THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY: a 1~agaPne of JLtt~rature, ~L~tenc~, art, anii 1~oUttc~. VOL. LXXX.JULY, 1897. ATo. (JCUCLXXVIL THE MAKING OF THE NATION. THE making of our own nation seems to have taken place under our very eyes, so recent and so familiar is the story. The great process was worked out in the plain and open day of the modern world, statesmen and historians standing by to superintend, criticise, make record of what was done. The stirring narrative runs quickly into the day in which we live; we can say that our grandfathers builded the government which now holds so large a place in the world; the story seems of yesterday, and yet seems en- tire, as if the making of the republic had hastened to complete itself within a single hundred years. We are elated to see so great a thing done upon so great a scale, and to feel ourselves in so inti- mate a way actors in the moving scene. Yet we should deceive ourselves were we to suppose the work done, the nation made. We have been told by a certain group of our historians that a nation was made when the federal Constitution was adopted; that the strong sentences of the law sufficed to transform us from a league of States into a people single and insepa.. rable. Some tell us, however, that it was not till the war of 1812 that we grew fully conscious of a single purpose and destiny, and began to form policies as if for a nation. Others see the process complete only when the civil war struck slavery away, and gave North and South a common way of life that should make common ideals and common endeavors at last possible. Then, when all have had their say, there comes a great move- ment like the one which we call Popu- lism, to remind us how the country still lies apart in sections: some at one stage of development, some at another; some with one hope and purpose for America, some with another. And we ask our- selves, Is the history of our making as a nation indeed over, or do we still wait upon the forces that shall at last unite us? Are we even now, in fact, a nation? Clearly, it is not a question of senti- ment, but a question of fact. If it be true that the country, taken as a whole, is at one and the same time in several stages of development, not a great commercial and manufacturing nation, with here and there its broad pastures and the quiet farms from which it draws its food; not a vast agricultural com- munity, with here and there its ports of shipment and its necessary marts of exchange; nor yet a country of mines, merely, pouring their products forth into the markets of the world, to take thence whatever it may need for its comfort and convenience in living, we still wait for its economic and spiritual union. It is many things at once. Sectipns big enough for kingdoms live by agriculture, and farm the wide stretches of a new land by the aid of money borrowed from other sections which seem almost like another nation, with their teeming cities, dark with the smoke of factories, quick with the movements ,of trade, as sensitive to the variations of exchange on London as to the variations in the crops raised by their distant fellow countrymen on 2 The iJlaking of the Nation. the plains within the continent. Upon other great spaces of the vast continent, communities, millions strong, live the dis- tinctive life of the miner; have all their fortune bound up and centred in a single group of industries, feel in their utmost concentration the power of economic forces elsewhere dispersed, and chafe under the unequal yoke that unites them with communities so unlike themselves as those which lend and trade and manu- facture, and those which follow the plough and reap the grain that is to feed the world. Such contrasts are nothing new in our history, and our system of government is admirably adapted to relieve the strain and soften the antagonism they might entail. All our national history through our country has lain apart in sections, each marking a stage of settlement, a stage of wealth, a stage of development, as population has advanced, as if by suc- cessive journeyings and encampments, from east to west; and always new re- gions have been suffered to become new States, form their own life under their own law, plan their own economy, ad- just their own domestic relations, and legalize their own methods of business. States have, indeed, often been whimsi- cally enough formed. We have left the matter of boundaries to surveyors rather than to statesmen, and have by no means managed to construct economic units in the making of States. We have joined mining communities with agricultural, the mountain with the plain, the ranch with the farm, and have left the mak- ing of uniform rules to the sagacity and practical habit of neighbors ill at ease with one another. But on the whole, the scheme, though a bit haphazard, has worked itself out with singularly little friction and no disaster, and the strains of the great structure we have erected have been greatly eased and dissipated. Elastic as the system is, however, it stiffens at every point of national policy. The federal government can make but one rule, and that a rule for the whole country, in each act of its legislation. Its very constitution withholds it from discrimination as between State and State, section and section; and yet its chief powers touch just those subjects of economic interest in which the several sections of the country feel themselves most unlike. Currency questions do not affect them equally or in the same way. Some need an elastic currency to serve their uses; others can fill their coffers more readily with a currency that is in- elastic. Some can build up manufac- tures under a tariff law; others cannot, and must submit to pay more without earning more. Some have one interest in a principle of interstate commerce; others, another. It would be difficult to find even a question of foreign policy which would touch all parts of the coun- try alike. A foreign fleet would