By Agnes Repplier

COUNTER-CURRENTS. AMERICANS AND OTHERS. A HAPPY HALF-CENTURY AND OTHER ESSAYS. IN OUR CONVENT DAYS. COMPROMISES. THE FIRESIDE SPHINX. With 4 full-page and 17 text illustrations by Miss E. BONSALL. BOOKS AND MEN. POINTS OF VIEW. ESSAYS IN IDLENESS. IN THE DOZY HOURS, AND OTHER PAPERS. ESSAYS IN MINIATURE. A BOOK OF FAMOUS VERSE. Selected by Agnes Repplier. In Riverside Library for Young People. THE SAME. _Holiday Edition_. VARIA. 

AMERICANS AND OTHERS

BYAGNES REPPLIER, LITT. D. 

BOSTON AND NEW YORKHOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANYThe Riverside Press Cambridge

COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY AGNES REPPLIERALL RIGHTS RESERVED_Published October 1912_

The Riverside PressCAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTSPRINTED IN THE U. S. A. 

Note

Five of the essays in this volume appear in print for the first time. Others have been published in the _Atlantic Monthly_, the _CenturyMagazine_, _Harper's Bazar_, and the _Catholic World_. 

Contents

A Question of Politeness

The Mission of Humour

Goodness and Gayety

The Nervous Strain

The Girl Graduate

The Estranging Sea

Travellers' Tales

The Chill of Enthusiasm

The Temptation of Eve

"The Greatest of These is Charity"

The Customary Correspondent

The Benefactor

The Condescension of Borrowers

The Grocer's Cat

AMERICANS AND OTHERS

A Question of Politeness

"La politesse de l'esprit consiste a penser des choses honnetes etdelicates. "

A great deal has been said and written during the past few years onthe subject of American manners, and the consensus of opinion is, on the whole, unfavourable. We have been told, more in sorrow thanin anger, that we are not a polite people; and our critics have castabout them for causes which may be held responsible for such auniversal and lamentable result. Mr. Thomas Nelson Page, for example, is by way of thinking that the fault lies in the sudden expansionof wealth, in the intrusion into the social world of people who failto understand its requirements, and in the universal "spoiling" ofAmerican children. He contrasts the South of his childhood, thatwonderful "South before the war, " which looms vaguely, but verygrandly, through a half-century's haze, with the New York of to-day, which, alas! has nothing to soften its outlines. A more censoriouscritic in the "Atlantic Monthly" has also stated explicitly that fortrue consideration and courtliness we must hark back to certain oldgentlewomen of ante-bellum days. "None of us born since the CivilWar approach them in respect to some fine, nameless quality thatgives them charm and atmosphere. " It would seem, then, that the war, with its great emotions and its sustained heroism, imbued us withnational life at the expense of our national manners. 

I wonder if this kind of criticism does not err by comparing the manywith the few, the general with the exceptional. I wonder if thedeficiencies of an imperfect civilization can be accounted for alongsuch obvious lines. The self-absorption of youth which Mrs. Comerdeprecates, the self-absorption of a crowd which offends Mr. Page, are human, not American. The nature of youth and the nature of crowdshave not changed essentially since the Civil War, nor since the PunicWars. Granted that the tired and hungry citizens of New York, jostling one another in their efforts to board a homeward train, present an unlovely spectacle; but do they, as Mr. Page affirms, reveal "such sheer and primal brutality as can be found nowhere elsein the world where men and women are together?" Crowds will jostle, and have always jostled, since men first clustered in communities. Read Theocritus. The hurrying Syracusans--third centuryB. C. --"rushed like a herd of swine, " and rent in twain Praxinoe'smuslin veil. Look at Hogarth. The whole fun of an eighteenth-centuryEnglish crowd consisted in snatching off some unfortunate's wig, ortoppling him over into the gutter. The truth is we sin againstcivilization when we consent to flatten ourselves against ourneighbours. The experience of the world has shown conclusively thata few inches more or less of breathing space make all the differencebetween a self-respecting citizen and a savage. 

As for youth, --ah, who shall be brave enough, who has ever been braveenough, to defend the rising generation? Who has ever looked withcontent upon the young, save only Plato, and he lived in an age ofsymmetry and order which we can hardly hope to reproduce. Theshortcomings of youth are so pitilessly, so glaringly apparent. Nota rag to cover them from the discerning eye. And what a veil has fallenbetween us and the years of _our_ offending. There is no illusionso permanent as that which enables us to look backward withcomplacency; there is no mental process so deceptive as the comparingof recollections with realities. How loud and shrill the voice ofthe girl at our elbow. How soft the voice which from the far pastbreathes its gentle echo in our ears. How bouncing the vigorous youngcreatures who surround us, treading us under foot in the certaintyof their self-assurance. How sweet and reasonable the pale shadowswho smile--we think appealingly--from some dim corner of ourmemories. There is a passage in the diary of Louisa Gurney, acarefully reared little Quaker girl of good family and estate, whichis dated 1796, and which runs thus:--

"I was in a very playing mood to-day, and thoroughly enjoyed beingfoolish, and tried to be as rude to everybody as I could. We wenton the highroad for the purpose of being rude to the folks that passed. I do think being rude is most pleasant sometimes. "

Let us hope that the grown-up Louisa Gurney, whenever she feltdisposed to cavil at the imperfections of the rising generation of1840 or 1850, re-read these illuminating words, and softened herjudgment accordingly. 

New York has been called the most insolent city in the world. To makeor to refute such a statement implies so wide a knowledge ofcontrasted civilizations that to most of us the words have nosignificance. It is true that certain communities have earned forthemselves in the course of centuries an unenviable reputation fordiscourtesy. The Italians say "as rude as a Florentine"; and eventhe casual tourist (presuming his standard of manners to have beenset by Italy) is disposed to echo the reproach. The Roman, with thecivilization of the world at his back, is naturally, one might sayinevitably, polite. His is that serious and simple dignity whichbefits his high inheritance. But the Venetian and the Sienese havealso a grave courtesy of bearing, compared with which the mannersof the Florentine seem needlessly abrupt. We can no more account forthis than we can account for the churlishness of the Vaudois, whois always at some pains to be rude, and the gentleness of hisneighbour, the Valaisan, to whom breeding is a birthright, born, itwould seem, of generosity of heart, and a scorn of ignoble things. 

But such generalizations, at all times perilous, become impossiblein the changing currents of American life, which has as yet no qualityof permanence. The delicate old tests fail to adjust themselves toour needs. Mr. Page is right theoretically when he says that thetreatment of a servant or of a subordinate is an infallible criterionof manners, and when he rebukes the "arrogance" of wealthy women to"their hapless sisters of toil. " But the truth is that our haplesssisters of toil have things pretty much their own way in a countrywhich is still broadly prosperous and democratic, and our treatmentof them is tempered by a selfish consideration for our own comfortand convenience. If they are toiling as domestic servants, --a fieldin which the demand exceeds the supply, --they hold the key to thesituation; it is sheer foolhardiness to be arrogant to a cook. Dressmakers and milliners are not humbly seeking for patronage;theirs is the assured position of people who can give the world whatthe world asks; and as for saleswomen, a class upon whom muchsentimental sympathy is lavished year by year, their heart-wholesuperciliousness to the poor shopper, especially if she chance tobe a housewife striving nervously to make a few dollars cover herfamily needs, is wantonly and detestably unkind. It is not with usas it was in the England of Lamb's day, and the quality of breedingis shown in a well-practised restraint rather than in a sweet andsomewhat lofty consideration. 

Eliminating all the more obvious features of criticism, as throwingno light upon the subject, we come to the consideration of threepoints, --the domestic, the official, and the social manners of anation which has been roundly accused of degenerating from the highstandard of former years, of those gracious and beautiful years whichfew of us have the good fortune to remember. On the first count, Ibelieve that a candid and careful observation will result in averdict of acquittal. Foreigners, Englishmen and Englishwomenespecially, who visit our shores, are impressed with the politenessof Americans in their own households. That fine old Saxon point ofview, "What is the good of a family, if one cannot be disagreeablein the bosom of it?" has been modified by the simple circumstancethat the family bosom is no longer a fixed and permanent asylum. Thedisintegration of the home may be a lamentable feature of modernlife; but since it has dawned upon our minds that adult members ofa family need not necessarily live together if they prefer to liveapart, the strain of domesticity has been reduced to the limits ofendurance. We have gained in serenity what we have lost inself-discipline by this easy achievement of an independence which, fifty years ago, would have been deemed pure licence. I can rememberthat, when I was a little girl, two of our neighbours, a widowedmother and a widowed daughter, scandalized all their friends byliving in two large comfortable houses, a stone's throw apart, instead of under one roof as became their relationship; and the factthat they loved each other dearly and peacefully in no way lessenedtheir transgression. Had they shared their home, and bickered dayand night, that would have been considered unfortunate but"natural. "

If the discipline of family life makes for law and order, for thesubordination of parts to the whole, and for the prompt recognitionof authority; if, in other words, it makes, as in the days of Rome, for citizenship, the rescue of the individual makes for socialintercourse, for that temperate and reasoned attitude which begetscourtesy. The modern mother may lack influence and authority; butshe speaks more urbanely to her children than her mother spoke toher. The modern child is seldom respectful, but he is often polite, with a politeness which owes nothing to intimidation. The harsh andwearisome habit of contradiction, which used to be esteemed a familyprivilege, has been softened to a judicious dissent. In my youth Iknew several old gentlemen who might, on their death-beds, have laidtheir hands upon their hearts, and have sworn that never in theirwhole lives had they permitted any statement, however insignificant, to pass uncontradicted in their presence. They were authoritativeold gentlemen, kind husbands after their fashion, and carefulfathers; but conversation at their dinner-tables was not for humandelight. 

The manners of American officials have been discussed with more orless acrimony, and always from the standpoint of personal experience. The Custom-House is the centre of attack, and critics for the mostpart agree that the men whose business it is to "hold up" returningcitizens perform their ungracious task ungraciously. Theirs israther the attitude of the detective dealing with suspectedcriminals than the attitude of the public servant impersonallyobeying orders. It is true that even on the New York docks one mayencounter civility and kindness. There are people who assure us thatthey have never encountered anything else; but then there are peoplewho would have us believe that always and under all circumstancesthey meet with the most distinguished consideration. They intimatethat there is _that_ in their own demeanour which makes rudeness tothem an impossibility. 

More candid souls find it hard to account for the crudity of ourintercourse, not with officials only, but with the vast world whichlies outside our narrow circle of associates. We have no humanrelations where we have no social relations; we are awkward andconstrained in our recognition of the unfamiliar; and thisawkwardness encumbers us in the ordinary routine of life. A policemanwho has been long on one beat, and who has learned to know eitherthe householders or the business men of his locality, is wont to bethe most friendly of mortals. There is something almost pathetic inthe value he places upon human relationship, even of a very casualorder. A conductor on a local train who has grown familiar with scoresof passengers is no longer a ticket-punching, station-shoutingautomaton. He bears himself in friendly fashion towards alltravellers, because he has established with some of them a rationalfoothold of communication. But the official who sells tickets to ahurrying crowd, or who snaps out a few tart words at a bureau ofinformation, or who guards a gate through which men and women arepushing with senseless haste, is clad in an armour of incivility. He is wantonly rude to foreigners, whose helplessness should makesome appeal to his humanity. I have seen a gatekeeper at Jersey Citytake by the shoulders a poor German, whose ticket called for anothertrain, and shove him roughly out of the way, without a word ofexplanation. The man, too bewildered for resentment, rejoined hiswife to whom he had said good-bye, and the two anxious, puzzledcreatures stood whispering together as the throng swept callouslypast them. It was a painful spectacle, a lapse from the well-ordereddecencies of civilization. 

For to be civilized is to be incapable of giving unnecessary offence, it is to have some quality of consideration for all who cross ourpath. An Englishwoman once said to Mr. Whistler that the politenessof the French was "all on the surface, " to which the artist madereply: "And a very good place for it to be. " It is this sweet surfacepoliteness, costing so little, counting for so much, which smoothsthe roughness out of life. "The classic quality of the Frenchnation, " says Mr. Henry James, "is sociability; a sociability whichoperates in France, as it never does in England, from below upward. Your waiter utters a greeting because, after all, something humanwithin him prompts him. His instinct bids him say something, and histaste recommends that it should be agreeable. "

This combination of instinct and taste--which happily is notconfined to the French, nor to waiters--produces some admirableresults, results out of all proportion to the slightness of the meansemployed. It often takes but a word, a gesture, to indicate thedelicate process of adjustment. A few summers ago I was drinking teawith friends in the gardens of the Hotel Faloria, at Cortina. At atable near us sat two Englishmen, three Englishwomen, and an Austrian, the wife of a Viennese councillor. They talked with animation andin engaging accents. After a little while they arose and strolledback to the hotel. The Englishmen, as they passed our table, staredhard at two young girls who were of our party, stared as deliberatelyand with as much freedom as if the children had been on a Londonmusic-hall stage. The Englishwomen passed us as though we had beeninvisible. They had so completely the air of seeing nothing in ourchairs that I felt myself a phantom, a ghost like Banquo's, with noguilty eye to discern my presence at the table. Lastly came theAustrian, who had paused to speak to a servant, and, as _she_ passed, she gave us a fleeting smile and a slight bow, the mere shadow ofa curtsey, acknowledging our presence as human beings, to whom somemeasure of recognition was due. 

It was such a little thing, so lightly done, so eloquent of perfectself-possession, and the impression it made upon six admiringAmericans was a permanent one. We fell to asking ourselves--beinghonestly conscious of constraint--how each one of us would havebehaved in the Austrian lady's place, whether or not that act ofsimple and sincere politeness would have been just as easy for us. Then I called to mind one summer morning in New England, when I saton a friend's piazza, waiting idly for the arrival of the Sundaypapers. A decent-looking man, with a pretty and over-dressed girlby his side, drove up the avenue, tossed the packet of papers at ourfeet, and drove away again. He had not said even a bare "Goodmorning. " My kind and courteous host had offered no word of greeting. The girl had turned her head to stare at me, but had not spoken. Struckby the ungraciousness of the whole episode, I asked, "Is he a strangerin these parts?"

"No, " said my friend. "He has brought the Sunday papers all summer. That is his daughter with him. "

All summer, and no human relations, not enough to prompt a friendlyword, had been established between the man who served and the manwho was served. None of the obvious criticisms passed upon Americanmanners can explain the crudity of such a situation. It was certainlynot a case of arrogance towards a hapless brother of toil. My friendprobably toiled much harder than the paperman, and was the leastarrogant of mortals. Indeed, all arrogance of bearing layconspicuously on the paperman's part. Why, after all, should not hisinstinct, like the instinct of the French waiter, have bidden himsay something; why should not his taste have recommended that thesomething be agreeable? And then, again, why should not my friend, in whom social constraint was unpardonable, have placed his finerinstincts at the service of a fellow creature? We must probe to thedepths of our civilization before we can understand and deplore thelimitations which make it difficult for us to approach one anotherwith mental ease and security. We have yet to learn that the amenitiesof life stand for its responsibilities, and translate them intoaction. They express externally the fundamental relations whichought to exist between men. "All the distinctions, so delicate andsometimes so complicated, which belong to good breeding, " says M. Rondalet in "La Reforme Sociale, " "answer to a profound unconsciousanalysis of the duties we owe to one another. "

There are people who balk at small civilities on account of theirmanifest insincerity. They cannot be brought to believe that theexpressions of unfelt pleasure or regret with which we accept ordecline invitations, the little affectionate phrases which begin andend our letters, the agreeable formalities which have accumulatedaround the simplest actions of life, are beneficent influences uponcharacter, promoting gentleness of spirit. The Quakers, as we know, made a mighty stand against verbal insincerities, with one strikingexception, --the use of the word "Friend. " They said and believed thatthis word represented their attitude towards humanity, their spiritof universal tolerance and brotherhood. But if to call oneself a"Friend" is to emphasize one's amicable relations towards one'sneighbour, to call one's neighbour "Friend" is to imply that hereturns this affectionate regard, which is often an unwarrantedassumption. It is better and more logical to accept _all_ the politephraseology which facilitates intercourse, and contributes to thesweetness of life. If we discarded the formal falsehoods which arethe currency of conversation, we should not be one step nearer thevital things of truth. 

For to be sincere with ourselves is better and harder than to bepainstakingly accurate with others. A man may be cruelly candid tohis associates, and a cowardly hypocrite to himself. He may handlehis friend harshly, and himself with velvet gloves. He may never tellthe fragment of a lie, and never think the whole truth. He may woundthe pride and hurt the feelings of all with whom he comes in contact, and never give his own soul the benefit of one good knockdown blow. The connection which has been established between rudeness andprobity on the one hand, and politeness and insincerity on the other, is based upon an imperfect knowledge of human nature. 

 "So rugged was he that we thought him just, So churlish was he that we deemed him true. "

"It is better to hold back a truth, " said Saint Francis de Sales, "than to speak it ungraciously. "

There are times doubtless when candour goes straight to its goal, and courtesy misses the mark. Mr. John Stuart Mill was once askedupon the hustings whether or not he had ever said that the Englishworking-classes were mostly liars. He answered shortly, "Idid!"--and the unexpected reply was greeted with loud applause. Mr. Mill was wont to quote this incident as proof of the value whichEnglishmen set upon plain speaking. They do prize it, and they prizethe courage which defies their bullying. But then the remark was, after all, a generalization. We can bear hearing disagreeable truthsspoken to a crowd or to a congregation--causticity has always beenpopular in preachers--because there are other heads than our own uponwhich to fit the cap. 

The brutalities of candour, the pestilent wit which blights whateverit touches, are not distinctively American. It is because we are ahumorous rather than a witty people that we laugh for the most partwith, and not at, our fellow creatures. Indeed, judged by theunpleasant things we might say and do not say, we should be esteemedpolite. English memoirs teem with anecdotes which appear to usunpardonable. Why should Lady Holland have been permitted to woundthe susceptibilities of all with whom she came in contact? When Mooretells us that she said to him, "This book of yours" (the "Life ofSheridan") "will be dull, I fear;" and to Lord Porchester, "I am sorryto hear you are going to publish a poem. Can't you suppress it?" wedo not find these remarks to be any more clever than considerate. They belong to the category of the monumentally uncouth. 

Why should Mr. Abraham Hayward have felt it his duty (he put it thatway) to tell Mr. Frederick Locker that the "London Lyrics" were"overrated"? "I have suspected this, " comments the poet, whose leastnoticeable characteristic was vanity; "but I was none the less sorryto hear him say so. " Landor's reply to a lady who accused him ofspeaking of her with unkindness, "Madame, I have wasted my life indefending you!" was pardonable as a repartee. It was the exasperatedutterance of self-defence; and there is a distinction to be drawnbetween the word which is flung without provocation, and the wordwhich is the speaker's last resource. When "Bobus" Smith toldTalleyrand that his mother had been a beautiful woman, and Talleyrandreplied, "_C'etait donc Monsieur votre pere qui n'etait pas bien_, "we hold the witticism to have been cruel because unjustifiable. Aman should be privileged to say his mother was beautiful, withoutinviting such a very obvious sarcasm. But when Madame de Staelpestered Talleyrand to say what he would do if he saw her and MadameRecamier drowning, the immortal answer, "_Madame de Stael sait tantde choses, que sans doute elle peut nager_, " seems as kind as thecircumstances warranted. "Corinne's" vanity was of the hungry type, which, crying perpetually for bread, was often fed with stones. 

It has been well said that the difference between a man's habitualrudeness and habitual politeness is probably as great a differenceas he will ever be able to make in the sum of human happiness; andthe arithmetic of life consists in adding to, or subtracting from, the pleasurable moments of mortality. Neither is it worth while todraw fine distinctions between pleasure and happiness. If we areindifferent to the pleasures of our fellow creatures, it will nottake us long to be indifferent to their happiness. We do not growgenerous by ceasing to be considerate. 

As a matter of fact, the perpetual surrender which politenessdictates cuts down to a reasonable figure the sum total of ourselfishness. To listen when we are bored, to talk when we are listless, to stand when we are tired, to praise when we are indifferent, toaccept the companionship of a stupid acquaintance when we might, atthe expense of politeness, escape to a clever friend, to endure withsmiling composure the near presence of people who are distastefulto us, --these things, and many like them, brace the sinews of oursouls. They set a fine and delicate standard for common intercourse. They discipline us for the good of the community. 

We cannot ring the bells backward, blot out the Civil War, andexchange the speed of modern life for the slumberous dignity of theGolden Age, --an age whose gilding brightens as we leave it shimmeringin the distance. But even under conditions which have thedisadvantage of existing, the American is not without gentleness ofspeech and spirit. He is not always in a hurry. He is not alwayselbowing his way, or quivering with ill-bred impatience. Turn to himfor help in a crowd, and feel the bright sureness of his response. Watch him under ordinary conditions, and observe his large measureof forbearance with the social deficiencies of his neighbour. LikeSteele, he deems it humanity to laugh at an indifferent jest, andhe has thereby earned for himself the reputation of being readilydiverted. If he lacks the urbanities which embellish conversation, he is correspondingly free from the brutalities which degrade it. If his instinct does not prompt him to say something agreeable, itsaves him from being wantonly unkind. Plain truths may be salutary;but unworthy truths are those which are destitute of any spiritualquality, which are not noble in themselves, and which are not noblyspoken; which may be trusted to offend, and which have never beenknown to illuminate. It is not for such asperities that we haveperfected through the ages the priceless gift of language, that weseek to meet one another in the pleasant comradeship of life. 

The Mission of Humour

 "Laughter is my object: 'tis a property In man, essential to his reason. "THOMAS RANDOLPH, _The Muses' Looking-Glass_. 

American humour is the pride of American hearts. It is held tobe our splendid national characteristic, which we flaunt in the facesof other nations, conceiving them to have been less favoured byProvidence. Just as the most effective way to disparage an authoror an acquaintance--and we have often occasion to disparage both--isto say that he lacks a sense of humour, so the most effectivecriticism we can pass upon a nation is to deny it this valuablequality. American critics have written the most charming thingsabout the keenness of American speech, the breadth and insight ofAmerican drollery, the electric current in American veins; and we, reading these pleasant felicitations, are wont to thank God withgreater fervour than the occasion demands that we are more merry andwise than our neighbours. Mr. Brander Matthews, for example, has toldus that there are newspaper writers in New York who have cultivateda wit, "not unlike Voltaire's. " He mistrusts this wit because hefinds it "corroding and disintegrating"; but he makes the comparisonwith that casual assurance which is a feature of American criticism. 

Indeed, our delight in our own humour has tempted us to overrate bothits literary value and its corrective qualities. We are never so aptto lose our sense of proportion as when we consider those belovedwriters whom we hold to be humourists because they have made us laugh. It may be conceded that, as a people, we have an abiding and somewhatdisquieting sense of fun. We are nimble of speech, we are more proneto levity than to seriousness, we are able to recognize a vital truthwhen it is presented to us under the familiar aspect of a jest, andwe habitually allow ourselves certain forms of exaggeration, accepting, perhaps unconsciously, Hazlitt's verdict: "Lying is aspecies of wit, and shows spirit and invention. " It is true also thatno adequate provision is made in this country for the defective butvaluable class without humour, which in England is exceedingly wellcared for. American letters, American journalism, and Americanspeech are so coloured by pleasantries, so accentuated by ridicule, that the silent and stodgy men, who are apt to represent a nation'sreal strength, hardly know where to turn for a little saving dulness. A deep vein of irony runs through every grade of society, making itpossible for us to laugh at our own bitter discomfiture, and to scoffwith startling distinctness at the evils which we passively permit. Just as the French monarchy under Louis the Fourteenth was wittilydefined as despotism tempered by epigram, so the United States havebeen described as a free republic fettered by jokes, and the tauntconveys a half-truth which it is worth our while to consider. 

Now there are many who affirm that the humourist's point of view is, on the whole, the fairest from which the world can be judged. It isequally remote from the misleading side-lights of the pessimist andfrom the wilful blindness of the optimist. It sees things withuncompromising clearness, but it judges of them with tolerance andgood temper. Moreover, a sense of the ridiculous is a soundpreservative of social virtues. It places a proper emphasis on thejudgments of our associates, it saves us from pitfalls of vanity andself-assurance, it lays the basis of that propriety and decorum ofconduct upon which is founded the charm of intercourse among equals. And what it does for us individually, it does for us collectively. Our national apprehension of a jest fosters whatever grace of modestywe have to show. We dare not inflate ourselves as superbly as weshould like to do, because our genial countrymen stand ever readyto prick us into sudden collapse. "It is the laugh we enjoy at ourown expense which betrays us to the rest of the world. "

Perhaps we laugh too readily. Perhaps we are sometimes amused whenwe ought to be angry. Perhaps we jest when it is our plain duty toreform. Here lies the danger of our national light-mindedness, --forit is seldom light-heartedness; we are no whit more light-heartedthan our neighbours. A carping English critic has declared thatAmerican humour consists in speaking of hideous things with levity;and while so harsh a charge is necessarily unjust, it makes clearone abiding difference between the nations. An Englishman neverlaughs--except officially in "Punch"--over any form of politicaldegradation. He is not in the least amused by jobbery, by bad service, by broken pledges. The seamy side of civilized life is not to hima subject for sympathetic mirth. He can pity the stupidity which doesnot perceive that it is cheated and betrayed; but penetration alliedto indifference awakens his wondering contempt. "If you think itamusing to be imposed on, " an Englishwoman once said to me, "you neednever be at a loss for a joke. "

In good truth, we know what a man is like by the things he findslaughable, we gauge both his understanding and his culture by hissense of the becoming and of the absurd. If the capacity for laughterbe one of the things which separates men from brutes, the qualityof laughter draws a sharp dividing-line between the trainedintelligence and the vacant mind. The humour of a race interpretsthe character of a race, and the mental condition of which laughteris the expression is something which it behooves the student of humannature and the student of national traits to understand very clearly. 

Now our American humour is, on the whole, good-tempered and decent. It is scandalously irreverent (reverence is a quality which seemsto have been left out of our composition); but it has neither thepitilessness of the Latin, nor the grossness of the Teuton jest. AsMr. Gilbert said of Sir Beerbohm Tree's "Hamlet, " it is funny withoutbeing coarse. We have at our best the art of being amusing in anagreeable, almost an amiable, fashion; but then we have also the raregood fortune to be very easily amused. Think of the current jokesprovided for our entertainment week by week, and day by day. Thinkof the comic supplement of our Sunday newspapers, designed for therefreshment of the feeble-minded, and calculated to blight thespirits of any ordinarily intelligent household. Think of thedebilitated jests and stories which a time-honoured custom insertsat the back of some of our magazines. It seems to be the custom ofhappy American parents to report to editors the infantile prattleof their engaging little children, and the editors print it for thebenefit of those who escape the infliction firsthand. There is astory, pleasant but piteous, of Voltaire's listening with whatpatience he could muster to a comedy which was being interpreted byits author. At a certain point the dramatist read, "At this theChevalier laughed"; whereupon Voltaire murmured enviously, "Howfortunate the Chevalier was!" I think of that story whenever I amstruck afresh by the ease with which we are moved to mirth. 

