look like marble in the glow of the reddening sky, theypresent such a spectacle as many a strenuous American crosses the oceanto see in Switzerland, and crosses it in vain. New York, in truth, is a city of many beauties, and with a recklessprodigality she has done her best to obscure them all. Driven by a vainlove of swift traffic, she assails your ear with an incessant din andyour eye with the unsightliest railroad that human ingenuity has evercontrived. She has sacrificed the amenity of her streets and the dignityof her buildings to the false god of Speed. Why men worship Speed, ademon who lies in wait to destroy them, it is impossible to understand. It would be as wise and as profitable to worship Sloth. However, the menof New York, as they tell you with an insistent and ingenuous pride, are"hustlers. " They must ever be moving, and moving fast. The "hustling, "probably, leads to little enough. Haste and industry are not synonymous. To run up and down is but a form of busy idleness. The captains ofindustry who do the work of the world sit still, surrounded by bells andtelephones. Such heroes as J. Pierpont Morgan and John D. Rockefellerare never surprised on train or trolley. They show themselves furtivelybehind vast expanses of plate-glass, and move only to eat or sleep. It is the common citizen of New York who is never quiet. He findsit irksome to stay long in the same place. Though his house may becomfortable, even luxurious, he is in a fever to leave it. And so itcomes about that what he is wont to call "transportation" seems the mostimportant thing in his life. We give the word another signification. To New York it means the many methods of conveying passengers from onepoint to another. And the methods, various as they are, keep pace withthe desires of the restless citizen, who may travel at what pace andaltitude he desires. He may burrow, like a rabbit, beneath the ground. If he be more happily normal in his tastes he may ride in a surface car. Or he may fly, like a bird through the air, on an overhead railway. The constant rattle of cars and railways is indescribable. The overheadlines pass close to the first-floor windows, bringing darkness andnoise wherever they are laid. There are offices in which a stranger canneither hear nor be heard, and yet you are told that to the accustomedear of the native all is silent and reposeful. And I can easily believethat a sudden cessation of din would bring an instant madness. Nor mustanother and an indirect result of the trains and trams which encircleNew York be forgotten. The roads are so seldom used that they arepermitted to fall into a ruinous decay. Their surface is broken intoruts and yawns in chasms. To drive "down-town" in a carriage is tosuffer a sensation akin to sea-sickness; and having once suffered, youcan understand that it is something else than the democratic love oftravelling in common that persuades the people of New York to clamber onthe overhead railway, or to take its chance in a tram-car. Movement, then, noisy and incessant, is the passion of New York. Perhapsit is the brisk air which drives men to this useless activity. Perhapsit is no better than an ingrained and superstitious habit. But thedrowsiest foreigner is soon caught up in the whirl. He needs neitherrest nor sleep. He, too, must be chasing something which always eludeshim. He, too, finds himself leaving a quiet corner where he would liketo stay, that he may reach some place which he has no desire to see. Even though he mount to the tenth or the twentieth story, the throb ofthe restless city reaches him. Wall Street is "hustling" made concrete. The Bowery is crowded with a cosmopolitan horde which is never still. Brooklyn Bridge and Brooklyn Ferry might be the cross-roads of theworld. There a vast mob is passing hither and thither, on foot, onboats, on railroads. What are they doing, whither are they going, these scurrying men and women? Have they no business to pursue, nooffice-stool to sit upon, no typewriting machines to jostle? And whenyou are weary of transportation, go into the hall of a big hotel andyou will find the same ceaseless motion. On all sides you will hear theclick, click of telephone and telegram. On all sides you will seeeager citizens scanning the tape, which brings them messages of ruinor success. Nowhere, save in a secluded bar or a stately club, will youfind a single man content to be alive and to squander the leisure thatGod has given him. And with all her undying haste New York is not content. She must stillfind other means of saving time. And to save time she has strainedall the resources of civilisation. In that rather dismal thing called"material progress" she is easily ahead of the world. Never was theapparatus of life so skilfully turned and handled as in New York. There are no two fixed points which are not easily connected by ironlines. There seems no reason why a citizen of New York should ever walk. If stairs exist, he need not use them, for an express lift, warrantednot to stop before the fifteenth floor, will carry him in a few secondsto the top of the highest building. If he open a cupboard door, the mereopening of it lights an electric lamp, and he need not grope after acoat by the dim light of a guttering candle. At his bed-head stands atelephone, and, if he will, he may speak to a friend a thousand milesaway without moving from his pillow. But time is saved--of that there isno doubt. The only doubt is, whether it be worth saving. When New Yorkhas saved her time, what does she do with it? She merely squanders itin riotous movement and reckless "transportation. " Thus she lives in avicious circle--saving time that she may spend it, and spending itthat again she may save it. Nor can this material progress be achievedwithout a loss of what the Old World prizes most highly. To win all thebenefits which civilisation affords, you must lose peace and you mustsacrifice privacy. The many appliances which save our useless time maybe enjoyed only by crowds. The citizens of New York travel, live, and talk in public. They have made their choice, and are proud of itEnglishmen are still reckless enough to waste their time in pursuit ofindividualism, and I think they are wise. For my part, I would ratherlose my time than save it, and the one open conveyance of New York whichin pace and conduct suits my inclination is the Fifth Avenue Stage. But New York is unique. It baffles the understanding and defiesobservation. In vain you search for a standard of comparison. France andEngland set out many centuries ago from the same point and with the sameintention. America has nothing in common, either of purpose or method, with either of these countries. To a European it is the most foreigncity on earth. Untidy but flamboyant, it is reckless of the laws bywhich life is lived elsewhere. It builds beautiful houses, it delightsin white marble palaces, and it thinks it superfluous to level itsroads. Eager for success, worshipping astuteness as devoutly as itworships speed, it is yet indifferent to the failure of others, andseems to hold human life in light esteem. In brief, it is a braggartcity of medieval courage and medieval cruelty, combining the fiercenessof an Italian republic with a perfect faith in mechanical contrivanceand an ardent love of material progress. Here, then, are all the elements of interest and curiosity. Happy arethe citizens who watch from day to day the fight that never before hasbeen fought on the same terms. And yet more strangely baffling than thecity are the citizens. Who are they, and of what blood and character?What, indeed, is a New Yorker? Is he Jew or Irish? Is he English orGerman? Is he Russian or Polish? He may be something of all these, andyet he is wholly none of them. Something has been added to him which hehad not before. He is endowed with a briskness and an invention oftenalien to his blood. He is quicker in his movement, less trammelled inhis judgment Though he may lose wisdom in sharpening his wit, thechange he undergoes is unmistakable. New York, indeed, resembles a magiccauldron. Those who are cast into it are born again. For a generationsome vague trace of accent or habit may remain. The old characteristicsmust needs hang about the newly-arrived immigrant. But in a generationthese characteristics are softened or disappear, and there is produceda type which seems remote from all its origins. As yet the process ofamalgamation is incomplete, and it is impossible to say in what thishubble-shubble of mixed races will result. Nor have we any clue ofhistorical experience which we may follow. The Roman Empire includedwithin its borders many lands and unnumbered nationalities, but thedominant race kept its blood pure. In New York and the other greatcities of America the soil is the sole common factor. Though all thecitizens of the great republic live upon that soil, they differ inblood and origin as much as the East of Europe differs from the West. And it is a mystery yet un-pierced that, as the generations pass, theyapproach nearer and nearer to uniformity, both in type and character. And by what traits do we recognise the citizen of New York? Of coursethere is no question here of the cultivated gentleman, who is familiarin Paris and London, and whose hospitality in his own land is an amiablereproach to our own too frequent thoughtlessness, but of the simplerclass which confronts the traveller in street and train, in hotel andrestaurant. The railway guard, the waiter, the cab-driver--these are themen upon whose care the comfort of the stranger depends in every land, and whose tact and temper are no bad index of the national character. InNew York, then, you are met everywhere by a sort of urbane familiarity. The man who does you a service, for which you pay him, is neither civilnor uncivil. He contrives, in a way which is by no means unpleasant, to put himself on an equality with you. With a mild surprise you findyourself taking for granted what in your own land you would resentbitterly. Not even the curiosity of the nigger, who brushes your coatwith a whisk, appears irksome. For the habit of years has enabled whiteman and black to assume a light and easy manner, which in an Englishman, born and trained to another tradition, would appear impertinence. And familiarity is not the only trait which separates the plain man ofNew York from the plain man of London. The New Yorker looks upon theforeigner with the eye of patronage. To his superior intelligence thewandering stranger is a kind of natural, who should not be allowed toroam alone and at large. Before you have been long in the land you findyourself shepherded, and driven with an affability, not unmixed withcontempt, into the right path. Again, you do not resent it, and yet aresurprised at your own forbearance. A little thought, however, explainsthe assumed superiority. The citizen of New York has an ingenuous prideand pleasure in his own city and in his own prowess, which nothing candaunt. He is convinced, especially if he has never travelled beyond hisown borders, that he engrosses the virtue and intelligence of the worldThe driver of a motor-car assured me, with a quiet certitude whichbrooked no contradiction, that England was cut up into sporting estatesfor the "lords, " and that there the working man was doomed to an idleservility. "But, " said he, "there is no room for bums here. " Thisabsolute disbelief in other countries, combined with a perfectconfidence in their own, has persuaded the citizens of New York to lookdown with a cold and pitiful eye upon those who are so unfortunate as tobe born under an effete monarchy. There is no bluster in their attitude, no insistence. The conviction of superiority is far too great for that. They belong to the greatest country upon earth; they alone enjoy thetrue blessings of freedom; they alone understand the dignity of labourand the spirit of in-dependence; and they have made up their mindskindly but firmly that you shall not forget it. Thus you carry away from New York a memory of a lively air, giganticbuildings, incessant movement, sporadic elegance, and ingenuouspatronage. And when you have separated your impressions, the most vividand constant impression that remains is of a city where the means oflife conquer life itself, whose citizens die hourly of the rage to live. BOSTON. America, the country of contrasts, can show none more sudden orstriking than that between New York and Boston. In New York progress andconvenience reach their zenith. A short journey carries you back intothe England of the eighteenth century. The traveller, lately puzzled byoverhead railways and awed by the immensity of sky-scrapers, nosooner reaches Boston than he finds himself once more in a familiarenvironment. The wayward simplicity of the city has little in commonwith the New World. Its streets are not mere hollow tubes, through whichfinanciers may be hastily precipitated to their quest for gold. Theywind and twist like the streets in the country towns of England andFrance. To the old architects of Boston, indeed, a street was somethingmore than a thoroughfare. The houses which flanked it took their placesby whim or hazard, and were not compelled to follow a hard immovableline. And so they possess all the beauty which is born of accident andsurprise. You turn a corner, and know not what will confront you; youdive down a side street, and are uncertain into what century you will bethrust. Here is the old wooden house, which recalls the first settlers;there the fair red-brick of a later period. And everywhere is thediversity which comes of growth, and which proves that time is a bettercontriver of effects than the most skilful architect. The constant mark of Boston is a demure gaiety. An air of quietfestivity encompasses the streets. The houses are elegant, but sternlyordered. If they belong to the colonial style, they are exquisitelysymmetrical. There is no pilaster without its fellow; no window thatis not nicely balanced by another of self-same shape and size. Thearchitects, who learned their craft from the designs of Inigo Jones andChristopher Wren, had no ambition to express their own fancy. They wereloyally obedient to the tradition of the masters, and the houses whichthey planned, plain in their neatness, are neither pretentious norinappropriate. Nowhere in Boston will you find the extravagant ingenuitywhich makes New York ridiculous; nowhere will you be disturbed by anabsurd mimicry of exotic styles; nowhere are you asked to wonder atmountainous blocks of stone. Boston is not a city of giants, but of menwho love their comfort, and who, in spite of Puritan ancestry, donot disdain to live in beautiful surroundings. In other words, themillionaire has not laid his iron hand upon New England, and, until hecome, Boston may still boast of its elegance. The pride of Boston is Beacon Street, surely one among the most majesticstreets in the world. It recalls Piccadilly and the frontage of theGreen Park. Its broad spaces and the shade of its dividing trees areof the natural beauty which time alone can confer, and its houses areworthy its setting. I lunched at the Somerset Club, in a white-panelledroom, and it needed clams and soft-shell crabs to convince me that I wasin a new land, and not in an English country-house. All was of anothertime and of a familiar place--the service, the furniture, the aspect. And was it possible to regard our sympathetic hosts as strange in bloodor speech? The Mall, in Beacon Street, if it is the pride, is also thedistinguishing mark of Boston. For Boston is a city of parks and trees. The famous Common, as those might remember who believe that Americasprang into being in a night, has been sacred for nearly three hundredyears. Since 1640 it has been the centre of Boston. It has witnessed thetragedies and comedies of an eventful history. "There, " wrote anEnglish traveller as early as 1675, "the gallants walk with theirmarmalet-madams, as we do in Moorfields. " There malefactors were hanged; there the witches suffered in the time oftheir persecution; and it is impossible to forget, as you walk its amplespaces, the many old associations which it brings with it from the past. For it is to the past that Boston belongs. No city is more keenlyconscious of its origin. The flood of foreign immigration has notengulfed it. Its memories, like its names, are still of England, Newand Old. The spirit of America, eagerly looking forward, cruellyacquisitive, does not seem to fulfil it The sentiment of its beginninghas outlasted even the sentiment of a poignant agitation. It resemblesan old man thinking of what was, and turning over with careful hand therelics of days gone by. If in one aspect Boston is a centre of commerceand enterprise, in another it is a patient worshipper of tradition, Itregards the few old buildings which have survived the shocks of timewith a respect which an Englishman can easily understand, but which mayappear extravagant to the modern American. The Old South Meeting-House, to give a single instance, is an object of simple-hearted venerationto the people of Boston, and the veneration is easily intelligible. Forthere is scarcely an episode in Boston's history that is not connected, in the popular imagination, with the Old South Meeting-House. It standson the site of John Winthrop's garden; it is rich in memories of Cottonand Increase Mather. Within its ancient walls was Benjamin Franklinchristened, and the building which stands to-day comes down to us from1730, and was designed in obedient imitation of English masters. There, too, were enacted many scenes in the drama of revolution; there itwas that the famous tea-party was proposed; and thence it was that theMohawks, drunk with the rhetoric of liberty, found their way to theharbour, that they might see how tea mixed with salt-water. If thesentiment be sometimes exaggerated, the purpose is admirable, and it isa pleasant reflection that, in a country of quick changes and historicalindifference, at least one building will be preserved for the admirationof coming generations. It is for such reasons as these that an Englishman feels at home inBoston. He is secure in the same past; he shares the same memories, eventhough he give them a different interpretation. Between the New and OldEngland there are more points of similarity than of difference. Ineach are the same green meadows, the same ample streams, the same widevistas. The names of the towns and villages in the new countrywere borrowed from the old some centuries ago; everywhere friendlyassociations are evoked; everywhere are signs of a familiar and kindlyorigin. When Winthrop, the earliest of the settlers, wrote to his wife, "We are here in a paradise, " he spoke with an enthusiasm which is easilyintelligible. And as the little colony grew, it lived its life in accordwith the habit and sentiment of the mother-country. In architecture andcostume it followed the example set in Bristol or in London. Betweenthese ports and Boston was a frequent interchange of news andcommodities. An American in England was no stranger. He was visiting, with sympathy and understanding, the home of his fathers. The mostdistinguished Bostonians of the late eighteenth century live upon thecanvases of Copley, who, in his son, gave to England a distinguishedChancellor, and whose career is the best proof of the good relationswhich bound England to her colony. Now Copley arrived in Englandin 1774, when his native Boston was aroused to the height of hersentimental fury, and he was received with acclamation. He paintedthe portraits of Lord North and his wife, who, one imagines, were notregarded in Boston with especial favour. The King and Queen gave himsittings, and neither political animosity nor professional rivalrystood in the way of his advancement. His temper and character were welladapted to his career. Before he left New England he had shown himself aCourt painter in a democratic city. He loved the trappings of life, and he loved to put his sitters in a splendid environment. His ownmagnificence had already astonished the grave Boston-ians; he isdescribed, while still a youth, as "dressed in a fine maroon cloth, withgilt buttons"; and he set the seal of his own taste upon the portraitureof his friends. I have said that Boston loves relics. The relics which it loves best arethe relics of England's discomfiture. The stately portraits of Copleyare of small account compared to the memorials of what was nothing elsethan a civil war. Faneuil Hall, the Covent Garden of Boston, presentedto the city by Peter Faneuil some thirty years before the birth of"Liberty, " is now but an emblem of revolt. The Old South Meeting-Placeis endeared to the citizens of Boston as "the sanctuary of freedom. " Avast monument, erected a mere quarter of a century ago, commemorates the"Boston Massacre. " And wherever you turn you are reminded of an episodewhich might easily be forgotten. To an Englishman these historicallandmarks are inoffensive. The dispute which they recall aroused farless emotion on our side the ocean than on the other, and long ago wesaw the events of the Revolution in a fair perspective. In truth, thisinsistence on the past is not wholly creditable to Boston's sense ofhumour. The passionate paeans which Otis and his friends sang to Libertywere irrelevant. Liberty was never for a moment in danger, if Liberty, indeed, be a thing of fact and not of watchwords. The leaders of theRevolution wrote and spoke as though it was their duty to throw off theyoke of the foreigner, --a yoke as heavy as that which Catholic Spaincast upon Protestant Holland. But there was no yoke to be thrown off, because no yoke was everimposed, and Boston might have celebrated greater events in her historythan that which an American statesman has wisely called "the glitteringand sounding generalities of natural right. " However, if you would forget the follies of politicians, you have but tocross the bridge and drive to Cambridge, which, like the other Cambridgeof England, is the seat of a distinguished university. You are doublyrewarded, for not merely is Cambridge a perfect specimen of a colonialvillage, but in Harvard there breathes the true spirit of humaneletters. Nor is the college a creation of yesterday. It is not far shortof three centuries ago that John Harvard, once of Emmanuel Collegein England, endowed the university which bears his honoured name. Thebequest was a poor £780, with 260 books, but it was sufficient to ensurean amiable immortality, and to bestow a just cause of pride upon themother-college. The daughter is worthy her august parentage. She haspreserved the sentiment of her birth; she still worships the classicswith a constant heart; the fame of her scholars has travelled in themouths of men from end to end of Europe. And Harvard has preserved allthe outward tokens of a university. Her wide spaces and lofty avenuesare the fit abode of learning. Her college chapel and her college hallscould serve no other purpose than that for which they are designed. TheWest, I believe, has built universities on another plan and to anotherpurpose. But Harvard, like her great neighbour Boston, has been obedientto the voice of tradition, and her college, the oldest, remains also thegreatest in America. Culture has always been at once the boast and the reproach of Boston. A serious ancestry and the neighbourhood of a university are enoughto ensure a grave devotion to the things of the spirit, and Boston hasnever found the quest of gold sufficient for its needs. The PilgrimFathers, who first sought a refuge in New England, left their countryin the cause of what they thought intellectual freedom, and theirdescendants have ever stood in need of the excitement which nothingsave pietism or culture can impart. For many years pietism held sway inBoston. The persecution of the witches, conducted with a lofty eloquenceby Cotton Mather, was but the expression of an imperious demand, and theconflict of warring sects, which for many years disturbed the peaceof the city, satisfied a craving not yet allayed. Then, after a longinterval, came Transcendentalism, a pleasant mixture of literature andmoral guidance, and to-day Boston is as earnest as ever in pursuit ofvague ideals and soothing doctrines. But pietism has gradually yielded to the claim of culture. Though oneof the largest buildings which frown upon the wayfarer in Boston isa temple raised to the honour of Christian Science and Mrs Eddy, literature is clearly the most fashionable anodyne. It is at once easierand less poignant than theology: while it imparts the same sense ofsuperiority, it suggests the same emancipation from mere world-liness. It is by lectures that Boston attempts to slake its intellectualthirst--lectures on everything and nothing. Science, literature, theology--all is put to the purpose. The enterprise of the LowellInstitute is seconded by a thousand private ventures. The patientcitizens are always ready to discuss Shakespeare, except when Tennysonis the subject of the last discourse, and zoology remains attractiveuntil it be obscured by the newest sensation in chemistry. And theappetite of Boston is unglutted and insatiable. Its folly is franklyrecognised by the wise among its own citizens. Here, for instance, isthe testimony of one whose sympathy with real learning is evident. "Thelecture system, " says he, "in its best estate an admirable educationalinstrument, has been subject to dreadful abuse. The unbounded appetiteof the New England communities for this form of intellectual nourishmenthas tempted vast hordes of charlatans and pretenders to try theirfortune in this profitable field. 