mean much more to the merchants of Boston and New York than to the merchants of Illinois and the farmers of the Dakotas. The conviction is becoming painfully distinct among us, moreover, that these contrasts of condition and differences of interest between the several sections of the country are now more marked and emphasized than they ever were before. The country has been transformed with- in a generation, not by any creations in a new kind, but by stupendous changes in degree. Every interest has increased its scale and its individual significance. The East is transformed by the vast accumulations of wealth made since the civil war, transformed from a simple to a complex civilization, more like the Old World than like the New. The West~ has so magnified its character- istics by sheer growth, every economic interest which its life represents has be- come so gigantic in its proportions, that it seems to Eastern men, and to its own people also, more than ever a region apart. It is true that the West is not, as a matter of fact, a region at all, but, in Professor Turners admirable The J?Jfaking of the Nation. 3 phrase, a stage of development, nowhere set apart and isolated, but spread abroad through all the far interior of the con- tinent. But it is now a stage of devel- opment with a difference, as Professor Turner has shown,1 which makes it prac- tically a new thing in our history. The West was once a series of States and settlements beyond which lay free lands not yet occupied, into which the restless and all who could not thrive by mere steady industry, all who had come too late and all who had stayed too long, could pass on, and, it might be, better their fortunes. Now it lies without out- let. The free lands are gone. New communities must make their life suffi- cient without this easy escape, must study economy, find their fortunes in what lies at hand, intensify effort, in- crease capital, build up a future out of details. It is as if they were caught in a fixed order of life and forced into a new competition, and both their self-con- sciousness and their keenness to observe every point of self-interest are enlarged beyond former example. That there are currents of national life, both strong and defini*e, running in full tide through all the continent from sea to sea, no observant person can fail to perceive, currents which have long been gathering force, and which cannot now be withstood. There need be no fear in any sane mans mind that we shall ever again see our national gov- ernment threatened with overthrow by any power which our own growth has bred. The temporary danger is that, not being of a common mind, because not living under common conditions, the several sections of the country, which a various economic development has for the time being set apart and contrasted, may struggle for supremacy in the con- trol of the government, and that we may learn by some sad experience that there is not even yet any common standard, either of opinion or of policy, underlying our 1 American Historical Review, vol. i. p. 71. national life. The country is of one mind in its allegiance to the government and in its attachment to the national idea; but it is not yet of one mind in respect of that fundamental question, What pol- icies will best serve us in giving strength and development to our life? Not the least noteworthy of the incidents that preceded and foretokened the civil war was, if I may so call it, the sectionali- zation of the national idea. Souther~i merchants bestirred themselves to get conventions together for the discussion, not of the issues of polities, but of the economic interests of the country. Their thought and hope were of the nation. They spoke no word of antagonism against any section or interest. Yet it was plain in every resolution they ut- tered that for them the nation was one thing and centred in the South, while for the rest of the country the nation was another thing and lay in the North and Northwest. They were arguing the needs of the nation from the needs of their own section. The same thing had happened in the days of the embargo and the war of 1812. The Hartford Convention thought of New England when it spoke of the country. So must it ever be when section differs from sec- tion in the very basis and method of its life. The nation is to-day one thing in Kansas, and quite another in Massachu- setts. There is no longer any danger of a civil war. There was war between the South and the rest of the nation because their differences were removable in no other way. There was no prospect that slavery, the root of those differences, would ever disappear in the mere pro- cess of growth. It was to be appre- hended, on the contrary, that the very processes of growth would inevitably lead to the extension of slavery and the perpetuation of radical social and eco- nomic contrasts and antagonisms be- tween State and State, between region and region. An heroic remedy was the 4 The Making of the Nation. only remedy. Slavery being removed, the South is now joined with the West, joined with it in a stage of development, as a region chiefly agricultural, without diversified industries, without a multifa- rious trade, without those subtle extend- ed nerves which come with all-round economic development, and which make men keenly sensible of the interests that link the world together, as it were into a~ single community. But these are lines of difference which will be effaced by mere growth, which time will calmly ignore. They make no boundaries for armies to cross. Tide - water Virginia was thus separated once from her own population within the Alleghany valleys, held two jealous sections within her own limits. Massachusetts once knew the sharp divergences of interest and design which separated the coast settle- ments upon the Bay from the restless pioneers who had taken up the free lands of her own western counties. North Carolina was once a comfortable and in- different East to the uneasy West