A painstaking German student, who has traced the history of humourback to its earliest foundations, is of the opinion that there areeleven original jokes known to the world, or rather that there areeleven original and basic situations which have given birth to theworld's jokes; and that all the pleasantries with which we are dailyentertained are variations of these eleven originals, traceabledirectly or indirectly to the same sources. There are times when weare disposed to think eleven too generous a computation, and thereare less weary moments in which the inexhaustible supply ofsituations still suggests fresh possibilities of laughter. Grantedthat the ever fertile mother-in-law jest and the one about thetalkative barber were venerable in the days of Plutarch; there areothers more securely and more deservedly rooted in public esteemwhich are, by comparison, new. Christianity, for example, must beheld responsible for the missionary and cannibal joke, of which wehave grown weary unto death; but which nevertheless possessesastonishing vitality, and exhibits remarkable breadth of treatment. Sydney Smith did not disdain to honour it with a joyous and unclericalquatrain; and the agreeable author of "Rab and his Friends" has toldus the story of his fragile little schoolmate whose mother haddestined him for a missionary, "though goodness knows there wasn'tenough of him to go around among many heathen. "

To Christianity is due also the somewhat ribald mirth which has clungfor centuries about Saint Peter as gatekeeper of Heaven. We can tracethis mirth back to the rude jests of the earliest miracle plays. Wesee these jests repeated over and over again in the folklore of Latinand Germanic nations. And if we open a comic journal to-day, thereis more than a chance that we shall find Saint Peter, key in hand, uttering his time-honoured witticisms. This well-worn situationdepends, as a rule, upon that common element of fun-making, theincongruous. Saint Peter invaded by air-ships. Saint Peteroutwitting a squad of banner-flying suffragettes. Saint Peter losinghis saintly temper over the expansive philanthropy of millionaires. Now and then a bit of true satire, like Mr. Kipling's "Tomlinson, "conveys its deeper lesson to humanity. A recently told French storydescribes a lady of good reputation, family, and estate, presentingherself fearlessly at the gates of Heaven. Saint Peter receives herpolitely, and leads her through a street filled with lofty andbeautiful mansions, any one of which she thinks will satisfy herrequirements; but, to her amazement, they pass them by. Next theycome to more modest but still charming houses with which she feelsshe could be reasonably content; but again they pass them by. Finallythey reach a small and mean dwelling in a small and mean thoroughfare. "This, " says Saint Peter, "is your habitation. " "This!" cries theindignant lady; "I could not possibly live in any place so shabbyand inadequate. " "I am sorry, madame, " replies the saint urbanely;"but we have done the best we could with the materials you furnishedus. "

There are no bounds to the loyalty with which mankind clings to awell-established jest, there is no limit to the number of times atale will bear retelling. Occasionally we give it a fresh setting, adorn it with fresh accessories, and present it as new-born to theworld; but this is only another indication of our affectionatetenacity. I have heard that caustic gibe of Queen Elizabeth's anentthe bishop's lady and the bishop's wife (the Tudors had a biting witof their own) retold at the expense of an excellent lady, the wifeof a living American bishop; and the story of the girl who, professingreligion, gave her ear-rings to a sister, because she knew they weretaking _her_ to Hell, --a story which dates from the early Wesleyanrevivals in England, --I have heard located in Philadelphia, andassigned to one of Mr. Torrey's evangelistic services. We stillresort, as in the days of Sheridan, to our memories for our jokes, and to our imaginations for our facts. 

Moreover, we Americans have jests of our own, --poor things for themost part, but our own. They are current from the Atlantic to thePacific, they appear with commendable regularity in our newspapersand comic journals, and they have become endeared to us by a lifetimeof intimacy. The salient characteristics of our great cities, theaccepted traditions of our mining-camps, the contrast between Eastand West, the still more familiar contrast between the torpor ofPhiladelphia and Brooklyn ("In the midst of life, " says Mr. OliverHerford, "we are--in Brooklyn") and the uneasy speed of NewYork, --these things furnish abundant material for everyday Americanhumour. There is, for example, the encounter between the Boston girland the Chicago girl, who, in real life, might often be taken foreach other; but who, in the American joke, are as sharplydifferentiated as the Esquimo and the Hottentot. And there is thelittle Boston boy who always wears spectacles, who is always namedWaldo, and who makes some innocent remark about "Literary Ethics, "or the "Conduct of Life. " We have known this little boy too long tobear a parting from him. Indeed, the mere suggestion that allBostonians are forever immersed in Emerson is one which givesunfailing delight to the receptive American mind. It is a poorcommunity which cannot furnish its archaic jest for the diversionof its neighbours. 

The finest example of our bulldog resoluteness in holding on to acomic situation, or what we conceive to be a comic situation, maybe seen every year when the twenty-second of February draws near, and the shops of our great and grateful Republic break out into anirruption of little hatchets, by which curious insignia we havechosen to commemorate our first President. These toys, occasionallycombined with sprigs of artificial cherries, are hailed withunflagging delight, and purchased with what appears to be patrioticfervour. I have seen letter-carriers and post-office clerks wearinglittle hatchets in their button-holes, as though they were partybuttons, or temperance badges. It is our great national joke, whichI presume gains point from the dignified and reticent character ofGeneral Washington, and from the fact that he would have beensincerely unhappy could he have foreseen the senile character of ajest, destined, through our love of absurdity, our carefulcultivation of the inappropriate, to be linked forever with his name. 

The easy exaggeration which is a distinctive feature of Americanhumour, and about which so much has been said and written, has itscounterpart in sober and truth-telling England, though we are alwaysamazed when we find it there, and fall to wondering, as we neverwonder at home, in what spirit it was received. There are two kindsof exaggeration; exaggeration of statement, which is a somewhatprimitive form of humour, and exaggeration of phrase, which impliesa dexterous misuse of language, a skilful juggling with words. SirJohn Robinson gives, as an admirable instance of exaggeration ofstatement, the remark of an American in London that his dining-roomceiling was so low that he could not have anything for dinner butsoles. Sir John thought this could have been said only by an American, only by one accustomed to have a joke swiftly catalogued as a joke, and suffered to pass. An English jester must always take into accountthe mental attitude which finds "Gulliver's Travels" "incredible. "When Mr. Edward FitzGerald said that the church at Woodbridge wasso damp that fungi grew about the communion rail, Woodbridge ladiesoffered an indignant denial. When Dr. Thompson, the witty master ofTrinity, observed of an undergraduate that "all the time he couldspare from the neglect of his duties he gave to the adornment of hisperson, " the sarcasm made its slow way into print; whereupon anintelligent British reader wrote to the periodical which had printedit, and explained painstakingly that, inasmuch as it was not possibleto spare time from the neglect of anything, the criticism wasinaccurate. 

Exaggeration of phrase, as well as the studied understatement whichis an even more effective form of ridicule, seem natural productsof American humour. They sound, wherever we hear them, familiar toour ears. It is hard to believe that an English barrister, and nota Texas ranch-man, described Boston as a town where respectabilitystalked unchecked. Mazarin's plaintive reflection, "Nothing is sodisagreeable as to be obscurely hanged, " carries with it an echo ofWyoming or Arizona. Mr. Gilbert's analysis of Hamlet's mentaldisorder, --

 "Hamlet is idiotically sane, With lucid intervals of lunacy, "--

has the pure flavour of American wit, --a wit which finds its mostaudacious expression in burlesquing bitter things, and which misfitsits words with diabolic ingenuity. To match these alien jests, whichsound so like our own, we have the whispered warning of an Americanusher (also quoted by Sir John Robinson) who opened the door to alate comer at one of Mr. Matthew Arnold's lectures: "Will you pleasemake as little noise as you can, sir. The audience is asleep"; andthe comprehensive remark of a New England scholar and wit that henever wanted to do anything in his life, that he did not find it wasexpensive, unwholesome, or immoral. This last observation embracesthe wisdom of the centuries. Solomon would have endorsed it, and itis supremely quotable as expressing a common experience with veryuncommon felicity. 

When we leave the open field of exaggeration, that broad area whichis our chosen territory, and seek for subtler qualities in Americanhumour, we find here and there a witticism which, while admittedlyour own, has in it an Old-World quality. The epigrammatic remark ofa Boston woman that men get and forget, and women give and forgive, shows the fine, sharp finish of Sydney Smith or Sheridan. APhiladelphia woman's observation, that she knew there could be nomarriages in Heaven, because--"Well, women were there no doubt inplenty, and some men; but not a man whom any woman would have, " isstrikingly French. The word of a New York broker, when Mr. Rooseveltsailed for Africa, "Wall Street expects every lion to do its duty!"equals in brevity and malice the keen-edged satire of Italy. Nosharper thrust was ever made at prince or potentate. 

The truth is that our love of a jest knows no limit and respects nolaw. The incongruities of an unequal civilization (we live in theland of contrasts) have accustomed us to absurdities, and reconciledus to ridicule. We rather like being satirized by our own countrymen. We are very kind and a little cruel to our humourists. We crown themwith praise, we hold them to our hearts, we pay them any price theyask for their wares; but we insist upon their being funny all thetime. Once a humourist, always a humourist, is our way of thinking;and we resent even a saving lapse into seriousness on the part ofthose who have had the good or the ill fortune to make us laugh. 

England is equally obdurate in this regard. Her love of laughter hasbeen consecrated by Oxford, --Oxford, the dignified refuge of Englishscholarship, which passed by a score of American scholars to bestowher honours on our great American joker. And because of this loveof laughter, so desperate in a serious nation, English jesters haveenjoyed the uneasy privileges of a court fool. Look at poor Hood. What he really loved was to wallow in the pathetic, --to write suchharrowing verses as the "Bridge of Sighs, " and the "Song of the Shirt"(which achieved the rare distinction of being printed--like the"Beggar's Petition"--on cotton handkerchiefs), and the "Lady'sDream. " Every time he broke from his traces, he plunged into thesemorasses of melancholy; but he was always pulled out again, andreharnessed to his jokes. He would have liked to be funnyoccasionally and spontaneously, and it was the will of his master, the public, that he should be funny all the time, or starve. LordChesterfield wisely said that a man should live within his wit aswell as within his income; but if Hood had lived within his wit--whichmight then have possessed a vital and lasting quality--he would havehad no income. His role in life was like that of a dancing bear, whichis held to commit a solecism every time it settles wearily down onthe four legs nature gave it. 

The same tyrannous demand hounded Mr. Eugene Field along hisjoke-strewn path. Chicago, struggling with vast and difficultproblems, felt the need of laughter, and required of Mr. Field thathe should make her laugh. He accepted the responsibility, and, asa reward, his memory is hallowed in the city he loved and derided. New York echoes this sentiment (New York echoes more than sheproclaims; she confirms rather than initiates); and when Mr. FrancisWilson wrote some years ago a charming and enthusiastic paper forthe "Century Magazine, " he claimed that Mr. Field was so great ahumourist as to be--what all great humourists are, --a moralist aswell. But he had little to quote which could be received as evidencein a court of criticism; and many of the paragraphs which he deemedit worth while to reprint were melancholy instances of that jadedwit, that exhausted vitality, which in no wise represented Mr. Field's mirth-loving spirit, but only the things which were groundout of him when he was not in a mirthful mood. 

The truth is that humour as a lucrative profession is a purely moderndevice, and one which is much to be deplored. The older humouristsknew the value of light and shade. Their fun was precious inproportion to its parsimony. The essence of humour is that it shouldbe unexpected, that it should embody an element of surprise, thatit should startle us out of that reasonable gravity which, after all, must be our habitual frame of mind. But the professional humouristcannot afford to be unexpected. The exigencies of his vocation compelhim to be relentlessly droll from his first page to his last, andthis accumulated drollery weighs like lead. Compared to it, sermonsare as thistle-down, and political economy is gay. 

It is hard to estimate the value of humour as a national trait. Lifehas its appropriate levities, its comedy side. We cannot "see itclearly and see it whole, " without recognizing a great manyabsurdities which ought to be laughed at, a great deal of nonsensewhich is a fair target for ridicule. The heaviest charge broughtagainst American humour is that it never keeps its target well inview. We laugh, but we are not purged by laughter of our follies;we jest, but our jests are apt to have a kitten's sportiveirresponsibility. The lawyer offers a witticism in place of anargument, the diner-out tells an amusing story in lieu ofconversation. Even the clergyman does not disdain a joke, heedlessof Dr. Johnson's warning which should save him from that pitfall. Smartness furnishes sufficient excuse for the impertinence ofchildren, and with purposeless satire the daily papers deride thehighest dignitaries of the land. 

Yet while always to be reckoned with in life and letters, Americanhumour is not a powerful and consistent factor either for destructionor for reform. It lacks, for the most part, a logical basis, and thedignity of a supreme aim. Moliere's humour amounted to a philosophyof life. He was wont to say that it was a difficult task to makegentlefolk laugh; but he succeeded in making them laugh at that whichwas laughable in themselves. He aimed his shafts at the fallaciesand the duplicities which his countrymen ardently cherished, and hescorned the cheaper wit which contents itself with mocking at idolsalready discredited. As a result, he purged society, not of thefollies that consumed it, but of the illusion that these follies werenoble, graceful, and wise. "We do not plough or sow for fools, " saysa Russian proverb, "they grow of themselves"; but humour hasaccomplished a mighty work if it helps us to see that a fool is afool, and not a prophet in the market-place. And if the man in themarket-place chances to be a prophet, his message is safe fromassault. No laughter can silence him, no ridicule weaken his words. 

Carlyle's grim humour was also drilled into efficacy. He used it inorderly fashion; he gave it force by a stern principle of repression. He had (what wise man has not?) an honest respect for dulness, knowingthat a strong and free people argues best--as Mr. Bagehot putsit--"in platoons. " He had some measure of mercy for folly. Butagainst the whole complicated business of pretence, against thepious, and respectable, and patriotic hypocrisies of a successfulcivilization, he hurled his taunts with such true aim that it is nottoo much to say there has been less real comfort and safety in lyingever since. 

These are victories worth recording, and there is a big battlefieldfor American humour when it finds itself ready for the fray, whenit leaves off firing squibs, and settles down to a compellingcannonade, when it aims less at the superficial incongruities of life, and more at the deep-rooted delusions which rob us of fair fame. Ithas done its best work in the field of political satire, where the"Biglow Papers" hit hard in their day, where Nast's cartoons helpedto overthrow the Tweed dynasty, and where the indolent and luminousgenius of Mr. Dooley has widened our mental horizon. Mr. Dooley isa philosopher, but his is the philosophy of the looker-on, of thatgenuine unconcern which finds Saint George and the dragon to be botha trifle ridiculous. He is always undisturbed, always illuminating, and not infrequently amusing; but he anticipates the smilingindifference with which those who come after us will look back uponour enthusiasms and absurdities. Humour, as he sees it, is thatthrice blessed quality which enables us to laugh, when otherwise weshould be in danger of weeping. "We are ridiculous animals, " observesHorace Walpole unsympathetically, "and if angels have any fun intheir hearts, how we must divert them. "

It is this clear-sighted, non-combative humour which Americans loveand prize, and the absence of which they reckon a heavy loss. Nordo they always ask, "a loss to whom?" Charles Lamb said it was nomisfortune for a man to have a sulky temper. It was his friends whowere unfortunate. And so with the man who has no sense of humour. He gets along very well without it. He is not aware that anythingis lacking. He is not mourning his lot. What loss there is, hisfriends and neighbours bear. A man destitute of humour is apt to bea formidable person, not subject to sudden deviations from his chosenpath, and incapable of frittering away his elementary forces bypottering over both sides of a question. He is often to be respected, sometimes to be feared, and always--if possible--to be avoided. Hisare the qualities which distance enables us to recognize and valueat their worth. He fills his place in the scheme of creation; butit is for us to see that his place is not next to ours at table, wherehis unresponsiveness narrows the conversational area, and dulls thecontagious ardour of speech. He may add to the wisdom of the ages, but he lessens the gayety of life. 

Goodness and Gayety

"Can surly Virtue hope to find a friend?"--DR. JOHNSON. 

Sir Leslie Stephen has recorded his conviction that a sense of humour, being irreconcilable with some of the cardinal virtues, is lackingin most good men. Father Faber asserted, on the contrary, that a senseof humour is a great help in the religious life, and emphasized thissomewhat unusual point of view with the decisive statement: "Perhapsnature does not contribute a greater help to grace than this. "

Here are conflicting verdicts to be well considered. Sir LeslieStephen knew more about humour than did Father Faber; Father Faberknew more about "grace" than did Sir Leslie Stephen; and bothdisputants were widely acquainted with their fellow men. Sir LeslieStephen had a pretty wit of his own, but it may have lacked thequalities which make for holiness. There was in it the element ofdenial. He seldom entered the shrine where we worship our ideals insecret. He stood outside, remarks Mr. Birrell cheerily, "with a pailof cold water. " Father Faber also possessed a vein of irony whichwas the outcome of a priestly experience with the cherished foiblesof the world. He entered unbidden into the shrine where we worshipour illusions in secret, and chilled us with unwelcome truths. I knowof no harder experience than this. It takes time and trouble topersuade ourselves that the things we want to do are the things weought to do. We balance our spiritual accounts with care. We insertglib phrases about duty into all our reckonings. There is nothing, or next to nothing, which cannot, if adroitly catalogued, beconsidered a duty; and it is this delicate mental adjustment whichis disturbed by Father Faber's ridicule. "Self-deceit, " hecaustically observes, "seems to thrive on prayer, and to grow faton contemplation. "

If a sense of humour forces us to be candid with ourselves, then itcan be reconciled, not only with the cardinal virtues--which are buta chilly quartette--but with the flaming charities which haveconsumed the souls of saints. The true humourist, objects Sir LeslieStephen, sees the world as a tragi-comedy, a Vanity Fair, in whichenthusiasm is out of place. But if the true humourist also seeshimself presiding, in the sacred name of duty, over a booth in VanityFair, he may yet reach perfection. What Father Faber opposed sostrenuously were, not the vanities of the profane, of the openly andcheerfully unregenerate; but the vanities of a devout andfashionable congregation, making especial terms--by virtue of itsexalted station--with Providence. These were the people whom heregarded all his priestly life with whimsical dismay. "Theirvoluntary social arrangements, " he wrote in "SpiritualConferences, " "are the tyranny of circumstance, claiming ourtenderest pity, and to be managed like the work of a Xavier, or aVincent of Paul, which hardly left the saints time to pray. Theirsheer worldliness is to be considered as an interior trial, with allmanner of cloudy grand things to be said about it. They must avoiduneasiness, for such great graces as theirs can grow only in calmnessand tranquillity. "

This is irony rather than humour, but it implies a capacity to seethe tragi-comedy of the world, without necessarily losing the powerof enthusiasm. It also explains why Father Faber regarded an honestsense of the ridiculous as a help to goodness. The man or woman whois impervious to the absurd cannot well be stripped of self-delusion. For him, for her, there is no shaft which wounds. The admirable adviceof Thomas a Kempis to keep away from people whom we desire to please, and the quiet perfection of his warning to the censorious, "Injudging others, a man toileth in vain; for the most part he ismistaken, and he easily sinneth; but in judging and scrutinizinghimself, he always laboureth with profit, " can make their just appealonly to the humorous sense. So, too, the counsel of Saint Francisde Sales to the nuns who wanted to go barefooted, "Keep your shoesand change your brains"; the cautious query of Pope Gregory the First, concerning John the Faster, "Does he abstain even from the truth?"Cardinal Newman's axiom, "It is never worth while to call whity-brownwhite, for the sake of avoiding scandal"; and Father Faber's ownfelicitous comment on religious "hedgers, " "A moderation whichconsists in taking immoderate liberties with God is hardly what theFathers of the Desert meant when they preached their crusade infavour of discretion";--are all spoken to those hardy and humoroussouls who can bear to be honest with themselves. 

The ardent reformer, intolerant of the ordinary processes of life, the ardent philanthropist, intolerant of an imperfect civilization, the ardent zealot, intolerant of man's unspiritual nature, areseldom disposed to gayety. A noble impatience of spirit inclines themto anger or to sadness. John Wesley, reformer, philanthropist, zealot, and surpassingly great in all three characters, strangledwithin his own breast the simple desire to be gay. He was a youngman when he formed the resolution, "to labour after continualseriousness, not willingly indulging myself in the least levity ofbehaviour, or in laughter, --no, not for a moment"; and for more thanfifty years he kept--probably with no great difficulty--this sternresolve. The mediaeval saying, that laughter has sin for a fatherand folly for a mother, would have meant to Wesley more than a figureof speech. Nothing could rob him of a dry and bitter humour ("Theywon't let me go to Bedlam, " he wrote, "because they say I make theinmates mad, nor into Newgate, because I make them wicked"); butthere was little in his creed or in the scenes of his labours topromote cheerfulness of spirit. 

This disciplining of nature, honest, erring human nature, whichcould, if permitted, make out a fair case for itself, is not anessential element of the evangelist's code. In the hands of men lessgreat than Wesley, it has been known to nullify the work of a lifetime. The Lincolnshire farmer who, after listening to a sermon on Hell, said to his wife, "Noa, Sally, it woant do. Noa constitootion couldstand it, " expressed in his own fashion the healthy limit ofendurance. Our spiritual constitutions break under a pitiless strain. When we read in the diary of Henry Alline, quoted by Dr. William Jamesin his "Varieties of Religious Experience, " "On Wednesday thetwelfth I preached at a wedding, and had the happiness thereby tobe the means of excluding carnal mirth, " we are not merely sorry forthe wedding guests, but beset by doubts as to their moral gain. 

Why should Henry Martyn, that fervent young missionary who gave hislife for his cause with the straight-forward simplicity of a soldier, have regretted so bitterly an occasional lapse into good spirits?He was inhumanly serious, and he prayed by night and day to be savedfrom his "besetting sin" of levity. He was consumed by the flame ofreligious zeal, and he bewailed at grievous length, in his diary, his "light, worldly spirit. " He toiled unrestingly, taking no heedof his own physical weakness, and he asked himself (when he had aminute to spare) what would become of his soul, should he be struckdead in a "careless mood. " We have Mr. Birrell's word for it thatonce, in an old book about India, he came across an after-dinner jestof Henry Martyn's; but the idea was so incongruous that the startledessayist was disposed to doubt the evidence of his senses. "Theremust have been a mistake somewhere. "

To such a man the world is not, and never can be, a tragi-comedy, and laughter seems forever out of place. When a Madeira negress, agood Christian after her benighted fashion, asked Martyn if theEnglish were ever baptized, he did not think the innocent questionfunny, he thought it horrible. He found Saint Basil's writingsunsatisfactory, as lacking "evangelical truth"; and, could he haveheard this great doctor of the Church fling back a witticism in thecourt of an angry magistrate, he would probably have felt moredoubtful than ever concerning the status of the early Fathers. Itis a relief to turn from the letters of Martyn, with their aloofnessfrom the cheerful currents of earth, to the letters of Bishop Heber, who, albeit a missionary and a keen one, had always a laugh for theabsurdities which beset his wandering life. He could even tell withrelish the story of the drunken pedlar whom he met in Wales, and whoconfided to him that, having sold all his wares, he was trying todrink up the proceeds before he got home, lest his wife should takethe money away from him. Heber, using the argument which he felt wouldbe of most avail, tried to frighten the man into soberness bypicturing his wife's wrath; whereupon the adroit scamp replied thathe knew what _that_ would be, and had taken the precaution to havehis hair cut short, so that she could not get a grip on it. Martyncould no more have chuckled over this depravity than he could havechuckled over the fallen angels; but Saint Teresa could have laughedoutright, her wonderful, merry, infectious laugh; and have thenproceeded to plead, to scold, to threaten, to persuade, until achastened and repentant pedlar, money in hand, and some dimpromptings to goodness tugging at his heart, would have trampedbravely and soberly home. 

It is so much the custom to obliterate from religious memoirs allvigorous human traits, all incidents which do not tend to edification, and all contemporary criticism which cannot be smoothed into praise, that what is left seems to the disheartened reader only a pale shadowof life. It is hard to make any biography illustrate a theme, or provean argument; and the process by which such results are obtained isso artificial as to be open to the charge of untruth. Because GeneralHavelock was a good Baptist as well as a good soldier, because heexpressed a belief in the efficacy of prayer (like Cromwell's "Trustin God, and keep your powder dry "), and because he wrote to his wife, when sent to the relief of Lucknow, "May God give me wisdom andstrength for the work!"--which, after all, was a natural enough thingfor any man to say, --he was made the subject of a memoir determinedlyand depressingly devout, in which his family letters were annotatedas though they were the epistles of Saint Paul. Yet this was the manwho, when Lucknow _was_ relieved, behaved as if nothing out of theordinary had happened to besiegers or besieged. "He shook hands withme, " wrote Lady Inglis in her journal, "and observed that he fearedwe had suffered a great deal. " That was all. He might have said asmuch had the little garrison been incommoded by a spell of unusualheat, or by an epidemic of measles. 

As a matter of fact, piety is a by no means uncommon attribute ofsoldiers, and there was no need on the part of the Reverend Mr. Brock, who compiled these shadowy pages, to write as though General Havelockhad been a rare species of the genius military. We know that whatthe English Puritans especially resented in Prince Rupert was hisinsistence on regimental prayers. They could pardon his raids, hisbreathless charges, his bewildering habit of appearing where he wasleast expected or desired; but that he should usurp their ownespecial prerogative of piety was more than they could bear. It isprobable that Rupert's own private petitions resembled the memorableprayer offered by Sir Jacob Astley (a hardy old Cavalier who was bothdevout and humorous) before the battle of Edgehill: "Oh, Lord, Thouknowest how busy I must be this day. If I forget Thee, do not Thouforget me. March on, boys!"

If it were not for a few illuminating anecdotes, and the thriceblessed custom of letter writing, we should never know what mannerof thing human goodness, exalted human goodness, is; and so acquiesceignorantly in Sir Leslie Stephen's judgment. The sinners of the worldstand out clear and distinct, full of vitality, and of an engagingcandour. The saints of Heaven shine dimly through a nebulous hazeof hagiology. They are embodiments of inaccessible virtues, asremote from us and from our neighbours as if they had lived on anotherplanet. There is no more use in asking us to imitate theseincomprehensible creatures than there would be in asking us to climbby easy stages to the moon. Without some common denominator, sinnerand saint are as aloof from each other as sinner and archangel. Without some clue to the saint's spiritual identity, the record ofhis labours and hardships, fasts, visions, and miracles, offersnothing more helpful than bewilderment. We may be edified or we maybe sceptical, according to our temperament and training; but aprofound unconcern devitalizes both scepticism and edification. What have we mortals in common with these perfected prodigies ofgrace?