'The hungry sheep look up, and are notfed. ' The pay of the lecturer has grown more exorbitant in proportion tothe dilution of his mixture, until professional jokers have usurped theplaces once graced by philosophers and poets; and to-day the lyceumsare served by a new species of broker, who ekes out the failing literarymaterial with the better entertainment of music and play-acting. " I am not sure whether the new species of broker is not better than theold. So long as music and play-acting do not masquerade in the worn-outduds of intellect, they do not inflict a serious injury upon the people. It is culture, false and unashamed, that is the danger. For cultureis the vice of the intelligence. It stands to literature in the samerelation as hypocrisy stands to religion. A glib familiarity with namesdoes duty for knowledge. Men and women think it no shame to play theparrot to lecturers, and to pretend an acquaintance with books whoseleaves they have never parted. They affect intellect, when at its bestit is curiosity which drives them to lecture hall or institute--at itsworst, a love of mental dram-drinking. To see manifest in a frock-coata poet or man of science whose name is printed in the newspapers fillsthem with a fearful enthusiasm. To hear the commonplaces of literarycriticism delivered in a lofty tone of paradox persuades them to believethat they also are among the erudite, and makes the sacrifice of timeand money as light as a wind-blown leaf. But their indiscretion is notso trivial as it seems. Though every man and every woman has the rightto waste his time (or hers) as may seem good, something else besidestime is lost in the lecture hall. Sincerity also is squandered in thegrey, dim light of sham learning, and nobody can indulge in a mixedorgie of "culture" without some sacrifice of honesty and truth. Culture, of course, is not the monopoly of Boston. It has stretched itslong arm from end to end of the American continent. Wherever you go youwill hear, in tram or car, the facile gossip of literature. The wholeworld seems familiar with great names, though the meaning of the namesescapes the vast majority. Now the earnest ones of the earth congregatein vast tea-gardens of the intellect, such as Chautauqua. Now thesummer hotel is thought a fit place in which to pick up a smattering ofliterature or science; and there is an uneasy feeling abroad thatwhat is commonly known as pleasure must not be unalloyed. The vice, unhappily, is not unknown in England. A country which had the ingenuityto call a penny reading "university extension, " and to send itsmissionaries into every town, cannot be held guiltless. But our poorattempts at culture dwindle to a paltry insignificance in the light ofAmerican enterprise; and we would no more compare the achievement ofEngland in the diffusion of learning with the achievement of the UnitedStates, than we would set a modest London office by the side of theloftiest sky-scraper in New York. America lives to do good or evil on alarge scale, and we lag as far behind her in culture as in money-making. When I left Boston for the West, I met in the train an earnest citizenof a not uncommon type. He was immensely and ingenuously patriotic. Though he had never left his native land, and had therefore aninsufficient standard of comparison, he was convinced that America wassuperior in arms and arts to every other part of the habitable globe. He assured me, with an engaging simplicity, that Americans were braver, more energetic, and richer than Englishmen; that, as their buildingswere higher, so also were their intelligence and their aspirations. Hepointed out that in the vast continent of the West nothing was lackingwhich the mind of man could desire. Where, he asked, would you findharvests so generous, mines so abundant in precious metals, factoriesmanaged with so splendid an ingenuity? If wine and oil are your quest, said he, you have but to tap the surface of the munificent earth. Onething only, he confessed, was lacking, and that need a few yearswould make good. "Wait, " said he, with an assured if immodestboastful-ness, --"wait until we get a bit degenerate, and then wewill produce a Shakespeare"! I had not the heart to suggest that thesixteenth century in England was a period of birth, not of decay. Icould only accept his statement in awful appreciation. And emboldened bymy silence, he supported his argument with a hundred ingeniously chosenfacts. He was sure that America would never show the smallest sign ofdecadence until she was tired of making money. The love of money wasthe best defence against degeneracy of every kind, and he gasped withsimple-hearted pride when he thought of the millions of dollars whichhis healthy, primitive compatriots were amassing. But, he allowed, theweariness of satiety might overtake them; there might come a time whenthe ledger and counting-house ceased to be all-sufficient, and thatmoment of decay would witness the triumph of American literature. "BenJonson, Goldsmith, and those fellows, " he asked, "lived in a degenerateage, didn't they?" I assented hastily. How could I contradict soagreeable a companion, especially as he was going, as fast as the traincould carry him, to take a rest cure? Such is one victim of the passion for culture. He had probably readnothing in his life save the newspapers and Dickens's 'American Notes, 'a work to which he referred with the bitterest resentment. But he hadattended lectures, and heard names, some of which remained tinkling inhis empty head. To his confused mind English literature was a period ofdegeneracy, one and indissoluble, in which certain famous writers lived, devoting what time they could snatch from the practice of what he calledthe decadent vices to the worship of the bottle. There was no harm inhim. He was, as the common phrase has it, his own enemy. But he wouldbe better employed in looking at a game of baseball than in playing withhumane letters, and one cannot but regret that he should suffer thusprofoundly from a vicious system. Another victim of culture comes to mymind. He, too, was from Boston, and as his intelligence was far deeperthan the other one's, his unhappiness was the greater. I talked to himfor a long day, and he had no conversation but of books. For him thevisible world did not exist. The printed page was the beginning and theend of existence. He had read, if not wisely, at least voraciously, andhe displayed a wide and profound acquaintance with modern biography. He had all the latest _Lives_ at his finger-tips. He knew where all ourgreat contemporaries lived, and who were their friends; he hadattended lectures on every conceivable subject; withal he was of a highseriousness, which nothing could daunt. For him, as is but natural, theworks of Mr Arthur Benson held the last "message" of modern literature. He could not look upon books as mere instruments of pleasure orenjoyment. He wanted to extract from them that mysterious qualitycalled "help" by the elect of the lecture hall; and without the smallestpersuasion he told me which authors had "helped" him in his journeythrough the world. Shelley, of course, stood first on the list, thencame Walt Whitman, and Pater was not far from the top. And therewas nothing more strange in this apostle of aesthetics than hismatter-of-fact air. His words were the words of a yearning spirit. Histone was the tone of a statistician. Had he really read the books ofwhich he spoke? Did they really "help" him in the making of money, whichwas the purpose of his life, or did they minister to a mind diseased? Ido not know. But I do know that there was a kind of pathos in hiscold anxiety. Plainly he was a man of quick perception and alertintelligence. And he seemed to have wasted a vast amount of time inacquiring a jargon which certainly was not his own, and in attaching tobooks a meaning and purpose which they have never possessed. Such are two widely different products of the lecture hall, and it isimpossible not to see that, widely as their temperaments differ, theyhave been pushed through the same mill. And thus we arrive at the worstvice of enforced culture. Culture is, like the overhead railroad, a meresaviour of time. It is the tramway of knowledge which compels all men totravel by the same car, whatever may be their ultimate destination. Itpossesses all the inconvenience of pleasures taken or duties performedin common. The knowledge which is sincere and valuable must be acquiredby each man separately; it must correspond to the character anddisposition of him who acquires it, or it is a thin disguise of vanityand idleness. To what, then, may we attribute this passion forthe lecture hall? Perhaps it is partly due to the provincialismcharacteristic of America, and partly to an invincible energy, whichquickens the popular ambition and urges men to acquire informationas they acquire wealth, by the shortest route, and with the smallestexertion. Above all, culture is the craving of an experimental age, and America nodoubt will outgrow it domination. Even now Boston, its earliest slave, is shaking off the yoke; and it is taking refuge in the more moderncities of the West. Chicago is, I believe, its newest and vastestempire. There, where all is odd, it is well to be thought a "thinker. "There, we are told, the elect believe it their duty "to reach andstimulate others. " But wherever culture is found Strange things aredone in its name, and the time may come when by the light of Chicago'sbrighter lamp Boston may seem to dwell in the outer darkness. CHICAGO. America may be defined as the country where there are no railwayporters. You begin a journey without ceremony; you end it without awelcome. No zealot, eager to find you a corner seat and to dispose ofyour luggage, meets you when you depart. You must carry your own bagwhen you stumble unattended from the train. This enforced dependenceupon yourself is doubtless a result of democracy. The spirit of freedom, which permits a stealthy nigger to brush your hat, does not allowanother to handle your luggage. To the enchained and servile mind of anEnglishman these distinctions axe difficult to understand. A training intransatlantic liberty is necessary for their appreciation. However, nogreat evil is inflicted on the traveller. The ritual of checking yourbaggage may easily be learned, and the absence of porters has, bya natural process, evolved the "grip. " The "grip, " in fact, is theuniversal mark of America. It is as intimate a part of the citizen'sequipment as a hat or coat, and it is not without its advantages. Itis light to carry, it fills but a small space, and it ensures that thetraveller shall not be separated from all his luggage. A far greaterhardship than the carriage of a "grip" is the enforced publicity of anAmerican train. The Englishman loves to travel in seclusion. The end ofhis ambition is a locked compartment to himself. Mr Pullman has ordainedthat his clients shall endure the dust and heat of a long journey inpublic; and when the voyager, wearied out by the rattle of the train, seeks his uncomfortable couch, he is forced to seek it under the generalgaze. These differences of custom are interesting, because they correspondto differences of temperament. There is a far deeper difference in thecharacter of the country through which you travel. A journey in Europeis like a page of history. You pass from one century to another. Yousee a busy world through the window. As you sit in your corner a livingpanorama is unfolded before your eyes. The country changes with the sky. Town and mountain and cornfield follow one another in quick succession. At every turn you see that wonderful symbol of romance, the white roadthat winds over the hill, flecked perhaps by a solitary traveller. Butit is always the work of man, not the beauty of nature, that engrossesyou. You would, if you could, alight at every point to witness the lastact of comedy, which is just beginning. Men and women, to whom you arean episode or an obstruction, flash by. Here is a group of boys bathing. There peasants gaze at the train as something inhuman. At the levelcrossing a horse chafes in his shafts. In an instant you are whizzed outof sight, and he remains. Then, as night falls, the country-side leavesits work; the eyes of the cottages gleam and flicker through thetrees. Round the corner you catch sight of a village festival. Themerry-go-rounds glint and clank under the shadow of a church. Themountains approach and recede; streams grow into mighty rivers. The greysky is dark blue and inlaid with stars. And you sit still, tired andtravel-stained, having shared in a day the life of hundreds. Such is a journey in Europe. How different the experience in America!On the road to Chicago you pass through a wilderness. The towns areinfrequent; there are neither roads nor hedges; and the rapidly changingdrama of life escapes you. The many miles of scrub and underwood arediversified chiefly by crude advertisements. Here you are asked topurchase Duke's Mixture; there Castoria Toilet Powder is thrustupon your unwilling notice. In the few cities which you approach theframe-houses and plank-walks preserve the memory of the backwoods. Invain you look for the village church, which in Europe is never far away. In vain you look for the incidents which in our land lighten the tediumof a day's journey. All is barren and bleak monotony. The thin line ofrailway seems a hundred miles from the life of man. At one station Icaught sight of an "Exposition Car, " which bore the legend, "Cuba onWheels, " and I was surprised as at a miracle. Outside Niles, a littlecountry town, a battered leather-covered shay was waiting to takewayfarers to the Michigan Inn; and the impression made by so simple aspectacle is the best proof of the railroad's isolation. There is butone interlude in the desolate expanse--Niagara. Before he reaches the station called Niagara Falls, the tourist has aforetaste of what is in store for him. He is assailed in the train bytouts, who would inveigle him into a hotel or let him a carriage, andto touts he is an unwilling prey so long as he remains within sight orhearing of the rapids. The trim little town which has grown up about thefalls, and may be said to hang upon the water, has a holiday aspect. Thesightseers, the little carriages, the summer-hotels, all wear the samegarb of gaiety and leisure. There is a look of contented curiosity onthe faces of all, who are not busy defacing the landscape with mills andpower-stations, as of those about to contemplate a supreme wonder. Andyet the sight of it brings the same sense of disappointment which thecolossal masterpieces of nature always inspire. Not to be amazed atit would be absurd. To pretend to appreciate it is absurd also. "TheThunder of the Waters" can neither be painted upon canvas nor describedin words. It is composed on a scale too large for human understanding. Agiant might find some amusement in its friendly contemplation. A man canbut stand aghast at its sound and size, as at some monstrous accident. He may compare the Fall on the American side with the Horse-shoe on theCanadian. He has no other standard of comparison, since Niagara not onlytranscends all other phenomena of its kind, but also our human visionand imagination. When you see the far-tossed spray lit up with aflash of iridescence, you catch at something which makes a definiteimpression; and you feel the same relief that a man may feel when hefinds a friend in a mob of strangers. To heap up epithets upon thismysterious force is the idlest sport. Are you nearer to it when youhave called it x "deliberate, vast, and fascinating"? You might as wellmeasure its breadth and height, or estimate the number of gallons whichdescend daily from the broad swirling river above. A distinguishedplaywright once complained of Sophocles that he lacked human interest, and the charge may be brought with less injustice against Niagara. Itis only through daring and danger that you can connect it with the humanrace; and you find yourself wondering where it was that Captain Webb washurled to his death, or by what route the gallant little "Maid of theMist" shot the rapids to escape the curiosity of the excise officer. Nothing is more curious in the history of taste than the changed viewwhich is taken to-day of natural scenery. Time was when the handand mind of man were deemed necessary for a beautiful effect, A wildimmensity of mountain or water was thought a mere form of ugliness; agarden was a waste if it were not trimmed to formality; and a savagemoorland was fit only for the sheep to crop. The admiration of FatherHennepin, the companion of La Salle, and the first white man who evergazed upon Niagara, was tempered by affright. "This wonderful Downfal, "said he in 1678, "is compounded of Cross-streams of Water, and twoFalls, with an Isle sloping along the middle of it. The Waters whichfall from this horrible Precipice do foam and boyl after the mosthideous manner imaginable, making an Outrageous Noise, more terriblethan that of Thunder; for when the wind blows out of the South, theirdismal roaring may be heard more than Fifteen Leagues off. " Theseare the epithets of the seventeenth century, --"horrible, " "hideous, ""outrageous, " "dismal. " Now take the modern view, eloquently expressedin 1879 by the United States Commissioners, whose noble object was topreserve the Falls untouched for ever. "The value of Niagara to theworld, " they wrote, "and that which has obtained for it the homage ofso many men whom the world reveres, lies in its power of appeal to thehigher emotional and imaginative faculties, and this power is drawnfrom qualities and conditions too subtle to be known through verbaldescription. To a proper apprehension of these, something more thanpassing observation is necessary; to an enjoyment of them, somethingmore than an instantaneous act of will. " It is the old dispute betweenbeauty and wonder, between classic and romantic. Who is in the rightof it, the old priest or the modern commissioners? Each man will answeraccording to his temperament. For my part, I am on the side of FatherHennepin. Niagara is not an inappropriate introduction to Chicago. For Chicagoalso is beyond the scale of human comprehension and endeavour. In meresize both are monstrous; it is in size alone that they are comparable. Long before he reaches "the grey city, " as its inhabitants fondly callit, the traveller is prepared for the worst. At Pullman a thick pallalready hangs over everything. The nearer the train approaches Chicagothe drearier becomes the aspect. You are hauled through mile after mileof rubbish and scrap-heap. You receive an impression of sharp-edgedflints and broken bottles. When you pass the "City Limits" you believeyourself at your journey's end. You have arrived only at the boundary ofChicago's ambition, and Chicago is forty minutes' distant. The station, which bears the name "102nd St. , " is still in the prairies. A little more patience and you catch a first glimpse of the lake--vast, smooth, and grey in the morning light. A jolt, and you are descending, grip in hand, upon the platform. The first impression of Chicago, and the last, is of an unfinishedmonstrosity. It might be a vast railway station, built for men and womentwenty feet high. The sky-scrapers, in which it cherishes an inordinatepride, shut out the few rays of sunlight which penetrate its duskyatmosphere. They have not the excuse of narrow space which their rivalsin New York may plead. They are built in mere wantonness, for withinthe City Limits, whose distance from the centre is the best proof ofChicago's hopefulness, are many miles of waste ground, covered onlywith broken fences and battered shanties. And, as they raise their headsthrough the murky fog, these sky-scrapers wear a morose and sullenlook. If they are not mere lumps, their ornament is hideously heavy andprotrusive. They never combine, as they combine in New York, into animpressive whole. They clamour blatantly of their size, and that isall. And if the city be hideously aggressive, what word of excuse can befound for the outskirts, for the Italian and Chinese quarters, for thecrude, new districts which fasten like limpets upon the formless massof Chicago? These, to an enduring ugliness add a spice of cruelty anddebauch, which are separate and of themselves. In its suggestion of horror Chicago is democratic. The rich and the pooralike suffer from the prevailing lack of taste. The proud "residences"on the Lake Shore are no pleasanter to gaze upon than the sulkysky-scrapers. Some of them are prison-houses; others make a sad attemptat gaiety; all are amazingly unlike the dwelling-houses of men andwomen. Yet their owners are very wealthy. To them nothing is denied thatmoney can buy, and it is thus that they prefer to express themselvesand their ambitions. What, then, is tolerable in Chicago? Lincoln Park, which the smoke and fog of the city have not obscured, and the grandioselake, whose fresh splendour no villainy of man can ever deface. And atone moment of the day, when a dark cloud hung over the lake, and the sunset in a red glory behind the sky-scrapers, each black, and blackerfor its encircling smoke, Chicago rose superior to herself and hersurroundings. After ugliness, the worst foe of Chicago is dirt. A thick, black, sootydust lies upon everything. It is at the peril of hands begrimed thatyou attempt to open a window. In the room that was allotted to me ina gigantic hotel I found a pair of ancient side-spring boots, oncethe property, no doubt, of a prominent citizen, and their apparitionintensified the impression of uncleanness. The streets are as untidy asthe houses; garbage is dumped in the unfinished roadways; and in or outof your hotel you will seek comfort in vain. The citizens of Chicagothemselves are far too busy to think whether their city is spruce oruntidy. Money is their quest, and it matters not in what circumstancesthey pursue it. The avid type is universal and insistent. The energy ofNew York is said to be mere leisure compared to the hustling of Chicago. Wherever you go you are conscious of the universal search aftergold. The vestibule of the hotel is packed with people chattering, calculating, and telephoning. The clatter of the machine which registersthe latest quotations never ceases. In the street every one is hurryingthat he may not miss a lucrative bargain, until the industry andambition of Chicago culminate in the Board of Trade. The dial of the Board of Trade, or the Pit as it is called, is themagnet which attracts all the eyes of Chicago, for on its face is markedthe shifting, changing price of wheat. And there on the floor, below theStrangers' Gallery, the gamblers of the West play for the fortunes andlives of men. They stand between the farmers, whose waving cornfieldsthey have never seen, and the peasants of Europe, whose taste for breadthey do not share. It is more keenly exciting to bet upon the futurecrop of wheat than upon the speed of a horse; and far larger sums maybe hazarded in the Pit than on a racecourse. And so the livelong daythe Bulls and Bears confront one another, gesticulating fiercely, andshouting at the top of their raucous voices. If on the one hand theyruin the farmer, or on the other starve the peasant, it matters notto them. They have enjoyed the excitement, and made perchance a vastfortune at another's expense. They are, indeed, the true parasites ofcommerce; and in spite of their intense voices and rapid gestures, thereis an air of unreality about all their transactions. As I watched thefury of the combatants, I found myself wondering why samples of cornwere thrown upon the floor. Perhaps they serve to feed the pigeons. Materialism, then, is the frank end and aim of Chicago. Its citizensdesire to get rich as quickly and easily as possible. The means areindifferent to them. It is the pace alone which is important. All theywant is "a business proposition" and "found money. " And when they arerich, they have no other desire than to grow richer. Their money isuseless to them, except to breed more money. The inevitable result isa savagery of thought and habit. If we may believe the newspapers ofChicago, peaceful men of business are "held up" at noon in crowdedstreets. The revolver is still a potent instrument in this city of thebackwoods. But savagery is never without its reaction. There hasseldom been a community of barbarians which did not find relief in anextravagant sentimentality, and Chicago, in its hours of ease, is anenthusiastic patron of the higher life. As I have said, in culture it isfast outstripping Boston itself. It boasts more societies whose objectis "the promotion of serious thought upon art, science, and literature"than any other city in the world. The clubs which it has establishedfor the proper study of Ibsen and Browning are without number, It is aseager for the enlightenment of women as for sending up or down the priceof corn. The craze, which is the mark of a crude society, will pass likemany others, and, though it may appear sincere while it lasts, it is notcharacteristic. The one triumph of Chicago is its slang. It has inventeda lingo more various and fuller of fancy than any known to man, and ifit will forget Ibsen and exercise its invention after its ownfashion, why should it not invent a new literature? Mr George Ade, theShakespeare of Chicago, has already shown us what can be done with thenew speech in his masterly 'Fables in Slang, ' to read which is almost asgood as a journey to the West; and there is no reason why he should notfound a school. Yet with all its faults and absurdities upon its face, Chicago is thehappiest city in America. It is protected by the triple brass of prideagainst all the assaults of its enemies. Never in history was so sublimea vanity revealed; and it is hard for a stranger to understand upon whatit is based. Chicago is Chicago--that is what its citizens say, with aflattered smile, which makes argument useless. Its dirt and dust do notdisconcert its self-esteem. The oversized ugliness of its buildings areno disappointment to its candid soul, and if its peculiar virtue escapeyour observation, so much the worse for you. "The marvellous city of theWest"--that is its own name, and it lives up to it without an effort. Its history, as composed by its own citizens, is one long paean ofpraise. One chronicler, to whose unconscious humour I am infinitelyindebted, dedicates his work to "the children of Chicago, who, if theLord spares them until they shall have attained the allotted span oflife, will see this city the greatest metropolis on the globe. " Thatis a modest estimate, and it makes us feel the inadequacy of our poorspeech to hymn the glories of Chicago. And if you suggest a fault, itspanegyrists are always ready with a counterstroke. Having no taste forslaughter, I did not visit Packing Town, but, without admitting all thegrave charges brought against Chicago's grandest industry, one mighthave supposed that the sudden translation of herds of cattle into pottedmeat was not unattended with some inconvenience. This suspicion, youare told, is an insult to the city. What might disgust the travellerelsewhere has no terrors in Chicago. "This Packing-Town odor, " we aretold by a zealot, "has been unjustly criticised. To any one accustomedto it there is only a pleasant suggestion of rich, ruddy blood and longrows of tempting 'sides' hung up to cool. " I prefer not to be tempted. I can only bow before the ingenuity of this eulogy. And if, moreseriously, you reproach the cynicism of the Pit, which on this sideor that may compel ruin, you are met with a very easy rejoinder. "TheChicago Board of Trade"--it is the same apologist who speaks--"is aworld-renowned commercial organisation. It exercises a wider and amore potential influence over the welfare of mankind than any otherinstitution of its kind in existence. " This assurance leaves you dumb. You might as well argue with a brass band as with a citizen of Chicago;and doubtless you would wave the flag yourself if you stayed long enoughin the wonderful West. But the panegyrist of the Pit, already quoted, helps us to explainChicago's vanity. "The fortunes made and lost within the walls of thegreat building, " says he proudly, "astonish the world. " If Chicago canonly astonish the world, that is enough. Its citizens fondly hope thateverything they do is on the largest scale. Size, speed, and prominenceare the three gods of their idolatry. They are not content untilthey--the citizens--are all prominent, and their buildings are all thelargest that cumber the earth. It is a great comfort to those whogamble away their substance in the Board of Trade to reflect that theweathercock that surmounts its tower is the biggest ever seen by humaneye. There is not one of them that will not tell you, with a satisfiedsmile, that the slowest of their fire-engines can go from one end of thecity to the other in five seconds. There is not one of them who, in thedark recesses of his mind, is not sure that New York is a "back number. "They are proud of the senseless height of their houses, and of therapidity with which they mount towards the sky. They are proud of theshapeless towns which spring up about them like mushrooms in a singlenight. In brief, they are proud of all the things of which they shouldfeel shame; and even when their buildings have been measured and theirpace has been recognised, their vanity is still a puzzle. For, whenall the world has been satisfactorily amazed, what boast is left to thecitizens of Chicago? They cannot take delight in the soil, since themost of them do not belong to it. The patriotism of the cosmopolitanhorde which is huddled together amid their lofty Cliffs must perforcebe an artificial sentiment. They cannot look with satisfaction uponthe dishevelled suburbs in which they live. They need not suppose theslaughtering of pigs and beeves is the highest duty of man. But whereverthey dwell and whatever they do, they are convinced of their ownsuperiority. Their pride is not merely revealed in print; it is evidentin a general familiarity of tone and manner. If your cabman wishes toknow your destination, he prefaces his question with the immortal words, "Say, boys, " and he thinks that he has put himself on amiable terms withyou at once. Indeed, the newly-arrived stranger is instantly asked tounderstand that he belongs to a far meaner city than that in which hesojourns; and, even with the evidence of misapplied wealth before hiseyes, he cannot believe it. And what amiable visions do you carry away from Chicago besides themajesty of the lake, ever changing in colour and aspect, and the beautyof Lincoln Park? A single memory lingers in my mind. At sunset I saw ablack regiment marching along Michigan Avenue, --marching like soldiers;and by its side on the pavement a laughing, shouting mob of negressesdanced a triumphant cake-walk. They grinned and sang and chattered inperfect happiness and pride. They showed a frank pleasure in the prowessof their brothers and their friends. But, animated as the spectacle was, there was a sinister element in this joyous clatter. To an English eyeit seemed a tragic farce--a veritable _danse macabre_. Unhappy is the city which has no history; and what has Chicago to offerof history or tradition? What has it to tell the traveller? Once she wasconsumed, though she was not purified, by fire, and she still lives inthe recollection. A visitor to a European city goes forth to admire acastle, a cathedral, a gallery of pictures. In Chicago he is asked towonder at the shapeless residences of "prominent" citizens. And whenthe present civilisation fades and dies, what will be Chicago's ruins?Neither temple nor tower will be brought to the ground. There will benothing to show the wandering New Zealander but a broken city, which wasa scrap-heap before it was built; and the wandering New Zealander may beforgiven if he proclaim the uselessness of size and progress, if he askhow it has profited a city to buy and sell all the corn in the world, and in its destruction to leave