that was to become Tennessee. Virginia once seemed old and effete to Kentucky. The great West once lay upon the Ohio, but has since disappeared there, overlaid by the changes which have car- ried the conditions of the East to the Great Lakes and beyond. There has never yet been a time in our history when we were without an East and a West, but the novel day when we shall be without them is now in sight. As the country grows it will inevitably grow homogeneous. Population will not henceforth spread, but compact; for there is no new land between the seas where the West can find another lodgment. The conditions which prevail in the ever widening East will sooner or later cover the continent, and we shall at last be one people. The process will not be a short one. It will doubtless run through many generations and involve many a critical question of statesman- ship. But it cannot be stayed, and its working out will bring the nation to its final character and r6le in the world. In the meantime, shall we not con- stantly recall our reassuring past, re- minding one another again and again, as our memories fail us, of the significant incidents of the long journey we have already come, in order that we may be cheered and guided upon the road we have yet to choose and follow? It is only by thus attempting, and attempting again and again, some sufficient analysis of our past experiences that we can form any adequate image of our life as a nat. tion, or acquire any intelligent purpose to guide us amidst the rushing movement of affairs. It is no doubt in part by re- viewing our lives that we shape and de- termine them. The future will not, in- deed, be like the past; of that we may rest assured. It cannot be like it in de- tail; it cannot even resemble it in the large. It is one thing to fill a fertile continent with a vigorous people and take first possession of its treasures; it is quite another to complete the work of occupation and civilization in detail Big plans, thought out only in the rough, will suffice for the one, but not for the other. A provident leadership, a patient tolerance of temporary but unavoidable evils, a just temper of compromise and accommodation, a hopeful industry in the face of small returns, mutual under. standings, and a cordial spirit of cooper- ation are needed for the slow intensive task, which were not demanded ami~ist the free advances of an unhampered peo- ple from settlement to settlement. And yet the past has made the present, and will make the future. It has made us a nation, despite a variety of life that threatened to keep us at odds amongst ourselves. It has shown us the processes by which differences have been obliter- ated and antagonisms softened. It has taught us how to become strong, and will teach us, if we heed its moral, how to become wise, also, and single-minded. The colonies which formed the Union The Making of the Nation. 5 were brought together, let us first re- mind ourselves, not merely because they were neighbors and kinsmen, but because they were forced to see that they had common interests which they could serve in no other way. There is nothing which binds one country or one State to another but interest, said Washington. Without this cement the Western in- habitants can have no predilection for us. Without that cement the colonies could have had no predilection for one ;~ another. But it is one thing to have common interests, and quite another to perceive them and act upon them. The colonies were first thrust together by the pressure of external danger. They need- ed one another, as well as aid from over- sea, as any fool could perceive, if they were going to keep their frontiers against the Indians, and their outlets upon the Western waters from the French. The French and Indian war over, that pres- sure was relieved, and they might have fallen apart again, indifferent to any common aim, unconscious of any com- mon interest, had not the government that was their common master set itself to make them wince under common wrongs. Then it was that they saw how like they were in polity and life and in- terest in the great field of politics, studied their common liberty, and became aware of their common ambitions. It was then that they became aware, too, that their common ambitions could be realized only by union; not single-handed, but united against a common enemy. Had they been let alone, it would have taken many a long generation of slowly increased acquaintance with one another to apprise them of their kinship in life and inter- ests and institutions; but England drove them into immediate sympathy and com- bination, unwittingly founding a nation by suggestion. The war for freedom over, the new- fledged States entered at once upon a very practical course of education which thrust its lessons upon them without re gard to taste or predileccion. The Ar- ticles of Confederation had been formu- lated and proposed to the States for their acceptance in 1777, as a legalization of the arrangements that had grown up un- der the informal guidance of the Conti- nental Congress, in order that law might confirm and strengthen practice, and be- cause an actual continental war com- manded a continental organization. But the war was virtually over by the time all the reluctant States had accepted the Articles; and the new government had hardly been put into formal operation be- fore it became evident that only the war had made such an arrangement work- able. Not compacts, but the compul- sions of a common danger, had drawn the States into an irregular cotperation, and it was even harder to obtain obedi- ence to the definite Articles than it had been to get the requisitions of the un- chartered Congress heeded while the war lasted. Peace had rendered the make- shift common government uninteresting, and had given each State leave to with- draw from common undertakings, and to think once more, as of old, only of itself. Their own affairs again isolated and restored to their former