It was Cardinal Newman who first entered a protest against "minced"saints, against the pious and popular custom of chopping up humanrecords into lessons for the devout. He took exception to thehagiological licence which assigns lofty motives to trivial actions. "The saint from humility made no reply. " "The saint was silent outof compassion for the ignorance of the speaker. " He invited us toapproach the Fathers of the Church in their unguarded moments, intheir ordinary avocations, in their moods of gayety and depression;and, when we accepted the invitation, these figures, lofty and remote, became imbued with life. It is one thing to know that Saint Chrysostomretired at twenty-three to a monastery near Antioch, and there spentsix years in seclusion and study. It is another and more enlighteningthing to be made aware, through the medium of his own letters, thathe took this step with reasonable doubts and misgivings, --doubtswhich extended to the freshness of the monastery bread, misgivingswhich concerned themselves with the sweetness of the monastery oil. And when we read these candid expressions of anxiety, SaintChrysostom, by virtue of his healthy young appetite, and his distaste(which any poor sinner can share) for rancid oil, becomes a man anda brother. It is yet more consoling to know that when well advancedin sainthood, when old, austere, exiled, and suffering manyprivations for conscience' sake, Chrysostom was still disposed tobe a trifle fastidious about his bread. He writes from Caesarea toTheodora that he has at last found clean water to drink, and breadwhich can be chewed. "Moreover, I no longer wash myself in brokencrockery, but have contrived some sort of bath; also I have a bedto which I can confine myself. "

If Saint Chrysostom possessed, according to Newman, a cheerfultemper, and "a sunniness of mind all his own, " Saint Gregory ofNazianzus was a fair humourist, and Saint Basil was a wit. "Pensiveplayfulness" is Newman's phrase for Basil, but there was a speedabout his retorts which did not always savour of pensiveness. Whenthe furious governor of Pontus threatened to tear out his liver, Basil, a confirmed invalid, replied suavely, "It is a kind intention. My liver, as at present located, has given me nothing butuneasiness. "

To Gregory, Basil was not only guide, philosopher, and friend; butalso a cherished target for his jests. It has been wisely said thatwe cannot really love anybody at whom we never laugh. Gregory lovedBasil, revered him, and laughed at him. Does Basil complain, notunnaturally, that Tiberina is cold, damp, and muddy, Gregory writesto him unsympathetically that he is a "clean-footed, tip-toeing, capering man. " Does Basil promise a visit, Gregory sends word toAmphilochus that he must have some fine pot-herbs, "lest Basil shouldbe hungry and cross. " Does Gregory visit Basil in his solitude atPontus, he expresses in no measured terms his sense of the discomforthe endures. It would be hard to find, in all the annals ofcorrespondence, a letter written with a more laudable andwell-defined intention of teasing its recipient, than the onedispatched to Basil by Gregory after he has made good his escape fromthe austerities of his friend's housekeeping. 

"I have remembrance of the bread and of the broth, --so they werenamed, --and shall remember them; how my teeth stuck in your hunches, and lifted and heaved themselves as out of paste. You, indeed, willset it out in tragic style, taking a sublime tone from your ownsufferings; but for me, unless that true Lady Bountiful, your mother, had rescued me quickly, showing herself in my need like a haven tothe tempest-tossed, I had been dead long ago, getting myself littlehonour, though much pity, from Pontic hospitality. "

This is not precisely the tone in which the lives of the saints (ofany saints of any creeds) are written. Therefore is it better to readwhat the saints say for themselves than what has been said about them. This is not precisely the point of view which is presented unctuouslyfor our consideration, yet it makes all other points of viewintelligible. It is contrary to human nature to court privations. We know that the saints did court them, and valued them as avenuesto grace. It is in accord with human nature to meet privationscheerfully, and with a whimsical sense of discomfiture. When we hearthe echo of a saint's laughter ringing down the centuries, we havea clue to his identity; not to his whole and heroic self, but to thatportion of him which we can best understand, and with which we claimsome humble brotherhood. We ourselves are not hunting assiduouslyfor hardships; but which one of us has not summoned up courage enoughto laugh in the face of disaster?

There is no reading less conducive to good spirits than the recitalsof missionaries, or than such pitiless records as those compiled byDr. Thomas William Marshall in his two portly volumes on "ChristianMissions. " The heathen, as portrayed by Dr. Marshall, do not in theleast resemble the heathen made familiar to us by the hymns and tractsof our infancy. So far from calling on us to deliver their land "fromerror's chain, " they mete out prompt and cruel death to theirdeliverers. So far from thirsting for Gospel truths, they thirst forthe blood of the intruders. This is frankly discouraging, and wecould never read so many pages of disagreeable happenings, were itnot for the gayety of the letters which Dr. Marshall quotes, and whichdeal less in heroics than in pleasantries. Such men as Bishop Berneux, the Abbe Retord, and Father Feron, missionaries in Cochin-China andCorea, all possessed that protective sense of humour which kept uptheir spirits and their enthusiasms. Father Feron, for example, hidden away in the "Valley of the Pines, " six hundred miles fromsafety, writes to his sister in the autumn of 1858:--

"I am lodged in one of the finest houses in the village, that of thecatechist, an opulent man. It is considered to be worth a poundsterling. Do not laugh; there are some of the value of eightpence. My room has a sheet of paper for a door, the rain filters throughmy grass-covered roof as fast as it falls outside, and two largekettles barely suffice to receive it. . .. The Prophet Elisha, at thehouse of the Shunamite, had for furniture a bed, a table, a chair, and a candlestick, --four pieces in all. No superfluity there. Nowif I search well, I can also find four articles in my room; a woodencandlestick, a trunk, a pair of shoes, and a pipe. Bed none, chairsnone, table none. Am I, then, richer or poorer than the Prophet? Itis not an easy question to answer, for, granting that his quarterswere more comfortable than mine, yet none of the things belonged tohim; while in my case, although the candlestick is borrowed from thechapel, and the trunk from Monseigneur Berneux, the shoes (worn onlywhen I say Mass) and the pipe are my very own. "

Surely if one chanced to be the sister of a missionary in Corea, andapprehensive, with good cause, of his personal safety, this is thekind of a letter one would be glad to receive. The comfort of findingone's brother disinclined to take what Saint Gregory calls "a sublimetone" would tend--illogically, I own, --to ease the burden of anxiety. Even the remote reader, sick of discouraging details, experiencesa renewal of confidence, and all because Father Feron's good humouris of the common kind which we can best understand, and with whichit befits every one of us to meet the vicissitudes of life. 

I have said that the ardent reformer is seldom gay. Small wonder, when his eyes are turned upon the dark places of earth, and his wholestrength is consumed in combat. Yet Saint Teresa, the mostredoubtable reformer of her day, was gay. No other word expressesthe quality of her gladness. She was not only spiritually serene, she was humanly gay, and this in the face of acute ill-health, andmany profound discouragements. We have the evidence of all hercontemporaries, --friends, nuns, patrons, and confessors; and wehave the far more enduring testimony of her letters, in proof of thismirthfulness of spirit, which won its way into hearts, and lightenedthe austerities of her rule. "A very cheerful and gentle disposition, an excellent temper, and absolutely void of melancholy, " wroteRibera. "So merry that when she laughed, every one laughed with her, but very grave when she was serious. "

There is a strain of humour, a delicate and somewhat biting wit inthe correspondence of Saint Teresa, and in her admonitions to hernuns. There is also an inspired common sense which we hardly expectto find in the writings of a religious and a mystic. But Teresa wasnot withdrawn from the world. She travelled incessantly from one endof Spain to the other, establishing new foundations, visiting herconvents, and dealing with all classes of men, from the soldier tothe priest, from the prince to the peasant. The severity of herdiscipline was tempered by a tolerant and half-amused insight intothe pardonable foibles of humanity. She held back her nuns with onehand from "the frenzy of self-mortification, " which is the mainstayof spiritual vanity, and with the other hand from a too solicitousregard for their own comfort and convenience. They were not toconsider that the fear of a headache, --a non-existent headachethreatening the future--was sufficient excuse for absentingthemselves from choir; and, if they were too ailing to practise anyother austerities, the rule of silence, she reminded them, could dothe feeblest no harm. "Do not contend wordily over matters of noconsequence, " was her counsel of perfection. "Fly a thousand leaguesfrom such observations as 'You see I was right, ' or 'They did me aninjustice. '"

Small wonder that peace reigned among the discalced Carmelites solong as Teresa ruled. Practical and fearless (save when a lizard ranup her sleeve, on which occasion she confesses she nearly "died offright, ") her much-sought advice was always on the side of reason. Asceticism she prized; dirt she abhorred. "For the love of Heaven, "she wrote to the Provincial, Gratian, then occupied with his firstfoundation of discalced friars, "let your fraternity be careful thatthey have clean beds and tablecloths, even though it be moreexpensive, for it is a terrible thing not to be cleanly. " Nopersuasion could induce her to retain a novice whom she believed tobe unfitted for her rule:--"We women are not so easy to know, " washer scornful reply to the Jesuit, Olea, who held his judgment in suchmatters to be infallible; but nevertheless her practical soulyearned over a well-dowered nun. When an "excellent novice" with afortune of six thousand ducats presented herself at the gates of thepoverty-stricken convent in Seville, Teresa, then in Avila, wasconsumed with anxiety lest such an acquisition should, through someblunder, be lost. "For the love of God, " wrote the wise old saintto the prioress in Seville, "if she enters, bear with a few defects, for well does she deserve it. "

This is not the type of anecdote which looms large in the volumesof "minced saints" prepared for pious readers, and its absence hasaccustomed us to dissever humour from sanctity. But a candid soulis, as a rule, a humorous soul, awake to the tragi-comic aspect oflife, and immaculately free from self-deception. And to such souls, cast like Teresa's in heroic mould, comes the perception of greatmoral truths, together with the sturdy strength which supportsenthusiasm in the face of human disabilities. They are thelantern-bearers of every age, of every race, of every creed, _lesames bien nees_ whom it behooves us to approach fearlessly out ofthe darkness, for so only can we hope to understand. 

The Nervous Strain

"Which fiddle-strings is weakness to expredge my nerves thisnight. "--MRS. GAMP. 

Anna Robeson Burr, in her scholarly analysis of the world's greatautobiographies, has found occasion to compare the sufferings of theAmerican woman under the average conditions of life with theendurance of the woman who, three hundred years ago, confronted direvicissitudes with something closely akin to insensibility. "To-day, " says Mrs. Burr, "a child's illness, an over-gay season, the loss of an investment, a family jar, --these are accepted assufficient cause for over-strained nerves and temporary retirementto a sanitarium. _Then_, war, rapine, fire, sword, prolonged andmortal peril, were considered as furnishing no excuse to men or womenfor altering the habits, or slackening the energies, of their dailyexistence. "

As a matter of fact, Isabella d' Este witnessed the sacking of Romewithout so much as thinking of nervous prostration. This was nearlyfour hundred years ago, but it is the high-water mark of femininefortitude. To live through such days and nights of horror, and emergetherefrom with unimpaired vitality, and unquenched love for abeautiful and dangerous world, is to rob the words "shock" and"strain" of all dignity and meaning. To resume at once theinterrupted duties and pleasures of life was, for the Marchionessof Mantua, obligatory; but none the less we marvel that she couldplay her role so well. 

A hundred and thirty years later, Sir Ralph Verney, an exiledroyalist, sent his young wife back to England to petition Parliamentfor the restoration of his sequestrated estates. Lady Verney's pathwas beset by difficulties and dangers. She had few friends and manyenemies, little money and cruel cares. She was, it is needless tostate, pregnant when she left France, and paused in her work longenough to bear her husband "a lusty boy"; after which Sir Ralph writesthat he fears she is neglecting her guitar, and urges her to practisesome new music before she returns to the Continent. 

Such pages of history make tonic reading for comfortable ladies who, in their comfortable homes, are bidden by their comfortable doctorsto avoid the strain of anything and everything which makes the gameof life worth living. It is our wont to think of ourgreat-great-great-grandmothers as spending their days inundisturbed tranquillity. We take imaginary naps in their quietrooms, envying the serenity of an existence unvexed by telegrams, telephones, clubs, lectures, committee-meetings, suffragedemonstrations, and societies for harrying our neighbours. How sweetand still those spacious rooms must have been! What was the remotetinkling of a harp, compared to pianolas, and phonographs, and allthe infernal contrivances of science for producing and perpetuatingnoise? What was a fear of ghosts compared to a knowledge of germs?What was repeated child-bearing, or occasional smallpox, comparedto the "over-pressure" upon "delicate organisms, " which is makingthe fortunes of doctors to-day?

So we argue. Yet in good truth our ancestors had their share ofpressure, and more than their share of ill-health. The stomach wasthe same ungrateful and rebellious organ then that it is now. Naturewas the same strict accountant then that she is now, and balancedher debit and credit columns with the same relentless accuracy. The"liver" of the last century has become, we are told, the "nerves"of to-day; which transmigration should be a bond of sympathy betweenthe new woman and that unchangeable article, man. We have warmerspirits and a higher vitality than our home-keepinggreat-grandmothers ever had. We are seldom hysterical, and we neverfaint. If we are gay, our gayeties involve less exposure and fatigue. If we are serious-minded, our attitude towards our own errors is oneof unaffected leniency. That active, lively, all-embracingassurance of eternal damnation, which was part of John Wesley'svigorous creed, might have broken down the nervous system of amollusk. The modern nurse, jealously guarding her patient from allbut the neutralities of life, may be pleased to know that when Wesleymade his memorable voyage to Savannah, a young woman on board theship gave birth to her first child; and Wesley's journal is full ofdeep concern, because the other women about her failed to improvethe occasion by exhorting the poor tormented creature "to fear Himwho is able to inflict sharper pains than these. "

As for the industrious idleness which is held to blame for thewrecking of our nervous systems, it was not unknown to an earliergeneration. Madame Le Brun assures us that, in her youth, pleasure-loving people would leave Brussels early in the morning, travel all day to Paris, to hear the opera, and travel all night home. "That, " she observes, --as well she may, --"was considered being fondof the opera. " A paragraph in one of Horace Walpole's letters givesus the record of a day and a night in the life of an Englishlady, --sixteen hours of "strain" which would put New York to theblush. "I heard the Duchess of Gordon's journal of last Monday, " hewrites to Miss Berry in the spring of 1791. "She first went to hearHandel's music in the Abbey; she then clambered over the benches, and went to Hastings's trial in the Hall; after dinner, to the play;then to Lady Lucan's assembly; after that to Ranelagh, and returnedto Mrs. Hobart's faro-table; gave a ball herself in the evening ofthat morning, into which she must have got a good way; and set outfor Scotland the next day. Hercules could not have accomplished aquarter of her labours in the same space of time. "

Human happiness was not to this gay Gordon a "painless languor"; andif she failed to have nervous prostration--under another name--shewas cheated of her dues. Wear-and-tear plus luxury is said to breakdown the human system more rapidly than wear-and-tear plus want; butperhaps wear-and-tear plus pensive self-consideration is the mostdestructive agent of all. "Apres tout, c'est un monde passable"; andthe Duchess of Gordon was too busy acquainting herself with this factto count the costs, or even pay the penalty. 

One thing is sure, --we cannot live in the world without vexation andwithout fatigue. We are bidden to avoid both, just as we are biddento avoid an injudicious meal, a restless night, a close and crowdedroom, an uncomfortable sensation of any kind, --as if these thingswere not the small coin of existence. An American doctor who wasdelicately swathing his nervous patient in cotton wool, explainedthat, as part of the process, she must be secluded from everythingunpleasant. No disturbing news must be told her. No needlesscontradiction must be offered her. No disagreeable word must bespoken to her. "But doctor, " said the lady, who had long beforeretired with her nerves from all lively contact with realities, "whois there that would dream of saying anything disagreeable to me?""Madam, " retorted the physician, irritated for once intounprofessional candour, "have you then no family?"

There _is_ a bracing quality about family criticism, if we are strongenough to bear its veracities. What makes it so useful is that itrecognizes existing conditions. All the well-meant wisdom of the"Don't Worry" books is based upon immunity from common sensationsand from everyday experience. We must--unless we are insensate--takeour share of worry along with our share of mishaps. All the kindlycounsellors who, in scientific journals, entreat us to keep on tap"a vivid hope, a cheerful resolve, an absorbing interest, " by wayof nerve-tonic, forget that these remedies do not grow under glass. They are hardy plants, springing naturally in eager and animatednatures. Artificial remedies might be efficacious in an artificialworld. In a real world, the best we can do is to meet the plaguesof life as Dick Turpin met the hangman's noose, "with manlyresignation, though with considerable disgust. " Moreover, disagreeable things are often very stimulating. A visit to somebeautiful little rural almshouses in England convinced me that whatkept the old inmates alert and in love with life was, not the charmof their bright-coloured gardens, nor the comfort of their cottagehearths, but the vital jealousies and animosities which prickedtheir sluggish blood to tingling. 

There are prophets who predict the downfall of the human race throughundue mental development, who foresee us (flatteringly, I must say)winding up the world's history in a kind of intellectual apotheosis. They write distressing pages about the strain of study in schools, the strain of examinations, the strain of competition, the strainof night-work, when children ought to be in bed, the strain ofday-work, when they ought to be at play. An article on "Nerves andOver-Pressure" in the "Dublin Review" conveys the impression thatlittle boys and girls are dangerously absorbed in their lessons, anddraws a fearful picture of these poor innocents literally "grindingfrom babyhood. " It is over-study (an evil from which our remoteancestors were wholly and happily exempt) which lays, so we are told, the foundation of all our nervous disorders. It is this wastingambition which exhausts the spring of childhood and the vitality ofyouth. 

There must be some foundation for fears so often expressed; thoughwhen we look at the blooming boys and girls of our acquaintance, withtheir placid ignorance and their love of fun, their glory inathletics and their transparent contempt for learning, it is hardto believe that they are breaking down their constitutions by study. Nor is it possible to acquire even the most modest substitute foreducation without some effort. The carefully fostered theory thatschool-work can be made easy and enjoyable breaks down as soon asanything, however trivial, has to be learned. 

Life is a real thing in the school-room and in the nursery; andchildren--left to their own devices--accept it with wonderfulcourage and sagacity. If we allow to their souls some noble and freeexpansion, they may be trusted to divert themselves from that fretfulself-consciousness which the nurse calls naughtiness, and the doctor, nerves. A little wholesome neglect, a little discipline, plenty ofplay, and a fair chance to be glad and sorry as the hours swingby, --these things are not too much to grant to childhood. Thatcareful coddling which deprives a child of all delicate and strongemotions lest it be saddened, or excited, or alarmed, leaves itdangerously soft of fibre. Coleridge, an unhappy little lad at school, was lifted out of his own troubles by an acquaintance with the heroicsorrows of the world. There is no page of history, however dark, thereis no beautiful old tale, however tragic, which does not impart somestrength and some distinction to the awakening mind. It is possibleto overrate the superlative merits of insipidity as a mental andmoral force in the development of youth. 

There are people who surrender themselves without reserve toneedless activities, who have a real affection for telephones, anddistrict messengers, and the importunities of their daily mail. Ifthey are women, they put special delivery stamps on letters whichwould lose nothing by a month's delay. If they are men, they exultin the thought that they can be reached by wireless telegraphy onmid-ocean. We are apt to think of these men and women as painfulproducts of our own time and of our own land; but they have probablyexisted since the building of the Tower of Babel, --a nerve-rackingpiece of work which gave peculiar scope to strenuous and impotentenergies. 

A woman whose every action is hurried, whose every hour is open todisturbance, whose every breath is drawn with superfluous emphasis, will talk about the nervous strain under which she is living, asthough dining out and paying the cook's wages were the things whichare breaking her down. The remedy proposed for such "strain" iswithdrawal from the healthy buffetings of life, --not for three days, as Burke withdrew in order that he might read "Evelina, " and be restedand refreshed thereby; but long enough to permit of the notion thatimmunity from buffetings is a possible condition of existence, --ofall errors, the most irretrievable. 

It has been many centuries since Marcus Aurelius observed the fretfuldisquiet of Rome, which must have been strikingly like our fretfuldisquiet to-day, and proffered counsel, unheeded then as now: "Takepleasure in one thing and rest in it, passing from one social actto another, thinking of God. "

The Girl Graduate

"When I find learning and wisdom united in one person, I do not waitto consider the sex; I bend in admiration. "--LA BRUYERE. 

We shall never know, though we shall always wonder, why certainphrases, carelessly flung to us by poet or by orator, should beendowed with regrettable vitality. When Tennnyson wrote that mockingline about "sweet girl graduates in their golden hair, " he couldhardly have surmised that it would be quoted exuberantly year afterweary year, or that with each successive June it would reappear asthe inspiration of flowery editorials, and of pictures, monotonouslyamorous, in our illustrated journals. Perhaps in view of the seriousstatistics which have for some time past girdled the woman student, statistics dealing exhaustively with her honours, her illnesses, hersomewhat nebulous achievements, and the size of her infant families, it is as well to realize that the big, unlettered, easy-going worldregards her still from the standpoint of golden hair, and of theundying charm of immaturity. 

In justice to the girl graduate, it must be said that she takesherself simply and sanely. It is not her fault that statisticiansnote down every breath she draws; and many of their most heartrendingallegations have passed into college jokes, traditional jokes, fatedto descend from senior to freshman for happy years to come. Thestudent learns in the give-and-take of communal life to laugh at manythings, partly from sheer high spirits, partly from youthfulcynicism, and the habit of sharpening her wit against her neighbour's. It is commonly believed that she is an unduly serious young personwith an insatiable craving for knowledge; in reality she is oftenas healthily unresponsive as is her Yale or Harvard brother. If shecannot yet weave her modest acquirements into the tissue of her lifeas unconcernedly as her brother does, it is not because she has beeneducated beyond her mental capacity: it is because social conditionsare not for her as inevitable as they are for him. 

Things were simpler in the old days, when college meant for a womanthe special training needed for a career; when, battling often withpoverty, she made every sacrifice for the education which would giveher work a market value; and when all she asked in return was thedignity of self-support. Now many girls, unspurred by necessity orby ambition, enter college because they are keen for personal andintellectual freedom, because they desire the activities and thepleasures which college generously gives. They bring with them sometraditions of scholarship, and some knowledge of the world, with acorresponding elasticity of judgment. They may or may not be goodstudents, but their influence makes for serenity and balance. Theirfour years' course lacks, however, a definite goal. It is a trainingfor life, as is the four years' course of their Yale or Harvardbrothers, but with this difference, --the college woman's life isstill open to adjustment. 

Often it adjusts itself along time-honoured lines, and withtime-honoured results. In this happy event, some mystic figures arerecalculated in scientific journals, the graduate's babies are addedto the fractional birth-rate accredited to the college woman, herfamily and friends consider that, individually, she has settled thewhole vexed question of education and domesticity, and the world, enamoured always of the traditional type of femininity, goes on itsway rejoicing. If, however, the graduate evinces no inclination forsocial and domestic delights, if she longs to do some definite work, to breathe the breath of man's activities, and to guide herself, asa man must do, through the intricate mazes of life, it is the partof justice and of wisdom to let her try. Nothing steadies the restlesssoul like work, --real work which has an economic value, and ismeasured by the standards of the world. The college woman has beentrained to independence of thought, and to a wide reasonableness ofoutlook. She has also received some equipment in the way ofknowledge; not more, perhaps, than could be easily absorbed in theordinary routine of life, but enough to give her a fair start inwhatever field of industry she enters. If she develops intoefficiency, if she makes good her hold upon work, she silences hercritics. If she fails, and can, in Stevenson's noble words, "takehonourable defeat to be a form of victory, " she has not wasted herendeavours. 

It is strange that the advantages of a college course forgirls--advantages solid and reckonable--should be still so sharplyquestioned by men and women of the world. It is stranger still thatits earnest advocates should claim for it in a special manner thefew merits it does not possess. When President David Starr Jordan, of Leland Stanford University, tells us that "it is hardly necessaryamong intelligent men and women to argue that a good woman is a betterone for having received a college education; anything short of thisis inadequate for the demands of modern life and modern culture";we can only echo the words of the wise cat in Mr. Froude's "Cat'sPilgrimage, " "There may be truth in what you say, but your view islimited. "

Goodness, indeed, is not a matter easily opened to discussion. Whocan pigeonhole goodness, or assign it a locality? But culture (ifby the word we mean that common understanding of the world's besttraditions which enables us to meet one another with mental ease)is not the fair fruit of a college education. It is primarily a matterof inheritance, of lifelong surroundings, of temperament, ofdelicacy of taste, of early and vivid impressions. It is often foundin college, but it is not a collegiate product. The steady andabsorbing work demanded of a student who is seeking a degree, precludes wide wanderings "in the realms of gold. " If, in her fouryears of study, she has gained some solid knowledge of one or twosubjects, with a power of approach in other directions, she has donewell, and justified the wisdom of the group system, which makes forintellectual discipline and real attainments. 

In households where there is little education, the college daughteris reverenced for what she knows, --for her Latin, her mathematics, her biology. What she does not know, being also unknown to her family, causes no dismay. In households where the standard of cultivationis high, the college daughter is made the subject of good-humouredridicule, because she lacks the general information of hersisters, --because she has never heard of Abelard and Heloise, ofGraham of Claverhouse, of "The Beggars' Opera. " Nobody expects thecollege son to know these things, or is in the least surprised whenhe does not; but the college daughter is supposed to be the repositoryof universal erudition. Every now and then somebody rushes into printwith indignant illustrations of her ignorance, as though ignorancewere not the one common possession of mankind. Those of us who arenot undergoing examinations are not driven to reveal it, --acomfortable circumstance, which need not, however, make usunreasonably proud. 

Therefore, when we are told of sophomores who place Shakespeare inthe twelfth, and Dickens in the seventeenth century, who are underthe impression that "Don Quixote" flowed from the fertile pen of Mr. Marion Crawford, and who are not aware that a gentleman named JamesBoswell wrote a most entertaining life of another gentleman namedSamuel Johnson, we need not lift up horror-stricken hands to Heaven, but call to mind how many other things there are in this world toknow. That a girl student should mistake "_Launcelot Gobbo_" for KingArthur's knight is not a matter of surprise to one who remembers howthree young men, graduates of the oldest and proudest colleges inthe land, placidly confessed ignorance of "_Petruchio_. "Shakespeare, after all, belongs to "the realms of gold. " The highereducation, as now understood, permits the student to escape him, andto escape the Bible as well. As a consequence of these exemptions, a bachelor of arts may be, and often is, unable to meet hisintellectual equals with mental ease. Allusions that have passedinto the common vocabulary of cultivated men and women have nomeaning for him. Does not Mr. Andrew Lang tell us of an Oxford studentwho wanted to know what people meant when they said "hankering afterthe flesh-pots of Egypt"; and has not the present writer been askedby a Harvard graduate if she could remember a Joseph, "somewhere"in the Old Testament, who was "decoyed into Egypt by a coat of manycolours"?

To measure _any_ form of schooling by its direct results is to narrowa wide issue to insignificance. The by-products of education are thethings which count. It has been said by an admirable educator thatthe direct results obtained from Eton and Rugby are a few copies ofindifferent Latin verse; the by-products are the young men who runthe Indian Empire. We may be startled for a moment by discoveringa student of political economy to be wholly and happily ignorant ofMr. Lloyd-George's "Budget, " the most vivid object-lesson of ourday; but how many Americans who talked about the budget, and hadimpassioned views on the subject, knew what it really contained? Ifthe student's intelligence is so trained that she has some adequategrasp of economics, if she has been lifted once and forever out ofthe Robin Hood school of political economy, which is so dear to awoman's generous heart, it matters little how early or how late shebecomes acquainted with the history of her own time. "Depend uponit, " said the wise Dr. Johnson, whom undergraduates are sometimeswont to slight, "no woman was ever the worse for sense and knowledge. "It was his habit to rest a superstructure on foundations. 

The college graduate is far more immature than her characteristicself-reliance leads us to suppose. By her side, the girl who has leftschool at eighteen, and has lived four years in the world, is weightedwith experience. The extension of youth is surely as great a boonto women as to men. There is time enough ahead of all of us in whichto grow old and circumspect. For four years the student's interestshave been keen and concentrated, the healthy, limited interests ofa community. For four years her pleasures have been simple and sane. For four years her ambitions, like the ambitions of her collegebrother, have been as deeply concerned with athletics as withtext-books. She has had a better chance for physical development thanif she had "come out" at eighteen. Her college life has beenexceptionally happy, because its complications have been few, andits freedom as wide as wisdom would permit. The system ofself-government, now introduced into the colleges, has justifieditself beyond all questioning. It has promoted a clear understandingof honour, it has taught the student the value of discipline, it haslent dignity to the routine of her life. 