not a wrack of comeliness behind. NEW ENGLAND. If in a country town we find an Inn called New, it is a sure sign ofancientry. The fresh and fragrant name survives the passing centuries. It clings to the falling house long after it has ceased to have anintelligible meaning. Taverns with a nobler sign and more arrogantaspect obscure its simpler merits. But there is a pride in its name, adignity in its age, which a changing fashion will never destroy. And asit is with Inns, so it is with countries. New is an epithet redolentof antiquity. The province which once was, and is still called, NewEngland, is very old America. It cannot be judged by the standards whichare esteemed in New York or Chicago. The broad stream of what is calledprogress has left it undisturbed in its patient backwater. It recks aslittle of sky-scrapers as of transportation. Its towns are not ashamedof being villages, and the vanity which it guards is not the vanity ofshapeless size, but the rarer vanity of a quiet and decent life. No sooner does the English traveller leave Boston for the north thanhe enters what seems a familiar country. The towns which he passes, the rivers which he crosses, bear names, as I have said, to prove thefaithful devotion the old adventurers felt for their native land. Ifthey sought their fortune across the ocean, they piously preserved thememories of other days. Austere as were the early Puritans, bitterly asthey smarted under what they supposed a political grievance, they didnot regard the country of their origin with the fierce hatred whichhas sometimes inspired their descendants. The love of the New did notextinguish the love of the Old England. In Appledore and Portsmouth, in London and Manchester, in Newcastle and Dover, the ancient sentimentlives and breathes. And the New Englanders, once proud of their source, still cherish a pride in their blood, which they have kept pure from thecontamination of the foreigner. Fortunately for itself, New England hasfallen behind in the march of progress. There is nothing in its peacefulrecesses to tempt the cosmopolitan horde which throngs the great citiesof America. The hope of gain is there as small as the opportunity ofgambling. A quiet folk, devoted to fishery and agriculture, is not worthplundering. So it is there, if anywhere, that you may surprise the true-bornAmerican, and when you have surprised him, he very much resembles yourown compatriot. His type and gesture are as familiar to you as hissurroundings. Slow of speech and movement, he has not yet acquired theexhausting, purposeless love of speed which devours the more moderncities. He goes about his work with a perfect consciousness that thereare four-and-twenty hours in the day. And as he is not the victim of anundue haste, he has leisure for a gracious civility. It is not for himto address a stranger with the familiarity characteristic of New York orChicago. Though he know it not, and perhaps would resent it if he knewit, he is profoundly influenced by his origin. He has not lost the highseriousness, the quiet gravity, which distinguished his ancestors. His towns, in aspect and sentiment, closely resemble himself. Portsmouth, for instance, which has not the same reason forself-consciousness as Salem or Concord, has retained the authenticfeatures of the mother-land. You might easily match it in Kent or Essex. The open space in the centre of the town, the Athenæum--in style, name, and purpose, alike English--are of another age and country than theirown. There is a look of trim elegance everywhere, which refreshes theeye; and over the streets there broods an immemorial peace, which eventhe echoing clangour of the Navy Yard cannot dispel. The houses, someof wood, built after the Colonial manner, others of red brick, and of agrave design, are in perfect harmony with their surroundings. Nothingis awry: nothing is out of place. And so severely consistent is theimpression of age, that down on the sunlit quay, flanked by the loftywarehouses, the slope of whose roofs is masked by corbie-steps, you aresurprised not to see riding at anchor the high-prowed galleons of theseventeenth century. And, best of all, there is the quiet, simple Church of St John's, English in feeling as in origin. Though rebuilt a hundred years ago, onthe site of an earlier church, it has remained loyal to its history, andis the true child of the eighteenth century. Is it not fitting that thecommunion-plate presented by Queen Caroline should be treasured here?That the sexton should still show you, even with a cold indifference, the stately prayer-books which once contained prayers for the king? Thata bell, captured at Louisburg by Sir William Pepperell, should summonto the worship of God a people long forgetful of that proud achievement?Such are the evidences of an innate conservatism which has kept alivethe old traditions of New England. Thus for three hundred years Portsmouth has lived the happy life ofa country town, and its historian sadly notes that until 1900 itspopulation did not rise to 10, 000. The historian need feel no regret: itis not by numbers that we may measure the stateliness of a city; and thedignity of Portsmouth is still plain for all to behold in the houses, to cite but two examples, of Governors Wentworth and Langdon, And thenafter this long spell of fortunate obscurity, Portsmouth became suddenlythe centre of universal interest. By a curious irony this little, old-fashioned town was chosen to be the meeting-place of Russia andJapan, and the first experiment in modern diplomacy-was made in a placewhich has sacrificed nothing to a love of that intoxicant known as thespirit of the age. It was, in truth, a strange sight that Portsmouth sawa brief two years ago. Before its troubled eyes the stern conferenceof hostile nations was turned to comedy. A hundred and twenty eagerreporters publicly put up their support for sale in exchange forinformation to the highest bidder. The representative of a great countrywas heard boasting to the gentlemen of the press of his own prowess. "The Japanese could not read in my face, " said M. Witte, "what waspassing in my heart. " Isn't it wonderful? Would not the diplomatists ofanother age be ashamed of their _confrère_ could they hear him brag of arudimentary and long since dishonoured _finesse?_ But the mere fact thatM. Witte could make such a speech on American soil is a clear proof thatthe New World is not the proper field of diplomacy. The congressesof old were gay and secret. "Le congrès, " said the Prince de Ligne atVienna, "ne marche pas; il danse. " It danced, and it kept inviolatethe obligation of silence. The Congress at Portsmouth did not talk--itchattered; and it was an open injustice to the unbroken history of NewEngland that President Roosevelt should have chosen this tranquil andancient spot for a bold experiment in diplomacy by journalism. Across the river lies Battery, even more remote from the world of greedand competition than Portsmouth. Here at last you discover what so ofteneludes you in America--the real countryside. The rough pleasant roadslike English lanes, the beautiful wooden houses half hidden amidtowering trees, and the gardens (or yards as they are called) nottrim, like our English gardens, but of an unkempt beauty all theirown, --these, with the memory of a gracious hospitality, will never fadefrom my mind. At Kittery, as at Portsmouth, you live in the past. There is nothing save an electric trolley and the motor engines of thefishing-boats to recall the bustle of to-day. Here is Fort M'Clary, a block-house built two centuries ago to stay the incursion of theIndians. There is the house of Pepperell, the hero of Louis-burg. Thus, rich in old associations, happy in its present seclusion, Kittery has akind of personal charm, which is intensified by an obvious and strikingcontrast. It was from Newport that I went to Kittery, and passed in a few hoursfrom the modern to the ancient world. Not even New York gives a morevivid impression of the inappropriateness which is America's besettingsin, than Newport, whose gay inhabitants are determined, at all costs, to put themselves at variance with time and place. The mansions, called"cottages" in proud humility, are entirely out of proportion totheir site and purpose. On the one hand you see a house as large asChatsworth, bleak and treeless, with nothing to separate it from itsambitious neighbours but a wooden palisade. It suggests nothing so muchas that it has lost its park, and mislaid its lodges. On the other, yousee a massive pile, whose castellated summit resembles nothing else thana county jail. And nowhere is there a possibility of ambush, nowhere afrail hint of secrecy. The people of Newport, moreover, is resolved tolive up to its inappropriate environment. As it rejoices in the wrongkind of house, so it delights in the wrong sort of costume. The vainluxury of the place is expressed in a thousand strange antics. A newexcitement is added to seabathing by the ladies, who face the waves inall the bravery of Parisian hats. To return unsullied from the encounteris a proof of the highest skill. Is it not better to preserve adeftly-poised hat from the mere contact of the waves than to be atireless and intrepid swimmer? Newport, in fact, has been haunted by a sort of ill-luck. It has neverbeen able to make the best of itself. There was a time when its harbourbade fair to rival the harbour of New York, and when its inhabitantsfondly believed that all the great ships of the world would find refugeunder the splendid shadow of Rhode Island. And when this hope wasdisappointed for ever, Newport still possessed in herself all theelements of beauty. Whatever exquisite colour and perfect situationcould give, was hers. What more can the eyes of man desire than greenlawns and an incomparable sea? And there lies the old town to link theprosperity of to-day with the romance of yesterday. And there grow inwild profusion the scented hedges of honeysuckle and roses. And all ofno avail. The early comers to Newport, it is true, understood that areal cottage of wood was in harmony with the place. They built theirhouses to the just scale of the landscape, and had they kept theirown way how happy would have been the result! But beauty gave way tofashion; wealth usurped the sovereignty of taste; size was mistaken forgrandeur, --in a word, the millionaire disfigured Newport to his whim. And so it ceased to be a real place. It became a mere collection ofopposing mansions and quarrelsome styles. If the vast "cottages, " whichraise their heads higher and higher in foolish rivalry, were swept away, no harm would be done. They are there by accident, and they will lastonly so long as a wayward fashion tolerates their presence. Battery, on the other hand, cannot be abolished by a caprice of taste. It is avillage which has its roots in the past, and whose growth neither wealthnor progress has obscured. Above all, it possesses the virtue, greatin towns as in men, of sincerity. It has not cut itself loose fromits beginnings; its houses belong harmoniously to itself; and it hasretained through two centuries the character of the old colonial days. Nor is it without an historical importance. Great names cling about it. The men of Battery fought on many a hard-won field against French andIndians, and, retired though it be from the broad stream of commerce andprogress, it cannot dissipate the memory of loyal devotion to the crownand of military glory. Its hero is Sir William Pepperell, soldier and merchant, whose thriftand prowess were alike remarkable. The son of a Tavistock fisherman, whopursued fortune in the New World with equal energy and success, he stillfurther advanced his house in wealth and circumstance. Accustomed fromboyhood to the dangers of Indian warfare, he was as apt for arms asfor arts, and it is characteristic of the time and place that thisprosperous merchant should be known to fame as the commander of atriumphant expedition. It was in 1745 that his chance came. For manyyears Louis-burg had afforded harbourage to French privateers, whohad harried the coast of New England and captured rich cargoes ofmerchandise. At last Governor Shirley of Massachusetts resolved toattack it, and we may judge of the esteem in which Pepperell was held, by the fact that he was appointed to lead an expedition against afortress deemed impregnable by the French, and known as the Dunkirk ofAmerica. His selection was a tribute not merely to his courage butto his tact. No man of his time was better fitted to control theconflicting tempers of the colonial militia, and he set forth at thehead of his 4000 men under the best auspices. Being a Puritan in commandof Puritans, he quickened the bravery of his comrades by a show ofreligious zeal. He made it plain that he was engaged in a war againstpapistry, and he asked George White-field, then in America, for a motto. "Nil desperandum, Christo duce, " said the preacher; and thus heartened, the little fleet set sail on its triumphant journey. At first sightthe contest seemed unequal. On one side was Duchambon, an experiencedsoldier, defending a fortress which had long been thought invincible. On the other was a plain merchant in command of no more than 4000militiamen. But the very simplicity of Pepperell's attack ensured itssuccess. He sailed into the harbour without warning and without fear, inthe very eye of the French artillery, landed his men, and began a siegewhich resulted, after six weeks, in the reduction of Louisburg. It was agallant feat of arms, marred only by the fact that a foolish Governmentdeclined to take advantage of a colonial victory. Three years laterLouisburg was wickedly restored to France in exchange for certainadvantages in India, and a foolish policy obscured for a while at leastthe eminent services of William Pepperell. To-day the victor of Louisburg is not without fame--save in his owncountry. Fortunately for himself, Pepperell died before the War of theRevolution, and did not see the ruin which overtook his family. Theproperty which had passed into the hands of his grandchildren wasconfiscated. They were guilty of loyalty to the crown and country forwhich their ancestor had fought, and the third generation was saved fromthe poorhouse "by the bounty of individuals on whom they had no claimsfor favour. " In other words, Pepperell's memory was dishonoured, becausein serving New England he had worn the king's uniform. In the eyesof the newly emancipated, treachery was retrospective. Pepperell'sbiographer explains his sin and its punishment with a perfect clarity. "The eventful life of Sir W. Pepperell, " he writes, "closed a few yearsbefore the outbreak of the Revolution. Patriotism in his day impliedloyalty and fidelity to the King of England; but how changed the meaningof that word in New England after the Declaration of Independence! Wordsand deeds before deemed patriotic were now traitorous, and so deeply wastheir moral turpitude impressed on the public mind as to have taintedpopular opinions concerning the heroic deeds of our ancestors, performedin the King's service in the French Wars.... The War of the Revolutionabsorbed and neutralised all the heroic fame of the illustrious menthat preceded, and the achievements of Pepperell, of Johnson, and ofBradstreet are now almost forgotten. " These words were written in 1855, and they have not yet lost their truth. For us this forgetfulness is not easily intelligible. It is our habit toattach ourselves closely to the past. If there have been conflicts, theyhave left no rancour, no bitterness. The winner has been modest, theloser magnanimous. The centuries of civil strife which devastatedEngland imposed no lasting hostility. Nobody cares to-day whether hisancestor was Cavalier or Roundhead. The keenest Royalist is willing toacknowledge the noble prowess and the political genius of Cromwell. Thehardiest Puritan pays an eager tribute to the exalted courage of CharlesI. But the Americans have taken another view. They would, if they could, discard the bonds which unite them with England. For the mere glamour ofindependence they would sacrifice the glory of the past. They would evenassume an hostility to their ancestors because these ancestors were ofEnglish blood. They seem to believe that if they forget their originpersistently enough it will be transformed. The top of theirambition would be reached if they could suppose that they wereautochthonous, --that they sprang into being fully armed upon Americansoil. It irks them to think that other races have had a hand in creating"God's own country, " and they are happiest when they can convincethemselves that a man changes his heart and his mind as well as his skywhen he leaves Europe for America. And so they pursue the policy of theostrich. They bury the head of their past in the sandy desert ofthe present, and hope that nobody will detect the trick of theirconcealment. In the Church of St John at Portsmouth there is, as I have said, anEnglish prayer-book from which the page containing prayers for theking has been violently torn. This incident symbolises very aptlythe attitude of America. The country has not yet recovered from thehostility which it once professed to George III. It assumes that adifference of policy always implies a moral taint. The American Coloniesbroke away from the mother country; therefore George III. Was a knave, whose name may not be mentioned without dishonour, and all the brave menwho served him in serving the colonies are dishonoured also. It is notquite clear why this feeling has been kept alive so long. Perhapsthe violent rhetoric of the Declaration of Independence has aided itssurvival. Perhaps, too, the sense of gravity, which always overtakes theAmerican public man when he considers what These States have achieved, is not without its weight. But whatever the cause, it is certain thatshame and animosity still exist on the other side of the ocean: shamefor noble deeds accomplished by brave men; animosity against a loyalantagonist, who long ago forgot the ancient quarrel and its consequence. And yet the force and habit of tradition cannot forcibly be shaken off. Though New England, in forgetting the heroes who fought under Britishcolours, has attempted to break the continuity of history, it is in NewEngland where the links in the ancient chain are most stoutly coupled. Though all the prayer-books in the world be destroyed, the marks of itsorigin will still be stamped indelibly upon the face of the country. Thevery dourness which persuades these stern men to look with regret upontheir beginnings is but a part of the puritanical character which drovethem to take refuge in a foreign land. Stiff-necked and fanatical asthey were, when they left England, they did but intensify their hardfanaticism in the new land. For there they were all of one party, andtheir children grew up without the wholesome stimulant of opposition. And if perchance one or two strayed from the fold of strict allegiance, the majority were cruel in punishment. They became persecutors for whatthey believed was righteousness' sake, and their cruelty was the moresevere because it was based, as they believed, upon a superior morality. And so they grew, as an American historian has said, to hate thetoleration for which they once fought, to deplore the liberty ofconscience for whose sake they had been ready to face exile. What inthemselves they praised for liberty and toleration, they denounced inothers as carelessness or heresy. So they cultivated a hard habit ofthought; so they esteemed too seriously the efforts they made inthe cause of freedom; so they still exaggerate the importance of theRevolution, which the passage of time should compel them to regard witha cold and dispassionate eye. But if in a certain pitilessness of character the New Englanders aremore English than the English, they still resemble the Puritans of theseventeenth century in their love of a well-ordered life. It was intheir towns and villages that the old colonial life flourished to thewisest purpose. The houses which they built, and which still stand, arethe perfection of elegance and comfort. The simplicity of their aspectis matched by the beauty which confronts you when once you have crossedthe threshold. The columns which flank the porch, the pilasters whichbreak the monotony of the wooden walls, are but a faint indication ofthe elegance within. Like the palaces of the Moors, they reserve thebest of themselves for the interior, and reveal all their beauty only totheir intimates. The light staircases, with turned rails and lyre-shapedends; the panelled rooms; the dainty fireplaces, adorned with Dutchtiles; the English furniture, which has not left its first home; thespacious apartments, of which the outside gives no warning, --theseimpart a quiet dignity, a pleasant refinement, to the colonial houseswhich no distance of time or space can impair. There is a house atKittery of which the planks were cut out there in the forest, were sentto England to be carved and shaped, and were then returned to theirnative woodland to be fashioned into a house. Thus it belongs to twoworlds, and thus it is emblematic of the New Englanders who dwell aboutit, and who, owing their allegiance to a new country, yet retain theimpress of a character which was their ancestors' almost three centuriesago. THE YELLOW PRESS. If all countries may boast the Press which they deserve, America'sdesert is small indeed. No civilised country in the world has beencontent with newspapers so grossly contemptible as those which are readfrom New York to the Pacific Coast. The journals known as Yellow wouldbe a disgrace to dusky Timbuctoo, and it is difficult to understandthe state of mind which can tolerate them. Divorced completely from theworld of truth and intelligence, they present nothing which an educatedman would desire to read. They are said to be excluded from clubs andfrom respectable houses. But even if this prohibition be a fact, theirproprietors need feel no regret. We are informed by the Yellowest ofEditors that his burning words are read every day by five million menand women. What, then, is the aspect and character of these Yellow Journals?As they are happily strange on our side the ocean, they need somedescription. They are ill-printed, over-illustrated sheets, whose endand aim are to inflame a jaded or insensitive palate. They seem toaddress the blind eye and the sluggish mind of the halfwitted. Thewholly unimportant information which they desire to impart is notconveyed in type of the ordinary shape and size. The "scare" headlinesare set forth in letters three inches in height. It is as though theeditors of these sheets are determined to exhaust your attention. Theyare not content to tell you that this or that inapposite event has takenplace. They pant, they shriek, they yell. Their method represents thebeating of a thousand big drums, the blare of unnumbered trumpets, theshouted blasphemies of a million raucous throats. And if, with all thisnoise dinning in your ear, you are persuaded to read a Yellow sheet, which is commonly pink in colour, you are grievously disappointed. Thething is not even sensational. Its "scare" headlines do but arouse acuriosity which the "brightest and brainiest" reporter in the UnitedStates is not able to satisfy. Of what happens in the great world you will find not a trace in theYellow Journals. They betray no interest in politics, in literature, or in the fine arts. There is nothing of grave importance which can beconverted into a "good story. " That a great man should perform a greattask is immaterial. Noble deeds make no scandal, and are therefore notworth reporting. But if you can discover that the great man has a hiddenvice, or an eccentric taste in boots or hats, there is "copy" ready toyour hand. All things and all men must be reduced to a dead level ofimbecility. The Yellow Press is not obscene--it has not the courage forthat. Its proud boast is that it never prints a line that a father mightnot read to his daughter. It is merely personal and impertinent. Noone's life is secure from its spies. No privacy is sacred. Mr Stead'sfamous ideal of an ear at every keyhole is magnificently realised inAmerica. A hundred reporters are ready, at a moment's notice, to invadehouses, to uncover secrets, to molest honest citizens with indiscreetquestions. And if their victims are unwilling to respond, they pay forit with public insult and malicious invention. Those who will not bow tothe common tyrant of the Press cannot complain if words are ascribedto them which they never uttered, if they are held guilty of deeds fromwhich they would shrink in horror. Law and custom are alike powerlessto fight this tyranny, which is the most ingenious and irksome form ofblackmail yet invented. The perfect newspaper, if such were possible, would present to itsreaders a succinct history of each day as it passes. It would weigh witha scrupulous hand the relative importance of events. It would give toeach department of human activity no more than its just space. It wouldreduce scandal within the narrow limits which ought to confine it. Underits wise auspices murder, burglary, and suicide would be deposed fromthe eminence upon which an idle curiosity has placed them. Those strangebeings known as public men would be famous not for what their wives wearat somebody else's "At Home, " but for their own virtues and attainments. The foolish actors and actresses, who now believe themselves the mastersof the world, would slink away into _entrefilets_ on a back page. Theperfect newspaper, in brief, would resemble a Palace of Truth, inwhich deceit was impossible and vanity ridiculous. It would crush thehankerers after false reputations, it would hurl the foolish from themighty seats which they try to fill, and it would present an invaluablerecord to future generations. What picture of its world does the Yellow Press present? A picture ofcolossal folly and unpardonable indiscretion. If there be a museum whichpreserves these screaming sheets, this is the sort of stuff which intwo thousand years will puzzle the scholars: "Mrs Jones won't admitWedding, " "Millionaires Bet on a Snake Fight, " "Chicago Church GirlAccuses Millionaire, " "Athletics make John D. Forget his Money. " Theseare a few pearls hastily strung together, and they show what jewels ofintelligence are most highly prized by the Greatest Democracy on earth. Now and again the editor takes his readers into his confidence and asksthem to interfere in the affairs of persons whom they will never know. Here, for instance, is a characteristic problem set by an editor whoseknowledge of his public exceeds his respect for the decencies of life:"What Mrs Washington ought to do. Her husband Wall Street Broker. Gottired of Her and Deserted. But Mrs Washington, who still loves himdearly, Is determined to win him back. And here is the Advice of theReaders of this Journal. " Is it not monstrous--this interference withthe privacy of common citizens? And yet this specimen has an air ofdignity compared with the grosser exploits of the hired eavesdropper. Not long since there appeared in a Sunday paper a full list, withportraits and biographies, of all the ladies in New York who arehabitual drunkards. From which it is clear that the law of libel hassunk into oblivion, and that the cowhide is no longer a useful weapon. The disastrous effect upon the people of such a Press as I havedescribed is obvious. It excites the nerves of the feeble, it presents ahideously false standard of life, it suggests that nobody is secure fromthe omnipotent eavesdropper, and it preaches day after day at the topof its husky voice the gospel of snobbishness. But it is not merely thepublic manners which it degrades; it does its best to hamper the properadministration of the law. In America trial by journalism has longsupplemented, and goes far to supplant, trial by jury. If a murder becommitted its detection is not left to the officers of the police. Athousand reporters, cunning as monkeys, active as sleuth-hounds, are onthe track. Whether it is the criminal that they pursue or an innocentman is indifferent to them. Heedless of injustice, they go in search of"copy. " They interrogate the friends of the victim, and they uncoverthe secrets of all the friends and relatives he may have possessed. Theycare not how they prejudice the public mind, or what wrong they do toinnocent men. If they make a fair trial impossible, it matters not. Theyhave given their tired readers a new sensation; they have stimulatedgossip in a thousand tenement houses; justice may fall in ruins solong as they sell another edition. And nobody protests against theirunbridled licence, not even when they have made it an affair of theutmost difficulty and many weeks to empanel an unprejudiced jury. The greatest opportunity of the Yellow