separate importance, the States could no longer spare their chief men for what was con- sidered the minor work of the general Congress. The best men had been grad- ually withdrawn from Congress before the war ended, and now there seemed less reason than ever why they should be sent to talk at Philadelphia, when they were needed for the actual work of ad.. ministration at home. Politics fell back into their old localization, and every pub- lie man found his chief tasks at home. There were still, as a matter of fact, common needs and dangers scarcely less imperative and menacing than those which had drawn the colonies together against the mother country; but they were needs and perils of peace, and or- dinary men did not see them; only the most thoughtful and observant were con- 6 The Jifaking of the Nation. scious of them: extraordinary events were required to lift them to the general view. Happily, there were thoughtful and ob- servant men who were already the chief figures of the country, men whose leadership the people had long since come to look for and accept, and it was through them that the States were brought to a new common consciousness, and at last to a real union. It was not possible for the seycral States to live self-sufficient and apart, as they had done when they were colonies. They had then had a common government, little as they liked to submit to it, and their foreign affairs had been taken care of. They were now to learn how ill they could dispense with a common provi- dence. Instead of France, they now had England for neighbor in Canada and on the Western waters, where they had themselves but the other day fought so hard to set her power up. She was their rival and enemy, too, on the seas; re- fused to come to any treaty terms with them in regard to commerce; and laughed to see them unable to concert any poli- cy against her because they had no com- mon political authority among them- selves. She had promised, in the treaty of peace, to withdraw her garrisons from the Western posts which lay within the territory belonging to the Confederation; but Congress had promised that British creditors should be paid what was due them, only to find that the States would make no laws to fulfill the promise, and were determined to leave their federal representatives without power to make them; and England kept her troops where they were. Spain had taken Frances place upon the further bank of the Mississippi and at the great river s mouth. Grave questions of foreign poli- cy pressed on every side, as of old, and no State could settle them unaided and for herself alone. Here was a group of commonwealths which would have lived separately and for themselves, and could not; which had thought to make shift with merely a league of friendship between them and a Congress for consultation, and found that it was impossible. There were com- mon debts to pay, but there was no com- mon system of taxation by which to meet them, nor any authority to devise and enforce such a system. There were common enemies and rivals to deal with, but no one was authorized to carry out a common policy against them. There was a common domain to settle and ad- minister, but no one knew how a Con- gress without the power to command was to manage so great a property. The Ordinance of 1787 was indeed kavely framed, after a method of real states- manship; but there was no warrant for it to be found in the Articles, and no one could say how Congress would ex- ecute a law it had had no authority to enact. It was not merely the hopeless confusion and sinister signs of anarchy which abounded in their own affairs arebellionof debtors in Massachusetts, tariff wars among the States that lay upon New York Bay and on the Sound, North Carolinas doubtful supremacy among her settlers in the Tennessee country, Virginias questionable authori- ty in Kentucky that brought the States at last to attempt a better union and set up a real government for the whole country. It was the inevitable continen- tal outlook of affairs as well; if nothing more, the sheer necessity to grow and touch their neighbors at close quarters. Washington had been among the first to see the necessity of living, not by a local, but by a continental policy. Of course he had a direct pecuniary interest in the development of the Western lands, had himself pre~mpted many a broad acre lying upon the far Ohio, as well as upon the nearer western slopes of the mountains, and it is open to any one who likes the sinister suggestion to say that his ardor for the occupancy of the Western country was that of the land speculator, not that of the statesman. The Making of the Nation. 1 Everybody knows that it was a confer- The formation of the Union brought a ence between delegates from Maryland real government into existence, and that and Virginia about Washingtons favor- government set about its work with an ite scheme of joining the upper waters energy, a dignity, a thoroughness of plan, of the Potomac with the upper waters of which made the whole country aware of it the streams which made their way to the from the outset, and aware, consequently, Mississippi a conference held at his of the national scheme of political life it suggestion and at his house that led had been devised to promote. Hamilton to the convening of that larger confer- saw to it that the new government should ence at Annapolis, which called for the have a definite party and body of inter- appointment of the body that met at ests at its back~ It had been fostered Philadelphia and framed the Constitu- in the making by the commercial classes tion under which he was to become the at the ports and along the routes of first President of the United States. It commerce, and opposed in the rural dis~ is open to any one who chooses to recall tricts which lay away from the centres of how keen old Governor Dinwiddie had population. Those who knew the forces been, when he came to Virginia, to watch that played from State to State, and those