Some reverence for the laws ourselves have made, is surely the first and best lesson which the citizen of a republicneeds to learn. 

Writers on educational themes have pointed out--with tremors ofapprehension--that while a woman student working among men at aforeign university is mentally stimulated by her surroundings, stimulated often to the point of scholarship, her development is notuniform and normal. She is always in danger of sinking her femininity, or of overemphasizing it. In the former case, she loses charm andpersonality; in the latter, sanity and balance. From both perils thecollege woman in the United States is happily exempt. PresidentJordan offers as a plea for co-education the healthy sense ofcompanionship between boy and girl students. "There is less ofsilliness and folly, " he says, "where man is not a novelty. " But, in truth, this particular form of silliness and folly is at a discountin every woman's college, simply because the interests andoccupations which crowd the student's day leave little room for itsexpansion. 

The three best things about the college life of girls are its attitudetowards money (an attitude which contrasts sharply with that of manyprivate schools), its attitude towards social disparities, and itsattitude towards men. The atmosphere of the college is reasonablydemocratic. Like gravitates towards like, and a similarity ofbackground and tradition forms a natural basis for companionship;but there is tolerance for other backgrounds which are not withoutdignity, though they may be lacking in distinction. Poverty isadmittedly inconvenient, but carries no reproach. Light hearts andjesting tongues minimize its discomforts. I well remember when thecoming of Madame Bernhardt to Philadelphia in 1901 fired the studentsof Bryn Mawr College with the justifiable ambition to see this greatactress in all her finer roles. Those who had money spent it royally. Those who had none offered their possessions, --books, ornaments, tea-cups, for sale. "Such a chance to buy bargains, " observed oneyoung spendthrift, who had been endeavouring to dispose of all sheneeded most; "but unluckily everybody wants to sell. We know now theimportance of the consuming classes, and how useful in their modestway some idle rich would be. "

That large and influential portion of the community which does notknow its own mind, and which the rest of the world is alwaysendeavouring to conciliate, is still divided between its honestdesire to educate women, and its fear lest the woman, when educated, may lose the conservative force which is her most valuable asset. That small and combative portion of the community which knows itsown mind accurately, and which always demands the impossible, isdetermined that the college girl shall betake herself to practicalpursuits, that she shall wedge into her four years of work, coursesin domestic science, the chemistry of food, nursing, dressmaking, house sanitation, pedagogy, and that blight of thenursery, --child-study. These are the things, we are often told, which it behooves a woman to know, and by the mastery of which sheis able, so says a censorious writer in the "Educational Review, ""to repay in some measure her debt to man, who has extended to herthe benefits of a higher education. "

It is to be feared that the girl graduate, the youthful bachelor ofarts who steps smiling through the serried ranks of students, herheart beating gladly in response to their generous applause, haslittle thought of repaying her debt to man. Somebody has made anaddress which she was too nervous to hear, and has affirmed, withthat impressiveness which we all lend to our easiest generalizations, that the purpose of college is to give women a broad and liberaleducation, and, at the same time, to preserve and develop thecharacteristics of a complete womanhood. Somebody else has followedup the address with a few fervent remarks, declaring that the onlyproof of competence is performance. "The world belongs to those whohave stormed it. " This last ringing sentence--delivered with analmost defiant air of originality--has perhaps caught the graduate'sear, but its familiar cadence awakened no response. Has she notalready stormed the world by taking her degree, and does not the worldbelong to her, in any case, by virtue of her youth and inexperience?Never, while she lives, will it be so completely hers as on the dayof her graduation. Let her enjoy her possession while she may. 

And her equipment? Well, those of us who call to mind the medley ofunstable facts, untenable theories, and undesirable accomplishments, which was _our_ substitute for education, deem her solidly informed. If the wisdom of the college president has rescued her from domesticscience, and her own common sense has steered her clear of art, shehas had a chance, in four years of study, to lay the foundation ofknowledge. Her vocabulary is curiously limited. At her age, hergrandmother, if a gentlewoman, used more words, and used them better. But then her grandmother had not associated exclusively withyouthful companions. The graduate has serious views of life, whichare not amiss, and a healthy sense of humour to enliven them. Sheis resourceful, honourable, and pathetically self-reliant. In herhighest and happiest development, she merits the noble words in whichan old Ferrara chronicler praises the loveliest and the most malignedwoman in all history: "The lady is keen and intellectual, joyous andhuman, and possesses good reasoning powers. "

To balance these permanent gains, there are some temporary losses. The college student, if she does not take up a definite line of work, is apt, for a time at least, to be unquiet. That quality so lovinglydescribed by Peacock as "stayathomeativeness" is her leastnoticeable characteristic. The smiling discharge of uncongenialsocial duties, which disciplines the woman of the world, seems toher unseeing eyes a waste of time and opportunities. She has readlittle, and that little, not for "human delight. " Excellence inliterature has been pointed out to her, starred and double-starred, like Baedeker's cathedrals. She has been taught the value ofstandards, and has been spared the groping of the undirected reader, who builds up her own standards slowly and hesitatingly by an endlessprocess of comparison. The saving in time is beneficial, and somedefects in taste have been remedied. But human delight does notrespond to authority. It is the hour of rapturous reading and thepower of secret thinking which make for personal distinction. Theshipwreck of education, says Dr. William James, is to be unable, after years of study, to recognize unticketed eminence. The bestresult obtainable from college, with its liberal and honourabletraditions, is that training in the humanities which lifts the rawboy and girl into the ranks of the understanding; enabling them tosympathize with men's mistakes, to feel the beauty of lost causes, the pathos of misguided epochs, "the ceaseless whisper of permanentideals. "

The Estranging Sea

 "God bless the narrow sea which keeps her off, And keeps our Britain whole within itself. "

So speaks "the Tory member's elder son, " in "The Princess":--

 ". .. God bless the narrow seas! I wish they were a whole Atlantic broad";

and the transatlantic reader, pausing to digest this conservativesentiment, wonders what difference a thousand leagues would make. If the little strip of roughened water which divides Dover fromCalais were twice the ocean's breadth, could the division be anywider and deeper than it is?

We Americans cross from continent to continent, and are mergedblissfully into the Old-World life. Inured from infancy to contrasts, we seldom resent the unfamiliar. Our attitude towards it is, for themost part, frankly receptive, and full of joyous possibilities. Wetake kindly, or at least tolerantly, to foreign creeds and customs. We fail to be affronted by what we do not understand. We are notwithout a shadowy conviction that there may be other points of viewthan our own, other beliefs than those we have been taught to cherish. Mr. Birrell, endeavouring to account for Charlotte Bronte'shostility to the Belgians, --who had been uncommonly kind toher, --says that she "had never any patience" with Catholicism. Theremark invites the reply of the Papal chamberlain to Prince HerbertBismarck, when that nobleman, being in attendance upon the Emperor, pushed rudely--and unbidden--into Pope Leo's audience chamber. "Iam Prince Herbert Bismarck, " shouted the German. "That, " said theurbane Italian, "explains, but does not excuse your conduct. "

So much has been said and written about England's "splendidisolation, " the phrase has grown so familiar to English eyes and ears, that the political and social attitude which it represents is asource of pride to thousands of Englishmen who are intelligent enoughto know what isolation costs. "It is of the utmost importance, " saysthe "Spectator, " "that we should understand that the temper withwhich England regards the other states of Europe, and the temper withwhich those states regard her, is absolutely different. " And then, with ill-concealed elation, the writer adds: "The English are themost universally disliked nation on the face of the earth. "

Diplomatically, this may be true, though it is hard to see why. Socially and individually, it is not true at all. The English possesstoo many agreeable traits to permit them to be as much disliked asthey think and hope they are. Even on the Continent, even in thatstrange tourist world where hostilities grow apace, where thecourtesies of life are relaxed, and where every nationality presentsits least lovable aspect, the English can never aspire to the prizeof unpopularity. They are too silent, too clean, too handsome, toofond of fresh air, too schooled in the laws of justice which compelthem to acknowledge--however reluctantly--the rights of other men. They are certainly uncivil, but that is a matter of no great moment. We do not demand that our fellow tourists should be urbane, but thatthey should evince a sense of propriety in their behaviour, that theyshould be decently reluctant to annoy. There is distinction in theEnglishman's quietude, and in his innate respect for order. 

But why should he covet alienation? Why should he dread popularity, lest it imply that he resembles other men? When the tide of fortuneturned in the South African war, and the news of the relief ofMafeking drove London mad with joy, there were Englishmen whoexpressed grave alarm at the fervid demonstrations of the populace. England, they said, was wont to take her defeats without despondency, and her victories without elation. They feared the nationalcharacter was changing, and becoming more like the character ofFrenchmen and Americans. 

This apprehension--happily unfounded--was very insular and veryEnglish. National traits are, as a matter of fact, as enduring asthe mountain-tops. They survive all change of policies, all shiftingof boundary lines, all expansion and contraction of dominion. WhenFroissart tranquilly observed, "The English are affable to no othernation than themselves, " he spoke for the centuries to come. Sorbieres, who visited England in 1663, who loved the English turf, hated and feared the English cooking, and deeply admired hishospitable English hosts, admitted that the nation had "a propensityto scorn all the rest of the world. " The famous verdict, "_Les Anglaissont justes, mais pas bons_, " crystallizes the judgment of time. Foreign opinion is necessarily an imperfect diagnosis, but it hasits value to the open mind. He is a wise man who heeds it, and a dullman who holds it in derision. When an English writer in "Macmillan"remarks with airy contempt that French criticisms on England have"all the piquancy of a woman's criticisms on a man, " theAmerican--standing outside the ring--is amused by this superbsimplicity of self-conceit. 

Fear of a French invasion and the carefully nurtured detestation ofthe Papacy, --these two controlling influences must be heldresponsible for prejudices too deep to be fathomed, too strong tobe overcome. "We do naturally hate the French, " observes Mr. Pepys, with genial candour; and this ordinary, everyday prejudice darkenedinto fury when Napoleon's conquests menaced the world. Our schoolhistories have taught us (it is the happy privilege of a schoolhistory to teach us many things which make no impression on our minds)that for ten years England apprehended a descent upon her shores;but we cannot realize what the apprehension meant, how it ate itsway into the hearts of men, until we stumble upon some such paragraphas this, from a letter of Lord Jeffrey's, written to Francis Hornerin the winter of 1808: "For my honest impression is that Bonapartewill be in Dublin in about fifteen months, perhaps. And then, if Isurvive, I shall try to go to America. "

"If I survive!" What wonder that Jeffrey, who was a clear-headed, unimaginative man, cherished all his life a cold hostility to France?What wonder that the painter Haydon, who was highly imaginative andnot in the least clear-headed, felt such hostility to be an essentialpart of patriotism? "In _my_ day, " he writes in his journal, "boyswere born, nursed, and grew up, hating and to hate the name ofFrenchman. " He did hate it with all his heart, but then his earliestrecollection--when he was but four years old--was seeing his motherlying on her sofa and crying bitterly. He crept up to her, puzzledand frightened, poor baby, and she sobbed out: "They have cut offthe Queen of France's head, my dear. " Such an ineffaceablerecollection colours childhood and sets character. It is aneducation for life. 

As for the Papacy, --well, years have softened but not destroyedEngland's hereditary detestation of Rome. The easy tolerance of theAmerican for any religion, or for all religions, or for no religionat all, is the natural outcome of a mixed nationality, and of atolerably serene background. We have shed very little of our blood, or of our neighbour's blood, for the faith that was in us, or in him;and, during the past half-century, forbearance has broadened intounconcern. Even the occasional refusal of a pastor to allow a clericof another denomination to preach in his church, can hardly be deemeda violent form of persecution. 

What American author, for example, can recall such childish memoriesas those which Mr. Edmund Gosse describes with illuminating candourin "Father and Son"? "We welcomed any social disorder in any partof Italy, as likely to be annoying to the Papacy. If there was acustom-house officer stabbed in a fracas at Sassari, we gave loudthanks that liberty and light were breaking in upon Sardinia. " WhatAmerican scientist, taking a holiday in Italy, ever carried aroundwith him such uncomfortable sensations as those described byProfessor Huxley in some of his Roman letters? "I must have a strongstrain of Puritan blood in me somewhere, " he writes to Sir JohnDonnelly, after a morning spent at Saint Peter's, "for I am possessedwith a desire to arise and slay the whole brood of idolaters, wheneverI assist at one of these services. "

Save and except Miss Georgiana Podsnap's faltering fancy formurdering her partners at a ball, this is the most bloodthirstysentiment on record, and suggests but a limited enjoyment of a reallybeautiful service. Better the light-hearted unconcern of Mr. JohnRichard Green, the historian, who, albeit a clergyman of the Churchof England, preferred going to the Church of Rome when Catholicismhad an organ, and Protestantism, a harmonium. "The difference intruth between them doesn't seem to me to make up for the differencein instruments. "

Mr. Lowell speaks somewhere of a "divine provincialism, " whichexpresses the sturdy sense of a nation, and is but ill replaced bya cosmopolitanism lacking in virtue and distinction. Perhaps thisis England's gift, and insures for her a solidarity which Americanslack. Ignoring or misunderstanding the standards of other races, shesets her own so high we needs must raise our eyes to consider them. Yet when Mr. Arnold scandalized his fellow countrymen by the frankconfession that he found foreign life "liberating, " what did he meanbut that he refused to

 "drag at each remove a lengthening chain"?

His mind leaped gladly to meet new issues and fresh tides of thought;he stood ready to accept the reasonableness of usages which differedmaterially from his own; and he took delight in the trivialhappenings of every day, precisely because they were un-English andunfamiliar. Even the names of strange places, of German castles andFrench villages, gave him, as they give Mr. Henry James, a curioussatisfaction, a sense of harmony and ordered charm. 

In that caustic volume, "Elizabeth in Rugen, " there is an amusingdescription of the indignation of the bishop's wife, Mrs. Harvey-Browne, over what she considers the stupidities of Germanspeech. 

"What, " she asks with asperity, "could be more supremely senselessthan calling the Baltic the Ostsee?"

"Well, but why shouldn't they, if they want to?" says Elizabethdensely. 

"But, dear Frau X, it is so foolish. East sea! Of what is it the east?One is always the east of something, but one doesn't talk about it. The name has no meaning whatever. Now 'Baltic' exactly describes it. "

This is fiction, but it is fiction easily surpassed by fact, --witnessthe English tourist in France who said to Sir Leslie Stephen thatit was "unnatural" for soldiers to dress in blue. Then, rememberingcertain British instances, he added hastily: "Except, indeed, forthe Artillery, or the Blue Horse. " "The English model, " comments SirLeslie, "with all its variations, appeared to him to be ordained bynature. "

The rigid application of one nation's formulas to another nation'smanners has its obvious disadvantages. It is praiseworthy in anEnglishman to carry his conscience--like his bathtub--wherever hegoes, but both articles are sadly in his way. The American who leaveshis conscience and his tub at home, and who trusts to being cleanand good after a foreign fashion, has an easier time, and is notpermanently stained. Being less cock-sure in the start about hisstanding with Heaven, he is subject to reasonable doubts as to theculpability of other people. The joyous outdoor Sundays of Franceand Germany please him at least as well as the shut-in Sundays ofEngland and Scotland. He takes kindly to concerts, enlivened, without demoralization, by beer, and wonders why he cannot have themat home. Whatever is distinctive, whatever is national, interestsand delights him; and he seldom feels called upon to decide a moralissue which is not submitted to his judgment. 

I was once in Valais when a rude play was acted by the peasants ofVissoye. It set forth the conversion of the Huns to Christianitythrough the medium of a miracle vouchsafed to Zacheo, the legendaryapostle of Anniviers. The little stage was erected on a pleasanthillside, the procession bearing the cross wound down from thevillage church, the priests from all the neighbouring towns werepresent, and the pious Valaisans--as overjoyed as if the Huns werea matter of yesterday--sang a solemn _Te Deum_ in thanksgiving forthe conversion of their land. It would be hard to conceive of a dramaless profane; indeed, only religious fervour could have breathedlife into so much controversy; yet I had English friends, intelligent, cultivated, and deeply interested, who refused to go with me toVissoye because it was Sunday afternoon. They stood by their guns, and attended their own service in the drawing-room of the desertedlittle hotel at Zinal; gaining, I trust, the approval of their ownconsciences, and losing the experience of a lifetime. 

Disapprobation has ever been a powerful stimulus to the Saxon mind. The heroic measures which it enforces command our faltering homage, and might incite us to emulation, were we not temperamentallydisposed to ask ourselves the fatal question, "Is it worth while?"When we remember that twenty-five thousand people in Great Britainleft off eating sugar, by way of protest against slavery in the WestIndies, we realize how the individual Englishman holds himselfmorally responsible for wrongs he is innocent of inflicting, andpowerless to redress. Hood and other light-minded humourists laughedat him for drinking bitter tea; but he was not to be shaken by ridicule. Miss Edgeworth voiced the conservative sentiment of her day when sheobjected to eating unsweetened custards; but he was not to be chilledby apathy. 

The same strenuous spirit impelled the English to express theirsympathy for Captain Alfred Dreyfus by staying away from the Parisfair of 1900. The London press loudly boasted that Englishmen wouldnot give the sanction of their presence to any undertaking of theFrench Government, and called attention again and again to theirabsence from the exhibition. I myself was asked a number of timesin England whether this absence were a noticeable thing; but truthcompelled me to admit that it was not. With Paris brimming over likea cup filled to the lip, with streets and fair-grounds thronged, withevery hotel crowded and every cab engaged, and with twenty thousandof my own countrymen clamorously enlivening the scene, it was notpossible to miss anybody anywhere. It obviously had not occurred toAmericans to see any connection between the trial of Captain Dreyfusand their enjoyment of the most beautiful and brilliant thing thatEurope had to give. The pretty adage, "_Tout homme a deux pays: lesien et puis la France_, " is truer of us than of any other peoplein the world. And we may as well pardon a nation her transgressions, if we cannot keep away from her shores. 

England's public utterances anent the United States are of thefriendliest character. Her newspapers and magazines say flatteringthings about us. Her poet-laureate--unlike his great predecessor whounaffectedly detested us--began his official career by praising uswith such fervour that we felt we ought in common honesty to tellhim that we were nothing like so good as he thought us. An Englishtext-book, published a few years ago, explains generously to theschool-boys of Great Britain that the United States should not belooked upon as a foreign nation. "They are peopled by men of our bloodand faith, enjoy in a great measure the same laws that we do, readthe same Bible, and acknowledge, like us, the rule of KingShakespeare. "

All this is very pleasant, but the fact remains that Englishmenexpress surprise and pain at our most innocent idiosyncrasies. Theycorrect our pronunciation and our misuse of words. They regret ournomadic habits, our shrill voices, our troublesome children, ourinability to climb mountains or "do a little glacier work" (it soundslike embroidery, but means scrambling perilously over ice), ourtaste for unwholesome--or, in other words, seasoned--food. When Iam reproved by English acquaintances for the "Americanisms" whichdisfigure my speech and proclaim my nationality, I cannot well defendmyself by asserting that I read the same Bible as they do, --for maybe, after all, I don't. 

The tenacity with which English residents on the Continent cling tothe customs and traditions of their own country is pathetic in itsloyalty and in its misconceptions. Their scheme of life does notpermit a single foreign observance, their range of sympathies seldomincludes a single foreign ideal. "An Englishman's happiness, " saysM. Taine, "consists in being at home at six in the evening, with apleasing, attached wife, four or five children, and respectfuldomestics. " This is a very good notion of happiness, no fault canbe found with it, and something on the same order, though less perfectin detail, is highly prized and commended in America. But it doesnot embrace every avenue of delight. The Frenchman who seems neverto go home, who seldom has a large family, whose wife is often hisbusiness partner and helpmate, and whose servants are friendlyallies rather than automatic menials, enjoys life also, and with somedegree of intelligence. He may be pardoned for resenting the attitudeof English exiles, who, driven from their own country by theharshness of the climate, or the cruel cost of living, never ceaseto deplore the unaccountable foreignness of foreigners. "Our socialtariff amounts to prohibition, " said a witty Englishman in France. "Exchange of ideas takes place only at the extreme point ofnecessity. "

It is not under such conditions that any nation gives its best tostrangers. It is not to the affronted soul that the charm of theunfamiliar makes its sweet and powerful appeal. Lord Byron wasfurious when one of his countrywomen called Chamonix "rural"; yet, after all, the poor creature was giving the scenery what praise sheunderstood. The Englishman who complained that he could not look outof his window in Rome without seeing the sun, had a legitimategrievance (we all know what it is to sigh for grey skies, and forthe unutterable rest they bring); but if we want Rome, we must takeher sunshine, along with her beggars and her Church. Acceptedsympathetically, they need not mar our infinite content. 

There is a wonderful sentence in Mrs. Humphry Ward's "Marriage ofWilliam Ashe, " which subtly and strongly protests against the blightof mental isolation. Lady Kitty Bristol is reciting Corneille in LadyGrosville's drawing-room. "Her audience, " says Mrs. Ward, "lookedon at first with the embarrassed or hostile air which is theEnglishman's natural protection against the great things of art. "To write a sentence at once so caustic and so flawless is to triumphover the limitations of language. The reproach seems a strange oneto hurl at a nation which has produced the noblest literature of theworld since the light of Greece waned; but we must remember thatdistinction of mind, as Mrs. Ward understands it, and as it wasunderstood by Mr. Arnold, is necessarily allied with a knowledge ofFrench arts and letters, and with some insight into the qualitieswhich clarify French conversation. "Divine provincialism" had nohalo for the man who wrote "Friendship's Garland. " He regarded itwith an impatience akin to mistrust, and bordering upon fear. Perhapsthe final word was spoken long ago by a writer whose place inliterature is so high that few aspire to read him. England wassevering her sympathies sharply from much which she had held incommon with the rest of Europe, when Dryden wrote: "They who wouldcombat general authority with particular opinion must firstestablish themselves a reputation of understanding better than othermen. "

Travellers' Tales

 "Wenten forth in heore wey with mony wyse tales, And hedden leve to lyen al heore lyf aftir. " _Piers Plowman_. 

I don't know about travellers' "hedden leve" to lie, but that they"taken leve" no one can doubt who has ever followed their wanderingfootsteps. They say the most charming and audacious things, inblessed indifference to the fact that somebody may possibly believethem. They start strange hopes and longings in the human heart, andthey pave the way for disappointments and disasters. They record theimpression of a careless hour as though it were the experience ofa lifetime. 

There is a delightful little book on French rivers, written someyears ago by a vivacious and highly imaginative gentleman namedMolloy. It is a rose-tinted volume from the first page to the last, so full of gay adventures that it would lure a mollusc from his shell. Every town and every village yields some fresh delight, some humorousexploit to the four oarsmen who risk their lives to see it; but thefew pages devoted to Amboise are of a dulcet and irresistiblepersuasiveness. They fill the reader's soul with a haunting desireto lay down his well-worn cares and pleasures, to say good-bye tohome and kindred, and to seek that favoured spot. Touraine is fullof beauty, and steeped to the lips in historic crimes. Turn wherewe may, her fairness charms the eye, her memories stir the heart. But Mr. Molloy claims for Amboise something rarer in France thanloveliness or romance, something which no French town has ever yetbeen known to possess, --a slumberous and soul-satisfying silence. "We dropped under the very walls of the Castle, " he writes, "withoutseeing a soul. It was a strange contrast to Blois in its absolutestillness. There was no sound but the noise of waters rushing throughthe arches of the bridge. It might have been the palace of theSleeping Beauty, but was only one of the retrospective cities thathad no concern with the present. "

Quiet brooded over the ivied towers and ancient water front. Tranquillity, unconcern, a gentle and courteous aloofnesssurrounded and soothed the intrepid travellers. When, in the earlymorning, the crew pushed off in their frail boat, less than a dozencitizens assembled to watch the start. Even the peril of theperformance (and there are few things more likely to draw a crowdthan the chance of seeing four fellow mortals drown) failed to awakencuriosity. Nine men stood silent on the shore when the outrigger shotinto the swirling river, and it is the opinion of the chronicler thatAmboise "did not often witness such a gathering. " Nine quiet men were, for Amboise, something in the nature of a mob. 

It must be remembered that Mr. Molloy's book is not a new one; butthen Touraine is neither new nor mutable. Nothing changes in itsbeautiful old towns, the page of whose history has been turned forcenturies. What if motors now whirl in a white dust through the heartof France? They do not affect the lives of the villages through whichthey pass. The simple and primitive desire of the motorist is to befed and to move on, to be fed again and to move on again, to sleepand to start afresh. That unavoidable waiting between trains whichnow and then compelled an old-time tourist to look at a cathedralor a chateau, by way of diverting an empty hour, no longer retardsprogress. The motorist needs never wait. As soon as he has eaten, he can go, --a privilege of which be gladly avails himself. A monthat Amboise taught us that, at the feeding-hour, motors came flockinglike fowls, and then, like fowls, dispersed. They were disagreeablewhile they lasted, but they never lasted long. Replete with afive-course luncheon, their fagged and grimy occupants sped on todistant towns and dinner. 

But why should we, who knew well that there is not, and never hasbeen, a quiet corner in all France, have listened to a traveller'stale, and believed in a silent Amboise? Is there no limit to humancredulity? Does experience count for nothing in the Bourbon-likepolicy of our lives? It is to England we must go if we seek for silence, that gentle, pervasive silence which wraps us in a mantle of content. It was in Porlock that Coleridge wrote "Kubla Khan, " transported, Heaven knows whither, by virtue of the hushed repose that consecratesthe sleepiest hamlet in Great Britain. It was at Stoke Pogis thatGray composed his "Elegy. " He could never have written--

 "And all the air a solemn stillness holds, "

in the vicinity of a French village. 

But Amboise! Who would go to rural England, live on ham and eggs, and sleep in a bed harder than Pharaoh's heart, if it were possiblethat a silent Amboise awaited him? The fair fresh vegetables ofFrance, her ripe red strawberries and glowing cherries, her crispsalads and her caressing mattresses lured us no less than the visionof a bloodstained castle, and the wide sweep of the Loire flashingthrough the joyous landscape of Touraine. In the matter of beauty, Amboise outstrips all praise. In the matter of romance, she leavesnothing to be desired. Her splendid old Chateau--half palace and halffortress--towers over the river which mirrors its glory andperpetuates its shame. She is a storehouse of historic memories, sheis the loveliest of little towns, she is in the heart of a districtwhich bears the finest fruit and has the best cooks in France; butshe is not, and never has been, silent, since the days when Louisthe Eleventh was crowned, and she gave wine freely to all who choseto be drunk and merry at her charge. 

If she does not give her wine to-day, she sells it so cheaply--lyinggirt by vine-clad hills--that many of her sons are drunk and merrystill. The sociable habit of setting a table in the open streetprevails at Amboise. Around it labourers take their evening meal, to the accompaniment of song and sunburnt mirth. It sounds poeticand it looks picturesque, --like a picture by Teniers or JanSteen, --but it is not a habit conducive to repose. 