Press came when a Mr H. K. Thawmurdered an accomplished architect. The day after the murder the trialbegan in the newspapers, and it was "run as a serial" for months. Thelives of the murderer and his victim were uncovered with the utmosteffrontery. The character of the dead man was painted in the blackestcolours by cowards, who knew that they were beyond the reach ofvengeance. The murderer's friends and kinsmen were compelled to paytheir tribute to the demon of publicity. The people was presentedwith plans of the cell in which the man Thaw was imprisoned, whilephotographs of his wife and his mother were printed day after day thata silly mob might note the effect of anguish on the human countenance. And, not content with thus adorning the tale, the journals were eloquentin pointing the moral. Sentimental spinsters were invited to warn thelady typewriters of America that death and ruin inevitably overtake thewrongdoer. Stern-eyed clergymen thought well to anticipate justice insermons addressed to erring youth. Finally, _a plébiscite_ decided, by2 to 1, that Thaw should immediately be set free. And when you rememberthe arrogant tyranny of the Yellow Journals, you are surprised that atthe mere sound of the people's voice the prison doors did not instantlyfly open. We have been told, as though it were no more than a simple truth, thatthe Yellow Press--the journals owned by Mr Hearst--not merely made theSpanish-American War, but procured the assassination of Mr M'Kinley. Thestatement seems incredible, because it is difficult to believe that suchstuff as this should have any influence either for good or evil. Theidle gossip and flagrant scandal which are its daily food do not appearto be efficient leaders of opinion. But it is the Editorial columnswhich do the work of conviction, and they assume an air of gravitywhich may easily deceive the unwary. And their gravity is the naturalaccompaniment of scandal. There is but a slender difference betweenbarbarity and senti-mentalism. The same temper which delights in readingof murder and sudden death weeps with anguish at the mere hint ofoppression. No cheek is so easily bedewed by the unnecessary tear asthe cheek of the ruffian--and those who compose the "editorials" for MrHearst's papers have cynically realised this truth. They rant and theycant and they argue, as though nothing but noble thoughts were permittedto lodge within the poor brains of their readers. Their favourite gospelis the gospel of Socialism. They tell the workers that the world istheir inalienable inheritance, that skill and capital are the snares ofthe evil one, and that nothing is worth a reward save manual toil. Theypretend for a moment to look with a kindly eye upon the Trusts, because, when all enterprises and industries are collected into a small compass, the people will have less trouble in laying hands upon them. In brief, they teach the supreme duty of plunder with all the _staccato_ eloquenceat their command. For the man whose thrift and energy have helped himto success they have nothing but contempt. They cannot think of thecriminal without bursting into tears. And, while they lay upon the richman the guilty burden of his wealth, they charge the community withthe full responsibility for the convict's misfortune. Such doctrines, cunningly taught, and read day after day by the degenerate andunrestrained, can only have one effect, and that effect, no doubt, the"editorials" of the Yellow Press will some day succeed in producing. The result is, of course, revolution, and revolution is being carefullyand insidiously prepared after the common fashion. Not a word is leftunsaid that can flatter the criminal or encourage the thriftless. Thosewho are too idle to work but not too idle to read the Sunday papers aretold that it will be the fault of their own inaction, not of the YellowPress, if they do not some day lay violent hands upon the country'swealth. And when they are tired of politics the Yellow Editors turn topopular philosophy or cheap theology for the solace of their public. Tomen and women excited by the details of the last murder they discourseof the existence of God in short, crisp sentences, --and I know not whichis worse, the triviality of the discourse or its inappositeness. Theypreface one of their most impassioned exhortations with the words: "Ifyou read this, you will probably think you have wasted time. " Thoughthis might with propriety stand for the motto of all the columns of allMr Hearst's journals, here it is clearly used in the same hope whichinspires the sandwichman to carry on his front the classic legend:"Please do not look on my back. " But what is dearest to the souls ofthese editors is a mean commonplace. One leader, which surely had atriumphant success, is headed, "What the Bar-tender Sees. " And theexordium is worthy so profound a speculation. "Did you ever stop tothink, " murmurs the Yellow philosopher, "of all the strange beings thatpass before him?" There's profundity for you! There's invention! Is itwonderful that five million men and women read these golden words, orothers of a like currency, every day? And politics, theology, and philosophy are all served up in the samethick sauce of sentiment. The "baby" seems to play a great part in theYellow morality. One day you are told, "A baby can educate a man"; onanother you read, "Last week's baby will surely talk some day, " and youare amazed, as at a brilliant discovery. And you cannot but ask: To whomare these exhortations addressed? To children or to idiots? The grownmen and women of the United States, can hardly regard such poor twaddleas this with a serious eye. And what of the writers? How can theyreconcile their lofty tone, which truly is above suspicion, with theshameful sensationalism of their news-columns? They know not the meaningof sincerity. If they really believed that "a baby can educate a man, "they would suppress their reporters. In short, they are either blindor cynical. From these alternatives there is no escape, and for theirsakes, as well as for America's, I hope they write with their tongue intheir cheeks. The style of the Yellow Journals is appropriate to their matter. Theheadlines live on and by the historic present; the text is as bald asa paper of statistics. It is the big type that does the execution. The"story" itself, to use the slang of the newspaper, is seldom eitherhumorous or picturesque. Bare facts and vulgar incidents are enough forthe public, which cares as little for wit as for sane writing. One factonly can explain the imbecility of the Yellow Press: it is written forimmigrants, who have but an imperfect knowledge of English, who preferto see their news rather than to read it, and who, if they must read, can best understand words of one syllable and sentences of no more thanfive words. For good or evil, America has the sole claim to the invention ofthe Yellow Press. It came, fully armed, from the head of its firstproprietor, It owes nothing to Europe, nothing to the traditions ofits own country. It grew out of nothing, and, let us hope, it will soondisappear into nothingness. The real Press of America was rather redthan yellow. It had an energy and a character which still exist in somemore reputable sheets, and which are the direct antithesis of Yellowsensationalism. The horsewhip and revolver were as necessary to itsconduct as the pen and inkpot. If the editors of an older and wiser timeinsulted their enemies, they were ready to defend themselves, like men. They did not eavesdrop and betray. They would have scorned to reveal thesecrets of private citizens, even though they did not refrain their handfrom their rivals. Yet, with all their brutality, they were brave andhonourable, and you cannot justly measure the degradation of the YellowPress unless you cast your mind a little further back and contemplatethe achievement of another generation. The tradition of journalism came to America from England. 'The Sun, ''The Tribune, ' and 'The Post, ' as wise and trustworthy papers as may befound on the surface of the globe, are still conscious of their origin, though they possess added virtues of their own. 'The New York Herald, 'as conducted by James Gordon Bennett the First, modelled its scurrilousenergy upon the Press of our eighteenth century. The influence of Juniusand the pamphleteers was discernible in its columns, and many ofits articles might have been signed by Wilkes himself. But there wassomething in 'The Herald' which you would seek in vain in Perry's'Morning Chronicle, ' say, or 'The North Briton, ' and that was thefree-and-easy style of the backwoods. Gordon Bennett grasped as wellas any one the value of news. He boarded vessels far out at sea that hemight forestall his rivals. In some respects he was as "yellow" as hissuccessor, whose great exploit of employing a man convicted of murderto report the trial of a murderer is not likely to be forgotten. On theother hand, he set before New York the history of Europe and of Europeanthought with appreciation and exactitude. He knew the theatre of Englandand France more intimately than most of his contemporaries, and he did agreat deal to encourage the art of acting in his own country. Above allthings he was a fighter, both with pen and fist. He had something ofthe spirit which in-spired the old mining-camp. "We never saw the man wefeared, " he once said, "nor the woman we had not some liking for. " Thathealthy, if primitive, sentiment breathes in all his works. And hismagnanimity was equal to his courage. "I have no objection to forgiveenemies, " he wrote, "particularly after I have trampled them under myfeet. " This principle guided his life and his journal, and, while itgave a superb dash of energy to his style, it put a wholesome fear intothe hearts and heads of his antagonists. One antagonist there was who knew neither fear nor forgetfulness, and heattacked Bennett again and again. Bennett returned his blows, and thenmade most admirable "copy" of the assault. The last encounter betweenthe two is so plainly characteristic of Bennett's style that I quote hisdescription in his own words. "As I was leisurely pursuing my businessyesterday in Wall Street, " wrote Bennett, "collecting the informationwhich is daily disseminated in 'The Herald, ' James Watson Webb came upto me, on the northern side of the street--said something which I couldnot hear distinctly, then pushed me down the stone steps leading to oneof the brokers' offices, and commenced fighting with a species ofbrutal and demoniac desperation characteristic of a fury. My damage is ascratch, about three-quarters of an inch in length, on the third fingerof the left hand, which I received from the iron railing I was forcedagainst, and three buttons torn from my vest, which my tailor willreinstate for six cents. His loss is a rent from top to bottom of a verybeautiful black coat, which cost the ruffian $40, and a blow in the facewhich may have knocked down his throat some of his infernal teeth forall I know. Balance in my favour $39. 94. As to intimidating me, orchanging my course, the thing cannot be done. Neither Webb nor anyother man shall, or can, intimidate me.... I may be attacked, I may beassailed, I may be killed, I may be murdered, but I will never succumb. " There speaks the true Gordon Bennett, and his voice, though it may bethe voice of a ruffian, is also the voice of a man who is certainlycourageous and is not without humour. It is not from such a tradition asthat, that the Yellow Press emerged. It does not want much pluck to hangabout and sneak secrets. It is the pure negation of humour to preachSocialism in the name of the criminal and degenerate. To judge Americaby this product would be monstrously unfair, but it corresponds perforceto some baser quality in the cosmopolitans of the United States, and itcannot be overlooked. As it stands, it is the heaviest indictment of thepopular taste that can be made. There is no vice so mean as impertinentcuriosity, and it is upon this curiosity that the Yellow Press meanlylives and meanly thrives. What is the remedy? There is none, unless time brings with it a naturalreaction. It is as desperate a task to touch the Press as to change theConstitution. The odds against reform are too great. A law to checkthe exuberance of newspapers would never survive the attacks of thenewspapers themselves. Nor is it only in America that reform is necessary. The Press of Europe, also, has strayed so far from its origins as to be a danger to theState. In their inception the newspapers were given freedom, that theymight expose and check the corruption and dishonesty of politicians. Itwas thought that publicity was the best cure for intrigue. For a whilethe liberty of the Press seemed justified. It is justified no longer. The licence which it assumes has led to far worse evils than thosewhich it was designed to prevent. In other words, the slave has becomea tyrant, and where is the statesman who shall rid us of this tyranny?Failure alone can kill what lives only upon popular success, and itis the old-fashioned, self-respecting journals which are facing ruin. Prosperity is with the large circulations, and a large circulation is notest of merit. Success is made neither by honesty nor wisdom. The peoplewill buy what flatters its vanity or appeals to its folly. And theYellow Press will flourish, with its headlines and its vulgarity, untilthe mixed population of America has sufficiently mastered the art oflife and the English tongue to demand something better wherewith tosolace its leisure than scandal and imbecility. LIBERTY AND PATRIOTISM. Guarding the entrance to New York there stands, lofty and austere, thestatue of Liberty. It is this statue which immigrants, on their way toEllis Island, are wont to apostrophise. To contemplate it is, we aretold, to know the true meaning of life, to taste for the first timethe sweets of an untrammelled freedom. No sooner does M. Bartholdi'sbeneficent matron smile upon you, than you cast off the chains ofan ancient slavery. You forget in a moment the years which you havemisspent under the intolerable burden of a monarch. Be you Pole or Russ, Briton or Ruthenian, you rejoice at the mere sight of this marvel, in anew hope, in a boundless ambition. Unconscious of what awaits you, yousurrender yourself so eagerly to the sway of sentiment that you areunable to observe the perfections of your idol. You see only its vastsize. You are content to believe the official statement that 305 feetseparate the tip of the lady's torch from low water. You know thatyou gaze on the largest statue upon earth. And surely it should be thelargest, for it symbolises a greater mass of Liberty than ever beforewas gathered together upon one continent. For Liberty is a thing which no one in America can escape. The oldinhabitant smiles with satisfaction as he murmurs the familiar word. Atevery turn it is clubbed into the unsuspecting visitor. If an aspirantto the citizenship of the Republic declined to be free, he woulddoubtless be thrown into a dungeon, fettered and manacled, until heconsented to accept the precious boon. You cannot pick up a newspaperwithout being reminded that Liberty is the exclusive possession ofthe United States. The word, if not the quality, is the commonplaceof American history. It looks out upon you--the word again, not thequality--from every hoarding. It is uttered in every discourse, andthough it irks you to listen to the boasting of "Liberty", as it irks youwhen a man vaunts his honour, you cannot but inquire what is this fetishwhich distinguishes America from the rest of the habitable globe, andwhat does it achieve for those who worship it. In what, then, does the Liberty of America consist? Is it in freedomof opportunity? A career is open to all the talents everywhere. The superstitions of Europe, the old-fashioned titles of effetearistocracies, are walls more easily surmounted than the goldenbarricades of omnipotent corporations. Does it consist in politicalfreedom? If we are to believe in the pedantry that Liberty is the childof the ballot-box, then America has no monopoly of its blessings. Theprivilege of voting is almost universal, and the freedom which thispoor privilege confers is within the reach of Englishman, German, orFrenchman. Indeed, it is America which sets the worst stumbling-block inthe voter's path. The citizen, however high his aspiration after Libertymay be, wages a vain warfare against the cunning of the machine. Whererepeaters and fraudulent ballots flourish, it is idle to boast theblessings of the suffrage. Such institutions as Tammany are essentiallypractical, but they do not help the sacred cause commemorated in M. Bartholdi's statue; and if we would discover the Liberty of America, wemust surely look outside the ring of boodlers and politicians who haveheld the franchise up to ridicule. Is, then, the boasted Liberty aliberty of life? One comes and goes with ease as great in England asin America. There are even certain restrictions imposed in the home ofFreedom, of which we know nothing on this side the Atlantic, where wefear the curiosity of the Press as little as we dread the exactions ofhungry monopolies. Of many examples, two will suffice to illustratethe hardships of a democratic tyranny. Not long since the most famousactress of our generation was prevented by a trust of all-powerfulmanagers from playing in the theatres of America, and was compelled totake refuge in booths and tents. Being a lady of courage and resource, she filled her new _rôle_ with perfect success, and completely outwittedher envious rivals. The victory was snatched, by the actress's ownenergy, from the very jaws of Liberty. Far more unfortunate was the fateof M. Gorki, who visited America to preach the gospel of Freedom, as hethought, in willing ears. With the utmost propriety he did all that wasexpected of him. He apostrophised the statue in a voice tremulous withemotion. He addressed the great Continent, as it loves to be addressed. "America! America!" he exclaimed, "how I have longed for this day, whenmy foot should tread the soil where despotism cannot live!" Alas for hislost enthusiasm! A despot, grim and pitiless, was waiting for him round the corner. Inother words, the proprietor of his hotel discovered that Mme. Gorkihad no right to that name, and amid the cheers of the guests he and hiscompanion were driven shamefully into the street. Were it not forthe wanton inconvenience inflicted upon M. Gorki, the comedy of thesituation would be priceless. The Friends of Russian Freedom, piouslyenamoured of assassination, and listening intently for the exquisitereverberation of the deadly bomb, sternly demand of the Apostle hismarriage-lines. The Apostle of Revolution, unable to satisfy the demand, is solemnly excommunicated, as if he had apostrophised no statue, as ifhe had felt no expansion of his lungs, no tingling of his blood, when hefirst breathed the air of Freedom. O Liberty! Liberty! many follieshave been committed in thy name! And now thy voice is hushed ininextinguishable laughter! The truth is, American Liberty is the mere creature of rhetoric. It is asurvival from the time when the natural rights of man inspired a simplefaith, when eager citizens declared that kings were the eternal enemiesof Freedom. Its only begetter was Thomas Jefferson, and its gospel ispreached in the famous Declaration of Independence. The dogmatism andpedantry upon which it is based are easily confuted. Something elsethan a form of government is necessary to ensure political and personalliberty. Otherwise the Black Republic would be a model to England. ButJefferson, not being a philosopher, and knowing not the rudiments ofhistory, was unable to look beyond the few moral maxims which he hadcommitted to memory. He was sure that the worst republic was betterthan the noblest tyranny the world had ever seen. He appealed not toexperience but to sentiment, and he travelled up and down Europe withhis eyes closed and his mind responsive only to the echoes of a vaintheory. "If all the evils which can arise among us, " said he, "from therepublican form of our government, from this day to the Day ofJudgment, could be put into a scale against what France suffers fromits monarchical form in a week, or England in a month, the latterwould preponderate. " Thus he said, in sublime ignorance of the past, inperfect misunderstanding of the future. And his empty words echo to-dayin the wigwams of Tammany. All forms of government have their strength and their weakness. They arenot equally suitable to all races and to all circumstances. It wasthis obvious truth that Jefferson tore to shreds before the eyes of hiscompatriots. He persuaded them to accept his vague generalities asa sober statement of philosophic truth, and he aroused a hatred ofkingship in America which was comic in expression and disastrous inresult. It was due to his influence that plain citizens hymned theglories of "Guillotina, the Tenth Muse, " and fell down in worship beforea Phrygian cap. It was due to his influence that in 1793 the deathof Louis XVI. Was celebrated throughout the American continent withgrotesque symbolism and farcical solemnity. A single instance is enoughto prove the malign effect of Jefferson's teaching. At Philadelphia thehead of a pig was severed from its body, and saluted as an emblem of themurdered king. "Each one, " says the historian, "placing the cap of liberty upon hishead, pronounced the word 'tyrant'! and proceeded to mangle with hisknife the head of the luckless creature doomed to be served for sounworthy a company. " And the voice of Jefferson still speaks in theland. Obedient to his dictate, Americans still take a sentimentalview of Liberty. For them Liberty is still an emotion to feel, not aprivilege to enjoy. They are willing to believe that a monarch meansslavery. America is the greatest republic on earth, they argue, andtherefore it is the chosen and solitary home of Freedom. So, ignoring the peculiar enslavements of democracy, forgetting thetemptations to which the noblest republic is exposed, they proclaim amonopoly of the sovereign virtue, and cast a cold eye of disdain uponthe tradition of older countries. The author of 'Triumphant Democracy, 'for instance, asserts that he "was denied political equality by hisnative land. " We do not know for what offence he was thus heavilypunished, and it is consoling to reflect that the beloved Republic hasmade him "the peer of any man. " It has not made any other man his peer. He is separated far more widely by his wealth from the workmen, whom hepatronises, than the meanest day-labourer in England from the dukes towhom he is supposed to bend the knee; and if Mr Carnegie's be thefine flower of American Liberty, we need hardly regret that ours is ofanother kind. In Jefferson's despite, men are not made free and equal by the frequentrepetition of catchwords, and it is by a fine irony that America, whichprides itself upon a modern spirit, should still be swayed by a foolishsuperstition, more than a century old, that the cant of Liberty andEquality, uttered by a slave-owner in 1776, should still warp itsintelligence. "I don't know what liberty means, " said Lord Byron, "neverhaving seen it;" and it was in candour rather than in experience thatByron differed from his fellows. Nor has any one else seen what eludedByron. A perfectly free man must be either uncivilised or decivilised--asavage stronger than his fellows or an undetected anarch armed with abomb, A free society is a plain contradiction, for a society must becontrolled by law, and law is an instant curtailment of Liberty. And, if you would pursue this chimera, it is not in a democracy that you arelikely to surprise it. Liberty is a prize which will always escape youin a mob. The supremacy of the people means the absolute rule of themajority, in deference to which the mere citizen must lay aside all hopeof independence. In life, as in politics, a democratic minority has norights. It cannot set its own pace; it cannot choose its own route;it must follow the will of others, not its own desire; and it is smallcomfort to the slave, whose chains gall him, that the slave-driver bearsthe name of a free man. Liberty, in brief, is a private, not a public, virtue. It has naughtto do with extended franchises or forms of government. The free manmay thrive as easily under a tyranny as in a republic. Is it not trueLiberty to live in accord with one's temperament or talent? And as thebest laws cannot help this enterprise, so the worst cannot hinder it. You will discover Liberty in Russia as in America, in England asin France, --everywhere, indeed, where men refuse to accept thesuperstitions and doctrines of the mob. But the Americans are notcontent to possess the Liberty which satisfies the rest of the world. With characteristic optimism they boast the possession of a rare andcurious quality. In Europe we strive after Freedom in all humilityof spirit, as after a happy state of mind. In America they advertiseit--like a patent medicine. America's view of Patriotism is distinguished by the same ingeniousexaggeration as her view of Liberty. She has as little doubt of herGrandeur as of her Freedom. She is, in brief, "God's own country, "and in her esteem Columbus was no mere earthly explorer; he wasthe authentic discoverer of the Promised Land. Neither argument norexperience will ever shake the American's confidence in his nobledestiny. On all other questions uncertainty is possible. It is notpossible to discuss America's supremacy. In arms as in arts, the UnitedStates are unrivalled. They alone enjoy the blessings of civilisation. They alone have been permitted to combine material with moral progress. They alone have solved the intricate problems of life and politics. Theyhave the biggest houses, the best government, and the purest lawthat the world has ever known. Their universities surpass Oxford andCambridge, Paris and Leipzig, in learning, as their Churches surpass theChurches of the old world in the proper understanding of theology. Inbrief, to use their own phrase, America is "It, " the sole home of thegood and great. Patriotism such as this, quick in enthusiasm, simple in faith, mayprove, if properly handled, a national asset of immeasurable value. Andin public the Americans admit no doubt. Though they do not hesitate tocondemn the boodlers who prey upon their cities, though they deplore thecorrupt practices of their elections, they count all these abuses asbut spots upon a brilliant sun. A knowledge of his country's politicaldishonesty does not depress the true patriot. He is content to thinkthat his ideals are as lofty as their realisation is remote, and thatthe triumph of graft is as nothing compared with a noble sentiment. Theresult is that the Americans refuse to weaken their national prestige bythe advertised cannibalism which is so popular in England. They are fortheir country, right or wrong. They do not understand the anti-patriotargument, which was born of the false philosophy of the eighteenthcentury, and which has left so evil a mark upon our political life. To them the phenomenon which we call Pro-Boerism is not easilyintelligible. They take an open pride in their country and their flag, and it seems certain that, when they stand in the presence of an enemy, they will not weaken their national cause by dissension. This exultant Patriotism is the more remarkable when we reflect uponwhat it is based. The love of country, as understood in Europe, dependsupon identity of race, upon community of history and tradition. Itshould not be difficult for those whose fathers have lived under thesame sky, and breathed the same air, to sacrifice their prosperity ortheir lives to the profit of the State. In making such a sacrifice theyare but repaying the debt of nurture. To the vast majority of Americansthis sentiment, grafted on the past, can make no appeal. The only linkwhich binds them to America is their sudden arrival on alien soil. Theyare akin to the Anglo-Saxons, who first peopled the continent, neitherin blood nor in sympathy. They carry with them their national habits andtheir national tastes. They remain Irish, or German, or Italian, with adifference, though they bear the burden of another State, and assume theprivileges of another citizenship. But there is no mistake about theirPatriotism. Perhaps those shout loudest who see the Star-spangled Bannerunfurled for the first time, and we are confronted in America with theoutspoken expression of a sentiment which cannot be paralleled elsewhereon the face of the globe. They tread the same ground, these vast hordes of patriots, they obey thesame laws, --that is all. Are they, then, moved by a spirit of gratitude, or do they feel the same loyalty which animates a hastily gatheredfootball team, which plays not for its honour but for the profit of