same Western waters in the inter- made America a partner in the life of est of the first Ohio Company, in which the world, had earnestly wanted a gov- he had bought stock; how promptly he eminent that should preside and choose called the attention of the ministers in in the making of the nation; but those England to the aggressions of the French who saw only the daily round of the in that quarter, sent Washington out as countryside had been indifferent or hos- his agent to warn the intruders off, and tile, consulting their pride and their pre- pushed the business from stage to stage, judices. Hamilton sought a policy which till the French and Indian war was ablaze, should serve the men who had set the and nations were in deadly conflict on government up, and found it in the both sides of the sea. It ought to be funding of the debt, both national and nothing new and nothing strange to those domestic, the assumption of the Revolu- who have read the history of the Eng- tionary obligations of the States, and the lish race the world over to learn that establishment of a national bank. This conquests have a thousand times sprung was what the friends of the new plan out of the initiative of men who have had wanted, the rehabilitation of credit, first followed private interest into new and the government set out with a pro- lands like speculators, and then planned gramme meant to commend it to men their occupation and government like with money and vested interests. statesmen. Dinwiddie was no statesman, It was just such a government that but Washington was; and the circum- the men of an opposite interest and tem- stance which it is worth while to note perament had dreaded, and Washington about him is, not that he went prospecting was not out of office before the issue be- upon the Ohio when the French war was gan to be clearly drawn between those over, but that he saw more than fertile who wanted a strong government, with lands there, saw the seat of a rising a great establishment, a system of finance empire, and, first among the men of his which should dominate the markets, an day, perceived by what means its settlers authority in the field of law which should could be bound to the older communities restrain the States and make the Union, in the East alike in interest and in poli- through its courts, the sole and final ty. Here were the first West and the judge of its own powers, and those who first East, and Washingtons thought dreaded nothing else so much, wished a mediating between them. government which should hold the coun 8 The 2ifaking of the Nation. try together with as little thought as pos- sible of its own aggrandizement, went all the way with Jefferson in his jealousy of the commercial interest, accepted his ideal of a dispersed power put into com- mission among the States, even among the local units within the States, and looked to see liberty discredited amidst a display of federal power. When the first party had had their day in the setting up of the government and the inauguration of a policy which should make it authori- tative, the party of Jefferson came in to purify it. They began by attacking the federal courts, which had angered every man of their faith by a steady main- tenance and elaboration of the federal power; they ended by using that power just as their opponents had used it. In the first place, it was necessary to buy Louisiana, and with it the control of the Mississippi, notwithstanding Mr. Jeffer- sons solemn conviction that such an act was utterly without constitutional war- rant; in the second place, they had to en- force an arbitrary embargo in order to try their hand at reprisal upon foreign rivals in trade; in the end, they had to recharter the national bank, create a na- tional debt and a s~nking fund, impose an excise upon whiskey, lay direct taxes, devise a protective tariff, use coercion upon those who would not aid them in a great war, play the r6le of masters and tax-gatherers as the Federalists had played it, on a greater scale, even, and with equal gusto. Everybody knows the familiar story: it has new significance from day to day only as it illustrates the invariable process of nation-making which has gone on from generation to generation, from the first until now. Opposition to the exercise and ex- pansion of the federal power only made it the more inevitable by making it the more deliberate. The passionate pro- tests, the plain speech, the sinister fore- casts, of such men as John Randolph aided the process by making it self-con- scions. What Randolph meant as an ac cusation, those who chose the policy of the government presently accepted as a prophecy. It was true, as he said, that a nation was in the making, and a gov- ernment under which the privileges of the States would count for less than the compulsions of the common interest. Few had seen it so at first; the men who were old when the government was born refused to see it so to the last; but the young~ men and those who came fresh upon the stage from decade to decade presently found the scarecrow look like a thing they might love. Their ideal took form with the reiterated suggestion; they began to hope for what they had been bidden to dread. No party could long use the federal authority without coming to feel it national, without forming some ideal of the common in- terest, and of the use of power by which it should be fostered. When they adopted the tariff of 1816, the Jeffersonians themselves formulat- ed a policy which should endow the federal government with a greater eco- nomic power than even Hamilton had planned when he sought to win the pup- port of the merchants and the lenders of money; and when they bought some- thing like a third of the continent be- yond the Mississippi, they made it certain the nation should grow upon a conti- nental scale which no provincial notions about state powers and a common gov- ernment kept within strait bounds could possibly survive. Here were the two forces which were to dominate us till the present day, and make the present issues of our politics: an open West~~ into which a frontier population was to be thrust from generation to generation, and a protective tariff which should build up special interests the while in the East, and make the contrast ever sharper and sharper between section and section. What the West is dding now is sim- ply to note more deliberately than ever before, and with a keener distaste, this striking contrast between her own devel The .Afaking of the Nation. 