As far as I can judge, --after a month's experience, --the one thingno inhabitant of Amboise ever does is to go to bed. At midnight theriver front is alive with cheerful and strident voices. The Frenchcountryman habitually speaks to his neighbour as if he were half amile away; and when a score of countrymen are conversing in this key, the air rings with their clamour. They sing in the same lusty fashion;not through closed lips, as is the custom of English singers, butrolling out the notes with volcanic energy from the deep craters oftheir throats. When our admirable waiter--who is also our bestfriend--frees his soul in song as he is setting the table, the wallsof the dining-room quiver and vibrate. By five o'clock in the morningevery one except ourselves is on foot and out of doors. We might aswell be, for it is custom, not sleep, which keeps us in our beds. The hay wagons are rolling over the bridge, the farmhands are goingto work, the waiter, in an easy undress, is exchanging volublegreetings with his many acquaintances, the life of the town hasbegun. 

The ordinary week-day life, I mean, for on Sundays the market peoplehave assembled by four, and there are nights when the noises nevercease. It is no unusual thing to be awakened, an hour or two aftermidnight, by a tumult so loud and deep that my first impression isone of conspiracy or revolution. The sound is not unlike the hoarseroar of Sir Henry Irving's admirably trained mobs, --the only mobsI have ever heard, --and I jump out of bed, wondering if the Presidenthas been shot, or the Chamber of Deputies blown up by malcontents. Can these country people have heard the news, as the shepherds ofPeloponnesus heard of the fall of Syracuse, through the gossipingof wood devils, and, like the shepherds, have hastened to carry theintelligence? When I look out of my window, the crowd seems smallfor the uproar it is making. Armand, the waiter, who, I am convinced, merely dozes on a dining-room chair, so as to be in readiness forany diversion, stands in the middle of the road, gesticulating withfine dramatic gestures. I cannot hear what is being said, becauseeverybody is speaking at once; but after a while the excitement diesaway, and the group slowly disperses, shouting final vociferationsfrom out of the surrounding darkness. The next day when I ask thecause of the disturbance, Armand looks puzzled at my question. Hedoes not seem aware that anything out of the way has happened; butfinally explains that "quelques amis" were passing the hotel, andthat Madame must have heard them stop and talk. The incident isapparently too common an occurrence to linger in his mind. 

As for the Amboise dogs, I do not know whether they really possessa supernatural strength which enables them to bark twenty-four hourswithout intermission, or whether they divide themselves into day andnight pickets, so that, when one band retires to rest, the other takesup the interrupted duty. The French villager, who values all domesticpets in proportion to the noise they can make, delights especiallyin his dogs, giant black-and-tan terriers for the most part, ofindefatigable perseverance in their one line of activity. Their barkis high-pitched and querulous rather than deep and defiant, but forcontinuity it has no rival upon earth. Our hotel--in all otherrespects unexceptionable--possesses two large bulldogs which havelong ago lost their British phlegm, and acquired the agitated yelpof their Gallic neighbours. They could not be quiet if they wantedto, for heavy sleigh-bells (unique decorations for a bulldog) hangabout their necks, and jangle merrily at every step. In the courtyardlives a colony of birds. One virulent parrot which shrieks itsinarticulate wrath from morning until night, but which does--be itremembered to its credit--go to sleep at sundown; three paroquets;two cockatoos of ineffable shrillness, and a cageful of canaries andcaptive finches. When taken in connection with the dogs, the hotelcat, the operatic Armand, and the cook who plays "See, O Norma!" onhis flute every afternoon and evening, it will be seen that Amboisedoes not so closely resemble the palace of the Sleeping Beauty asMr. Molloy has given us to understand. 

All other sounds, however, melt into a harmonious murmur whencompared to the one great speciality of the village, --stone-cuttingin the open streets. Whenever one of the picturesque old houses iscrumbling into utter decay, a pile of stone is dumped before it, andthe easy-going masons of Amboise prepare to patch up its walls. Noparticular method is observed, the work progresses after the fashionof a child's block house, and the principal labour lies in dividingthe lumps of stone. This is done with a rusty old saw pulled slowlybackward and forward by two men, the sound produced resembling asuccession of agonized shrieks. It goes on for hours and hours, withno apparent result except the noise; while a handsome boy, in astriped blouse and broad blue sash, completes the discord by curryingthe stone with an iron currycomb, --a process I have never witnessedbefore, and ardently hope never to witness again. If one couldimagine fifty school-children all squeaking their slate pencils downtheir slates together, --who does not remember that blood-curdlingmusic of his youth?--one might gain some feeble notion of the acuteagony induced by such an instrument of torture. Agony to the nervousvisitor alone; for the inhabitants of Amboise love their shriekingsaws and currycombs, just as they love their shrieking parrots andcockatoos. They gather in happy crowds to watch the blue-sashed boy, and drink in the noise he makes. We drink it in, too, as he isimmediately beneath our windows. Then we look at the castle wallsglowing in the splendour of the sunset, and at the Loire sweepingin magnificent curves between the grey-green poplar trees; at thenoble width of the horizon, and at the deepening tints of the sky;and we realize that a silent Amboise would be an earthly Paradise, too fair for this sinful world. 

The Chill of Enthusiasm

"Surtout, pas de zele. "--TALLEYRAND. 

There is no aloofness so forlorn as our aloofness from anuncontagious enthusiasm, and there is no hostility so sharp as thataroused by a fervour which fails of response. Charles Lamb's "D--nhim at a hazard, " was the expression of a natural and reasonable frameof mind with which we are all familiar, and which, though admittedlyunlovely, is in the nature of a safeguard. If we had no spiritualasbestos to protect our souls, we should be consumed to no purposeby every wanton flame. If our sincere and restful indifference tothings which concern us not were shaken by every blast, we shouldhave no available force for things which concern us deeply. Ifeloquence did not sometimes make us yawn, we should be besotted byoratory. And if we did not approach new acquaintances, new authors, and new points of view with life-saving reluctance, we should neverfeel that vital regard which, being strong enough to break down ourbarriers, is strong enough to hold us for life. 

The worth of admiration is, after all, in proportion to the valueof the thing admired, --a circumstance overlooked by the people whotalk much pleasant nonsense about sympathy, and the courage of ouremotions, and the open and generous mind. We know how Mr. Arnold feltwhen an American lady wrote to him, in praise of American authors, and said that it rejoiced her heart to think of such excellence asbeing "common and abundant. " Mr. Arnold, who considered thatexcellence of any kind was very uncommon and beyond measure rare, expressed his views on this occasion with more fervour and publicitythan the circumstances demanded; but his words are as balm to theirritation which some of us suffer and conceal when drained of ourreluctant applause. 

It is perhaps because women have been trained to a receptive attitudeof mind, because for centuries they have been valued for theirsympathy and appreciation rather than for their judgment, that theyare so perilously prone to enthusiasm. It has come to all of us oflate to hear much feminine eloquence, and to marvel at the nimblenessof woman's wit, at the speed with which she thinks, and the facilitywith which she expresses her thoughts. A woman who, until five yearsago, never addressed a larger audience than that afforded by areading-club or a dinner-party, will now thrust and parry on aplatform, wholly unembarrassed by timidity or by ignorance. Sentiment and satire are hers to command; and while neither isconvincing, both are tremendously effective with people alreadyconvinced, with the partisans who throng unwearyingly to hear thevoicing of their own opinions. The ease with which such a speakerbrings forward the great central fact of the universe, maternity, as an argument for or against the casting of a ballot (it works justas well either way); the glow with which she associates Jeanne d'Arcwith federated clubs and social service; and the gay defiance shehurls at customs and prejudices so profoundly obsolete that thelantern of Diogenes could not find them lurking in a villagestreet, --these things may chill the unemotional listener into apathy, but they never fail to awaken the sensibilities of an audience. Thesimple process, so highly commended by debaters, of ignoring all thatcannot be denied, makes demonstration easy. "A crowd, " said Mr. Ruskin, "thinks by infection. " To be immune from infection is tostand outside the sacred circle of enthusiasts. 

Yet if the experience of mankind teaches anything, it is that vitalconvictions are not at the mercy of eloquence. The "oratory ofconviction, " to borrow a phrase of Mr. Bagehot's, is so rare as tobe hardly worth taking into account. Fox used to say that if a speechread well, it was "a damned bad speech, " which is the final word ofcynicism, spoken by one who knew. It was the saving sense of England, that solid, prosaic, dependable common sense, the bulwark of everygreat nation, which, after Sheridan's famous speech, demanding theimpeachment of Warren Hastings, made the House adjourn "to collectits reason, "--obviously because its reason had been lost. SirWilliam Dolden, who moved the adjournment, frankly confessed thatit was impossible to give a "determinate opinion" while under thespell of oratory. So the lawmakers, who had been fired to white heat, retired to cool down again; and when Sheridan--always as deep indifficulties as Micawber--was offered a thousand pounds for themanuscript of the speech, he remembered Fox's verdict, and refusedto risk his unballasted eloquence in print. 

Enthusiasm is praised because it implies an unselfish concern forsomething outside our personal interest and advancement. It isreverenced because the great and wise amendments, which from timeto time straighten the roads we walk, may always be traced back tosomebody's zeal for reform. It is rich in prophetic attributes, banking largely on the unknown, and making up in nobility of designwhat it lacks in excellence of attainment. Like simplicity, andcandour, and other much-commended qualities, enthusiasm is charminguntil we meet it face to face, and cannot escape from its charm. Itis then that we begin to understand the attitude of Goethe, andTalleyrand, and Pitt, and Sir Robert Peel, who saved themselves frombeing consumed by resolutely refusing to ignite. "It is folly, "observed Goethe, "to expect that other men will consent to believeas we do"; and, having reconciled himself to this elemental obstinacyof the human heart, it no longer troubled him that those whom he feltto be wrong should refuse to acknowledge their errors. 

There are men and women--not many--who have the happy art of makingtheir most fervent convictions endurable. Their hobbies do notspread desolation over the social world, their prejudices do notinsult our intelligence. They may be so "abreast with the times" thatwe cannot keep track of them, or they may be basking serenely in someEarly Victorian close. They may believe buoyantly in the Baconiancipher, or in thought transference, or in the serious purposes ofMr. George Bernard Shaw, or in anything else which invites credulity. They may even express their views, and still be loved and cherishedby their friends. 

How illuminating is the contrast which Hazlitt unconsciously drawsbetween the enthusiasms of Lamb which everybody was able to bear, and the enthusiasms of Coleridge which nobody was able to bear. Lambwould parade his admiration for some favourite author, Donne, forexample, whom the rest of the company probably abhorred. He wouldselect the most crabbed passages to quote and defend; he wouldstammer out his piquant and masterful half sentences, his scaldingjests, his controvertible assertions; he would skilfully hint at thedefects which no one else was permitted to see; and if he made noconverts (wanting none), he woke no weary wrath. But we all have asneaking sympathy for Holcroft, who, when Coleridge was expatiatingrapturously and oppressively upon the glories of Germantranscendental philosophy, and upon his own supreme command of thefield, cried out suddenly and with exceeding bitterness: "Mr. Coleridge, you are the most eloquent man I ever met, and the mostunbearable in your eloquence. "

I am not without a lurking suspicion that George Borrow must havebeen at times unbearable in his eloquence. "We cannot refuse to meeta man on the ground that he is an enthusiast, " observes Mr. GeorgeStreet, obviously lamenting this circumstance; "but we should atleast like to make sure that his enthusiasms are under control. "Borrow's enthusiasms were never under control. He stood ready at amoment's notice to prove the superiority of the Welsh bards over thepaltry poets of England, or to relate the marvellous Welsh prophecies, so vague as to be always safe. He was capable of inflicting Armenianverbs upon Isopel Berners when they sat at night over their gipsykettle in the dingle (let us hope she fell asleep as sweetly as doesMilton's Eve when Adam grows too garrulous); and he met thecomplaints of a poor farmer on the hardness of the times with jubilantpraises of evangelicalism. "Better pay three pounds an acre, and liveon crusts and water in the present enlightened days, " he told thedisheartened husbandman, "than pay two shillings an acre, and sitdown to beef and ale three times a day in the old superstitious ages. "This is _not_ the oratory of conviction. There are unreasoningprejudices in favour of one's own stomach which eloquence cannotgainsay. "I defy the utmost power of language to disgust me wi' agude denner, " observes the Ettrick Shepherd; thus putting on recordthe attitude of the bucolic mind, impassive, immutable, sinceearth's first harvests were gleaned. 

The artificial emotions which expand under provocation, and collapsewhen the provocation is withdrawn, must be held responsible for muchmental confusion. Election oratory is an old and cherishedinstitution. It is designed to make candidates show their paces, andto give innocent amusement to the crowd. Properly reinforced by brassbands and bunting, graced by some sufficiently august presence, andenlivened by plenty of cheering and hat-flourishing, it presents astrong appeal. A political party is, moreover, a solid andself-sustaining affair. All sound and alliterative generalitiesabout virile and vigorous manhood, honest and honourable labour, great and glorious causes, are understood, in this country at least, to refer to the virile and vigorous manhood of Republicans orDemocrats, as the case may be; and to uphold the honest and honourable, great and glorious Republican or Democratic principles, upon which, it is also understood, depends the welfare of the nation. 

Yet even this sense of security cannot always save us from the chillof collapsed enthusiasm. I was once at a great mass meeting, heldin the interests of municipal reform, and at which the principalspeaker was a candidate for office. He was delayed for a full hourafter the meeting had been opened, and this hour was filled with goodplatform oratory. Speechmaker after speechmaker, all adepts in theirart, laid bare before our eyes the evils which consumed us, and calledupon us passionately to support the candidate who would lift us fromour shame. The fervour of the house rose higher and higher. Martialmusic stirred our blood, and made us feel that reform and patriotismwere one. The atmosphere grew tense with expectancy, when suddenlythere came a great shout, and the sound of cheering from the crowdin the streets, the crowd which could not force its way into the hugeand closely packed opera house. Now there are few things moreprofoundly affecting than cheers heard from a distance, or muffledby intervening walls. They have a fine dramatic quality, unknown tothe cheers which rend the air about us. When the chairman of themeeting announced that the candidate was outside the doors, speakingto the mob, the excitement reached fever heat. When some one cried, "He is here!" and the orchestra struck the first bars of "HailColumbia, " we rose to our feet, waving multitudinous flags, andshouting out the rapture of our hearts. 

And then, --and then there stepped upon the stage a plain, tired, bewildered man, betraying nervous exhaustion in every line. He spoke, and his voice was not the assured voice of a leader. His words werenot the happy words which instantly command attention. It was evidentto the discerning eye that he had been driven for days, perhaps forweeks, beyond his strength and endurance; that he had resorted tostimulants to help him in this emergency, and that they had failed;that he was striving with feeble desperation to do the impossiblewhich was expected of him. I wondered even then if a few common wordsof explanation, a few sober words of promise, would not havesatisfied the crowd, already sated with eloquence. I wondered if theunfortunate man could feel the chill settling down upon the houseas he spoke his random and undignified sentences, whether he couldsee the first stragglers slipping down the aisles. What did hisdecent record, his honest purpose, avail him in an hour like this?He tried to lash himself to vigour, but it was spurring abroken-winded horse. The stragglers increased into a flying squadron, the house was emptying fast, when the chairman in sheer desperationmade a sign to the leader of the orchestra, who waved his baton, and"The Star-Spangled Banner" drowned the candidate's last words, andbrought what was left of the audience to its feet. I turned to a friendbeside me, the wife of a local politician who had been the most fieryspeaker of the evening. "Will it make any difference?" I asked, andshe answered disconsolately; "The city is lost, but we may save thestate. "

Then we went out into the quiet streets, and I bethought me ofVoltaire's driving in a blue coach powdered with gilt stars to seethe first production of "Irene, " and of his leaving the theatre tofind that enthusiasts had cut the traces of his horses, so that theshouting mob might drag him home in triumph. But the mob, having doneits shouting, melted away after the irresponsible fashion of mobs, leaving the blue coach stranded in front of the Tuileries, withVoltaire shivering inside of it, until the horses could be broughtback, the traces patched up, and the driver recalled to his duty. 

That "popular enthusiasm is but a fire of straw" has been amplydemonstrated by all who have tried to keep it going. It can be lightedto some purpose, as when money is extracted from the enthusiastsbefore they have had time to cool; but even this process--soskilfully conducted by the initiated--seems unworthy of great andnoble charities, or of great and noble causes. It is true also thatthe agitator--no matter what he may be agitating--is always sure ofhis market; a circumstance which made that most conservative ofchancellors, Lord Eldon, swear with bitter oaths that, if he wereto begin life over again, he would begin it as an agitator. Tom Mooretells a pleasant story (one of the many pleasant stories embalmedin his vast sarcophagus of a diary) about a street orator whom heheard address a crowd in Dublin. The man's eloquence was so stirringthat Moore was ravished by it, and he expressed to Sheil hisadmiration for the speaker. "Ah, " said Sheil carelessly, "that wasa brewer's patriot. Most of the great brewers have in their employa regular patriot who goes about among the publicans, talking violentpolitics, which helps to sell the beer. "

Honest enthusiasm, we are often told, is the power which moves theworld. Therefore it is perhaps that honest enthusiasts seem to thinkthat if they stopped pushing, the world would stop moving, --as thoughit were a new world which didn't know its way. This belief inclinesthem to intolerance. The more keen they are, the more contemptuousthey become. What Wordsworth admirably called "the self-applaudingsincerity of a heated mind" leaves them no loophole for doubt, andno understanding of the doubter. In their volcanic progress they bowlover the non-partisan--a man and a brother--with splendid unconcern. He, poor soul, stunned but not convinced, clings desperately to somepettifogging convictions which he calls truth, and refuses a clearervision. His habit of remembering what he believed yesterday clogshis mind, and makes it hard for him to believe something entirelynew to-day. Much has been said about the inconvenience of keepingopinions, but much might be said about the serenity of the process. Old opinions are like old friends, --we cease to question their worthbecause, after years of intimacy and the loss of some valuableillusions, we have grown to place our slow reliance on them. We knowat least where we stand, and whither we are tending, and we refuseto bustle feverishly about the circumference of life, because, asAmiel warns us, we cannot reach its core. 

The Temptation of Eve

"My Love in her attire doth shew her wit. "

It is an old and honoured jest that Eve--type of eternalwomanhood--sacrificed the peace of Eden for the pleasures of dress. We see this jest reflected in the satire of the Middle Ages, in thebitter gibes of mummer and buffoon. We can hear its echoes in theinvectives of the reformer, --"I doubt, " said a goodfifteenth-century bishop to the ladies of England in their hornedcaps, --"I doubt the Devil sit not between those horns. " We find itillustrated with admirable naivete in the tapestries which hang inthe entrance corridor of the Belle Arti in Florence. 

These tapestries tell the downfall of our first parents. In one wesee the newly created and lovely Eve standing by the side of thesleeping Adam, and regarding him with pleasurable anticipation. Another shows us the animals marching in line to be inspected andnamed. The snail heads the procession and sets the pace. The lionand the tiger stroll gossiping together. The unicorn walks alone, very stiff and proud. Two rats and two mice are closely followed bytwo sleek cats, who keep them well covered, and plainly await thetime when Eve's amiable indiscretion shall assign them their naturalprey. In the third tapestry the deed has been done, the apple hadbeen eaten. The beasts are ravening in the background. Adam, alreadyclad, is engaged in fastening a picturesque girdle of leaves aroundthe unrepentant Eve, --for all the world like a modern husbandfastening his wife's gown, --while she for the first time gathers upher long fair hair. Her attitude is full of innocent yetindescribable coquetry. The passion for self-adornment had alreadytaken possession of her soul. Before her lies a future of many caresand some compensations. She is going to work and she is going to weep, but she is also going to dress. The price was hers to pay. 

In the hearts of Eve's daughters lies an unspoken convincement thatthe price was not too dear. As far as feminity is known, or can everbe known, one dominant impulse has never wavered or weakened. Inevery period of the world's history, in every quarter of the globe, in every stage of savagery or civilization, this elementary instincthas held, and still holds good. The history of the world is largelythe history of dress. It is the most illuminating of records, andtells its tale with a candour and completeness which no chroniclecan surpass. We all agree in saying that people who reached a highstage of artistic development, like the Greeks and the Italians ofthe Renaissance, expressed this sense of perfection in their attire;but what we do not acknowledge so frankly is that these same nationsencouraged the beauty of dress, even at a ruthless cost, because theyfelt that in doing so they cooperated with a great natural law, --thelaw which makes the "wanton lapwing" get himself another crest. Theyplayed into nature's hands. 

The nations which sought to bully nature, like the Spartans and theSpaniards, passed the severest sumptuary laws; and for proving thepower of fundamental forces over the unprofitable wisdom ofreformers, there is nothing like a sumptuary law. In 1563 Spanishwomen of good repute were forbidden to wear jewels orembroideries, --the result being that many preferred to be thoughtreputationless, rather than abandon their finery. Some years laterit was ordained that only women of loose life should be permittedto bare their shoulders; and all dressmakers who furnished theinterdicted gowns to others than courtesans were condemned to fouryears' penal servitude. These were stern measures, --"root andbranch" was ever the Spaniard's cry; but he found it easier to stampout heresy than to eradicate from a woman's heart something whichis called vanity, but which is, in truth, an overmastering impulsewhich she is too wise to endeavour to resist. 

As a matter of fact it was a sumptuary law which incited the womenof Rome to make their first great public demonstration, and tobesiege the Forum as belligerently as the women of England have, inlate years, besieged Parliament. The Senate had thought fit to savemoney for the second Punic War by curtailing all extravagance indress; and, when the war was over, showed no disposition to repeala statute which--to the simple masculine mind--seemed productive ofnothing but good. Therefore the women gathered in the streets of Rome, demanding the restitution of their ornaments, and deeplyscandalizing poor Cato, who could hardly wedge his way through thecrowd. His views on this occasion were expressed with the bewilderedbitterness of a modern British conservative. He sighed for the goodold days when women were under the strict control of their fathersand husbands, and he very plainly told the Senators that if they hadmaintained their proper authority at home, their wives and daughterswould not then be misbehaving themselves in public. "It was notwithout painful emotions of shame, " said this outraged Romangentleman, "that I just now made my way to the Forum through a herdof women. Our ancestors thought it improper that women shouldtransact any private business without a director. We, it seems, suffer them to interfere in the management of state affairs, and tointrude into the general assemblies. Had I not been restrained bythe modesty and dignity of some among them, had I not been unwillingthat they should be rebuked by a Consul, I should have said to them:'What sort of practice is this of running into the streets, andaddressing other women's husbands? Could you not have petitioned athome? Are your blandishments more seductive in public than in private, and with other husbands than your own?'"

How natural it all sounds, how modern, how familiar! And with whatknowledge of the immutable laws of nature, as opposed to thecapricious laws of man, did Lucius Valerius defend the rebelliouswomen of Rome! "Elegance of apparel, " he pleaded before the Senate, "and jewels, and ornaments, --these are a woman's badges ofdistinction; in these she glories and delights; these our ancestorscalled the woman's world. What else does she lay aside in mourningsave her purple and gold? What else does she resume when the mourningis over? How does she manifest her sympathy on occasions of publicrejoicing, but by adding to the splendour of her dress?"[1]

[Footnote 1: Livy. ]

Of course the statute was repealed. The only sumptuary laws whichdefied resistance were those which draped the Venetian gondolas andthe Milanese priests in black, and with such restrictions women hadno concern. 

The symbolism of dress is a subject which has never received its dueshare of attention, yet it stands for attributes in the human racewhich otherwise defy analysis. It is interwoven with all our carnaland with all our spiritual instincts. It represents a cunning triumphover hard conditions, a turning of needs into victories. It voicesdesires and dignities without number, it subjects the importance ofthe thing done to the importance of the manner of doing it. "Man wearsa special dress to kill, to govern, to judge, to preach, to mourn, to play. In every age the fashion in which he retains or discardssome portion of this dress denotes a subtle change in his feelings. "All visible things are emblematic of invisible forces. Man fixed theassociation of colours with grief and gladness, he made ornamentsthe insignia of office, he ordained that fabric should grace themajesty of power. 

Yet though we know this well, it is our careless custom to talk aboutdress, and to write about dress, as if it had no meaning at all; asif the breaking waves of fashion which carry with them the recordof pride and gentleness, of distinction and folly, of the rising andshattering of ideals, --"the cut which betokens intellect and talent, the colour which betokens temper and heart, "--were guided by no otherlaw than chance, were a mere purposeless tyranny. Historians dwellupon the mad excesses of ruff and farthingale, of pointed shoe andswelling skirt, as if these things stood for nothing in a societyforever alternating between rigid formalism and the irrepressiblespirit of democracy. 

Is it possible to look at a single costume painted by Velasquezwithout realizing that the Spanish court under Philip the Fourth hadlost the mobility which has characterized it in the days of Ferdinandand Isabella, and had hardened into a formalism, replete with dignity, but lacking intelligence, and out of touch with the great socialissues of the day? French chroniclers have written page after pageof description--aimless and tiresome description, for the mostpart--of those amazing head-dresses which, at the court of MarieAntoinette, rose to such heights that the ladies looked as if theirheads were in the middle of their bodies. They stood seven feet highwhen their hair was dressed, and a trifle over five when it wasn't. The Duchesse de Lauzun wore upon one memorable occasion a head-dresspresenting a landscape in high relief on the shore of a stormy lake, ducks swimming on the lake, a sportsman shooting at the ducks, a millwhich rose from the crown of her head, a miller's wife courted byan abbe, and a miller placidly driving his donkey down the steepincline over the lady's left ear. 

It sounds like a Christmas pantomime; but when we remember that theFrench court, that model of patrician pride, was playing withdemocracy, with republicanism, with the simple life, as presentedby Rousseau to its consideration, we see plainly enough how the realself-sufficiency of caste and the purely artificial sentiment of theday found expression in absurdities of costume. Women dared to wearsuch things, because, being aristocrats, they felt sure ofthemselves: and they professed to admire them, because, beingengulfed in sentiment, they had lost all sense of proportion. Amiller and his donkey were rustic (Marie Antoinette adoredrusticity); an abbe flirting with a miller's wife was as obviouslyartificial as Watteau. It would have been hard to find a happier ormore expressive combination. And when Rousseau and republicanism hadwon the race, we find the ladies of the Directoire illustrating thenational illusions with clinging and diaphanous draperies; andasserting their affinity with the high ideals of ancient Greece bywearing sandals instead of shoes, and rings on their bare white toes. The reaction from the magnificent formalism of court dress to thisabrupt nudity is in itself a record as graphic and as illuminatingas anything that historians have to tell. The same great principlewas at work in England when the Early Victorian virtues assertedtheir supremacy, when the fashionable world, becoming for a spelldomestic and demure, expressed these qualities in smoothly bandedhair, and draperies of decorous amplitude. There is, in fact, nophase of national life or national sentiment which has not betrayeditself to the world in dress. 

And not national life only, but individual life as well. Clothes aremore than historical, they are autobiographical. They tell theirstory in broad outlines and in minute detail. Was it for nothing thatCharles the First devised that rich and sombre costume of black andwhite from which he never sought relief? Was it for nothing thatGaribaldi wore a red shirt, and Napoleon an old grey coat? In proofthat these things stood for character and destiny, we have but tolook at the resolute but futile attempt which Charles the Second madeto follow his father's lead, to express something beyond afluctuating fashion in his dress. In 1666 he announced to hisCouncil--which was, we trust, gratified by the intelligence--thathe intended to wear one unaltered costume for the rest of his days. A month later he donned this costume, the distinguishing featuresof which were a long, close-fitting, black waistcoat, pinked withwhite, a loose embroidered surtout, and buskins. The court followedhis example, and Charles not unnaturally complained that so manyblack and white waistcoats made him feel as though he were surroundedby magpies. So the white pinking was discarded, and plain blackvelvet waistcoats substituted. These were neither very gay, nor verybecoming to a swarthy monarch; and the never-to-be-altered costumelasted less than two years, to the great relief of the courtiers, especially of those who had risked betting with the king himself onits speedy disappearance. Expressing nothing but a caprice, it hadthe futility and the impermanence of all caprices. 