itsmanager? Who shall say? One thing only is certain: the Patriotism of thecosmopolites, if it be doubtful in origin, is by no means doubtful inexpression. On every Fourth of July the Americans are free to displaythe love of their Country, and they use this freedom without restraint. From the Atlantic to the Pacific Coast, from Vermont to Mexico, theEagle screams aloud. She screams from early morn to dewy eve. And thereis nothing to silence her screaming save the explosion of innumerablecrackers, the firing of countless pistols. For this day the youth of America is given full licence to shoot hisinoffensive neighbours, and, if he will, to commit the happy despatchupon him-self. The next morning the newspapers chronicle the injurieswhich have been inflicted on and by the boys of New York, for the mostpart distinguished by foreign names, with the cold accuracy bred of longhabit. And while the boys prove their patriotism by the explosion ofcrackers, their fathers, with equal enthusiasm, devote themselves tothe waving of flags. They hold flags in their hands, they carry them intheir buttonholes, they stick them in their hats, they wear them behindtheir ears. Wherever your eye is cast, there are flags to dazzle it, flags large and flags small, an unbroken orgie of stars and stripes. It is, in fact, the Guy Fawkes Day of America. And who is the Guy? Noneother than George III. Of blessed memory. For the Fourth of July hasits duties as well as its pleasures, and the chief of its duties is thepublic reading of the Declaration of Independence. In every townand hamlet Jefferson's burning words are proclaimed in the ears ofenthusiastic citizens. It is pointed out to a motley crowd of newlyarrived immigrants that George, our king, of whom they had not heardyesterday, was unfit to be the ruler of a free people. And lest theinestimable benefit of Jefferson's eloquence should be lost to onesingle suddenly imported American, his declaration is translated intoYiddish for the benefit of those to whom English is still an unknowntongue. In a voice trembling with emotion, the orator assures thestarving ill-clad Pole and the emaciated Bohemian that all men arefree and equal; and so fine is the air of the Great Republic that thisproposition, which refutes itself, is firmly believed for the moment bythe penniless and hungry. And when the sun sets, and darkness enwrapsthe happy land, fireworks put a proper finish upon the national joy, andthe favourite set-piece represents, as it should, a noble-hearted Yankeeboy putting to flight a dozen stout red-jackets of King George. Humour might suggest that the expression of Patriotism is a trifleoverdone. Perhaps also a truce might be made with King George, who, if he be permitted to look from the shades upon a country which hisMinisters lost, must surely smile at this immortality of resentment. Butto the stranger, who witnesses this amazing carnival for the first time, two reflections occur. In the first place, the stranger cannot butbe struck by the perfect adaptation of Jefferson's rodomontade to anexpected purpose. Although that eminent Virginian, at the highest pointof his exaltation, did not look forward to the inrush of foreignerswhich is overwhelming his country, there is a peculiar quality in hiswords, even when translated into Yiddish, which inspires an inexplicableenthusiasm. In the second place, the stranger is astounded at theingenuity which inspires a crowd, separated by wide differences of race, speech, and education, with a sudden sympathy for a country which is notits own. And when the last crackers are exploded, and the last flag is waved, what is left? An unreasoning conviction, cherished, as I have said, by aforeign population, that America is the greatest country on earth. Whatthe conviction lacks in sincerity it gains in warmth of expression, and if America be ever confronted by an enemy, the celebrations of theFourth of July will be found not to have been held in vain. Where thereis no just bond of union, a bond must be invented, and Patriotism is themost notable invention of the great Republic. To have knit up all thenations of the earth in a common superstition is no mean achievement, and it is impossible to withhold a fervent admiration from the rhetoricwhich has thus attained what seemed, before its hour, the unattainable. But in this cosmopolitan orgie of political excitement the true-bornAmerican plays but a small part. He has put the drama on the stage, and is content to watch the result. If a leader be needed in a time ofstress, the man of Anglo-Saxon blood will be ready to serve the country, which belongs more intimately to him than to those who sing its praiseswith a noisy clatter. Meanwhile he lets the politicians do their worst, and watches the game with a careless indifference. Even if he loveshis country, his love does not persuade him to self-sacrifice. Youmay measure his patriotism by the fact that, if he does venture upon apolitical career, his friends know not which they should do--praise himor condole with him. "Isn't it good of So-and-so?" we constantly hear;"he has gone into politics. " And with the approval is mixed a kindly, if contemptuous, sorrow. The truth is, that the young American of gentlebirth and leisured ease hates to soil his hands with public affairs. His ambition does not drive him, as it drives his English cousin, intoParliament. He prefers to pursue culture in the capitals of Europe, or to urge an automobile at a furious pace across the sands. And theinaction of the real American is America's heaviest misfortune. So longas politics are left to the amateurs of graft, so long will Freedom bea fiction and Patriotism a piece of mere lip-service. Wealth is notwanting; brains are not wanting; energy is not wanting. Nothing iswanting save the inclination to snatch the control of the countryfrom the hands of professional politicians. And until this control besnatched, it is idle to speak of reform. The Constitution of the UnitedStates is, we are told, a perfect Constitution. Its perfection isimmaterial so long as Tammany on the one hand and the Trusts on theother conspire to keep it of no effect--a mere paper thing in a museum. The one thing needful is for men with clean hands and wise heads togovern their States, to stand for Congress, to enter the Senate, todefend the municipalities against corruption. And when this is done, the Declaration of Independence may safely be forgotten, in thecalm assurance that it is better to spend one day in the service ofpatriotism than to fire off a thousand crackers and to dazzle the airwith stars and stripes innumerable. THE MILLIONAIRE. The millionaire, or the multi-millionaire, if the plainer term beinadequate to express his lofty condition, is the hero of democraticAmerica. He has won the allegiance and captured the imagination of thepeople. His antics are watched with envy, and described with a faithfulrealism of which statesmen are thought unworthy. He is hourly exposed tothe camera; he marches through life attended by a bodyguard of faithfulreporters. The trappings of his magnificent, if vulgar, existence arefamiliar to all the readers of the Sunday papers. His silver cars andmarble palaces are the wonder of a continent. If he condescend to playgolf, it is a national event. "The Richest Man on Earth drives from, theTee" is a legend of enthralling interest, not because the hero knows howto drive, but because he is the richest man on earth. Some time since athoughtless headline described a poor infant as "The Ten-Million-DollarBaby, " and thus made his wealth a dangerous incubus before he was out ofthe nursery. Everywhere the same tale is told. The dollar has a powerof evoking curiosity which neither valour nor lofty station may boast. Plainly, then, the millionaire is not made of common day. Liquid goldflows in his veins. His eyes are made of precious jewels. It is doubtfulwhether he can do wrong. If by chance he does, it is almost certain thathe cannot be punished. The mere sight and touch of him have a virtue fargreater than that which kings of old claimed for themselves. He is atonce the en-sample and the test of modern grandeur; and if, like a Romanemperor, he could be deified, his admiring compatriots would send him tothe skies, and burn perpetual incense before his tomb. Though all the millionaires of America are animated by the samedesire, --the collection of dollars, --they regard their inestimableprivileges with very different eyes. Mr Carnegie, for instance, adoptsa sentimental view of money. He falls down in humble worship before thegolden calf of his own making. He has pompously formulated a gospelof wealth. He piously believes that the millionaire is the greatest ofGod's creatures, the eloquent preacher of a new evangel. If we are tobelieve him, there is a sacred virtue in the ceaseless accumulation ofriches. It is the first article in his creed, that the millionaire whostands still is going back, from which it follows that to fall behind inthe idle conflict is a cardinal sin. A simple man might think that whena manufacturer had made sufficient for the wants of himself and hisfamily for all time he might, without a criminal intent, relax hisefforts. The simple man does not understand the cult. A millionaire, oppressed beneath a mountain of gold, would deem it a dishonour tohimself and his colleagues if he lost a chance of adding to the weightand substance of the mountain. Mr Carnegie, then, is inspired not by the romance but by the sentimentof gold. He cannot speak of the enormous benefits conferred upon thehuman race by the vast inequalities of wealth and poverty without atear. "Millionaires, " he says, "can only grow amid general prosperity. "In other words, if there be not millions in the country the millionairecannot put his hand upon them. That is obvious enough. His second textcannot be so easily accepted. "Their wealth is not made, " he assertsdogmatically, "at the expense of their countrymen. " At whose expensethen is it made? Does Mr Carnegie vouch for the probity of all hiscolleagues? Does he cover with the aegis of his gospel the magnatesof the Standard Oil Company, and that happy firm which, with no otheradvantage than a service of cars, levies toll upon the fruit-growers ofAmerica? Was the Steel Combine established without inflicting hardshipsupon less wealthy rivals? An answer to these simple questions should begiven before Mr Carnegie's second text be inscribed upon the walls ofour churches. It is not enough to say with Mr Carnegie that trusts obey"the law of aggregation. " You need not be a Socialist to withhold yourapproval from these dollar-making machines, until you know that theywere not established upon ruin and plunder. Even if the millionaire bethe self-denying saint of modern times, it is still possible to pay toohigh a price for his sanctity and sacrifice. It is the favourite boast of the sentimental millionaire that he holdshis wealth in trust for humanity, --in other words, that he has beenchosen by an all-wise Providence to be the universal almsgiver ofmankind. The arrogance of this boast is unsurpassable. To be rich iswithin the compass of any man gifted or cursed with an acquisitivetemperament. No one may give to another save in humbleness of spirit. And there is not a millionaire in America who does not think that he isfit to perform a delicate duty which has eluded the wise of all ages. In this matter Mr Carnegie is by far the worst offender. He pretends totake his "mission" very seriously. He does not tell us who confidedthe trust of philanthropy to him, but he is very sure that he has beensingled out for special service. It is his modest pleasure to suggest acomparison with William Pitt. "He lived without ostentation and he diedpoor. " These are the words which Mr Carnegie quotes with the greatestrelish. How or where Mr Carnegie lives is his own affair; and even ifhe die poor, he should remember that he has devoted his life, not to theservice of his country, but to the amassing of millions which he cannotspend. It is obvious, therefore, that the noble words which Canningdedicated to the memory of Pitt can have no meaning for him, and hewould be wisely guided if he left the names of patriots out of theargument. Mr Carnegie's choice of an epitaph is easily explained. He is wont toassert, without warrant, that "a man who dies rich dies disgraced. " Hedoes not tell us how the rich man shall escape disgrace. Not even themaster of millions, great and good as he is reputed to be, knows whenhis hour comes. There is a foresight which even money cannot buy. Deathvisits the golden palace of the rich and the hovel of the poorwith equal and unexpected foot. The fact that Mr Carnegie is stilldistributing libraries with both hands seems to suggest that, had hebeen overtaken during the last twenty years, he would not have realisedhis ideal. There is but one method by which a rich man may die poor, andthat is by disencumbering himself of his wealth the very day that it isacquired. And he who is not prepared for this sacrifice does but wastehis breath in celebrating the honour of a pauper's grave. As there is no merit in living rich, so there is no virtue in dyingpoor. That a millionaire should desert his money-bags at his death isnot a reproach to him if they be honestly filled. He has small chance ofemptying them while he is on the earth. But Mr Carnegie has a reason forhis aphorism. He aspires to be a philosopher as well as a millionaire, and he has decided that a posthumous bequest is of no value, moral ormaterial. "Men who leave vast sums, " says he, "may fairly be thoughtmen who would not have left it at all had they been able to take it withthem. " On such a question as this the authority of Mr Carnegie is notabsolute. Let the cobbler stick to his last. The millionaire, no doubt, is more familiar with account-books than with the lessons of history;and the record of a thousand pious benefactors proves the worth of wiselegacies. Nor, indeed, need we travel beyond our own generation to finda splendid example of wealth honourably bestowed. The will of CecilRhodes remains a tribute to the generosity and to the imagination ofa great man, and is enough of itself to brush aside the quibbles of MrCarnegie. The sentiment of "doing good" and of controlling great wealth leadsrapidly to megalomania, and Mr Carnegie cannot conceal the pride ofomniscience. He seems to think that his money-bags give him the right toexpress a definite opinion upon all things. He has distributed so manybooks, that perhaps he believes himself master of their contents. Thoughhe has not devoted himself to politics or literature, he is alwaysprepared to advise those who give themselves to these difficult arts. He has discovered that Greek and Latin are of no more practical usethan Choctaw--which is perfectly true, if the useless money-bag be our_summum bonum_. With the indisputable authority of a man who keeps alarge balance at his bank, he once dismissed the wars of the Greeks as"petty and insignificant skirmishes between savages. " Poor Greeks! Theydid not pay their bills in dollars or buy their steel at Pittsburg. Thechief article in his political creed is that monarchy is a crime. In hisopinion, it is a degradation to kiss the King's hand. "The first man whofeels as he ought to feel, " says Mr Carnegie, "will either smile whenthe hand is extended at the suggestion that he could so demean himself, and give it a good hearty shake, or knock his Royal Highness down. " Inthe same spirit of sturdy "independence" he urged the United States someyears since to tax the products of Canada, because she "owes allegianceto a foreign power founded upon monarchical institutions. " "I should usethe rod, " says the moneybag, "not in anger, but in love; but I shoulduse it. " Fortunately, it is not his to use; and his opinions are onlymemorable, since the country which he insults with his words is insultedalso by his gifts. We may make too great a sacrifice in self-esteem, even for the boon of free libraries. And with a hatred of monarchy Mr Carnegie combines a childlike faith inthe political power of money. Though his faith by this should be rudelyshaken, he clings to it as best he may. Time was when he wished to buythe Philippines, and present them, a free gift, to somebody or other. Now he thinks that he may purchase the peace of the world for a roundsum, and sees not the absurdity of his offer. Even his poor attempt tobribe the English-speaking peoples to forget their spelling-books was ahappy failure, and he still cherishes an illusion of omnipotence. At theopening of his Institute at Pittsburg he was bold enough to declare thathis name would be known to future ages "like the name of Harvard. " Hemight remember that Harvard gave not of his abundance. He bequeathed forthe use of scholars a scholar's books and a scholar's slender savings, and he won a gracious immortality. Mr Carnegie, in endowing education, is endowing that which he has publicly condemned. Desiring to teach theyouth of his country how to become as wealthy as himself, he has pouredcontempt upon learning. He has declared that "the college-made" man had"little chance against the boy who swept the office. " He is to be found, this victim of an intellectual ambition, in the salaried class, fromwhich the aspiring millionaire is bidden to escape as quickly aspossible by the customary methods of bluff and bounce. Why, then, if MrCarnegie thinks so ill of colleges and universities does he inflict hismillions upon them? He has known "few young men intended for businesswho were not injured by a collegiate education. " And yet he has done hisbest to drive all the youth of Scotland within the gates of the despiseduniversities, and he has forced upon his own Pittsburg the gift of "freeeducation in art and literature. " Is it cynicism, or vain inconsequence?Cynicism, probably. The man who, having devoted his whole career tothe accumulation of superfluous wealth, yet sings a paean in praiseof poverty, is capable of everything. "Abolish luxury, if youplease, "--thus he rhapsodises, --"but leave us the soil upon which alonethe virtues and all that is precious in human character grow, --poverty, honest poverty!" Has he shed the virtues, I wonder; or is he apeculiarly sanctified vessel, which can hold the poison of wealthwithout injury? Of all millionaires, Mr Carnegie is at once the least picturesque andthe most dangerous. He is the least picturesque, because he harbours inhis heart the middle-class ambition of philanthropy. He would undertakea task for which he is manifestly unfit, in the spirit of provincialculture. For the same reason he is the most dangerous. He is not contentto squander his immense wealth in race-horses and champagne. He employsit to interfere with the lives of others. He confers benefits with aready hand which are benefits only when they are acquired by conquest. Of a very different kind is Mr Thomas W. Lawson. He, too, is amillionaire. He, too, has about him all the appurtenances of wealth. Hisfur-coats are mythical. He once paid 30, 000 dollars for a pink. "He ownsa palace in Boston, " says his panegyrist, "filled with works of art;he has a six-hundred acre farm in Cape Cod, with seven miles of fences;three hundred horses, each one of whom he can call by name; a hundredand fifty dogs; and a building for training his animals larger thanMadison Square Garden. " These eloquent lines will prove to you moreclearly than pages of argument the native heroism of the man. He wasscarce out of his cradle when he began to amass vast sums of money, andhe is now, after many years of adventure, a king upon Wall Street. Herepresents the melodrama of wealth. He seems to live in an atmosphereof mysterious disguises, secret letters, and masked faces. His famouscontest with Mr H. H. Rogers, "the wonderful Rogers, the master amongpirates, whom you have to salute even when he has the point of hiscutlass at the small of your back and you're walking the plank at hisorder, " was conducted, on Mr Lawson's part, in the spirited style ofthe old Adelphi. "Mr Rogers' eyes snapped just once, " we are told, ona famous occasion; but Mr Lawson was not intimidated. "I held myselftogether, " he says proudly, "with closed hands and clinched teeth. "Indeed, these two warriors have never met without much snapping of eyesand closing of hands and clinching of teeth. Why they snapped and closedand clinched is uncertain. To follow their operations is impossible foran outsider, but Mr Lawson always succeeds in convincing you that on thepretence of money-making he is attacking some lofty enterprise. He wouldpersuade you that he is a knight-errant of purity. "Tremendousissues" are always at stake. The heroes of Wall Street are engaged innever-ending "battles. " They are "fighting" for causes, the splendour ofwhich is not dimmed in Mr Lawson's lurid prose. They have Americanisedthe language of ancient chivalry, until it fits the operations of themodern market. They talk of honour and of "taking each other's word, "as though they had never stooped to dollars in their lives. But of onething you may be sure--they are always "on hand when a new melon is cutand the juice runs out. " Like the knights of old, they toil not neither do they spin. They makenothing, they produce nothing, they invent nothing. They merely gamblewith the savings of others, and find the business infinitely profitable. Yet they, too, must cultivate the language of sentiment. Though theworld is spared the incubus of their philanthropy, they must pretend, inphrase at least, that they are doing good, and their satisfaction provesthat nothing so swiftly and tranquilly lulls the conscience to sleep asthe dollar. But, as the actor of melodrama falls far below the finishedtragedian, the heroes of the Street, typified by Mr Lawson, are merebunglers compared with the greatest millionaire on earth--John D. Rockefeller. We would no more give him the poor title of "Mr" than wewould give it to Shakespeare. Even "Rockefeller" seems too formal forhis grandeur. Plain "John D. " is best suited to express the admirationof his worshippers, the general fame that shines like a halo about hishead. He is Plutus in human guise; he is Wealth itself, essential andconcrete. A sublime unselfishness has marked his career. He is a trueartist, who pursues his art for its own sake. Money has given himnothing. He asks nothing of her. Yet he woos her with the same devotionwhich a lover shows to his mistress. Like other great men, Rockefellerhas concentrated all his thoughts, all his energies, upon the singleobject of his desire. He has not chattered of things which he doesnot understand, like Mr Carnegie. He has resolutely refrained fromMr Lawson's melodramatic exaggeration. Money has been the god ofhis idolatry, --"_Dea Moneta_, Queen Money, to whom he daily offerssacrifice, which steers his heart, hands, affections--all. " His silence and his concentration give him a picturesqueness which hisrivals lack. He stands apart from the human race in a chill and solitarygrandeur. He seeks advertisement as little as he hankers after pleasure. The Sunday-school is his dissipation. A suburban villa is his palace. Heseldom speaks to the world, and when he breaks his habit of reticence itis to utter an aphorism, perfect in concision and cynicism. "Avoid allhonorary posts that cost time"--this was one of his earliest counselsto the young. "Pay a profit to nobody" is perhaps his favourite maxim. "Nothing is too small, for small things grow, " is another principlewhich he formulated at the outset of his career. "I have ways of makingmoney that you know nothing of, " he once told a colleague, and no onewill doubt the truth of his assertion. It is said that when he wasscarce out of his teens he would murmur, with the hope of almostrealised ambition, "I am bound to be rich, bound to be rich, bound to berich. " He imposed upon all those who served him the imperative duty ofsecrecy. He was unwilling that any one should know the policy of theTrust. "Congress and the State legislature are after us, " he once said. "You may be subpoenaed. If you know nothing, you can tell nothing. Ifyou know about the business, you might tell something which would ruinus. " The mere presence of a stranger has always been distasteful to him. The custom of espionage has made him suspect that others are as watchfulas himself. He has been described erroneously as a master of complicatedvillainy. He is, for evil or for good, the most single-minded manalive. He looks for a profit in all things. Even his devotion to theSunday-school is of a piece with the test. "Put something in, " sayshe, speaking of the work, "and according as you put something in, thegreater will be your dividends of salvation. " His triumphant capture of the oil trade is a twice-told tale. All theworld knows how he crushed his rivals by excluding their wares from therail-roads, which gave him rebates, and then purchased for a songtheir depreciated properties. At every point he won the battle. He laidstealthy hands upon the pipe-lines, designed to thwart his monopoly, ashe had previously laid hands upon the railway lines. He discovered nonew processes, he invented no new methods of transport. But he madethe enterprise of others his own. The small refiner went the way ofthe small producer, and the energy of those who carried oil over themountains helped to fill Rockefeller's pocket. The man himself spared noone who stood between him and the realisation of his dream. Friends andenemies fell down before him. He ruined the widow and orphan with thesame quiet cheerfulness wherewith he defeated the competitors who hada better chance to fight their own battle. The Government was, and is, powerless to stay his advance. It has instituted prosecutions. It haspassed laws directed at the Standard Oil Company. And all is of noavail. Before cross-examining counsel, in the face of the court, Rockefeller maintains an impenetrable silence. He admits nothing. Heconfesses nothing. "We do not talk much, " he murmurs sardonically; "wesaw wood. " A year ago it was rumoured that he would be arrested whenhe returned to America from Europe. He is still at large. The body of amulti-millionaire is sacred. He is master of the world's oil, and of much else beside. Having won thecontrol of one market, he makes his imperial hand felt in many another. His boast that "money talks" is abundantly justified. The power of moneyin making money is the only secret that the millionaires of Americadiscover for themselves. The man who makes a vast fortune by theinvention or manufacture of something which the people thinks it wants, may easily take a pride in the fruit of his originality. The captainsof American industry can seldom boast this cause of satisfaction. It istheirs to exploit, not to create. The great day in Mr Carnegie's lifewas that on which "the mysterious golden visitor" came to him, as adividend from another's toil. Mr Rockefeller remembers with the greatestpleasure the lesson which he learned as a boy, "that he could get asmuch interest for $50, loaned at seven per cent, as he could earn bydigging potatoes ten days. " The lesson of Shylock is not profound, butits mastery saves a world of trouble. Combined with a light load ofscruples, it will fill the largest coffers; and it has been sufficientto carry the millionaires of America to the highest pinnacle of fame. In other words, the sole test of their success is not their achievement, but their money-bags. And when, with cynical egoism, they have collectedtheir unnumbered dollars, what do they do with them? What pleasures, what privileges, does their wealth procure? It is their fond delusionthat it brings them power. What power? To make more money and to defythe laws. In England a wealthy man aspires to found a family, to playhis part upon the stage of politics, to serve his country as best hemay, and to prepare his sons for a like honourable service. The Americanmillionaire does not share this ambition. Like Mr Rockefeller, he avoids"honorary posts. " If he were foolish enough to accept them, he wouldnot be loyal to the single desire of adding to his store. Perhaps we maybest express his triumph in terms of champagne and oysters, of marblehalls and hastily gathered collections. But even here the satisfactionis small. The capacity of the human throat is limited, and collections, made by another and partially understood, pall more rapidly thanorchid-houses and racing-stables. This, then, is the tragedy of the American multi-millionaires. They aredoomed to carry about with them a huge load of gold which they cannotdisperse. They are no wiser than the savages, who hide and hoard theirlittle heaps of cowrie-shells. They might as well have filled theirtreasuries with flint-stones or scraps of iron. They muster their wealthmerely to become its slave. They are rich not because they possessimagination, but because they lack it. Their bank-books are the index oftheir folly. They waste their years in a vain pursuit, which they cannotresist. They exclude from their lives all that makes life worth living, that they may acquire innumerable specimens of a precious metal. Goldis their end, not the gratification it may bring. Mr Rockefeller will goout of the world as limited in intelligence, as uninstructed in mind, as he was when he entered it. The lessons of history and literature arelost upon him. The joys for which wise men strive have never been his. He is the richest man on earth, and his position and influence are theheaviest indictment of wealth that can be made. His power begins andends at the curbstone of Wall Street. His painfully gathered millionshe must leave behind. Even the simple solace of a quiet conscience isdenied to the most of his class. Is there one of them who is not hauntedin hours of depression by the memory of bloody strikes, of honest mensqueezed out, of rival works shut down? In a kind of dread they turn to philanthropy. They fling from theirchariots bundles of bank-notes to appease the wolves of justice. Universities grow ignobly rich upon their hush-money. They wereaccurately described three centuries ago by Robert Burton as "goutybenefactors, who, when by fraud and rapine they have extorted all theirlives, oppressed whole provinces, societies, &c. , give something topious uses, build a satisfactory almshouse, school, or bridge, &c, attheir last end, or before perhaps, which is no otherwise than to steala goose and stick down a feather, rob a thousand to relieve ten. " IfAmerica were wise she would not accept even the feather without theclosest scrutiny. Money never loses the scent of its origin, and whenthe very rich explain how much they ought to give to their fellows, theyshould carry back their inquiry a stage farther. They should tell us whythey took so much, why they suppressed the small factory, why they madebargains with railways to the detriment of others, why they used theirwealth as an instrument of oppression. If their explanation be notsufficient, they should not be permitted to unload their gold upon astricken country; they should not buy a cheap reputation for generositywith money that is not their own. It may be said that the millionaire decrees the punishment for his owncrimes. That is true enough, but the esteem in which America holds himinflicts a wrong upon the whole community. Where Rockefeller is a hero, a false standard of morals is set up. For many years he has preached apractical sermon upon the text, "The end justifies the means. " How greatare the means! How small the end! He has defended his harshest dealingson the ground that "it is business, " and so doing has thrown a slurupon the commerce of his country. And, worse than this, the wonder andcuriosity which cling about the dollar have created a new measure oflife and character. A man is judged not by his attainments, his courage, his energy, but by his wealth. It is a simple test, and easily applied. It is also the poorest encouragement for the civic virtues. In Englandwe help to correct the vulgarity of wealth by the distribution oftitles, and a better aid than this could not be devised. Though thechampions of democracy, who believe in equality of names as devoutlyas in inequality of wealth, deem this old-fashioned artifice a shamefulcrime, it is not without its uses. It suggests that public service isworth a higher distinction than a mass of money. And, titles apart, itis happily not in accord with the traditions of our life to regard therich man and the poor man as beings of a different clay and a differentdestiny. We may still echo without hypocrisy the words of Ben Jonson, "Money never made any man rich, but his mind. " THE AMERICAN LANGUAGE. To the English traveller in America the language which he hears spokenabout him is at once a puzzle and a surprise. It is his own, yet not hisown. It seems to him a caricature of English, a phantom speech, ghostlybut familiar, such as he might hear in a land of dreams. He recognisesits broad lineaments; its lesser details evade, or confuse, him. Heacknowledges that the two tongues have a common basis. Their grammaticalframework is identical. The small change of language--the adverbs andprepositions, --though sometimes strangely used in America, are notstrange to an English ear. And there the precise resemblance ends. Accent, idiom, vocabulary give a new turn to the ancient speech. Thetraveller feels as though he were confronted with an old friend, trickedout in an odd suit of clothes, and master of a new pose and unaccustomedgesture. The Americans are commonly reputed to speak through their nose. A moreintimate acquaintance with their manner belies this reputation. It israther a drawl that afflicts the ear than a nasal twang. You notice inevery sentence a curious shifting of emphasis. America, with the trueinstinct of democracy, is determined to give all parts of speech anequal chance. The modest pronoun is not to be outdone by the blusteringsubstantive or the self-asserting verb. And so it is that the nativeAmerican hangs upon the little words: he does not clip and slur "thesmaller parts of speech, " and what his tongue loses in colour it gainsin distinctness. If the American continent had been colonised by Englishmen before theinvention of printing, we might have watched the growth of anotherAnglo-Saxon tongue, separate and characteristic. American might havewandered as far from English as French or Spanish has wandered fromLatin. It might have invented fresh inflections, and shaped its ownsyntax. But the black art of Gutenberg had hindered the free developmentof speech before John Smith set foot in Virginia, and the easyinterchange of books, newspapers, and other merchandise ensured acertain uniformity. And so it was that the Americans, having accepted aready-made system of grammar, were forced to express their fancy inan energetic and a multi-coloured vocabulary. Nor do they attemptto belittle their debt, Rather they claim in English an exclusiveprivilege. Those whose pleasure it is to call America "God's owncountry" tell us with a bluff heartiness that they are the soleinheritors of the speech which Chaucer and Shakespeare adorned. It istheir favourite boast that they have preserved the old language fromextinction. They expend a vast deal of ingenuity in the fruitlessattempt to prove that even their dialect has its roots deep down in thesoil of classical English. And when their proofs are demanded theyare indeed a sorry few. A vast edifice of mistaken pride has beenestablished upon the insecure basis of three words--fall, gotten, andbully. These once were familiar English, and they are English no more. The word "fall, " "the fall of the leaf, " which so beautifully echoesthe thought of spring, survives only in our provinces. It makes buta furtive and infrequent appearance in our literature. Chaucer andShakespeare know it not. It is found in "The Nymph's Reply to theShepherd": "A honey tongue, a heart of gall Is fancy's Spring, but Sorrow's Fall. " Johnson cites but one illustration of its use--from Dryden: "What crowds of patients the town-doctor kills, Or how last fall heraised the weekly hills. " On the other side of the Atlantic it is universally heard and written. There the word "autumn" is almost unknown; and though there is a dignityin the Latin word ennobled by our orators and poets, there is no onewith a sense of style who will not applaud the choice of America. But if she may take a lawful pride in "fall, " America need not boast theuse of "gotten. " The termination, which suggests either wilful archaismor useless slang, adds nothing of sense or sound to the word. It is likea piece of dead wood in a tree, and is better lopped off. Nor does theuse of "bully" prove a wholesome respect for the past. It is true thatour Elizabethans used this adjective in the sense of great or noble. "Come, " writes Ben Jonson in "The Poetaster, " "I love bully Horace. "{*} But in England the word was never of universal application, and wassternly reserved for poets, kings, and heroes. In modern America thereis nothing that may not be "bully" if it meet with approval. "A bullyplace, " "a bully boat, " "a bully blaze, "--these show how far the wordhas departed from its origin. Nor, indeed, does it come down fromEnglish in an unbroken line. Overlooked for centuries, it was revived(or invented) in America some fifty years ago, and it is not to Dekkerand Ben Jonson that we must look for palliation of its misuse. * Innumerable examples might be culled from the literature of the seventeenth century. One other will suffice here, taken from Dekker's "Shoemaker's Holiday ": "Yet I'll shave it off, " says the shoemaker, of his beard, "and stuff a tennis-ball with it, to please my bully king. " Words have their fates. By a caprice of fortune one is taken, anotheris left. This is restricted to a narrow use; that wanders free overthe plain of meaning. And thus we may explain many of the variationsof English and of American speech. A simple word crosses the ocean andtakes new tasks upon itself. The word "parlour, " for instance, is dyingin our midst, while "parlor" gains a fresh vigour from an increasingand illegitimate employment. Originally a room in a religious house, aparlour (or parloir) became a place of reception or entertainment. Twocenturies ago an air of elegance hung about it. It suggested spinnetsand powdered wigs. And then, as fashion turned to commonness, theparlour grew stuffy with disuse, until it is to-day the room reservedfor a vain display, consecrated to wax-flowers and framed photographs, hermetically sealed save when the voice of gentility bids its furtivedoor be opened. The American "parlor" resembles the "parlour" of theeighteenth century as little as the "parlour" of the Victorian age. Itis busy, public, and multifarious. It means so many things that at lastit carries no other meaning than that of a false elegance. It is in adentist's parlor that the American's teeth are gilded; he is shaved ina tonsorial parlor; he travels in a parlor-car; and Miss Maudie's parlorproves how far an ancient and respected word may wander from its origin. One example, of many, will illustrate the accidents which beset the lifeof words. No examples will prove the plain absurdity which has flatteredthe vanity of some American critics that their language has faithfullyadhered to the tradition of English speech. The vocabulary of America, like the country itself, is a strange medley. Some words it has assimilated into itself; others it holds, as it were, by a temporary loan. And in its choice, or invention, it follows twodivergent, even opposite, paths. On the one hand, it pursues and gathersto itself barbarous Latinisms; on the other, it is eager in its questafter a coarse and living slang. That a country which makes a constant boast of its practicalintelligence should delight in long, flat, cumbrous collections ofsyllables, such as "locate, " "operate, " "antagonize, " "transportation, ""commutation, " and "proposition, " is an irony of civilisation. Thesewords, if words they may be called, are hideous to the eye, offensiveto the ear, and inexpressive to the mind. They are the base coins oflanguage. They bear upon their face no decent superscription. They areput upon the street, fresh from some smasher's den, and not even thenewspapers, contemptuous as they are of style, have reason to be proudof them! Nor is there any clear link between them and the meaning thrustupon them. Why should the poor holder of a season-ticket have the grimword "commutation" hung round his neck? Why should the simple businessof going from one place to another be labelled "transportation"?And these words are apt and lucid compared with "proposition. " Now"proposition" is America's maid-of-all-work. It means everything ornothing. It may be masculine, feminine, neuter--he, she, it. It is toughor firm, cold or warm, according to circumstances. But it has no moresense than an expletive, and its popularity is a clear proof of an idleimagination. And while the American language is collecting those dried and shrivelledspecimens of verbiage, it does not disdain the many-coloured flowers oflively speech. In other words, it gives as ready a welcome to the lastexperiment in Slang as to its false and pompous Latinisms. Nor is thewelcome given in vain. Never before in the world's history has Slangflourished as it has flourished in America. And its triumph is notsurprising. It is more than any artifice of speech the mark of a variousand changing people. America has a natural love of metaphor and imagery;its pride delights in the mysteries of a technical vocabulary; it ishappiest when it can fence itself about by the privilege of an exclusiveand obscure tongue. And what is Slang but metaphor? There is no class, no cult, no trade, no sport which will not provide some strange words orimages to the general stock of language, and America's variety has beena quick encouragement to the growth of Slang. She levies contributionsupon every batch of immigrants. The old world has thus come to the aidof the new. Spanish, Chinese, German, and Yiddish have all paid theirtoll. The aboriginal speech of the Indians, and its debased lingo, Chinook, have given freely of their wealth. And not only many tonguesbut many employments have enhanced the picturesqueness of AmericanSlang. America has not lost touch with her beginnings. The spirit ofadventure is still strong within her. There is no country withinwhose borders so many lives are led. The pioneer still jostles themillionaire. The backwoods are not far distant from Wall Street. The farmers of Ohio, the cowboys of Texas, the miners of Nevada, oweallegiance to the same Government, and shape the same speech to theirown purpose. Every State is a separate country, and cultivates aseparate dialect. Then come baseball, poker, and the racecourse, eachwith its own metaphors to swell the hoard. And the result is a languageof the street and camp, brilliant in colour, multiform in character, which has not a rival in the history of speech. There remains the Cant of the grafters and guns, the coves that workupon the cross in the great cities. In England, as in France, thisstrange gibberish is the oldest and richest form of Slang. Whenceit came is still a puzzle of the philologists. Harrison, in his'Description of England' (1577), with a dogmatism which is notjustified, sets a precise date upon its invention. In counterfeiting the Egyptian rogues [says he of the vagabonds who theninfested England], they have devised a language among themselves whichthey name Canting, but others Pedlars' French, a speech compact thirtyyears since of English, and a great number of odd words of their owndevising, without all order or reason: and yet such is it that none butthemselves are able to understand. The first deviser thereof was hangedby the neck, --a just reward, no doubt, for his deserts, and a common endto all of that profession. The lingo, called indifferently Thieves' Latin or St Giles's Greek, wasassuredly not the invention of one brain. The work of many, it suppliedan imperious need. It was at once an expression of pride and a shield ofdefence. Those who understood it proved by its use that they belongedto a class apart; and, being unintelligible to the respectable majority, they could communicate with one another--secretly, as they hoped, andwithout fear of detection. Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenthcenturies the flash tongue grew and was changed; it crossed the Atlanticwith the early settlers, and it has left its marks upon the dialect ofthe American underworld. But its influence upon the common Slang hasbeen light in America, as in England. It is as severely technical as thelanguage of science, and is familiar chiefly to policemen, tramps, andinformers. As Slang leaves the tavern and the street-corner, to invadethe theatre, the office, and even the drawing-room, those who aim at avariety of speech need owe no debt to the Cant of the vagabonds, andit is not surprising that to-day the vulgar tongue, in America as inEngland, borrows more from "soldiers on the long march, seamen at thecapstan, and ladies disposing of fish, " than from the common cursetorsand cony-catchers who once dominated it. The use of Slang proves at once the wealth and poverty of a language. Itproves its wealth when it reflects a living, moving image. It provesits poverty when it is nothing more than the vain echo of a familiarcatchword. At its best it is an ornament of speech; at its worst it is alabour-saving device. And it is for this reason that the vulgar Americandelights in the baser kind of Slang: it seems to ensure him an easyeffect He must be picturesque at all costs. Sometimes he reaches thegoal of his ambition by a purposed extravagance. What can be morefoolish than the description which follows of a man equal to the mostdifficult occasion: "He can light his cigar, when the battle is on, withthe friction of a passing cannon-ball. " In yet worse taste is anotherpiece of fustian, invented by the same author: "When a 'twister' offthe hills gets ready to do business in a 20-knot sou'wester it sends nomessenger boys ahead to distribute its itinerary handbills. " There is nofault of style which these few lines do not display. They combine, witha singular success, commonness and pomp. The epic poets of old were wontto illustrate the life of man by the phenomena of nature. The vulgarAmerican reverses the process--he illustrates nature from the pavement. Exaggeration, then, is one easy artifice of effect. Another is theconstant repetition of certain words and phrases which have lost theirmeaning by detrition and are known to all. Not to be disappointed issometimes as pleasant as to be surprised. A catchword passed from one toanother is often a signal of sympathy, and many a man has been taken fora wit merely because his tinkling brain has given back the echo whichwas expected. In stereotyped phrases, in ready-made sentences, in thesmall change of meaningless words, the American language is peculiarlyrich. "To cut ice, " "to get next to, " "straight goods, " {*}--these andsimilar expressions, of no obvious merit in themselves, long ago losttheir freshness, and are not likely to assume a dignity with age. Butthey save trouble, they establish an understanding between him whospeaks and him who hears; and when they are thrown into a discourse theyserve the purpose of gestures, To exclaim "I should smile" or "I shouldcough" is not of much help in an argument, but such interjectionsas these imply an appreciation not merely of slang but of yourinterlocutor. * To the Englishman who knows them not, the following quotations will explain their significance:-- "Tain't what ye ain't or what ye don't do that cuts ice with me. " "Well, invested capital has got to protect itself when the law won't do it. Ain't them straight goods?" "Boston don't want Bishop Potter to come up here an' tell her 't she ain't next to the latest curves in goodness. Hully gee, no!" Slang is better heard than read. The child of the street or thehedgerow, it assumes in print a grave air which does not belong to it, or, worse still, it is charged with the vice or the vagabondage whichit suggests. And so it is that Slang words have a life as closely packedwith adventure as is the life of those who use them with the quickestunderstanding. To ask what becomes of last year's Slang is as rash as tospeculate on the fate of last year's literature. Many specimens die inthe gutter, where they were born, after living a precarious life in themouths of men. Others are gathered into dictionaries, and survive tobecome the sport of philologists. For the worst of their kind speciallexicons are designed, which, like prisons and workhouses, admit onlythe disreputable, as though Victor Hugo's definition--"L'argot, c'estle verbe devenu forçat"--were amply justified. The journals, too, whichtake their material where they find it, give to many specimens a life aslong as their own. It is scarcely possible, for instance, to pick up anAmerican newspaper that does not turn the word _cinch_ to some strangepurpose. The form and origin of the word are worthy a better fate. Itpassed from Spain into the Western States, and was the name givento saddle-girths of leather or woven horse-hair. It suggests Mexicanhorsemanship and the open prairie. The explanation given in the CenturyDictionary will make clear its meaning to the untravelled: "The twoends of the tough cordage, which constitute the cinch, terminate in longnarrow strips of leather called _latigos_, which connect the cincheswith the saddle, and are run through an iron ring, called the _larigo_ring, and then tied by a series of complicated turns and knots, knownonly to the craft. " In the West the word is still used in its naturaland dignified sense. For example: "At Giles's ranch, on the divide, theparty halted to cinch up. " And then in the East it has become the victimof extravagant metaphor. As a verb, it means to hold firm, to put ascrew on; as a noun, it means a grip or screw, an advantage fair orunfair. In the hand of the sporting reporter it can achieve wonders. "The bettor of whom the pool-room bookmaker stands in dread"--thisflower of speech is culled from the 'New York World'--"is the race-horseowner, who has a cinch bottled up for a particular race, and drops intothe room an hour or two before the race begins. " The idea of bottling acinch is enough to make a Californian shudder, and this confused imagehelps to explain the difference between East and West. Thus words wander farther and farther from their origin; and when atlast their meanings are wholly forgotten or obscured, they become partof the common speech. One kind of Slang may succeed to another, butcinch is secure for ever of a place in the newspaper, and in the spokenlanguage, of America. Caboodle, also, is firmly established. The longseries of words, such as Cachunk or Kerblunk, which suggest the impactof falling bodies with the earth, will live as expletives with Say, Sure, and many other, interjections which fill up the pauses of thoughtand speech. There are two other specimens of Slang beloved by thejournals, for which it would be rash to prophesy a long life. To calla man or a thing or an act "the limit, " is for the moment the higheststep, save one, in praise or blame. When the limit is not eloquentenough to describe the hero who has climbed the topmost rung of glory, the language gasps into simplicity, and declares that he is It. "Ididn't do a thing, " says an eminent writer, "but push my face in thereabout eight o'clock last night, and I was It from the start. " Thoughthe pronoun is expressive enough, it does not carry with it the signs ofimmortality, and the next change of fashion may sweep it away into thelimbo of forgotten words. The journals do their best to keep alive the language of the people. Thenovelists do far more, since their works outlive by months or years theexaggeration of the press. And the novelists, though in narrative theypreserve a scrupulous respect for the literary language, take whatlicence the dialect and character of their personages permit them. Itis from novels, indeed, that future generations will best be able toconstruct the speech of to-day. With the greatest skill the writers ofromance mimic the style and accent of their contemporaries. Theyput into the mouths of those who, in life, knew no other lingo, thehighly-flavoured Slang of the street or the market. Here, for instance, is the talk of a saloon-keeper, taken from W. Payne's story, 'The MoneyCaptain, ' which echoes, as nearly as printed words can echo, the voiceof the boodler: "Stop it?" says the saloon-keeper of a journalist's attack. "What I gotto stop it with? What's the matter with you fellows anyhow? You comechasin' yourselves down here, scared out of your wits because a dinkylittle one cent newspaper's makin' faces at you. A man 'd think you wasa young lady's Bible-class and 'd seen a mouse.... Now, that's right, "he exclaims, as another assailant appears; "make it unanimous. Let allhands come and rig the ship on old Simp. Tell him your troubles and askhim to help you out. He ain't got nothing better to do. Pitch into him;give him hell; he likes it. Come one, come all--all you moth-eaten, lousy stiffs from Stiffville. Come, tell Simp there's a reporterrubberin' around and you're scared to death. He'll sympathise withyou--you sweet-scented skates. " It is not an elegant method of speech, but such as it is, it bears asclose a resemblance to the dialect of Chicago as can be transferred fromthe ear to the eye. If we compare the present with the past, we cannot but acknowledge thatAmerican Slang has grown marvellously in colour and variety. The jargonof Artemus Ward and Josh Billings possessed as little fire as character. These two humourists obtained their effect by the simple method, latelyadvocated by Messrs Roosevelt and Carnegie, of spelling as they pleased. The modern professors of Slang have invented a new style. Their pagessparkle with wit and allusion. They interpret their shrewd sensein words and phrases which have never before enjoyed the freedom ofprinter's ink. George Ade, the best of them all, has shown us how thewise ones of Chicago think and speak. His 'Fables in Slang' is a littlemasterpiece of humour in substance and wit in expression. To quote fromit would be to destroy its effect. But it will discover the processes ofSlang, as it is understood in the West, more clearly than any argument, and having amused the present generation, it will remain an historicaldocument of enduring value. Slang is the only language known to many thousands of citizens. Thenewly arrived immigrant delights to prove his familiarity with the landof his adoption by accepting its idioms and by speaking the American, not of books but of the market-place. And yet this same Slang, universally heard and understood, knocks in vain for admission intoAmerican literature. It expatiates in journals, in novels of dialect, and in works, like George Ade's, which are designed for its exposition. But it has no part in the fabric of the gravely written language. Menof letters have disdained its use with a scrupulousness worthy our owneighteenth century. The best of them have written an English as pure asa devout respect for tradition can make it. Though they have travelledfar in space and thought, they have anchored their craft securely in thepast. No writer that has handled prose or verse with a high seriousnesshas offended against the practice of the masters--save only WaltWhitman. The written word and the spoken word differ even more widelyin America than elsewhere. The spoken word threw off the trammels of anuneasy restraint at the very outset. The written word still obeys thelaw of gradual development, which has always controlled it. If youcontrast the English literature of to-day with the American, you willfind differences of accent and expression so slight that you may neglectthem. You will find resemblances which prove that it is not in vain thatour literatures have a common origin and have followed a common road. The arts, in truth, are more willingly obedient than life or politics tothe established order; and America, free and democratic though she be, loyally acknowledges the sovereignty of humane letters. American isheard at the street corner. It is still English that is written in thestudy. AMERICAN LITERATURE. There can, in fact, be no clearer proof that the tradition of literatureis stronger than the tradition of life than the experience of America. The new world, to its honour be it said, has discovered no new art. Theancient masters of our English speech are the masters also of America. The golden chain of memory cannot be shaken off, and many of those whoraise with the loudest voice the cry of freedom have shown themselvesthe loyal and willing slaves of the past. The truth is that from the first the writers of America have laggedhonourably behind their age. The wisest of them have written with astudious care and quiet reverence. As if to mark the difference betweenthe written language and the vernacular, they have assumed a style whichbelonged to their grandfathers. This half-conscious love of reactionhas been ever present with them. Tou may find examples at each stage oftheir history. Cotton Mather, who armed his hand and tongue againstthe intolerable sin of witchcraft, wrote when Dutch William was on ourthrone, and in style he was but a belated Elizabethan. There is no otherwriter with whom we may compare him, save Robert Burton, who also livedout of his due time. Take this specimen of his prose, and measureits distance from the prose of