Within the last century, men have gradually, and it would seempermanently, abandoned the effort to reveal their personality indress. They have allowed themselves to be committed for life to acostume of ruthless utilitarianism, which takes no count of physicalbeauty, or of its just display. Comfort, convenience, and sanitationhave conspired to establish a rigidity of rule never seen before, to which men yield a docile and lamblike obedience. Robert Burton'saxiom, "Nothing sooner dejects a man than clothes out of fashion, "is as true now as it was three hundred years ago. Fashion sways theshape of a collar, and the infinitesimal gradations of a hat-brim;but the sense of fitness, and the power of interpreting life, whichennobled fashion in Burton's day, have disappeared in an enforcedmonotony. 

Men take a strange perverted pride in this mournful sameness ofattire, --delight in wearing a hat like every other man's hat, arecontent that it should be a perfected miracle of ugliness, that itshould be hot, that it should be heavy, that it should be disfiguring, if only they can make sure of seeing fifty, or a hundred and fifty, other hats exactly like it on their way downtown. So absolute is thisuniformity that the late Marquess of Ailesbury bore all his life areputation for eccentricity, which seems to have had no otherfoundation than the fact of his wearing hats, or rather a hat, ofdistinctive shape, chosen with reference to his own head rather thanto the heads of some odd millions of fellow citizens. The story istold of his standing bare-headed in a hatter's shop, awaiting thereturn of a salesman who had carried off his own beloved head-gear, when a shortsighted bishop entered, and, not recognizing the peer, took him for an assistant, and handed him _his_ hat, asking him ifhe had any exactly like it. Lord Ailesbury turned the bishop's hatover and over, examined it carefully inside and out, and gave it backagain. "No, " he said, "I haven't, and I'll be damned if I'd wear it, if I had. "

Even before the establishment of the invincible despotism whichclothes the gentlemen of Christendom in a livery, we find themasculine mind disposed to severity in the ruling of fashions. Steele, for example, tells us the shocking story of an English gentleman whowould persist in wearing a broad belt with a hanger, instead of thelight sword then carried by men of rank, although in other respectshe was a "perfectly well-bred person. " Steele naturally regardedthis acquaintance with deep suspicion, which was justified when, twenty-two years afterwards, the innovator married his cook-maid. "Others were amazed at this, " writes the essayist, "but I mustconfess that I was not. I had always known that his deviation fromthe costume of a gentleman indicated an ill-balanced mind. "

Now the adoption of a rigorous and monotonous utilitarianism inmasculine attire has had two unlovely results. In the first place, men, since they ceased to covet beautiful clothes for themselves, have wasted much valuable time in counselling and censuring women;and, in the second place, there has come, with the loss of their finetrappings, a corresponding loss of illusions on the part of the womenwho look at them. Black broadcloth and derby hats are calculated todestroy the most robust illusions in Christendom; and men--frommotives hard to fathom--have refused to retain in their wardrobesa single article which can amend an imperfect ideal. This does notimply that women fail to value friends in black broadcloth, nor thatthey refuse their affections to lovers and husbands in derby hats. Nature is not to be balked by such impediments. But as long as menwore costumes which interpreted their strength, enhanced theirpersuasiveness, and concealed their shortcomings, women acceptedtheir dominance without demur. They made no idle claim to equalitywith creatures, not only bigger and stronger, not only more capableand more resolute, not only wiser and more experienced, but morenoble and distinguished in appearance than they were themselves. What if the assertive attitude of the modern woman, her easyarrogance, and the confidence she places in her own untried powers, may be accounted for by the dispiriting clothes which men havedetermined to wear, and the wearing of which may have cost them nosmall portion of their authority?

The whole attitude of women in this regard is fraught withsignificance. Men have rashly discarded those details of costumewhich enhanced their comeliness and charm (we have but to look atVan Dyck's portraits to see how much rare distinction is traceableto subdued elegance of dress); but women have never through the longcenturies laid aside the pleasant duty of self-adornment. They darenot if they would, --too much is at stake; and they experience thejust delight which comes from cooperation with a natural law. Theflexibility of their dress gives them every opportunity to modify, to enhance, to reveal, and to conceal. It is in the highest degreeinterpretative, and through it they express their aspirations andideals, their thirst for combat and their realization of defeat, their fluctuating sentiments and their permanent predispositions. 

 "A winning wave, deserving note, In the tempestuous petticoat; A careless shoe-string, in whose tie I see a wild civility. "

Naturally, in a matter so vital, they are not disposed to listen toreason, and they cannot be argued out of a great fundamental instinct. Women are constitutionally incapable of being influenced byargument, --a limitation which is in the nature of a safeguard. Thecunning words in which M. Marcel Provost urges them to follow theexample of men, sounds, to their ears, a little like the words inwhich the fox which had lost its tail counsels its fellow foxes torid themselves of so despicable an appendage. "Before theRevolution, " writes M. Provost, in his "Lettres a Francois, " "theclothes worn by men of quality were more costly than those worn bywomen. To-day all men dress with such uniformity that a Huron, transported to Paris or to London, could not distinguish master fromvalet. This will assuredly be the fate of feminine toilets in a futuremore or less near. The time must come when the varying costumes nowseen at balls, at the races, at the theatre, will all be swept away;and in their place women will wear, as men do, a species of uniform. There will be a 'woman's suit, ' costing sixty francs at Batignolles, and five hundred francs in the rue de la Paix; and, this reform onceaccomplished, it will never be possible to return to old conditions. Reason will have triumphed. "

Perhaps! But reason has been routed so often from the field that oneno longer feels confident of her success. M. Baudrillart had a worldof reason on his side when, before the Chamber of Deputies, he urgedreform in dress, and the legal suppression of jewels and costlyfabrics. M. De Lavaleye, the Belgian statist, was fortified by reasonwhen he proposed his grey serge uniform for women of all classes. If we turn back a page or two of history, and look at the failureof the sumptuary laws in England, we find the wives of Londontradesmen, who were not permitted to wear velvet in public, liningtheir grogram gowns with this costly fabric, for the mere pleasureof possession, for the meaningless--and most unreasonable--joy ofexpenditure. And when Queen Elizabeth, who considered extravagancein dress to be a royal prerogative, attempted to coerce the ladiesof her court into simplicity, the Countess of Shrewsbury commentswith ill-concealed irony on the result of such reasonable endeavours. "How often hath her majestie, with the grave advice of her honourableCouncell, sette down the limits of apparell of every degree; and howsoon again hath the pride of our harts overflown the chanell. "

There are two classes of critics who still waste their vital forcesin a futile attempt to reform feminine dress. The first class cherishartistic sensibilities which are grievously wounded by the capricesof fashion. They anathematize a civilization which toleratesear-rings, or feathered hats, or artificial flowers. They appear tosuffer vicarious torments from high-heeled shoes, spotted veils, andstays. They have occasional doubts as to the moral influence ofball-dresses. An unusually sanguine writer of this order has assuredus, in the pages of the "Contemporary Review, " that when women onceassume their civic responsibilities, they will dress as austerelyas men. The first fruits of the suffrage will be seen in sober andvirtue-compelling gowns at the opera. 

The second class of critics is made up of economists, who believethat too much of the world's earnings is spent upon clothes, and thatthis universal spirit of extravagance retards marriage, and blocksthe progress of the race. It is in an ignoble effort to pacify theselast censors that women writers undertake to tell their women readers, in the pages of women's periodicals, how to dress on sums ofincredible insufficiency. Such misleading guides would be harmless, and even in their way amusing, if nobody believed them; but unhappilysomebody always does believe them, and that somebody is too oftena married man. There is no measure to the credulity of the averagesemi-educated man when confronted by a printed page (print carriessuch authority in his eyes), and with rows of figures, all showingconclusively that two and two make three, and that with economy andgood management they can be reduced to one and a half. He has nevermastered, and apparently never will master, the exact shade ofdifference between a statement and a fact. 

Women are, under most circumstances, even more readily deceived; but, in the matter of dress, they have walked the thorny paths ofexperience. They know the cruel cost of everything they wear, --a costwhich in this country is artificially maintained by a high protectivetariff, --and they are not to be cajoled by that delusive word"simplicity, " being too well aware that it is, when synonymous withgood taste, the consummate success of artists, and the crowningachievement of wealth. Some years ago there appeared in one of theEnglish magazines an article entitled, "How to Dress on Thirty Poundsa Year. As a Lady. By a Lady. " Whereupon "Punch" offered the followinglight-minded amendment: "How to Dress on Nothing a Year. As a Kaffir. By a Kaffir. " At least a practical proposition. 

Mr. Henry James has written some charming paragraphs on the symbolicvalue of clothes, as illustrated by the costumes worn by the Frenchactresses of the Comedie, --women to whose unerring taste dressaffords an expression of fine dramatic quality. He describes withenthusiasm the appearance of Madame Nathalie, when playing the partof an elderly provincial bourgeoise in a curtain-lifter called "LeVillage. "

"It was the quiet felicity of the old lady's dress that used to charmme. She wore a large black silk mantilla of a peculiar cut, whichlooked as if she had just taken it tenderly out of some old wardrobewhere it lay folded in lavender, and a large dark bonnet, adornedwith handsome black silk loops and bows. The extreme suggestiveness, and yet the taste and temperateness of this costume, seemed to meinimitable. The bonnet alone, with its handsome, decent, virtuousbows, was worth coming to see. "

If we compare this "quiet felicity" of the artist with the absurdtravesties worn on our American stage, we can better understand thepleasure which filled Mr. James's heart. What, for example, wouldMadame Nathalie have thought of the modish gowns which Mrs. Fiskeintroduces into the middle-class Norwegian life of Ibsen's dramas?No plays can less well bear such inaccuracies, because they dependon their stage-setting to bring before our eyes their alien aspect, to make us feel an atmosphere with which we are wholly unfamiliar. The accessories are few, but of supreme importance; and it isinconceivable that a keenly intelligent actress like Mrs. Fiskeshould sacrifice _vraisemblance_ to a meaningless refinement. In thesecond act of "Rosmersholm, " to take a single instance, the textcalls for a morning wrapper, a thing so manifestly careless andinformal that the school-master, Kroll, is scandalized at seeingRebecca in it, and says so plainly. But as Mrs. Fiske plays the scenein a tea-gown of elaborate elegance, in which she might withpropriety have received the Archbishop of Canterbury, Kroll'sstudied apologies for intruding upon her before she has had time todress, and the whole suggestion of undue intimacy between Rebeccaand Rosmer, which Ibsen meant to convey, is irrevocably lost. Andto weaken a situation for the sake of being prettily dressed wouldbe impossible to a French actress, trained in the delicacies of herart. 

If the feeling for clothes, the sense of their correspondence withtime and place, with public enthusiasms and with privatesensibilities, has always belonged to France, it was a no lessdominant note in Italy during the two hundred years in which sheeclipsed and bewildered the rest of Christendom; and it bore fruitin those great historic wardrobes which the Italian chroniclersdescribe with loving minuteness. We know all about Isabella d' Este'sgowns, as if she had worn them yesterday. We know all about the jewelswhich were the assertion of her husband's pride in times of peace, and his security with the Lombard bankers in times of war. We knowwhat costumes the young Beatrice d' Este carried with her on hermission to Venice, and how favourably they impressed the graveVenetian Senate. We can count the shifts in Lucretia Borgia'strousseau, when that much-slandered woman became Duchess of Ferrara, and we can reckon the cost of the gold fringe which hung from herlinen sleeves. We are told which of her robes was wrought with fishscales, and which with interlacing leaves, and which with a hem ofpure and flame-like gold. Ambassadors described in state papers hergreen velvet cap with its golden ornaments, and the emerald she woreon her forehead, and the black ribbon which tied her beautiful fairhair. 

These vanities harmonized with character and circumstance. The joyof living was then expressing itself in an overwhelming sense ofbeauty, and in material splendour which, unlike the materialsplendour of to-day, never overstepped the standard set by theintellect. Taste had become a triumphant principle, and as women grewin dignity and importance, they set a higher and higher value on thecompelling power of dress. They had no more doubt on this score thanhad wise Homer when he hung the necklaces around Aphrodite's tenderneck before she was well out of the sea, winding them row after rowin as many circles as there are stars clustering about the moon. Nomore doubt than had the fair and virtuous Countess of Salisbury, who, so Froissart tells us, chilled the lawless passion of Edward theThird by the simple expedient of wearing unbefitting clothes. SaintLucy, under somewhat similar circumstances, felt it necessary to putout her beautiful eyes; but Katharine of Salisbury knew men betterthan the saint knew them. She shamed her loveliness by going toEdward's banquet looking like a rustic, and found herself inconsequence very comfortably free from royal attentions. 

In the wise old days when men outshone their consorts, we find theirhearts set discerningly on one supreme extravagance. Lace, the mostartistic fabric that taste and ingenuity have devised, "the fine webwhich feeds the pride of the world, " was for centuries the delightof every well-dressed gentleman. We know not by what marital cajoleryMr. Pepys persuaded Mrs. Pepys to give him the lace from her bestpetticoat, "that she had when I married her"; but we do know thathe used it to trim a new coat; and that he subsequently noted downin his diary one simple, serious, and heartfelt resolution, whichwe feel sure was faithfully kept: "Henceforth I am determined mychief expense shall be in lace bands. " Charles the Second paidfifteen pounds apiece for his lace-trimmed night-caps; William theThird, five hundred pounds for a set of lace-trimmed night-shirts;and Cinq-Mars, the favourite of Louis the Thirteenth, who wasbeheaded when he was barely twenty-two, found time in his short lifeto acquire three hundred sets of lace ruffles. The lace collars ofVan Dyck's portraits, the lace cravats which Grahame of Claverhouseand Montrose wear over their armour, are subtly suggestive of thestrength that lies in delicacy. The fighting qualities ofClaverhouse were not less effective because of those soft folds oflace and linen. The death of Montrose was no less noble because hewent to the scaffold in scarlet and fine linen, with "stockings ofincarnate silk, and roses on his shoon. " Once Carlyle was disparagingMontrose, as (being in a denunciatory mood) he would have disparagedthe Archangel Michael; and, finding his hearers disposed to disagreewith him, asked bitterly: "What did Montrose do anyway?" WhereuponIrving retorted: "He put on a clean shirt to be hanged in, and thatis more than you, Carlyle, would ever have done in his place. "

It was the association of the scaffold with an ignoble victim whichbanished black satin from the London world. Because a foul-heartedmurderess[2] elected to be hanged in this material, Englishwomenrefused for years to wear it, and many bales of black satin languishedon the drapers' shelves, --a memorable instance of the significancewhich attaches itself to dress. The caprices of fashion do more thanillustrate a woman's capacity or incapacity for selection. Theymirror her inward refinements, and symbolize those feminine virtuesand vanities which are so closely akin as to be occasionallyundistinguishable. 

[Footnote 2: Mrs. Manning. ]

 "A saint in crape is twice a saint in lawn, "

mocked Pope; and woman smiles at the satire, knowing more about thematter than Pope could ever have known, and seeing a little sparkleof truth glimmering beneath the gibe. Fashion fluctuates from onecharming absurdity to another, and each in turn is welcomed anddismissed; through each in turn woman endeavours to reveal her ownelusive personality. Poets no longer praise With Herrick the bravevibrations of her petticoats. Ambassadors no longer describe hercaps and ribbons in their official documents. Novelists no longerdevote twenty pages, as did the admirable Richardson, to the weddingfinery of their heroines. Men have ceased to be vitally interestedin dress, but none the less are they sensitive to its influence andenslaved by its results; while women, preserving through thecenturies the great traditions of their sex, still rate at its utmostvalue the prize for which Eve sold her freehold in the Garden ofParadise. 

"The Greatest of These is Charity"

_Mrs. James Gordon Harrington Balderston to Mrs. Lapham Shepherd_

MY DEAR MRS. SHEPHERD, Will you pardon me for this base encroachment on your time? Busy womenare the only ones who ever _have_ any time, so the rest of the worldis forced to steal from them. And then all that you organize is sosuccessful that every one turns naturally to you for advice andassistance, as I am turning now. A really charming woman, a MissAlexandrina Ramsay, who has lived for years in Italy, is anxious togive a series of lectures on Dante. I am sure they will be interesting, for she can put so much local colour into them, and I understand sheis a fluent Italian scholar. Her uncle was the English Consul inFlorence or Naples, I don't remember which, so she has had unusualopportunities for study; and her grandfather was Dr. AlexanderRamsay, who wrote a history of the Hebrides. Unfortunately her voiceis not very strong, so she would be heard to the best advantage ina drawing-room. I am wondering whether you would consent to lendyours, which is so beautiful, or whether you could put Miss Ramsayin touch with the Century Club, or the Spalding School. You will findher attractive, I am sure. The Penhursts knew her well in Munich, and have given her a letter to me. 

Pray allow me to congratulate you on your new honours as a grandmother. I trust that both your daughter and the baby are well. 

 Very sincerely yours, IRENE BALDERSTON. 

I forgot to tell you that Miss Ramsay's lectures are on

 Dante, the Lover. Dante, the Poet. Dante, the Patriot. Dante, the Reformer. 

There was a fifth on Dante, the Prophet, but I persuaded her to leaveit out of the course. 

 I. B. 

_Mrs. Lapham Shepherd to Mrs. Wilfred Ward Hamilton_

DEAR MRS. HAMILTON, --

Mrs. James Balderston has asked me to do what I can for a MissAlexandrina Ramsay (granddaughter of the historian), who wants togive four lectures on Dante in Philadelphia. She has chopped him upinto poet, prophet, lover, etc. I cannot have any lectures orreadings in my house this winter. Jane is still far from strong, andwe shall probably go South after Christmas. Please don't let me putany burden on your shoulders; but if Dr. Hamilton could persuadethose nice Quakers at Swarthmore that there is nothing so educationalas a course of Dante, it would be the best possible opening for MissRamsay. Mrs. Balderston seems to think her voice would not carry ina large room, but as students never listen to anybody, this wouldmake very little difference. The Century Club has been suggested, but I fancy the classes there have been arranged for the season. Thereare preparatory schools, aren't there, at Swarthmore, which need toknow about Dante? Or would there be any chance at all at MissIrington's?

Miss Ramsay has been to see me, and I feel sorry for the girl. Heruncle was the English Consul at Milan, and the poor thing loved Italy(who doesn't!), and hated to leave it. I wish she could establishherself as a lecturer, though there is nothing I detest more ardentlythan lectures. 

I missed you sorely at the meeting of the Aubrey Home house-committeeyesterday. Harriet Maline and Mrs. Percy Brown had a battle royalover the laying of the new water-pipes, and over _my_ prostrate body, which still aches from the contest. I wish Harriet would resign. Sheis the only creature I have ever known, except the Bate's parrot andmy present cook, who is perpetually out of temper. If she were notmy husband's stepmother's niece, I am sure I could stand up to herbetter. 

 Cordially yours, ALICE LEIGH SHEPHERD. 

_Mrs. Wilfred Ward Hamilton to Miss Violet Wray_

DEAR VIOLET, --

You know Margaret Irington better than I do. Do you think she wouldlike to have a course of Dante in her school this winter? A very cleverand charming woman, a Miss Alexandrina Ramsay, has four lectures onthe poet which she is anxious to give before schools, or clubs, or--ifshe can--in private houses. I have promised Mrs. Shepherd to doanything in my power to help her. It occurred to me that theContemporary Club might like to have one of the lectures, and youare on the committee. That would be the making of Miss Ramsay, ifonly she could be heard in that huge Clover Room. I understand shehas a pleasant cultivated voice, but is not accustomed to publicspeaking. There must be plenty of smaller clubs at Bryn Mawr, orHaverford, or Chestnut Hill, for which she would be just the thing. Her grandfather wrote a history of England, and I have a vagueimpression that I studied it at school. I should write to the DrexelInstitute, but don't know anybody connected with it. Do you? It wouldbe a real kindness to give Miss Ramsay a start, and I know you donot begrudge trouble in a good cause. You did such wonders forFraulein Breitenbach last winter. 

 Love to your mother, Affectionately yours, HANNAH GALE HAMILTON. 

_Miss Violet Wray to Mrs. J. Lockwood Smith_

DEAR ANN, --

I have been requested by Hannah Hamilton--may Heaven forgiveher!--to find lecture engagements for a Miss Ramsay, MissAlexandrina Ramsay, who wants to tell the American public what sheknows about Dante. Why a Scotchwoman should be turned loose in theInferno, I cannot say; but it seems her father or her grandfatherwrote school-books, and she is carrying on the educationaltraditions of the family. Hannah made the unholy suggestion that sheshould speak at the Contemporary Club, and offered as an inducementthe fact that she couldn't be heard in so large a room. But we aresupposed to discuss topics of the day, and Dante happened some littlewhile ago. He has no bearing upon aviation, or National InsuranceBills (that is our subject next Monday night); but he is brimmingover with ethics, and it is the duty of your precious Ethical Societyto grapple with him exhaustively. I always wondered what took youto that strange substitute for church; but now I see in it the handof Providence pointing the way to Miss Ramsay's lecture field. Pleasepersuade your fellow Ethicals that four lectures--or even onelecture--on Dante will be what Alice Hunt calls an "uplift. " I feelthat I must try and find an opening for Hannah's protegee, becauseshe helped me with Fraulein Breitenbach's concert last winter, --acircumstance she does not lightly permit me to forget. Did I say, "May Heaven forgive her" for saddling me with this Scotchschoolmaster's daughter? Well, I take back that devout supplication. May jackals sit on her grandmother's grave! Meantime here is MissRamsay to be provided for. If your Ethicals (disregarding their duty)will have none of her, please think up somebody with a taste forserious study, and point out that Dante, elucidated by a Scotchwoman, will probably be as serious as anything that has visited Philadelphiasince the yellow fever. 

If you want one of Grisette's kittens, there are still two left. Thehandsomest of all has gone to live in regal splendour at the Bruntons, and I have promised another to our waitress who was married last month. Such are the vicissitudes of life. 

 Ever yours, VIOLET WRAY. 

_Mrs. J. Lockwood Smith to Mrs. James Gordon Harrington Balderston_

DEAR MRS. BALDERSTON, --

I want to enlist your interest in a clever young Scotchwoman, a MissAlexandrina Ramsay, who hopes to give four lectures on Dante inPhiladelphia this winter. Her father was an eminent teacher in hisday, and I understand she is thoroughly equipped for her work. Heavenknows I wish fewer lecturers would cross the sea to enlighten ourignorance, and so will you when you get this letter; but I rememberwith what enthusiasm you talked about Italy and Dante at Brown'sMills last spring, and I trust that your ardour has not waned. TheCentury Club seems to me the best possible field for Miss Ramsay. Do you know any one on the entertainment committee, and do you thinkit is not too late in the season to apply? Of course there are alwaysthe schools. Dear Mrs. Balderston, I should feel more shame introubling you, did I not know how capable you are, and how much weightyour word carries. Violet Wray and Mrs. Wilfred Hamilton aretremendously interested in Miss Ramsay. May I tell Violet to sendher to you, so that you can see for yourself what she is like, andwhat chances she has of success? Please be quite frank in saying yesor no, and believe me always, Yours very cordially, ANN HAZELTON SMITH. 

The Customary Correspondent

"Letters warmly sealed and coldly opened. "--RICHTER. 

Why do so many ingenious theorists give fresh reasons every year forthe decline of letter writing, and why do they assume, in derisionof suffering humanity, that it has declined? They lament the lackof leisure, the lack of sentiment, --Mr. Lucas adds the lack ofstamps, --which chill the ardour of the correspondent; and they failto ascertain how chilled he is, or how far he sets at naught thesejustly restraining influences. They talk of telegrams, andtelephones, and postal cards, as if any discovery of science, anydevice of civilization, could eradicate from the human heart thatpassion for self-expression which is the impelling force of letters. They also fail to note that, side by side with telephones andtelegrams, comes the baleful reduction of postage rates, whichlowers our last barrier of defence. Two cents an ounce leaves us nakedat the mercy of the world. 

It is on record that a Liverpool tradesman once wrote to Dickens, to express the pleasure he had derived from that great Englishman'simmortal novels, and enclosed, by way of testimony, a cheque for fivehundred pounds. This is a phenomenon which ought to be more widelyknown than it is, for there is no natural law to prevent itsrecurrence; and while the world will never hold another Dickens, there are many deserving novelists who may like to recall theincident when they open their morning's mail. It would be pleasantto associate our morning's mail with such fair illusions; and thoughwriting to strangers is but a parlous pastime, the Liverpoolgentleman threw a new and radiant light upon its possibilities. "Thegratuitous contributor is, _ex vi termini_, an ass, " saidChristopher North sourly; but then he never knew, nor ever deservedto know, this particular kind of contribution. 

Generally speaking, the unknown correspondent does not write topraise. His guiding principle is the diffusion of useless knowledge, and he demands or imparts it according to the exigencies of the hour. It is strange that a burning thirst for information should becombined with such reluctance to acquire it through ordinarychannels. A man who wishes to write a paper on the botanical valueof Shakespeare's plays does not dream of consulting a concordanceand a botany, and then going to work. The bald simplicity of sucha process offends his sense of magnitude. He writes to adistinguished scholar, asking a number of burdensome questions, andis apparently under the impression that the resources of thescholar's mind, the fruits of boundless industry, should becheerfully placed at his disposal. A woman who meditates a "literaryessay" upon domestic pets is not content to track her quarry throughthe long library shelves. She writes to some painstaking worker, enquiring what English poets have "sung the praises of the cat, " andif Cowper was the only author who ever domesticated hares? One ofHuxley's most amusing letters is written in reply to a gentleman whowished to compile an article on "Home Pets of Celebrities, " and whounhesitatingly applied for particulars concerning the Hodeslea cat. 

These are, of course, labour-saving devices, but economy of effortis not always the ambition of the correspondent. It would seem easier, on the whole, to open a dictionary of quotations than to compose anelaborately polite letter, requesting to know who said--

 "Fate cannot harm me; I have dined to-day. "

It is certainly easier, and far more agreeable, to read CharlesLamb's essays than to ask a stranger in which one of them hediscovered the author's heterodox views on encyclopaedias. Itinvolves no great fatigue to look up a poem of Herrick's, or a letterof Shelley's, or a novel of Peacock's (these things are accessibleand repay enquiry), and it would be a rational and self-respectingthing to do, instead of endeavouring to extort information (like anintellectual footpad) from writers who are in no way called upon tofurnish it. 

One thing is sure. As long as there are people in this world whoseguiding principle is the use of other people's brains, there can beno decline and fall of letter-writing. The correspondence whichplagued our great-grandfathers a hundred years ago, plagues theirdescendants to-day. Readers of Lockhart's "Scott" will remember howan Edinburgh minister named Brunton, who wished to compile a hymnal, wrote to the poet Crabbe for a list of hymns; and how Crabbe (who, albeit a clergyman, knew probably as little about hymns as any manin England) wrote in turn to Scott, to please help him to helpBrunton; and how Scott replied in desperation that he envied thehermit of Prague who never saw pen nor ink. How many of us have inour day thought longingly of that blessed anchorite! Surely Mr. Herbert Spencer must, consciously or unconsciously, have sharedScott's sentiments, when he wrote a letter to the public press, explaining with patient courtesy that, being old, and busy, and verytired, it was no longer possible for him to answer all the unknowncorrespondents who demanded information upon every variety ofsubject. He had tried to do this for many years, but the tax was tooheavy for his strength, and he was compelled to take refuge insilence. 

Ingenious authors and editors who ask for free copy form a class apart. They are not pursuing knowledge for their own needs, but offeringthemselves as channels through which we may gratuitously enlightenthe world. Their questions, though intimate to the verge ofindiscretion, are put in the name of humanity; and we are bidden toconfide to the public how far we indulge in the use of stimulants, what is the nature of our belief in immortality, if--being women--weshould prefer to be men, and what incident of our lives has mostprofoundly affected our careers. Reticence on our part is met by theassurance that eminent people all over the country are hastening toanswer these queries, and that the "unique nature" of the discussionwill make it of permanent value to mankind. We are also told insoothing accents that our replies need not exceed a few hundred words, as the editor is nobly resolved not to infringe upon our valuabletime. 

Less commercial, but quite as importunate, are the correspondentswho belong to literary societies, and who have undertaken to read, before these select circles, papers upon every conceivable subject, from the Bride of the Canticle to the divorce laws of France. Theyregret their own ignorance--as well they may--and blandly ask foraid. There is no limit to demands of this character. The youngEnglishwoman who wrote to Tennyson, requesting some verses which shemight read as her own at a picnic, was not more intrepid than theAmerican school-girl who recently asked a man of letters to permither to see an unpublished address, as she had heard that it dealtwith the subject of her graduation paper, and hoped it might giveher some points. It is hard to believe that the timidity natural toyouth--or which we used to think natural to youth--could be so easilyovercome; or that the routine of school work, which makes for honestif inefficient acquirements, could leave a student still begging orborrowing her way. 

We must in justice admit, however, that the unknown correspondentis as ready to volunteer assistance as to demand it. He is ingeniousin criticism, and fertile in suggestions. He has inspirations in theway of plots and topics, --like that amiable baronet, Sir JohnSinclair, who wanted Scott to write a poem on the adventures andintrigues of a Caithness mermaiden, and who proffered him, by wayof inducement, "all the information I possess. " The correspondent'stone, when writing to humbler drudges in the field, is kind andpatronizing. He admits that he likes your books, or at least--hereis a veiled reproach--that he "has liked the earlier ones"; heassumes, unwarrantably, that you are familiar with his favouriteauthors; and he believes that it would be for you "an interestingand congenial task" to trace the "curious connection" betweenAmerican fiction and the stock exchange. Sometimes, with thinlyveiled sarcasm, he demands that you should "enlighten his dulness, "and say _why_ you gave your book its title. If he cannot find a Frenchword you have used in his "excellent dictionary, " he thinks it worthwhile to write and tell you so. He fears you do not "wholly understandor appreciate the minor poets of your native land"; and he protests, more in sorrow than in anger, against certain innocent phrases withwhich you have disfigured "your otherwise graceful pages. "

Now it must be an impulse not easily resisted which prompts peopleto this gratuitous expression of their opinions. They take a worldof trouble which they could so easily escape; they deem it theirprivilege to break down the barriers which civilization has taughtus to respect; and if they ever find themselves repaid, it isassuredly by something remote from the gratitude of theircorrespondents. Take, for example, the case of Mr. Peter Bayne, journalist, and biographer of Martin Luther, who wrote toTennyson, --with whom he was unacquainted, --protesting earnestlyagainst a line in "Lady Clare":--

 "'If I'm a beggar born, ' she said. "

It was Mr. Bayne's opinion that such an expression was not onlyexaggerated, inasmuch as the nurse was not, and never had been, abeggar; but, coming from a child to her mother, was harsh and unfilial. "The criticism of my heart, " he wrote, "tells me that Lady Clare couldnever have said that. "

Tennyson was perhaps the last man in Christendom to have acceptedthe testimony of Mr. Bayne's heart-throbs. He intimated with someasperity that he knew better than anyone else what Lady Clare _did_say, and he pointed out that she had just cause for resentment againsta mother who had placed her in such an embarrassing position. Thecontroversy is one of the drollest in literature; but what is hardto understand is the mental attitude of a man--and a reasonably busyman--who could attach so much importance to Lady Clare's remarks, and who could feel himself justified in correcting them. 

Begging letters form a class apart. They represent a great andgrowing industry, and they are too purposeful to illustrate theabstract passion for correspondence. Yet marvellous things have beendone in this field. There is an ingenuity, a freshness and fertilityof device about the begging letter which lifts it often to the realmsof genius. Experienced though we all are, it has surprises in storefor every one of us. Seasoned though we are, we cannot read withoutappreciation of its more daring and fantastic flights. There was, for instance, a very imperative person who wrote to Dickens for adonkey, and who said he would call for it the next day, as thoughDickens kept a herd of donkeys in Tavistock Square, and could alwaysspare one for an emergency. There was a French gentleman who wroteto Moore, demanding a lock of Byron's hair for a young lady, whowould--so he said--die if she did not get it. This was a verylamentable letter, and Moore was conjured, in the name of the younglady's distracted family, to send the lock, and save her from thegrave. And there was a misanthrope who wrote to Peel that he was wearyof the ways of men (as so, no doubt, was Peel), and who requesteda hermitage in some nobleman's park, where he might live secludedfrom the world. The best begging-letter writers depend upon theelement of surprise as a valuable means to their end. I knew abenevolent old lady who, in 1885, was asked to subscribe to a fundfor the purchase of "moderate luxuries" for the French soldiers inMadagascar. "What did you do?" I asked, when informed of the incident. "I sent the money, " was the placid reply. "I thought I might neveragain have an opportunity to send money to Madagascar. "

It would be idle to deny that a word of praise, a word of thanks, sometimes a word of criticism, have been powerful factors in thelives of men of genius. We know how profoundly Lord Byron was affectedby the letter of a consumptive girl, written simply and soberly, signed with initials only, seeking no notice and giving no address;but saying in a few candid words that the writer wished before shedied to thank the poet for the rapture his poems had given her. "Ilook upon such a letter, " wrote Byron to Moore, "as better than adiploma from Gottingen. " We know, too, what a splendid impetus toCarlyle was that first letter from Goethe, a letter which heconfessed seemed too wonderful to be real, and more "like a messagefrom fairyland. " It was but a brief note after all, tepid, sensible, and egotistical; but the magic sentence, "It may be I shall yet hearmuch of you, " became for years an impelling force, the kind ofprophecy which insured its own fulfilment. 

Carlyle was susceptible to praise, though few readers had thetemerity to offer it. We find him, after the publication of the"French Revolution, " writing urbanely to a young and unknownadmirer; "I do not blame your enthusiasm. " But when a lesshappily-minded youth sent him some suggestions for the reformationof society, Carlyle, who could do all his own grumbling, returnedhis disciple's complaints with this laconic denial: "A pack of damnednonsense, you unfortunate fool. " It sounds unkind; but we mustremember that there were six posts a day in London, that "each postbrought its batch of letters, " and that nine tenths of theseletters--so Carlyle says--were from strangers, demanding autographs, and seeking or proffering advice. One man wrote that he wasdistressingly ugly, and asked what should he do about it. "Soprofitable have my epistolary fellow creatures grown to me in theseyears, " notes the historian in his journal, "that when the postmanleaves nothing, it may well be felt as an escape. "

The most patient correspondent known to fame was Sir Walter Scott, though Lord Byron surprises us at times by the fine quality of hisgood nature. His letters are often petulant, --especially when Murrayhas sent him tragedies instead of tooth-powder; but he is perhapsthe only man on record who received with perfect equanimity theverses of an aspiring young poet, wrote him the cheerfullest ofletters, and actually invited him to breakfast. The letter is stillextant; but the verses were so little the precursor of fame that theyouth's subsequent history is to this day unknown. It was with truththat Byron said of himself: "I am really a civil and polite person, and do hate pain when it can be avoided. "

Scott was also civil and polite, and his heart beat kindly for everyspecies of bore. As a consequence, the world bestowed its tediousnessupon him, to the detriment of his happiness and health. Ingeniousjokers translated his verses into Latin, and then wrote to accusehim of plagiarizing from Vida. Proprietors of patent medicinesoffered him fabulous sums to link his fame with theirs. Modest ladiesproposed that he should publish their effusions as his own, and sharethe profits. Poets demanded that he should find publishers for theirepics, and dramatists that he should find managers for their plays. Critics pointed out to him his anachronisms, and well-intentionedreaders set him right on points of morality and law. When he was old, and ill, and ruined, there was yet no respite from the curse ofcorrespondents. A year before his death he wrote dejectedly in hisjournal:--"A fleece of letters which must be answered, I suppose;all from persons--my zealous admirers, of course--who expect me tomake up whatever losses have been their lot, raise them to a desirablerank, and stand their protector and patron. I must, they take it forgranted, be astonished at having an address from a stranger. On thecontrary, I should be astonished if one of these extravagant epistlescame from anybody who had the least title to enter intocorrespondence. "

And there are people who believe, or who pretend to believe, thatfallen human nature can be purged and amended by half-rate telegrams, and a telephone ringing in the hall. Rather let us abandon illusions, and echo Carlyle's weary cry, when he heard the postman knocking athis door: "Just Heavens! Does literature lead to this!"

The Benefactor

 "He is a good man who can receive a gift well. "--EMERSON. 

There is a sacredness of humility in such an admission which winspardon for all the unlovely things which Emerson has crowded intoa few pages upon "Gifts. " Recognizing that his own goodness stoppedshort of this exalted point, he pauses for a moment in his able andbitter self-defence to pay tribute to a generosity he is too honestto claim. After all, who but Charles Lamb ever _did_ receive giftswell? Scott tried, to be sure. No man ever sinned less than he againstthe law of kindness. But Lamb did not need to try. He had it in hisheart of gold to feel pleasure in the presents which his friends tookpleasure in giving him. The character and quality of the gifts werenot determining factors. We cannot analyze this disposition. We canonly admire it from afar. 

"I look upon it as a point of morality to be obliged to those whoendeavour to oblige me, " says Sterne; and the sentiment, like mostof Sterne's sentiments, is remarkably graceful. It has all thefreshness of a principle never fagged out by practice. The ruggedfashion in which Emerson lived up to his burdensome ideals promptedhim to less engaging utterances. "It is not the office of a man toreceive gifts, " he writes viciously. "How dare you give them? We wishto be self-sustained. We do not quite forgive a giver. The hand thatfeeds us is in some danger of being bitten. "

Carlyle is almost as disquieting. He searches for, and consequentlyfinds, unworthy feelings both in the man who gives, and holds himselfto be a benefactor, and in the man who receives, and burdens himselfwith a sense of obligation. He professes a stern dislike for presents, fearing lest they should undermine his moral stability; but a manso up in morals must have been well aware that he ran no great riskof parting with his stock in trade. He probably hated getting whathe did not want, and finding himself expected to be grateful for it. This is a sentiment common to lesser men than Carlyle, and as oldas the oldest gift-bearer. It has furnished food for fables, inspiration for satirists, and cruel stories at which thelight-hearted laugh. Mr. James Payn used to tell the tale of anadvocate who unwisely saved a client from the gallows which he shouldhave graced; and the man, inspired by the best of motives, sent hisbenefactor from the West Indies a case of pineapples in which a colonyof centipedes had bred so generously that they routed every servantfrom the unfortunate lawyer's house, and dwelt hideously andpermanently in his kitchen. "A purchase is cheaper than a gift, " saysa wily old Italian proverb, steeped in the wisdom of the centuries. 

The principle which prompts the selection of gifts--since selectedthey all are by some one--is for the most part a mystery. I neverbut once heard any reasonable solution, and that was volunteered byan old lady who had been listening in silence to a conversation onthe engrossing subject of Christmas presents. It was a conversationat once animated and depressing. The time was at hand when none ofus could hope to escape these tokens of regard, and the elaborateand ingenious character of their unfitness was frankly and fairlydiscussed. What baffled us was the theory of choice. Suddenly theold lady flooded this dark problem with light by observing that shealways purchased her presents at bazaars. She said she knew they wereuseless, and that nobody wanted them, but that she considered it herduty to help the bazaars. She had the air of one conscious ofwell-doing, and sure of her reward. It did not seem to occur to herthat the reward should, in justice, be passed on with the purchases. The necessities of charitable organizations called for a sacrifice, and, rising to the emergency, she sacrificed her friends. 

A good many years have passed over our heads since Thackeray launchedhis invectives at the Christmas tributes he held in heartiesthatred, --the books which every season brought in its train, and whichwere never meant to be read. Their mission was fulfilled when theywere sent by aunt to niece, by uncle to nephew, by friend to haplessfriend. They were "gift-books" in the exclusive sense of the word. Thackeray was wont to declare that these vapid, brightly boundvolumes played havoc with the happy homes of England, just as theNew Year bonbons played havoc with the homes of France. Perhaps, ofthe two countries, France suffered less. The candy soon disappeared, leaving only impaired digestions in its wake. The books remained toencumber shelves, and bore humanity afresh. 

 "Mol, je dis que les bonbons Valent mieux que la raison";

and they are at least less permanently oppressive. "When thou makestpresents, " said old John Fuller, "let them be of such things as willlast long; to the end that they may be in some sort immortal, andmay frequently refresh the memory of the receiver. " But thisexcellent advice--excellent for the simple and spacious age in whichit was written--presupposes the "immortal" presents to wear well. Theologians teach us that immortality is not necessarily a blessing. 

A vast deal of ingenuity is wasted every year in evoking theundesirable, in the careful construction of objects which burdenlife. Frankenstein was a large rather than an isolated example. Thecivilized world so teems with elaborate and unlovely inutilities, with things which seem foreign to any reasonable conditions ofexistence, that we are sometimes disposed to envy the savage whowears all his simple wardrobe without being covered, and who seesall his simple possessions in a corner of his empty hut. What pleasantspaces meet the savage eye! What admirable vacancies soothe thesavage soul! No embroidered bag is needed to hold his sponge or hisslippers. No painted box is destined for his postal cards. Nodecorated tablet waits for his laundry list. No ornate wall-pocketyawns for his unpaid bills. He smokes without cigarette-cases. Hedances without cotillion favours. He enjoys all rational diversions, unfretted by the superfluities with which we have weighted them. Life, notwithstanding its pleasures, remains endurable to him. 

Above all, he does not undermine his own moral integrity by vicariousbenevolence, by helping the needy at his friend's expense. The greatprinciple of giving away what one does not want to keep is probablyas familiar to the savage as to his civilized, or semi-civilizedbrother. That vivacious traveller, Pere Huc, tells us he has seena Tartar chief at dinner gravely hand over to an underling a pieceof gristle he found himself unable to masticate, and that the giftwas received with every semblance of gratitude and delight. But thereis a simple straightforwardness about an act like this which commendsit to our understanding. The Tartar did not assume the gristle tobe palatable. He did not veil his motives for parting with it. Hedid not expand with the emotions of a philanthropist. And he did notexpect the Heavens to smile upon his deed. 

One word must be said in behalf of the punctilious giver, of the manwho repays a gift as scrupulously as he returns a blow. He wants toplease, but he is baffled by not knowing, and by not being sympatheticenough to divine, what his inarticulate friend desires. And if hedoes know, he may still vacillate between his friend's sense of thebecoming and his own. The "Spectator, " in a mood of unwonted subtlety, tells us that there is a "mild treachery" in giving what we feel tobe bad, because we are aware that the recipient will think it verygood. If, for example, we hold garnets to be ugly and vulgar, we mustnot send them to a friend who considers them rich and splendid. "Agift should represent common ground. "

This is so well said that it sounds like the easy thing it isn't. Which of us has not nobly striven, and ignobly failed, to preserveour honest purpose without challenging the taste of our friends? Itis hard to tell what people really prize. Heine begged for a buttonfrom George Sand's trousers, and who shall say whether enthusiasmor malice prompted the request? Mr. Oscar Browning, who as Masterat Eton must have known whereof he spoke, insisted that it was amistake to give a boy a well-bound book if you expected him to readit. Yet binding plays a conspicuous part in the selection ofChristmas and birthday presents. Dr. Johnson went a step farther, and said that nobody wanted to read _any_ book which was given tohim;--the mere fact that it was given, instead of being bought, borrowed, or ravished from a friend's shelves, militated against itsreadable qualities. Perhaps the Doctor was thinking of authors'copies. Otherwise the remark is the most discouraging one on record. 

Yet when all the ungracious things have been said and forgotten, whenthe hard old proverbs have exhausted their unwelcome wisdom, and wehave smiled wearily over the deeper cynicisms of Richelieu andTalleyrand, where shall we turn for relief but to Emerson, who hasatoned in his own fashion for the harshness of his own words. It isnot only that he recognizes the goodness of the man who receives agift well; but he sees, and sees clearly, that there can be noquestion between friends of giving or receiving, no possible roomfor generosity or gratitude. "The gift to be true must be the flowingof the giver unto me, correspondent to my flowing unto him. When thewaters are at a level, then my goods pass to him, and his to me. Allhis are mine, all mine, his. "

Critics have been disposed to think that this is an elevation toolofty for plain human beings to climb, an air too rarified for themto breathe; and that it ill befitted a man who churlishly resentedthe simple, stupid kindnesses of life, to take so sublime a tone, to claim so fine a virtue. We cannot hope to scale great moral heightsby ignoring petty obligations. 

Yet Emerson does not go a step beyond Plato in his conception of the"level waters" of friendship. He states his position lucidly, andwith a rational understanding of all that it involves. His visionis wide enough to embrace its everlasting truth. Plato says the samething in simpler language. He offers his truth as self-evident, andin no need of demonstration. When Lysis and Menexenus greet Socratesat the gymnasia, the philosopher asks which of the two youths is theelder. 

"'That, ' said Menexenus, 'is a matter of dispute between us. '

"'And which is the nobler? Is that also a matter of dispute?'

"'Yes, certainly. '

"'And another disputed point is which is the fairer?'

"The two boys laughed. 

"'I shall not ask which is the richer, for you are friends, are younot?'

"'We are friends. '

"'And friends have all things in common, so that one of you can beno richer than the other, if you say truly that you are friends. '

"They assented, and at that moment Menexenus was called away by someone who came and said that the master of the gymnasia wanted him. "[1]

[Footnote 1: Lysis. Translated by Jowett. ]

This is all. To Plato's way of thinking, the situation explaineditself. The two boys could not share their beauty nor their strength, but money was a thing to pass from hand to hand. It was not, and itnever could be, a matter for competition. The last lesson taught anAthenian youth was the duty of outstripping his neighbour in the hardrace for wealth. 

And where shall we turn for a practical illustration of friendship, as conceived by Emerson and Plato? Where shall we see the level waters, the "mine is thine" which we think too exalted for plain living? Noneed to search far, and no need to search amid the good and great. It is a pleasure to find what we seek in the annals of the flagrantlysinful, of that notorious Duke of Queensberry, "Old Q, " who has beenso liberally and justly censured by Wordsworth and Burns, by LeighHunt and Sir George Trevelyan, and who was, in truth, gamester, roue, --and friend. In the last capacity he was called upon to listento the woes of George Selwyn, who, having lost at Newmarket more moneythan he could possibly hope to pay, saw ruin staring him in the face. There is in Selwyn's letter a note of eloquent misery. He was, savewhen lulled to sleep in Parliament, a man of many words. There isin the letter of Lord March (he had not yet succeeded to theQueensberry title and estates) nothing but a quiet exposition ofPlato's theory of friendship. Selwyn's debts and his friend's moneyare intercommunicable. The amount required has been placed thatmorning at the banker's. "I depend more, " writes Lord March, "uponthe continuance of our friendship than upon anything else in theworld, because I have so many reasons to know you, and I am sure Iknow myself. _There will be no bankruptcy without we are bankrupttogether. _"

Here are the waters flowing on a level, flowing between two men ofthe world; one of them great enough to give, without deeming himselfa benefactor, and the other good enough to receive a gift well. 

The Condescension of Borrowers

"Il n'est si riche qui quelquefois ne doibve. Il n'est si pauvre dequi quelquefois on ne puisse emprunter. "--_Pantagruel_. 

"I lent my umbrella, " said my friend, "to my cousin, Maria. I wascompelled to lend it to her because she could not, or would not, leavemy house in the rain without it. I had need of that umbrella, andI tried to make it as plain as the amenities of language permittedthat I expected to have it returned. Maria said superciliously thatshe hated to see other people's umbrellas littering the house, whichgave me a gleam of hope. Two months later I found my property in thehands of her ten-year-old son, who was being marshalled with hisbrothers and sisters to dancing-school. In the first joyful flashof recognition I cried, 'Oswald, that is my umbrella you arecarrying!' whereupon Maria said still more superciliously thanbefore, 'Oh, yes, don't you remember?' (as if reproaching me for myforgetfulness)--'you gave it to me that Saturday I lunched with you, and it rained so heavily. The boys carry it to school. Where thereare children, you can't have too many old umbrellas at hand. Theylose them so fast. ' She spoke, " continued my friend impressively, "as if she were harbouring my umbrella from pure kindness, andbecause she did not like to wound my feelings by sending it back tome. She made a virtue of giving it shelter. "

This is the arrogance which places the borrower, as Charles Lambdiscovered long ago, among the great ones of the earth, among thosewhom their brethren serve. Lamb loved to contrast the "instinctivesovereignty, " the frank and open bearing of the man who borrows withthe "lean and suspicious" aspect of the man who lends. He stood lostin admiration before the great borrowers of the world, --Alcibiades, Falstaff, Steele, and Sheridan; an incomparable quartette, to whichmight be added the shining names of William Godwin and Leigh Hunt. All the characteristic qualities of the class were united, indeed, in Leigh Hunt, as in no other single representative. Sheridan wasan unrivalled companion, --could talk seven hours without making evenByron yawn. Steele was the most lovable of spendthrifts. Lending tothese men was but a form of investment. They paid in a coinage oftheir own. But Leigh Hunt combined in the happiest manner a readinessto extract favours with a confirmed habit of never acknowledging thesmallest obligation for them. He is a perfect example of thecondescending borrower, of the man who permits his friends, as apleasure to themselves, to relieve his necessities, and who knowsnothing of gratitude or loyalty. 

It would be interesting to calculate the amount of money which Hunt'sfriends and acquaintances contributed to his support in life. Shelley gave him at one time fourteen hundred pounds, an amount whichthe poet could ill spare; and, when he had no more to give, wrotein misery of spirit to Byron, begging a loan for his friend, andpromising to repay it, as he feels tolerably sure that Hunt neverwill. Byron, generous at first, wearied after a time of his positionin Hunt's commissariat (it was like pulling a man out of a river, he wrote to Moore, only to see him jump in again), and coldly withdrew. His withdrawal occasioned inconvenience, and has been sharplycriticised. Hunt, says Sir Leslie Stephen, loved a cheerful giver, and Byron's obvious reluctance struck him as being in bad taste. Hisbiographers, one and all, have sympathized with this point of view. Even Mr. Frederick Locker, from whom one would have expected adifferent verdict, has recorded his conviction that Hunt hadprobably been "sorely tried" by Byron. 

It is characteristic of the preordained borrower, of the man whosimply fulfils his destiny in life, that not his obligations only, but his anxieties and mortifications are shouldered by other men. Hunt was care-free and light-hearted; but there is a note akin toanguish in Shelley's petition to Byron, and in his shamefacedadmission that he is himself too poor to relieve his friend'snecessities. The correspondence of William Godwin's eminentcontemporaries teem with projects to alleviate Godwin's needs. Hisdebts were everybody's affair but his own. Sir James Mackintosh wroteto Rogers in the autumn of 1815, suggesting that Byron might be theproper person to pay them. Rogers, enchanted with the idea, wroteto Byron, proposing that the purchase money of "The Siege of Corinth"be devoted to this good purpose. Byron, with less enthusiasm, butresigned, wrote to Murray, directing him to forward the six hundredpounds to Godwin; and Murray, having always the courage of hisconvictions, wrote back, flatly refusing to do anything of the kind. In the end, Byron used the money to pay his own debts, therebydisgusting everybody but his creditors. 

Six years later, however, we find him contributing to a fund whichtireless philanthropists were raising for Godwin's relief. On thisoccasion all men of letters, poor as well as rich, were pressed intoactive service. Even Lamb, who had nothing of his own, wrote to thepainter, Haydon, who had not a penny in the world, and begged himto beg Mrs. Coutts to pay Godwin's rent. He also confessed that hehad sent "a very respectful letter"--on behalf of the rent--to SirWalter Scott; and he explained naively that Godwin did not concernhimself personally in the matter, because he "left all to hisCommittee, "--a peaceful thing to do. 

But how did Godwin come to have a "committee" to raise money for him, when other poor devils had to raise it for themselves, or do without?He was not well-beloved. On the contrary, he bored all whom he didnot affront. He was not grateful. On the contrary, he held gratitudeto be a vice, as tending to make men "grossly partial" to those whohave befriended them. His condescension kept pace with his demands. After his daughter's flight with Shelley, he expressed his justresentment by refusing to accept Shelley's cheque for a thousandpounds unless it were made payable to a third party, unless he couldhave the money without the formality of an acceptance. Like the greatlords of Picardy, who had the "right of credit" from their loyalsubjects, Godwin claimed his dues from every chance acquaintance. Crabb Robinson introduced him one evening to a gentleman named Rough. The next day both Godwin and Rough called upon their host, each manexpressing his regard for the other, and each asking Robinson if hethought the other would be a likely person to lend him fifty pounds. 

There are critics who hold that Haydon excelled all other borrowersknown to fame; but his is not a career upon which an admirer of theart can look with pleasure. Haydon's debts hunted him like hounds, and if he pursued borrowing as a means of livelihood, --more lucrativethan painting pictures which nobody would buy, --it was only becauseno third avocation presented itself as a possibility. He is not tobe compared for a moment with a true expert like Sheridan, whoborrowed for borrowing's sake, and without any sordid motiveconnected with rents or butchers' bills. Haydon would, indeed, partwith his money as readily as if it belonged to him. He would hearan "inward voice" in church, urging him to give his last sovereign;and, having obeyed this voice "with as pure a feeling as ever animateda human heart, " he had no resource but immediately to borrow another. It would have been well for him if he could have followed on suchoccasions the memorable example of Lady Cook, who was so impressedby a begging sermon that she borrowed a sovereign from Sydney Smithto put into the offertory; and--the gold once between herfingers--found herself equally unable to give it or to return it, so went home, a pound richer for her charitable impulse. 

Haydon, too, would rob Peter to pay Paul, and rob Paul without payingPeter; but it was all after an intricate and troubled fashion of hisown. On one occasion he borrowed ten pounds from Webb. Seven poundshe used to satisfy another creditor, from whom, on the strength ofthis payment, he borrowed ten pounds more to meet an impending bill. It sounds like a particularly confusing game; but it was a game playedin dead earnest, and without the humorous touch which makes the charmof Lady Cook's, or of Sheridan's methods. Haydon would have beendeeply grateful to his benefactors, had he not always stood in needof favours to come. Sheridan might perchance have been grateful, could he have remembered who his benefactors were. He laid the worldunder tribute; and because he had an aversion to opening hismail, --an aversion with which it is impossible not tosympathize, --he frequently made no use of the tribute when it waspaid. Moore tells us that James Wesley once saw among a pile of paperson Sheridan's desk an unopened letter of his own, containing aten-pound note, which he had lent Sheridan some weeks before. Wesleyquietly took possession of the letter and the money, thereby raisinga delicate, and as yet unsettled, question of morality. Had he a rightto those ten pounds because they had once been his, or were they notrather Sheridan's property, destined in the natural and proper orderof things never to be returned. 