Swift and Addison, his youngercontemporaries: "Wherefore the Devil, " writes Mather in the simplicityof his faith, "is now making one Attempt more upon us; an Attemptmore Difficult, more Surprising, more snarl'd with unintelligibleCircumstances than any that we have hitherto Encountered; an Attempt soCritical, that if we get well through, we shall soon enjoy Halcyon Dayswith all the Vultures of Hell trodden under our feet. " In sound andstructure Mather's style is what the critics call "archaistic. " It isall untouched by the influences of another world, and though "the NewEnglanders were, " in Mather's view, "a People of God settled in those, which were once the Devil's Territories, " they carried their prose fromthe old country, and piously bowed before an old tradition. Thus has it been with each generation of men. Thoreau fondly believedthat Walden had brought him near to nature, and he wrote with theaccumulated artifice of the centuries. Hawthorne's language was asold in fashion as the Salem which he depicted, as "the grave, bearded, sable-cloaked, and steeple-crowned progenitor, who came so early withhis Bible and his sword, and trode the common street with such statelyport, and made so large a figure as a man of war and peace. " But it was. Upon Emerson that tradition has most strangely exercised its imperioussway. Now Emerson was an anarch who flouted the conventions of art andlife. It was his hope to see the soul of this world "clean from allvestige of tradition. " He did not understand that what is? proceededinevitably from what was He affected to spurn the past as a clog uponhis individuality. Anticipating Walt Whitman, he would have drivenaway his nearest friends, saying, "Who are you? Unhand me: I will bedependent no more. " So lightly did he pretend to esteem history that hewas sure that an individual experience could explain all the ages, thateach man went through in his own lifetime the Greek period, the medievalperiod--every period, in brief--until he attained to the efflorescenceof Concord. "What have I to do with the sacredness of tradition, " heasked proudly, "if I live wholly from within?" So much had he to do withit that he never wrote a line save in obedience. Savage as he was in thedeclaration of his own individuality, he expressed it in the graciousterms of an inherited art. To this age Emerson's provincialism appearssad enough. It would not have been remembered had it not been set forthin a finely studied and mellifluous prose. No sooner did Emerson takepen in hand than his anarchy was subdued. He instantly became the slaveof all the periods which he despised. He was a faithful follower ofthe best models, a patient student of masters dead and gone. Though heaspired to live wholly from within, he composed his works wholly fromwithout, and fashioned an admirable style for himself, more antique inshape and sound than the style affected by the Englishmen of his time. But it is Edgar Allan Poe who most eloquently preached the gospel ofstyle, and who most honourably defended the cause of art pursued withoutthe aid of the pulpit. Taste he declared to be the sole arbiter ofPoetry. "With the intellect or the Conscience, " said he, "it has onlycollateral relations. Unless incidentally it has no concern whatevereither with Duty or Truth. " Not that he belittled the exigence of Truth;he did but insist on a proper separation. "The demands of Truth, " headmitted, "are severe; she has no sympathy with the myrtles. All thatwhich is so indispensable in song is precisely all that with which shehas nothing whatever to do. " And thus it followed that he had smallsympathy with Realism, which he denounced in the clear spirit ofprophecy many years before it had become a battle-cry of criticism: The defenders of this pitiable stuff [he wrote] uphold it on the groundof its truthfulness. Taking the thesis into question, this truthfulnessis the one overwhelming defect. An original idea that--to laud theaccuracy with which the stone is hurled that knocks us in the head. A little less accuracy might have left us more brains. And hereare critics absolutely commending the truthfulness with which thedisagreeable is conveyed! In my view, if an artist must paint decayedcheeses, his merit will lie in their looking as little like decayedcheeses as possible. Of this wise doctrine Poe was always a loyal exponent. The strangeveiled country in which he placed the shadows of his creation lay notwithin the borders of the United States. He was the child neither of hisland nor of his century. Dwelling among men who have always worshippedsize, he believed that there was no such thing as a long poem. Afellow-citizen of bustling men, he refused to bend the knee to industry. "Perseverance is one thing, " said he, "genius quite another. " And it isnot surprising that he lived and died without great honour in his owncountry. Even those of his colleagues who guarded the dignity of theircraft with a zeal equal to his own, shrank from the pitiless logic ofhis analysis. They loved his work as little as they respected hislife. They judged him by a censorious standard which took no account ofgenius. And Poe shared with dignity and without regret the common fateof prophets. If he is still an exile in American esteem, he long sincewon the freedom of the larger world. He has been an inspiration toFrance, the inspirer of the nations. He did as much as any one of hiscontemporaries to mould the literary art of our day, and in the prose ofBaudelaire and Mallarmé he lives a life whose lustre the indifference ofhis compatriots will never dim. Whence comes it, this sedulous attention to style, which does honourto American literature? It comes in part, I think, from the fact that, before the triumph of journalism, American men of letters were secludedfrom their fellows. They played no _rôle_ in the national drama. Theydid not work for fame in the field of politics. They were a band ofaristocrats dwelling in a democracy, an _imperium in imperio_. Theywrote their works for themselves and their friends. They made no appealto the people, and knowing that they would be read by those capableof pronouncing sentence, they justified their temerity by a propercastigation, of their style. And there is another reason why Americanliterature should be honourably formal and punctilious, If the writtenlanguage diverges widely from the vernacular, it must perforce bestudied more sedulously than where no such divergence is observed. Forthe American, accustomed to the language spoken by his countrymen andto the lingo of the daily press, literary English is an acquired tongue, which he studies with diligence and writes with care. He treats itwith the same respect with which some Scots--Drummond, Urquhart, andStevenson--have treated it, and under his hand it assumes a classicausterity, sometimes missed by the Englishman, who writes it with thefluency and freedom bred of familiar use. The stately and erudite workof Francis Parkman is a fair example. The historian of 'Montcalm andWolfe' has a clear title to immortality. Assuredly he holds a worthyplace among the masters. He is of the breed of Gibbon and Michelet, ofLivy and Froude. He knows how to subordinate knowledge to romance. Hedisdains the art of narrative as little as he disdains the managementof the English sentence. He is never careless, seldom redundant. Theplainest of his effects are severely studied. Here, for instance, is hisportrait of an Indian chief, epic in its simplicity, and withal composedwith obvious artistry: See him as he lies there in the sun, kicking his heels in the air andcracking jokes with his brother. Does he look like a hero? See himnow in the hour of his glory, when at sunset the whole village emptiesitself to behold him, for to-morrow their favourite young partisangoes out against the enemy. His head-dress is adorned with a crestof war-eagle's feathers, rising in a waving ridge above his brow, andsweeping far behind him. His round white shield hangs at his breast, with feathers radiating from the centre like a star. His quiver is athis back; his tall lance in his hand, the iron point flashing againstthe declining sun, while the long scalp-locks of his enemies flutterfrom the shaft. Thus gorgeous as a champion in panoply, he rides roundand round within the great circle of lodges, balancing with a gracefulbuoyancy to the free movements of his war-horse, while with a sedatebrow he sings his song to the Great Spirit. That is the language of classicism. The epithets are not far-sought. They come naturally to the mind. The hero's shield is round and white;his lance is tall; long are the scalp-locks of his enemies. Thus wouldHomer and Virgil have heightened the picture, and Park-man is clearlyattentive to the best models. Even when he describes what his eyehas seen he cannot disengage his impression from the associations ofliterature. It is thus that he sets before us Braddock's line of march: It was like a thin, party-coloured snake, red, blue, and brown, trailingslowly through the depth of leaves, creeping round inaccessible heights, crawling over ridges, moving always in dampness and shadow, by rivuletsand waterfalls, crags and chasms, gorges and shaggy steeps. In glimpsesonly, through jagged boughs and flickering leaves, did this wildprimeval world reveal itself, with its dark green mountains, fleckedwith the morning mist, and its distant summits pencilled in dreamy blue. As you read these words you are less keenly conscious of a visualimpression than of a verbal effect, and it may be said without reservethat never for a page of his many volumes does Park-man forget thedemands of dignity and restraint. Excellent as is the style, it is never American. Parkman does not revealhis origin in a single phrase. He has learned to write not in his ownland, but in the England of the eighteenth century. When he speaksof "the pampered Sardanapalus of Versailles, " and of "the silkenfavourites' calculated adultery, " we are conscious that he has learntwhatever lesson Gibbon has to teach. In other words, he, too, isobedient to the imperious voice of convention. And the novelists followthe same path as the historians. Mr Henry James, in his patient analysisof human character, has evoked such subtle harmonies as our Englishspeech has not known before. Mr Howells, even when he finds his materialin the land of his birth, shows himself the master of a classic style, exquisite in balance and perfect in tone. And both share the commoninheritance of our tongue, are links in the central chain of ourtradition, and in speech, if not in thought, are sternly conservative. This, then, is an irony of America, that the country which has a naturaldislike of the past still dances to the ancient measures, that thecountry which has invented so much has not invented a new method ofexpression, that the country which questions all things accepts itsliterature in simple faith. The advantages of conformity are obvious. Tradition is nine-tenths of all the arts, and the writers of Americahave escaped the ruin which overtakes the bold adventurer who stakeshis all upon first principles. But sometimes we miss the one-tenth thatmight be added. How much is there in the vast continent which might betranslated into words! And how little has achieved a separate, livingutterance! Mr Stedman has edited an American Anthology, a stout volumeof some eight hundred pages, whose most obvious quality is a certaintechnical accomplishment. The unnumbered bards of America compose theirverses with a diffident neatness, which recalls the Latin styleof classical scholars. The workmanship is deft, the inspiration isliterary. If many of the authors' names were transposed small injusticewould be done them. The most of the work might have been writtenanywhere and under any conditions. Neither sentiment nor local coloursuggests the prairie or the camp. It is the intervention of dialect which alone confers a distinctivecharacter upon American verse. Wisely is Mr Stedman's collectioncalled an Anthology. It has something of the same ingenuity, the sameimpersonality, which marks the famous Anthology of the Greeks; itillustrates the temper not of a young but of an old people. How shall we surprise in her literature the true spirit of America?Surely not in Walt Whitman, whose work is characteristic not of hiscountry, but of himself, who fondly believed that he would make a loudappeal to the democracy because he stamped upon the laws of verse, andused words which are not to be found in the dictionary. Had the peopleever encountered his 'Leaves of Grass, ' it would not have understood it. The verse for which the people craves is the ditties of the music-hall. It has no desire to consider its own imperfections with a self-consciouseye. It delights in the splendour of mirrors, in the sparkle ofchampagne, in the trappings of a sordid and remote romance. The praiseof liberty and equality suits the ear not of the democrat, but of thepolitician and dilettante, and it was to the dilettante and politicianthat Walt Whitman addressed his exhortations. Even his studied contemptfor the literary conventions is insincere, and falls away from Kimwhen he sees and feels most vividly. He attempted to put into practiceEmerson's theory of anarchy. He was at the pains to prove that he wasat once a savage and a poet. That he had moments of poetic exaltation istrue. The pomp of Brooklyn Ferry lives in his stately verse. But he was no savage. It was his culture that spoke to the cultureof others; it was a worn-out commonplace which won him the regardof politicians. He inspired parodists, not poets. And he representedAmerica as little as he echoed the voice of the people. Nor is it in the works of the humourists that we shall catch a glimpseof the national character. They, too, cast no shadow but their own. They attain their effects by bad spelling, and a simple transliterationreveals the poverty of their wit. There is but one author who representswith any clarity the spirit of his country, and that author is MarkTwain. Not Mark Twain the humourist, the favourite of the reporters, thefacile contemner of things which are noble and of good report, but MarkTwain, the pilot of the Mississippi, the creator of Huck Finn and TomSawyer. He is national as Fielding is national. Future ages will lookupon Huck Finn as we look upon Tom Jones, --as an embodiment of nationalvirtue. And Mark Twain's method is his own as intimately as the puppetsof his imagining. It is impossible to read a page of his masterpieceswithout recognising that they could have been composed only in anAmerican environment. The dialect in which they are written enhancestheir verisimilitude without impairing their dignity; and the flashesof humour which light up the gravity of the narrative are never out ofplace nor out of tune. The cunning and resourcefulness of his boyishheroes are the cunning and resourcefulness of America, and the sombreMississippi is the proper background for this national epic. The danger, the excitement, the solemnity of the great river are vividly portrayed. They quicken his narrative; they inspire him to eloquence. He rememberswith a simple enthusiasm the glory of the sun setting upon its broadexpanse; he remembers also that the river and its shoals are things tofear and to fight. Fully to realise the marvellous precision [he writes] required in layingthe great steamer in her marks in that murky waste of water, one shouldknow that not only must she pick her intricate way through snags andblind reefs, and then shave the head of the island so closely as tobrush the overhanging foliage with her stern, but at one place she mustpass almost within arm's reach of a sunken and visible wreck that wouldsnatch the hull timbers from under her if she should strike it, anddestroy a quarter of a million dollars' worth of steamboat and cargoin five minutes, and maybe a hundred and fifty human lives into thebargain. In calm, as in flood, Mark Twain has mastered the river, and has madeit his own. Once upon a time the Mississippi called up a vision ofthe great Gulf opening on the sight of La Salle, "tossing its restlessbillows, limitless, voiceless, lonely as when born of chaos, withouta sail, without a sign of life. " Now a humbler image is evoked, and wepicture Huck Finn and Jim floating down the broad stream in the augustsociety of the Duke and the Dauphin. Though Mark Twain cultivates the South-Western dialect, and does notdisdain the speech of Pike County, there is in his two romances nosuspicion of provincialism. Style and imagination give them the freedomof the whole world. They are of universal truth and application. Butsince the days of Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer the conditions of Americanliterature have changed, and for the worse. As in England, so inAmerica, a wide diffusion of books, an eager and general interest inprinted matter, have had a disastrous effect. The newspapers, by givingan improper advertisement to the makers of books, have rendered theliterary craft more difficult of pursuit. The ambition of money hasobscured the simple end of literature, and has encouraged a spirit ofprofessionalism eminently characteristic of a practical country. We hearof works of fiction sketched in the back-offices of publishers, whosehands are held upon the public pulse. All is arranged, we are told, bythe man of business--period, plot, characters. Nothing is left to thenovelist but to carry out the instructions of his taskmaster, and whenyou contemplate the result you can feel no surprise at this compositeauthorship. It is no better than a money-making partnership, a returnto the miserable practices of Grub Street and its hacks, a curiosityof trade, not of art, and so long as its sorry product is distinguishedfrom genuine literature no great harm is done. Of the modern tendencies which affect literature, not commerce, themost conspicuous is the tendency to decentralise. Every province has itscoterie, every county its school The whole continent is pegged out inwell-acknowledged claims. Boston cultivates one style, Chicago another. Each corner makes the most of its own material, and cheerfully discoversto the other States its character and temperament. The result is ofgreat and varied interest. The social history of America is beingwritten piecemeal, and written often with a skill and sincerity whichmerit the highest praise. And not merely has each province found itschronicler, but the immigrants, also, are intent upon self-expression. The little masterpieces of Abraham Cahan are an earnest of what theGhetto can achieve, and whether the Jews are faithful to Yiddish, or, like Cahan, acquire the language of their adopted country, there isno reason why they should not atone in a free land for centuriesof silence. To enumerate the manifold achievements of the States isimpossible. One example will suffice, and no city will better suit mypurpose than Chicago. That admirable literature should come from Chicagois of itself a paradox. It is still more surprising that the bestwriters of Chicago should display the qualities of tranquillity andreticence, which you would expect least of all to find in that monstrouscity. Yet it is characteristic of Miss Edith Wyatt and Mr H. B. Fuller, who have painted the manners of Chicago with the greatest skill, thatthey never force the note. They look upon their fellow-citizens withan amiable sympathy; they describe them with a quiet humour. It is truethat they have an excellent opportunity. It is true also that they riseto their occasion. Within the limits of Chicago are met the most diverseof men. On the one hand are the captains of industry, intent to amass afortune at all costs; on the other are the sorry prigs who haunt Ibsenclubs and chatter of Browning. Miss Wyatt, with an exquisite irony, makes clear her preference. In her eyes the square-dealing and innocentboodler is a far better man than the sophisticated apostle of culture, and this truth she illustrates with a modesty and restraint which arerarely met with in modern fiction. She never insists; she never says aword too much. With exquisite concision she sets her carefully selectedfacts and types before you, and being the antithesis of priggishness ina priggish city, she glorifies "the common growth of Mother Earth, " andcompels your agreement. Her collection of stories--'Every One His OwnWay'--as free from pretence as from exaggeration, paints the citizens ofChicago with the subtlest fancy and the simplest truthfulness. Mr H. B. Fuller employs an ampler canvas. His intention is the same. Healso discards the artifice of exaggeration. He attempts to harrow yourfeelings as little as to advertise himself. He displays not the _sævaindignatio_, which won another novelist of Chicago so indiscreet a fame. He is for gentler methods and plainer judgments. In 'The Cliff Dwellers'he has given us a picture of the tribe inhabiting the Clifton, amonstrous sky-scraper full eighteen stories tall, whose "hundreds ofwindows, " he tells you, "glitter with multitudinous letterings in goldand in silver, and on summer afternoons its awnings flutter score onscore in the tepid breezes that sometimes come up from Indiana. " Hispicture is never overcharged; his draughtsmanship is always sincere. Heknows the tribe with an easy familiarity, and he bears witness to theirgood and their evil with perfect impartiality. He is never a partisan. His portraits are just, and he leaves his reader to sum up the qualitiesof each. At his hands Chicago suffers no injury. She does not return hisgenerosity. A prophet is not without honour save in his own country, andwhen I asked for his books at the biggest bookshop in Chicago, I was metwith a stare of ignorance. And what you find in Chicago you may find in New England, in Kentucky, in California, everywhere. The curiosity of this vast continent temptsits writers to explore. Their material varies with the locality of theirchoice. Their skill is a common inheritance. They cultivate the gracesas carefully as did their predecessors. Their artistic conscience is noless acute. Above all, they have brought the short story to a point ofsingular perfection. If Edgar Poe showed them the way, they have provedthemselves apter disciples than any save the most skilful of Frenchmen. It is, indeed, impossible to look forward to the future of Americanliterature without hopefulness. In that half-discovered country styleand invention go hand in hand. The land of Mr Howells and Frank Norris, of Mrs Atherton and Mrs Wharton, of Stephen Crane and Harold Frederic, has accomplished so much that we may look confidently for the master, who in his single achievement will knit up its many diverse qualitiesand speak to the world with the voice of America. THE UNDERWORLD. Nowhere and at no time, save in the England of the eighteenth century, was the underworld so populous or so popular as in the America ofto-day. In life, as in letters, crime and criminals hold there a loftyplace. They are the romance of the street and the tenement-house. Intheir adventure and ferocity there is a democratic touch, which endearsthem to a free people. Nor are they so far remote from the world ofprosperity and respect in the cities of the United States as elsewhere. The police is a firm and constant link between criminal and politician. Wherever the safe-blowers and burglars are, there you will findstool-pigeons and squealers, {*} ready to sell their comrades forliberty and dollars. And if the policeman is the intimate of thegrafter, he is the client also of the boss who graciously bestowed hisuniform upon him. At chowder parties and picnics thief, policeman, and boss meet on the terms of equality imposed upon its members by thegreatest of all philanthropic institutions--Tammany Hall. If you wouldget a glimpse into this strange state within a state, you have but toread the evidence given before the Lexow Committee {**} in 1894. Itwould be difficult to match the cynicism and brutality there disclosed. * A stool-pigeon is a thief in the pay of the police; a squealer is a grafter who betrays his brother. ** This strange collection of documents, a whole literature in itself, bears the prosaic title, "Investigations of the Police Department of the City of New York. " In every line of this amazing testimony you may detect a contempt ofhuman life and justice, an indifference to suffering, an eager lustafter unearned dollars, which are without parallel. The persons who playtheir part in this austere, begrimed tragi-comedy, come for the mostpart from oversea, and have but a halting knowledge of the languagespoken by judges and senators. Yet their very ignorance stamps theirspeech with authenticity, and enhances its effect. The quick dialogue ispacked with life and slang. Never were seen men and women so strange asflit across this stage. Crook and guy, steerer and turner, keepers ofgambling-hells and shy saloons, dealers in green-goods, {*} come forwardwith their eager stories of what seems to them oppression and wrong. * Forged dollar-notes. With the simplicity which knows no better they deplore theirill-rewarded "industry, " and describe their fraudulent practices asthough they were a proper means of earning bread and butter. They haveas little shame as repentance. Their only regrets are that they havebeen ruined by the police or forced to spend a few barren years in theState prison. And about them hover always detective and police-captain, ill-omened birds of prey, who feed upon the underworld. There is nothingmore remarkable in this drama of theft and hunger than the perfectunderstanding which unites the criminal lamb and the wolfish upholder ofthe law. The grafter looks to his opponent for protection, and looks notin vain, so long as he has money in his pocket. The detective shepherdsthe law-breakers, whom he is appointed to arrest; he lives with them; heshares their confidences and their gains; he encourages their enterprisethat he may earn a comfortable dividend; and he gives them up to justicewhen they are no longer worth defending. No dramatist that ever livedcould do justice to this astounding situation, and it is the highesttribute to human ingenuity that few of the interlocutors fall belowtheir opportunity. And it may be admitted that New York gave, and gives, an easy chance topolicemen bent upon oppression. What can the poor, ignorant foreigners, who throng the east side of the city, do against their brutal andomnipotent guardians? "An impressive spectacle was presented to us oneday, " reports the Committee, "in the presence of about 100 patrolmenin uniform, who during the period of three preceding years had beenconvicted by the police commissioners of unprovoked and unwarrantedassault on citizens. " Still more impressive than "this exhibit ofconvicted clubbers" was "a stream of victims of police brutality whotestified before the Committee. The eye of one man, punched out by apatrolman's club, hung on his cheek. Others were brought before theCommittee, fresh from their punishment, covered with blood and bruises, and in some cases battered out of recognition. " The whole city seemedthe prey of a panic terror. One day "a man rushed into the session, fresh from an assault made upon him by a notorious politician and twopolicemen, and with fear depicted upon his countenance threw himselfupon the mercy of the Committee and asked its protection, insistingthat he knew of no court and of no place where he could in safety go andobtain protection from his persecutors. " From all which it is plain thattoo high a price may be paid for the philanthropy of Tammany Hall, andthat a self-governing democracy cannot always keep an efficient watchupon its guardians. What is it in the life and atmosphere of America which thus encouragescrime, or rather elevates crime to a level of excellence unknownelsewhere? In the first place, the citizens of New York are thedisciples of Hobbes. To them life is a state of war. The ceaselesscompetition for money is a direct incentive to the combat. Nature seemsto have armed every man's hand against his fellow. And then the Americanis always happiest when he believes himself supreme in his own walk. The man who inhabits the greatest country on earth likes to think of histalent as commensurate with his country's. If he be a thief, he must bethe most skilful of his kind; if he be a blackmailing policeman, he mustbe a perfect adept at the game. In brief, restlessness and the desireof superiority have produced a strange result, and there is littledoubt that the vulgar American is insensitive to moral shocks. Thisinsensitiveness is easily communicated to the curious visitor. Atraveller of keen observation and quick intelligence, who has recentlyspent "a year amongst Americans, " accepts the cynicism of the nativewithout a murmur. After yielding to that spirit of enthusiastic hopewhich