Yet men, even men of letters, have been known to pay their debts, and to restore borrowed property. Moore paid Lord Lansdowne everypenny of the generous sum advanced by that nobleman after thedefalcation of Moore's deputy in Bermuda. Dr. Johnson paid back tenpounds after a lapse of twenty years, --a pleasant shock to thelender, --and on his death-bed (having fewer sins than most of us torecall) begged Sir Joshua Reynolds to forgive him a trifling loan. It was the too honest return of a pair of borrowed sheets (unwashed)which first chilled Pope's friendship for Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. That excellent gossip, Miss Letitia Matilda Hawkins, who standsresponsible for this anecdote, lamented all her life that her father, Sir John Hawkins, could never remember which of the friends borrowedand which lent the offending sheets; but it is a point easily settledin our minds. Pope was probably the last man in Christendom to havebeen guilty of such a misdemeanour, and Lady Mary was certainly thelast woman in Christendom to have been affronted by it. Like Dr. Johnson, she had "no passion for clean linen. "

Coleridge, though he went through life leaning his inert weight onother men's shoulders, did remember in some mysterious fashion toreturn the books he borrowed, enriched often, as Lamb proudly records, with marginal notes which tripled their value. His conduct in thisregard was all the more praiseworthy inasmuch as the cobweb statuteswhich define books as personal property have never met with literalacceptance. Lamb's theory that books belong with the highestpropriety to those who understand them best (a theory often advancedin defence of depredations which Lamb would have scorned to commit), was popular before the lamentable invention of printing. The libraryof Lucullus was, we are told, "open to all, " and it would beinteresting to know how many precious manuscripts remainedultimately in the great patrician's villa. 

Richard Heber, that most princely of collectors, so well understoodthe perils of his position that he met them bravely by buying threecopies of every book, --one for show, one for use, and one for theservice of his friends. The position of the show-book seems rathermelancholy, but perhaps, in time, it replaced the borrowed volume. Heber's generosity has been nobly praised by Scott, who contraststhe hard-heartedness of other bibliophiles, those "grippleniggards" who preferred holding on to their treasures, with hisfriend's careless liberality. 

 "Thy volumes, open as thy heart, Delight, amusement, science, art, To every ear and eye impart. Yet who, of all who thus employ them, Can, like the owner's self, enjoy them?"

The "gripple niggards" might have pleaded feebly in their own behalfthat they could not all afford to spend, like Heber, a hundredthousand pounds in the purchase of books; and that an occasionalreluctance to part with some hard-earned, hard-won volume might bepardonable in one who could not hope to replace it. Lamb's books werethe shabbiest in Christendom; yet how keen was his pang when CharlesKemble carried off the letters of "that princely woman, the thricenoble Margaret Newcastle, " an "illustrious folio" which he well knewKemble would never read. How bitterly he bewailed his rashness inextolling the beauties of Sir Thomas Browne's "Urn Burial" to a guestwho was so moved by this eloquence that he promptly borrowed thevolume. "But so, " sighed Lamb, "have I known a foolish lover to praisehis mistress in the presence of a rival more qualified to carry heroff than himself. "

Johnson cherished a dim conviction that because he read, and Garrickdid not, the proper place for Garrick's books was onhis--Johnson's--bookshelves; a point which could never be settledbetween the two friends, and which came near to wrecking theirfriendship. Garrick loved books with the chilly yet imperative loveof the collector. Johnson loved them as he loved his soul. Garricktook pride in their sumptuousness, in their immaculate, virginalsplendour. Johnson gathered them to his heart with scant regard foroutward magnificence, for the glories of calf and vellum. Garrickbought books. Johnson borrowed them. Each considered that he had aprior right to the objects of his legitimate affection. We, lookingback with softened hearts, are fain to think that we should have heldour volumes doubly dear if they had lain for a time by Johnson'shumble hearth, if he had pored over them at three o'clock in themorning, and had left sundry tokens--grease-spots and spatteringsof snuff--upon many a spotless page. But it is hardly fair to censureGarrick for not dilating with these emotions. 

Johnson's habit of flinging the volumes which displeased him intoremote and dusty corners of the room was ill calculated to inspireconfidence, and his powers of procrastination were never more markedthan in the matter of restoring borrowed books. We know fromCradock's "Memoirs" how that gentleman, having induced LordHarborough to lend him a superb volume of manuscripts, containingthe poems of James the First, proceeded to re-lend this pricelesstreasure to Johnson. When it was not returned--as of course it wasnot--he wrote an urgent letter, and heard to his dismay that Johnsonwas not only unable to find the book, but that he could not rememberhaving ever received it. The despairing Cradock applied to all hisfriends for help; and George Steevens, who had a useful habit oflooking about him, suggested that a sealed packet, which he hadseveral times observed lying under Johnson's ponderous inkstand, might possibly contain the lost manuscript. Even with this ray ofhope for guidance, it never seemed to occur to any one to stormJohnson's fortress, and rescue the imprisoned volume; but after theDoctor's death, two years later, Cradock made a formal applicationto the executors; and Lord Harborough's property was discoveredunder the inkstand, unopened, unread, and consequently, as by a happymiracle, uninjured. 

Such an incident must needs win pardon for Garrick's churlishnessin defending his possessions. "The history of book-collecting, " saysa caustic critic, "is a history relieved but rarely by acts of pureand undiluted unselfishness. " This is true, but are there not virtuesso heroic that plain human nature can ill aspire to compass them?

There is something piteous in the futile efforts of reluctant lendersto save their property from depredation. They place their relianceupon artless devices which never yet were known to stay themarauder's hand. They have their names and addresses engraved onfoolish little plates, which, riveted to their umbrellas, will, theythink, suffice to insure the safety of these useful articles. As wellmight the border farmer have engraved his name and address on thecollars of his grazing herds, in the hope that the riever wouldrespect this symbol of authority. The history of book-plates islargely the history of borrower versus lender. The orderly mind iswont to believe that a distinctive mark, irrevocably attached toevery volume, will insure permanent possession. Mr. Gosse, forexample, has expressed a touching faith in the efficacy of thebook-plate. He has but to explain that he "makes it a rule" neverto lend a volume thus decorated, and the would-be borrower bows tothis rule as to a decree of fate. "To have a book-plate, " he joyfullyobserves, "gives a collector great serenity and confidence. "

Is it possible that the world has grown virtuous without ourobserving it? Can it be that the old stalwart race of book-borrowers, those "spoilers of the symmetry of shelves, " are foiled by sochildish an expedient? Imagine Dr. Johnson daunted by a scrap ofpasted paper! Or Coleridge, who seldom went through the formalityof asking leave, but borrowed armfuls of books in the absence of theirlegitimate owners! How are we to account for the presence ofbook-plates--quite a pretty collection at times--on the shelves ofmen who possess no such toys of their own? When I was a girl I hadaccess to a small and well-chosen library (not greatly exceedingMontaigne's fourscore volumes), each book enriched with anappropriate device of scaly dragon guarding the apples of Hesperides. Beneath the dragon was the motto (Johnsonian in form if not insubstance), "Honour and Obligation demand the prompt return ofborrowed Books. " These words ate into my innocent soul, and lent apang to the sweetness of possession. Doubts as to the exact natureof "prompt return" made me painfully uncertain as to whether a month, a week, or a day were the limit which Honour and Obligation had setfor me. But other and older borrowers were less sensitive, and I havereason to believe that--books being a rarity in that little Southerntown--most of the volumes were eventually absorbed by the gapingshelves of neighbours. Perhaps even now (their generous owner longsince dead) these worn copies of Boswell, of Elia, of Herrick, andMoore, may still stand forgotten in dark and dusty corners, like gemsthat magpies hide. 

It is vain to struggle with fate, with the elements, and with theborrower; it is folly to claim immunity from a fundamental law, toboast of our brief exemption from the common lot. "Lend thereforecheerfully, O man ordained to lend. When thou seest the properauthority coming, meet it smilingly, as it were halfway. " Resistanceto an appointed force is but a futile waste of strength. 

The Grocer's Cat

"Of all animals, the cat alone attains to the ContemplativeLife. "--ANDREW LANG. 

The grocer's window is not one of those gay and glittering enclosureswhich display only the luxuries of the table, and which give us theimpression that there are favoured classes subsisting exclusivelyupon Malaga raisins, Russian chocolates, and Nuremberg gingerbread. It is an unassuming window, filled with canned goods and breakfastfoods, wrinkled prunes devoid of succulence, and boxes of starch andcandles. Its only ornament is the cat, and his beauty is more apparentto the artist than to the fancier. His splendid stripes, black andgrey and tawny, are too wide for noble lineage. He has a broadbenignant brow, like Benjamin Franklin's; but his brooding eyes, golden, unfathomable, deny benignancy. He is large and sleek, --thegrocery mice must be many, and of an appetizing fatness, --and Ipresume he devotes his nights to the pleasures of the chase. His daysare spent in contemplation, in a serene and wonderful stillness, which isolates him from the bustling vulgarities of the street. 

Past the window streams the fretful crowd; in and out of the shopstep loud-voiced customers. The cat is as remote as if he weredrowsing by the waters of the Nile. Pedestrians pause to admire him, and many of them endeavour, with well-meant but futile familiarity, to win some notice in return. They tap on the window pane, and say, "Halloo, Pussy!" He does not turn his head, nor lift his lustrouseyes. They tap harder, and with more ostentatious friendliness. Thestone cat of Thebes could not pay less attention. It is difficultfor human beings to believe that their regard can be otherwise thanflattering to an animal; but I did see one man intelligent enoughto receive this impression. He was a decent and a good-tempered youngperson, and he had beaten a prolonged tattoo on the glass with thehandle of his umbrella, murmuring at the same time vague words ofcajolery. Then, as the cat remained motionless, absorbed in revery, and seemingly unconscious of his unwarranted attentions, he turnedto me, a new light dawning in his eyes. "Thinks itself some, " he said, and I nodded acquiescence. As well try to patronize the Sphinx asto patronize a grocer's cat. 

Now, surely this attitude on the part of a small and helpless beast, dependent upon our bounty for food and shelter, and upon our senseof equity for the right to live, is worthy of note, and, to thegenerous mind, is worthy of respect. Yet there are people who mostungenerously resent it. They say the cat is treacherous andungrateful, by which they mean that she does not relish unsolicitedfondling, and that, like Mr. Chesterton, she will not recognizeimaginary obligations. If we keep a cat because there are mice inour kitchen or rats in our cellar, what claim have we to gratitude?If we keep a cat for the sake of her beauty, and because our hearthis but a poor affair without her, she repays her debt with interestwhen she dozes by our fire. She is the most decorative creature thedomestic world can show. She harmonizes with the kitchen's homelycomfort, and with the austere seclusion of the library. She gratifiesour sense of fitness and our sense of distinction, if we chance topossess these qualities. Did not Isabella d' Este, Marchioness ofMantua, and the finest exponent of distinction in her lordly age, send far and wide for cats to grace her palace? Did she not instructher agents to make especial search through the Venetian convents, where might be found the deep-furred pussies of Syria and Thibet?Alas for the poor nuns, whose cherished pets were snatched away togratify the caprice of a great and grasping lady, who habituallycoveted all that was beautiful in the world. 

The cat seldom invites affection, and still more seldom responds toit. A well-bred tolerance is her nearest approach to demonstration. The dog strives with pathetic insistence to break down the barriersbetween his intelligence and his master's, to understand and to beunderstood. The wise cat cherishes her isolation, and permits us toplay but a secondary part in her solitary and meditative life. Herintelligence, less facile than the dog's, and far less highlydifferentiated, owes little to our tutelage; her character has notbeen moulded by our hands. The changing centuries have left no markupon her; and, from a past inconceivably remote, she has come downto us, a creature self-absorbed and self-communing, undisturbed byour feverish activity, a dreamer of dreams, a lover of the mysteriesof night. 

And yet a friend. No one who knows anything about the cat will denyher capacity for friendship. Rationally, without enthusiasm, without illusions, she offers us companionship on terms of equality. She will not come when she is summoned, --unless the summons be fordinner, --but she will come of her own sweet will, and bear us companyfor hours, sleeping contentedly in her armchair, or watching withhalf-shut eyes the quiet progress of our work. A lover of routine, she expects to find us in the same place at the same hour every day;and when her expectations are fulfilled (cats have some secret methodof their own for telling time), she purrs approval of our punctuality. What she detests are noise, confusion, people who bustle in and outof rooms, and the unpardonable intrusions of the housemaid. On thoseunhappy days when I am driven from my desk by the iron determinationof this maid to "clean up, " my cat is as comfortless as I am. Companions in exile, we wander aimlessly to and fro, lamenting ourlost hours. I cannot explain to Lux that the fault is none of mine, and I am sure that she holds me to blame. 

There is something indescribably sweet in the quiet, self-respectingfriendliness of my cat, in her marked predilection for my society. The absence of exuberance on her part, and the restraint I put uponmyself, lend an element of dignity to our intercourse. Assured thatI will not presume too far on her good nature, that I will not indulgein any of those gross familiarities, those boisterous gambols whichdelight the heart of a dog, Lux yields herself more and more passivelyto my persuasions. She will permit an occasional caress, andacknowledge it with a perfunctory purr. She will manifest apatronizing interest in my work, stepping sedately among my papers, and now and then putting her paw with infinite deliberation on thepage I am writing, as though the smear thus contributed spelt, "Lux, her mark, " and was a reward of merit. But she never curls herselfupon my desk, never usurps the place sacred to the memory of a fardearer cat. Some invisible influence restrains her. When her tourof inspection is ended, she returns to her chair by my side, stretching herself luxuriously on her cushions, and watching withsteady, sombre stare the inhibited spot, and the little grey phantomwhich haunts my lonely hours by right of my inalienable love. 

Lux is a lazy cat, wedded to a contemplative life. She cares littlefor play, and nothing for work, --the appointed work of cats. Thenotion that she has a duty to perform, that she owes service to thehome which shelters her, that only those who toil are worthy of theirkeep, has never entered her head. She is content to drink the creamof idleness, and she does this in a spirit of condescension, wonderful to behold. The dignified distaste with which she surveysa dinner not wholly to her liking, carries confusion to the heartsof her servitors. It is as though Lucullus, having ordered Neapolitanpeacock, finds himself put off with nightingales' tongues. 

For my own part, I like to think that my beautiful and urbanecompanion is not a midnight assassin. Her profound and soullessindifference to mice pleases me better than it pleases my household. From an economic point of view, Lux is not worth her salt. Huxley'scat, be it remembered, was never known to attack anything larger andfiercer than a butterfly. "I doubt whether he has the heart to killa mouse, " wrote the proud possessor of this prodigy; "but I saw himcatch and eat the first butterfly of the season, and I trust thatthe germ of courage thus manifested may develop with years intoefficient mousing. "

Even Huxley was disposed to take a utilitarian view of cathood. EvenCowper, who owed to the frolics of his kitten a few hours' respitefrom melancholy, had no conception that his adult cat could do betterservice than slay rats. "I have a kitten, my dear, " he wrote to LadyHesketh, "the drollest of all creatures that ever wore a cat's skin. Her gambols are incredible, and not to be described. She tumbles headover heels several times together. She lays her cheek to the ground, and humps her back at you with an air of most supreme disdain. Fromthis posture she rises to dance on her hind feet, an exercise whichshe performs with all the grace imaginable; and she closes thesevarious exhibitions with a loud smack of her lips, which, for wantof greater propriety of expression, we call spitting. But, thoughall cats spit, no cat ever produced such a sound as she does. In pointof size, she is likely to be a kitten always, being extremely smallfor her age; but time, that spoils all things, will, I suppose, makeher also a cat. You will see her, I hope, before that melancholyperiod shall arrive; for no wisdom that she may gain by experienceand reflection hereafter will compensate for the loss of her presenthilarity. She is dressed in a tortoiseshell suit, and I know thatyou will delight in her. "

Had Cowper been permitted to live more with kittens, and less withevangelical clergymen, his hours of gayety might have outnumberedhis hours of gloom. Cats have been known to retain in extreme oldage the "hilarity" which the sad poet prized. Nature has thoughtfullyprovided them with one permanent plaything; and Mr. Frederick Lockervouches for a light-hearted old Tom who, at the close of a long andill-spent life, actually squandered his last breath in the pursuitof his own elusive tail. But there are few of us who would care tosee the monumental calm of our fireside sphinx degenerate into senilesportiveness. Better far the measured slowness of her pace, thesuperb immobility of her repose. To watch an ordinary cat moveimperceptibly and with a rhythmic waving of her tail through adoorway (while we are patiently holding open the door), is likelooking at a procession. With just such deliberate dignity, in justsuch solemn state, the priests of Ra filed between the endless rowsof pillars into the sunlit temple court. 

The cat is a freebooter. She draws no nice distinctions between amouse in the wainscot, and a canary swinging in its gilded cage. Hertraducers, indeed, have been wont to intimate that her preferenceis for the forbidden quarry; but this is one of many libellousaccusations. The cat, though she has little sympathy with our vapidsentiment, can be taught that a canary is a privileged nuisance, immune from molestation. The bird's shrill notes jar her sensitivenerves. She abhors noise, and a canary's pipe is the most piercingand persistent of noises, welcome to that large majority of mankindwhich prefers sound of any kind to silence. Moreover, a cage presentsjust the degree of hindrance to tempt a cat's agility. That Pusshabitually refrains from ridding the household of canaries is proofof her innate reasonableness, of her readiness to submit her finerjudgment and more delicate instincts to the common caprices ofhumanity. 

As for wild birds, the robins and wrens and thrushes which arepredestined prey, there is only one way to save them, the way whichArchibald Douglas took to save the honour of Scotland, --"bell thecat. " A good-sized sleigh-bell, if she be strong enough to bear it, a bunch of little bells, if she be small and slight, --and thepleasures of the chase are over. One little bell is of no avail, forshe learns to move with such infinite precaution that it does notring until she springs, and then it rings too late. There is anelement of cruelty in depriving the cat of sport, but from the bird'spoint of view the scheme works to perfection. Of course rats and miceare as safe as birds from the claws of a belled cat, but, if we arereally humane, we will not regret their immunity. 

The boasted benevolence of man is, however, a purely superficialemotion. What am I to think of a friend who anathematizes the familycat for devouring a nest of young robins, and then tells me exultinglythat the same cat has killed twelve moles in a fortnight. To a pitifulheart, the life of a little mole is as sacred as the life of a littlerobin. To an artistic eye, the mole in his velvet coat is handsomerthan the robin, which is at best a bouncing, bourgeois sort of bird, a true suburbanite, with all the defects of his class. But my friendhas no mercy on the mole because he destroys her garden, --her gardenwhich she despoils every morning, gathering its fairest blossoms todroop and wither in her crowded rooms. To wax compassionate over abird, and remain hard as flint to a beast, is possible only tohumanity. The cat, following her predatory instincts, is at once morelogical and less ruthless, because the question of property does notdistort her vision. She has none of the vices of civilization. 

 "Cats I scorn, who, sleek and fat, Shiver at a Norway rat. Rough and hardy, bold and free, Be the cat that's made for me; He whose nervous paw can take My lady's lapdog by the neck, With furious hiss attack the hen, And snatch a chicken from the pen. "

So sang Dr. Erasmus Darwin's intrepid pussy (a better poet than hermaster) to the cat of Miss Anna Seward, surely the last lady in allEngland to have encouraged such lawlessness on the part ofa--presumably--domestic animal. 

For the cat's domesticity is at best only a presumption. It is oneof life's ironical adjustments that the creature who fits soharmoniously into the family group should be alien to its influences, and independent of its cramping conditions. She seems made for thefireside she adorns, and where she has played her part for centuries. Lamb, delightedly recording his "observations on cats, " sees onlytheir homely qualities. "Put 'em on a rug before the fire, they winktheir eyes up, and listen to the kettle, and then purr, which is_their_ music. " The hymns which Shelley loved were sung by theroaring wind, the hissing kettle, and the kittens purring by hishearth. Heine's cat, curled close to the glowing embers, purred asoft accompaniment to the rhythms pulsing in his brain; but he atleast, being a German, was not deceived by this specious show ofimpeccability. He knew that when the night called, his cat obeyedthe summons, abandoning the warm fire for the hard-frozen snow, andthe innocent companionship of a poet for the dancing of witches onthe hill-tops. 

The same grace of understanding--more common in the sixteenth thanin the nineteenth century--made the famous Milanese physician, Jerome Cardan, abandon his students at the University of Pavia, inobedience to the decision of his cat. "In the year 1552, " he writeswith becoming gravity, "having left in the house a little cat ofplacid and domestic habits, she jumped upon my table, and tore atmy public lectures; yet my Book of Fate she touched not, though itwas the more exposed to her attacks. I gave up my chair, nor returnedto it for eight years. " Oh, wise physician, to discern so clearlythat "placid and domestic habits" were but a cloak for mysteries toodeep to fathom, for warnings too pregnant to be disregarded. 

The vanity of man revolts from the serene indifference of the cat. He is forever lauding the dog, not only for its fidelity, which isa beautiful thing, but for its attitude of humility and abasement. A distinguished American prelate has written some verses on his dog, in which he assumes that, to the animal's eyes, he is as God, --a beingwhose word is law, and from whose sovereign hand flow all life'scountless benefactions. Another complacent enthusiast describes_his_ dog as sitting motionless in his presence, "at once tranquiland attentive, as a saint should be in the presence of God. He ishappy with the happiness which we perhaps shall never know, sinceit springs from the smile and the approval of a life incomparablyhigher than his own. "

Of course, if we are going to wallow in idolatry like this, we dowell to choose the dog, and not the cat, to play the worshipper'spart. I am not without a suspicion that the dog is far from feelingthe rapture and the reverence which we so delightedly ascribe to him. What is there about any one of us to awaken such sentiments in thebreast of an intelligent animal? We have taught him our vices, andhe fools us to the top of our bent. The cat, however, is equally freefrom illusions and from hypocrisy. If we aspire to a pettyomnipotence, she, for one, will pay no homage at our shrine. Therefore has her latest and greatest defamer, Maeterlinck, brandedher as ungrateful and perfidious. The cat of "The Blue Bird" fawnsand flatters, which is something no real cat was ever known to do. When and where did M. Maeterlinck encounter an obsequious cat? Thatthe wise little beast should resent Tyltyl's intrusion into theancient realms of night, is conceivable, and that, unlike the dog, she should see nothing godlike in a masterful human boy, is hardlya matter for regret; but the most subtle of dramatists should betterunderstand the most subtle of animals, and forbear to rank her asman's enemy because she will not be man's dupe. Rather let us turnback and learn our lesson from Montaigne, serenely playing with hiscat as friend to friend, for thus, and thus only, shall we enjoy thesweets of her companionship. If we want an animal to prance on itshind legs, and, with the over-faithful Tylo, cry out, "little god, little god, " at every blundering step we take; if we are soconstituted that we feel the need of being worshipped by somethingor somebody, we must feed our vanity as best we can with the societyof dogs and men. The grocer's cat, enthroned on the grocer'sstarch-box, is no fitting friend for us. 

As a matter of fact, all cats and kittens, whether royal Persiansor of the lowliest estate, resent patronage, jocoseness (which theyrightly hold to be in bad taste), and demonstrativeaffection, --those lavish embraces which lack delicacy and reserve. This last prejudice they carry sometimes to the verge of unkindness, eluding the caresses of their friends, and wounding the spirits ofthose who love them best. The little eight-year-old English girl whocomposed the following lines, when smarting from unrequitedaffection, had learned pretty much all there is to know concerningthe capricious nature of cats:--

 "Oh, Selima shuns my kisses! Oh, Selima hates her missus! I never did meet With a cat so sweet, Or a cat so cruel as this is. "

In such an instance I am disposed to think that Selima's coldnesswas ill-judged. No discriminating pussy would have shunned thekisses of such an enlightened little girl. But I confess to thepleasure with which I have watched other Selimas extricatethemselves from well-meant but vulgar familiarities. I once saw asmall black-and-white kitten playing with a judge, who, notunnaturally, conceived that he was playing with the kitten. For awhile all went well. The kitten pranced and paddled, fixing hergleaming eyes upon the great man's smirking countenance, and pursuedhis knotted handkerchief so swiftly that she tumbled head over heels, giddy with her own rapid evolutions. Then the judge, being but human, and ignorant of the wide gap which lies between a cat's standard ofgood taste and the lenient standard of the court-room, ventured uponone of those doubtful pleasantries which a few pussies permit toprivileged friends, but which none of the race ever endure fromstrangers. He lifted the kitten by the tail until only her forepawstouched the rug, which she clutched desperately, uttering a loudprotesting mew. She looked so droll in her helplessness and wraththat several members of the household (her own household, whichshould have known better) laughed outright, --a shameful thing to do. 

Here was a social crisis. A little cat of manifestly humble origin, with only an innate sense of propriety to oppose to a coarse-mindedmagistrate, and a circle of mocking friends. The judge, imperturbably obtuse, dropped the kitten on the rug, and preparedto resume their former friendly relations. The kitten did not runaway, she did not even walk away; that would have been an admissionof defeat. She sat down very slowly, as if first searching for aparticular spot in the intricate pattern of the rug, turned her backupon her former playmate, faced her false friends, and tucked heroutraged tail carefully out of sight. Her aspect was that of a catalone in a desert land, brooding over the mystery of her nine lives. In vain the handkerchief was trailed seductively past her little nose, in vain her contrite family spoke words of sweetness and repentance. She appeared as aloof from her surroundings as if she had been waftedto Arabia; and presently began to wash her face conscientiously andmethodically, with the air of one who finds solitude better than thecompanionship of fools. Only when the judge had put his sillyhandkerchief into his pocket, and had strolled into the library underthe pretence of hunting for a book which he had never left there, did the kitten close her eyes, lower her obdurate little head, andpurr herself tranquilly to sleep. 

A few years afterwards I was permitted to witness another silentcombat, another signal victory. This time the cat was, I grieve tosay, a member of a troupe of performing animals, exhibited at theFolies-Bergere in Paris. Her fellow actors, poodles and monkeys, played their parts with relish and a sense of fun. The cat, a thingapart, condescended to leap twice through a hoop, and to balanceherself very prettily on a large rubber ball. She then retired tothe top of a ladder, made a deft and modest toilet, and composedherself for slumber. Twice the trainer spoke to her persuasively, but she paid no heed, and evinced no further interest in him nor inhis entertainment. Her time for condescension was past. 

The next day I commented on the cat's behaviour to some friends whohad also been to the Folies-Bergere on different nights. "But, " saidthe first friend, "the evening I went, that cat did wonderful things;came down the ladder on her ball, played the fiddle, and stood onher head. "

"Really, " said the second friend. "Well, the night _I_ went, she didnothing at all except cuff one of the monkeys that annoyed her. Shejust sat on the ladder, and watched the performance. I presumed shewas there by way of decoration. "

All honour to the cat, who, when her little body is enslaved, canstill preserve the freedom of her soul. The dogs and the monkeysobeyed their master; but the cat, like Montaigne's happier pussy longago, had "her time to begin or to refuse, " and showman and audiencewaited upon her will. 

THE END