is breathed by the Statue of Liberty, he thus discusses thenewly-arrived alien: Even the stars in their courses [thus he writes] fight for America, ifnot always for the immigrant when he lands. The politicians wouldfain prevent his assimilation in order that his vote might be easilymanipulated by them; but first of all he must have a vote to be handled, and to this end the politicians provide him with naturalisation papers, fraudulent it may be--the State Superintendent of Elections in New Yorkestimates that 100, 000 fraudulent naturalisation papers were issued inNew York State alone in 1903, --and thus in the very beginning of hislife in America the immigrant feels himself identified with, and takesdelight and pride in, the American name and nature; and lo! already thealien is bound to the "native" by the tie of a common sentiment, the[Greek word] of the Greeks, which is one of the most powerful factors ofnationality. Poor [Greek word]! many follies have been spoken in your name! But neverbefore were you identified with fraudulent naturalisation! Never beforewere you mistaken for the trick of a manipulating politician! Such being the tie of a common sentiment, it is not surprising thatthe Americans are universally accustomed to graft and boodle. Withcharacteristic frankness they have always professed a keen interestin those who live by their wits. It is not for nothing that AllanPinkerton, the eminent detective, called affectionately "the old man, "is a national hero. His perfections are already celebrated in a proseepic, and he is better known to west as to east than the Presidenthimself. And this interest, this sense of heroism, are expressed ina vast and entertaining literature. Nowhere has this literature ofscoundrelism, adorned by Defoe and beloved by Borrow, flourished asit has flourished in America. Between the dime novel and the sterndocuments of the Lexow Committee there is room for history and fictionof every kind. The crooked ones of the earth have vied with thedetectives in the proper relation of their experiences. On the onehand you find the great Pinker-ton publishing to the world a breathlessselection from his own archives; on the other, so practised a novelistas Mr Julian Hawthorne embellishing the narrative of Inspector Byrnes;and it is evident that both of them satisfy a general curiosity. Inthese records of varying merit and common interest the attentive readermay note the changes which have taken place in the method andpractice of thieving. There is no man so ready to adapt himself to newcircumstances as the scoundrel, and the ingenuity of the American roguehas never been questioned. In the old days of the backwoods and romanceJesse James rode forth on a high-mettled steed to hold up cars, coaches, and banks; and James Murel, the horse-thief, celebrated by Mark Twain, whose favourite disguise was that of an itinerant preacher, cherishedno less a project than an insurrection of negroes and the capture of NewOrleans. The robber of to-day is a stern realist. He knows nothing ofromance. A ride under the stars and a swift succession of revolver-shotshave no fascination for him. He likes to work in secret upon safe orburglar-box. He has moved with the times, and has at his hand all theresources of modern science. If we do not know all that is to be knownof him and his ambitions it is our own fault, since the most expertof his class, Langdon W. Moore, has given us in 'His Own Story of hisEventful Life' (Boston, 1893) a complete revelation of a crook's career. It is an irony of life that such a book as this should come outof Boston, and yet it is so quick in movement, of so breathless anexcitement, that it may outlive many specimens of Bostonian lore andculture. It is but one example out of many, chosen because in style asin substance it outstrips all competitors. Without knowing it, Langdon W. Moore is a disciple of Defoe. He hasachieved by accident that which the author of 'Moll Flanders' achievedby art. There is a direct simplicity in his narrative which entitleshim to a place among the masters. He describes hair-breadth escapes anddeadly perils with the confident air of one who is always exposed tothem. He gives the impression of the hunted and the hunter more vividlythan any writer of modern times. When he is opening a safe, you hear, inspite of yourself, the stealthy step upon the stair. If he watches fora pal at the street end, you share his anxiety lest that pal shouldbe intercepted by the watchful detective. And he produces his effectswithout parade or ornament. He tells his story with a studied plainness, and by adding detail to detail keeps your interest ever awake. Like manyother great men, he takes his skill and enterprise for granted. He doesnot write of his exploits as though he were always amazed at his ownproficiency. Of course he has a certain pride in his skill. He cannotdescribe his perfect mastery over all the locks that ever were madewithout a modest thrill. He does not disguise his satisfaction atInspector Byrnes' opinion that "he had so deeply studied combinationlocks as to be able to open them from the sound ejected from thespindle. " For the rest, he recognises that he is merely a workman, likeanother, earning his living, and that nothing can be accomplished saveby ceaseless industry and untiring toil. Like many another hero, LangdonW. Moore was born in New England, and was brought up at Newburyport, a quiet seaport town. The only sign of greatness to be detected inhis early life was an assault upon a schoolmaster, and he made ampleatonement for this by years of hard work upon a farm. He was for a whilea typical hayseed, an expert reaper, ready to match himself against allcomers. He reached his zenith when he was offered fifty dollars in goldfor six weeks' toil, and he records with a justified pleasure that"no man had ever been paid such high wages as that. " But his energeticspirit soon wearied of retirement, and he found his way to New York, not to be fleeced, like the hayseed of the daily press, but to fleeceothers. The gambling hells knew him; he became an adept at poker andfaro; and he soon learned how to correct or to compel fortune. His firstexperiment was made upon one Charley White, who dealt faro bank everySaturday night; and it is thus that Moore describes the effect of aningenious discovery: He kept his box and cards in a closet adjoining his room. One nightduring his absence I fitted a key to his closet, took out his cards, andsand-papered the face of eight cards in each deck. I then removed thetop of his faro-box, bulged out the centre of the front plate at themouth, and filed the plate on the inside at both corners to a bevel. Ithen replaced the top, put in a deck of cards, and made a deal. I foundthe cards not sanded would follow up and fill the mouth of the box aftereach turn was made; and if the mouth remained dark and the edge of thetop card could not be seen, one of the sand-papered cards was next, anda loser. This would give me several "dead" turns in each deal. By this means the great man, still despised as a Boston bean-eater, wasable to bring his adversary to ruin. The adversary at last discoveredthe artifice, and "for the next five years, " to quote Moore's own words, "we met as strangers. " It will be seen that from his earliest days Moore possessed a scientificingenuity, which the hard experience of life rapidly improved. Andit was not long before a definite direction was given to his talent. Arrested in 1856, as he thought unjustly, he determined "to do no morework until obliged to do it for the State. " He therefore turned hisskill of hand to account, and went into the "green goods business. " Hissuccess in this venture was so great that he made the best dollar billsever put upon the market, and he boasts legitimately that in the gamehe "never lost a man. " Presently he discovered that there was a quickerprofit in stolen bonds. "From my first venture in this bond-smashingbusiness, " to quote his own simple words, "in 1862 up to 1870, I mademore money than in any branch of industry I was ever engaged in. ""Branch of industry" is admirable, and proves that Moore had a properappreciation of his craft. But bond-smashing compelled a perfectknowledge of locks and bolts, and in this knowledge, as has been said, Moore was supreme. At the end of his career, when he had hung his armsupon the wall, and retired to spend a green old age at Boston, it wasto his treatment of Yale and Lillie locks that he looked back with thegreatest pleasure. But no exploit flattered his vanity more easily thanthe carrying off from the Bank at Concord--the Concord of Emerson andHawthorne--of some three hundred thousand dollars. That he purchasedhis freedom by an ample restitution mattered nothing to the artist. Hispurpose was achieved, his victory won, and if his victims came by theirown again, he at least had the satisfaction which comes of a successfulengagement. Of this adventure he writes with more enthusiasm than he is wont toshow. He wishes his readers to understand that it was not a suddendescent, but the culmination of five months' steady work. He had watchedthe bank until he knew the habits of its manager and the quality of itslocks. He "was satisfied from all he saw that by hard persistent workthe bank could be cleaned out completely. " It was on a July day in 1867that the scheme first took shape in Moore's mind. He had stopped atnoon at the hotel at Concord for food, and saw the cashier of the bankreturning from his dinner. The bank had been closed during his absence [thus he tells his simplestory], and he now unlocked the street door and left the key in thelock. I followed him upstairs and saw him unlock the outer and innerdoors of the vault, and also the door of the burglar-box. I presented ahundred-dollar note and asked to have it changed. Being accommodated, Ileft the place, observing as I went out that the lock on the streetdoor was a heavy one of the familiar tumbler variety, and that it had awooden back. Thus the train was laid, and in three months came the explosion. Impressions were taken of locks, keys were provided, a waggon and teamwere held in readiness, and one day as the cashier left the bank to gethis dinner, Langdon W. Moore, with a meal-bag concealed under his vest, quietly opened the front door and entered the bank. One check he knew. As he went in a girl of twelve tried to follow him--a near relativeof the cashier. The exercise of a little tact satisfied her that thedirectors were in session, and she ran off to her playmates under thebig elm at the opposite corner of the street. Moore lost no time inlocking the door behind him, in opening all the locks, which yielded tohis cunning and foresight, and in packing the meal-bag full of bonds, bank-notes, and plate. He accomplished the deed without haste, and bythe time that the cashier had finished his dinner Moore had disappearedwith his bag, and his waggon, and his friends, and left no trace behind. Another masterpiece, in Moore's opinion, was what he magniloquentlycalls the great robbery of an express car. Here, too, he proved thefineness of his craft. He left nothing to chance, and he foresaw, withthe coolness of a practised hand, every step which his adversaries wouldtake. His first care was to obtain the assistance of the messenger whotravelled on the car which he proposed to rob, and the zeal and energywherewith he coached his accomplices ensured success. Again and again herehearsed every scene in the comedy. Before his eyes the messenger wasattacked by two masked ruffians, of whom one caught him by the throat, while the other put a pistol to his head, saying, "If you open yourmouth I will blow a hole through your head large enough for a pigeon tofly through. " Then the messenger was gagged and bound, a piece of soapwas put into his mouth, that he might appear in the last extremity, andpresently he was set to learn by heart the tale that he should tell hisemployers. By long practice each actor became perfect in his part. Thecar was raided, one hundred and sixty-five thousand dollars was themodest spoil, and Pinkerton and his men were gallantly defied. A hastytrip to Canada still further perplexed the pursuers, and if we maybelieve Moore, he not only baffled the great detective, but persuadedthe Express Company to dispute his claim. Moore, in fact, took asportsman's as well as an artist's pleasure in the game. After thediscomfiture of his enemies, he loved nothing better than a neat job. Heprofesses a frank delight in explaining how once upon a time he openedthe Honourable Benjamin Wood's safe, and did not soil his carpet. Andthere was good reason for his scruple. No sooner had he flashed his darklantern on the office than he observed that the floor was newly covered, and that fresh paint and paper shone upon the walls. Now he had noobjection to easing the Honourable Benjamin of fifty thousand dollars. Being a gentleman, he would scorn to spoil a new Brussels carpet. Accordingly he took some papers from Mr Wood's file and spread themcarefully on the floor. The rest of the dramatic recital shall be givenin his own words: When this was done, we drilled two five-eighth-inch holes through thefire-proof door into the bolt case, jacked the plate from the frame, ... And opened the door. I then put in a wooden wedge at the top to keepthe plate from springing back, took down the jack, and shook out all theloose filing upon the papers. This I gathered carefully up, and put thelime, plaster, and papers in the coal-hod, placed some more clean papersunder the door, and made everything ready to leave the building as soonas the boodle was transferred safe to our pockets. After looking throughthe books and papers, the money was taken out and counted. It amountedto but a single one-dollar note. Was ever an artist so bitterly deceived? Langdon W. Moore rose to theoccasion. He was no pilferer, and scorned to carry off so mean abooty. In the words of the police-captain, he would not add larceny toburglary. But he paid the penalty of greatness. His work was instantlyrecognised. "I know the man, " said Captain Jordan, "for there is but onein the world who would take all that trouble to save your carpet whilebreaking open your safe. " It reminds you of the story told by Pliny of Apelles the painter, whoonce upon a time called upon Protogenes, another master of his craft, when Protogenes was not within. Whereupon Apelles, seeing a picturebefore him, took a pencil and drew in colour upon the picture a passingfine and small line. Then said he to the old woman in the house, "Tellthy master that he who made this line inquired for him. " And whenProtogenes returned, and had looked upon the line, he knew who had beenthere, and said withal, "Surely Apelles has come to town, for it isimpossible that any but he should make in colour so fine workmanship. "Thus genius is betrayed by its own perfection, and he who refused tosoil the carpet could not but be recognised by his skill. And Langdon W. Moore was forced to pay another and a more grievouspenalty for his renown. As the fame of his prowess spread abroad, hefell a prey to the greed of detectives. Do what he would, he could neverrid himself of the attentions of the police. Henceforth it was almostimpossible for him to work in safety, and whatever booty he obtainedhe must needs share with his unwelcome companions. He was like a flycondemned to spend his life in the irk-some society of the spider. Whenhe had not much to give, his poverty was rewarded by years in prison;and then, as he says himself, he "was welcomed back into the oldcriminal life by crooked police officials. " These officials had nodesire to help him. "I was not asked by them"--again it is Moore whospeaks--"if I was in want of anything, but was told that if I wanted tomake some money they could put me on to a good bank job where Icould make a million. " And, if we may believe the historians, Moore'sexperience is not singular. The truth is, the thief-taker stillflourishes in America. Jonathan Wild, his occupation gone in England, has crossed the ocean, and plies his trade with greater skill andtreachery than ever. He thinks it better to live on the criminal than tocatch him. And thus he becomes a terror not to the evildoer but to thelaw-abiding citizen. It is his business to encourage crime, not tostamp it out. If there were no thieves, where would the stool-pigeon anddetective find their profits? "W'y, " said a pickpocket {*} in New York, "them coppers up there in the Tenderloin couldn't have any diamond ringsif we didn't help to pay for 'em. No, they couldn't. They'd sit down inthe street and actually cry--an' they're big men some of 'em--if weguns was run off the earth. " In other words, the lesson of the AmericanUnderworld is that the policeman may be a far greater danger to thecommunity than the criminal. Jonathan Wild will always do more harm thanJack Sheppard. The skill and daring of the cracksman makes him a markedman. But _quis custodes custodiet?_ * See 'The World of Graft, ' by J. Flint (1901), p. 154. EPILOGUE. A traveller visiting a strange land takes for granted the simplervirtues. He notes with gratitude and without surprise the generouspractice of hospitality. He recognises that the husbandman, patientlytoiling on his farm, _adscriptus glebæ_, holds in his toil-worn handsthe destiny of his country. He knows that the excellent work done intranquil seclusion by men of letters and scholars will outlast thebraggart achievements of well-advertised millionaires and "prominent"citizens. Fortunately, such virtues as these are the common inheritanceof all peoples. They are not characteristic of this nation or of that. They belong, like air and sunlight, to the whole civilised world. And it is not bysimilarities, but by differences, that the traveller arrives at a clearpicture of a foreign land. Especially in America do the softer shadesand quieter subtleties escape the unaccustomed eye. The swift energies, the untiring restlessness, the universal haste, obscure the amenitiesof life more darkly there than elsewhere. The frank contempt of law andblood, which receives a daily illustration, must needs take a firmerhold of the observer than the peaceful tillage of the fields and thesilent acquisition of knowledge. America is unhappy in that she is stillmaking her history, not one episode of which a vigilant and lupine presswill suffer to go unrecorded. Graft and corruption stalk abroad, public and unashamed. The concentration of vast wealth in a few pocketsresults, on the one hand, in a lowering of the commercial code, on theother, in a general diffusion of poverty, These are some of the traitswhich mark America off from the other nations, and these traits nonewith a sense of the picturesque can ever overlook. Yet it is not these traits which make the deepest impression upon thereturning traveller. As he leaves the shores of America he forgets forthe moment her love of money and of boodle, he forgets her superb energyand hunger for life, he forgets the exquisite taste shown by the mostdelicately refined of her citizens. He remembers most vividly that heis saying good-bye to the oldest land on earth. It is an irony ofexperience that the inhabitants of the United States are wont todescribe themselves as a young people. They delight to excuse theirextravagances on the ground of youth. When they grow older (they tellyou) they will take another view of politics and of conduct. And thetruth is that old age long ago overtook them. America is not, neverwas, young. She sprang, ready-made, from the head of a Pilgrim Father, the oldest of God's creatures. Being an old man's daughter, she hasescaped the virtues and vices of an irresponsible childhood. In theprimitive history of the land her ancestors took no part. They did notplay with flint-knives and set up dolmens where New York now stands. They did not adorn themselves with woad and feathers. The Prince Albertcoat (or its equivalent) was always more appropriate to their ambition. In vain you will search the United States for the signs of youth. Wherever you cast your eye you will find the signal proofs of an eager, grasping age. Youth loiters and is glad, listening to the songs ofbirds, wondering at the flowers which carpet the meadow, and recking notof the morrow. America is grave and in a hurry. She is not content tofleet the time carelessly, as they did in the golden age. The one hopeof her citizens is to get to Wall Street as quickly as possible, thatthey may add to their already useless hoard of dollars. For this purposethey have perfected all those material appliances which increase therapidity and ease of life. They would save their labour as strenuouslyas they would add to their fortunes. A telephone at every bed-headhas made the toil of letter-writing superfluous. A thousand ingeniousmethods of "transportation" have taken away the necessity of walking. There is no reason why in the years to come hand and foot shouldnot both be atrophied. But there is nothing young in this seduloussuppression of toil. Youth is prodigal of time and of itself. Youthboasts of strength and prowess to do great deeds, not of skill to pilemillions upon millions, a Pelion upon an Ossa of wealth. Nor in the vainluxury of New York can we detect anything save the signs of age. It isonly in modern America that the mad extravagance of Nero's Rome maybe matched. There the banquet of Trimalchio might be presented withoutsurprise and without reproach. It differs from what are known as "freakdinners" only in the superiority of its invention and in the perfectionof its table-talk. In brief, the fantastic ambition of a "cottage" at Newport, as ofTrimalchio's villa in Southern Italy, is the ambition, not of primitive, reckless, pleasure-loving youth, but of an old age, sated and curious, which hurries to decay. Again, it is not a young people which cries aloud "too old at forty!" Inthe childhood of the world, the voice of age is the voice of wisdom. It is for Nestor that Homer claims the profoundest respect, and to-dayAmerica is teaching us, who are only too willing to learn the banefullesson, that knowledge and energy die with youth. Once upon a time I metan American who had returned from his first visit to Europe, and whenI asked what was the vividest impression he brought from thence, hereplied: "I was surprised to see an old man like the German Emperordoing so much work. " In our more youthful eyes the German Emperor hasbut crossed the threshold of life. The years of his mature activity liebefore him, we believe, like an untrodden road. But for the American, prematurely worn out by the weight of time and the stress of affairs, William II. Already hastens to his decline, and clings to the reins ofoffice with the febrile courage of an old man. And all the while America is sublimely unconscious that the joys ofchildhood are not hers. Though with the hypochondria of advancing yearsshe demands a doctor for her soul, she knows not from what disease shesuffers. She does not pray for a Medea to thrust her into a cauldron ofrejuvenescence. With a bluff optimism she declares that she is still theyoungest of the nations, and boasts that when she has grown up to theheight of her courage and activity she will make triumphant even herbold experiment in democracy. Not upon her has the divine injunctiondescended: [Greek phrase]. She who knows so much knows not herself. Howshould she, when she is composed of so many and so diverse elements?And lacking self-knowledge, she lacks humour. With the best will in theworld, she cannot see the things about her in a true proportion. Theblithe atmosphere, clear as crystal, sparkling as champagne, in whichshe lives, persuades her to take a too serious and favourable view ofher own character. And let it be remembered that with her optimism shestill treasures the sentimentality of her Puritan ancestors. She isa true idealist, who loves nothing so dearly as "great thoughts. " Shedelights in the phrases and aspirations which touch the heart morenearly than the head. Though her practice does not always square withher theory, especially in the field of politics, she is indefatigablein the praise of freedom, equality, and the other commonplaces ofdemocracy. The worst is, that she cannot laugh at herself. Her gravityand sensitiveness still lie, like stumbling-blocks, in her path. Sheaccepts the grim adulation of such unwise citizens as Mr Carnegie asno more than her due. If only she could dismiss the flattery of heradmirers with an outburst of Gargantuan hilarity, all virtues might beadded unto her. But, as I have said, she lacks this one thing. She isthe home of humourists and no humour. A thousand jesters minister to heramusement, and she pays them handsomely. More jokes are made within herborders in a day than suffice the rest of the globe for a year. And thelaughter which they provoke is not spontaneous. You can hear the creakof the machine as it goes to work. The ever-present jester is a proofthat humour is an exotic, which does not grow naturally on the soil, and does not belong more intimately to the American people than did thecumbersome jokes of Archie Armstrong to the monarch who employed him. The humour which simplifies life, and detects a spice of ridicule evenin the operations of business and politics, is rarely found in America. Nor is its absence remarkable. The Americans are absorbed from earlyyouth to ripe old age in the pursuit of success. In whatever path theywalk they are determined to triumph. Sport for them is less an amusementthan a chance to win. When they embark upon business, as the most ofthem do, their ambition is insatiable. They are consumed by the passionof money-making. The hope of victory makes them despise toil andrenounce pleasure. Gladly will they deprive themselves of rest and leadlaborious lives. The battle and its booty are their own reward. They count their gathered dollars with the same pride wherewith theconquering general counts his prisoners of war. But the contest markstheir faces with the lines of care, and leaves them beggared of gaiety. How can they take themselves other than seriously when millions dependupon their nod? They have bent their energies to one special end andpurpose--the making of money; and in the process, as an American oncesaid to me, they forget to eat, they forget to live. More obviouslystill, they forget to laugh. The comedy of their own career is neverrevealed to them. Their very slang displays their purpose: they are "outfor the stuff, " and they will not let it escape them. A kind of sanctityhangs about money. It is not a thing to be taken lightly; it is noproper subject for a jest. And as money and its quest absorb the bestenergies of America, it follows that America is distinguished by a highseriousness with which Europe is powerless to compete. However far aprofession may be removed from the mart, profit is its end. Brilliantresearch, fortunate achievement--these also are means, like buying andselling. In scholarship, as in commerce, money is still the measure ofsuccess. Dr Münsterberg, a well-known professor at Harvard, has recordedthe opinion of a well-known English scholar, which, with the doctor'scomment, throws a clearer light upon the practice of America than a pageof argument. "America will not have first-class scholarship, " said theEnglishman, "in the sense in which Germany or England has it, till everyprofessor in the leading universities has at least ten thousand dollarssalary, and the best scholars receive twenty-five thousand dollars. " DrMünsterberg refused at first to accept this conclusion of the pessimist, but, says he, the years have convinced him. Scholars must be paidgenerously in the current coin, or they will not respect their work. It is not greed, precisely, which drives the American along the roadof money-getting. It is, as I have said, a frank pride in the spoils, a pride which is the consistent enemy of light-heartedness, and whichspeedily drives those whom it possesses into a grave melancholy. This, then, is the dominant impression which America gives thetraveller--the impression of a serious old gentleman, whom not evensuccess will persuade to laugh at his own foibles. And there is anotherquality of the land, of which the memory will never fade. Americais apprehensive. She has tentacles strong and far-reaching, like thetentacles of a cuttle-fish. She seizes the imagination as no othercountry seizes it. If you stayed long within her borders, you would beabsorbed into her citizenship and her energies like the enthusiasticimmigrant. You would speak her language with a proper emphasis and a becomingaccent. A few weeks passed upon her soil seem to give you thefamiliarity of long use and custom. "Have I been here for years?" youask after a brief sojourn. "Can it be possible that I have ever livedanywhere else?"