9 opment and that of the East. That was a true instinct of statesmanship which led Henry Clay to couple a policy of inter- nal improvements with a policy of pro- tection. Internal improvements meant in that day great roads leading into the West, and every means taken to open the country to use and settlement. While a protective tariff was building up spe- cial industries in the East, public works should make an outlet into new lands for all who were not getting the benefit of the system. The plan worked admi- rably for many a day, and was justly called American, so well did it match the circumstances of a set of communities, half old, half new: the old waiting to be developed, the new setting the easy scale of living. The other side of the policy was left for us. There is no longer any outlet for those who are not the beneficia- ries of the protective system, and nothing but the contrasts it has created remains to mark its triumphs. Internal improve- ments no longer relieve the strain; they have become merely a means of largess. The history of the United States has been one continuous story of rapid, stu- pendous growth, and all itp great ques- tions have been questions of growth. It was proposed in the Constitutional Con- vention of 1787 that a limit should be set to the number of new members to be ad- mitted to the House of Representatives from States formed beyond the Allegha- flies; and the suggestion was conceived with a true instinct of prophecy. The old States were not only to be shaken out of their self-centred life, but were even to see their very government change4 over their heads by the rise of States in the Western country. John Randolph voted against the admission of Ohio into the Union, because he held that no new part- ner should be admitted to the federal arrangement except by unanimous con- sent. It was the very next year that Louisiana was purchased, and a million square miles were added to the territory out of which new States were to be made. Had the original States been able to live to themselves, keeping their own people, elaborating their own life, without a com- mon property to manage, unvexed by a vacant continent, national questions might have been kept within modest limits. They might even have made shift to di- gest Tennessee, Kentucky, Mississippi, Alabama, and the great commonwealths carved out of the Northwest Territory, for which the Congress of the Confeder- ation had already made provision. But the Louisiana purchase opened the con- tinent to the planting of States, and took the processes of nationalization out of the hands of the original partners.~~ Questions of politics were henceforth to be questions of growth. For a while the question of slavery dominated all the rest. The Northwest Territory was closed to slavery by the Ordinance of 1787. Tennessee, Ken- tucky, Mississippi, Alabama, took slavery almost without question from the States from which they were sprung. But Mis- souri gave the whole country view of the matter which must be settled in the mak- ing of every State founded beyond the Mississippi. The slavery struggle, which seems to us who are near it to occupy so great a space in the field of our affairs, was, of course, a struggle for and against the extension of slavery, not for or against its existence in the States where it had taken root from of old, a question of growth, not of law. It will some day be seen to have been, for all it was so stu- pendous, a mere episode of development. Its result was to remove a ground of eco- nomic and social difference as between section and section which threatened to become permanent, standing forever in the way of a homogeneous national life. The passionate struggle to prevent its extension inevitably led to its total abo- lition; and the way was cleared for the South, as well as the, West, to become like its neighbor sections in every ele- ment of its life. It had also a further, almost incalcu 10 The Afiaking of the Nation. lable effect in its stimulation of a nation- al sentiment. It created throughout the North and Northwest a passion of de- votion to the Union which really gave the Union a new character. The nation was fused into a single body in the fer- vent heat of the time. At the begin- ning of the war the South had seemed like a section pitted against a section; at its close it seemed a territory con- quered by a neighbor nation. That na- tion is now, take it roughly, that East which we contrast with the West of our day. The economic conditions once centred at New York, Boston, Philadel- phia, Baltimore, Pittsburg, and the other commercial and industrial cities of the coast States are now to be found, hardly less clearly marked, in Chicago, in Min- neapolis, in Detroit, through all the great States that lie upon the Lakes, in all the old Northwest. The South has fallen into a new economic classification. In respect of its stage of development it be- longs with the West, though in senti- ment, in traditional ways of life, in many a point of practice and detail, it keeps its old individuality, and though it has in its peculiar labor ~problem a hindrance to progress at once unique and ominous. It is to this point we have come in the making of the nation. The old sort of growth is at an end, the growth by mere expansion. We have now to look more closely to internal conditions, and study the means by which a various peo- ple is to be bound together in a single interest. Many differences will pass away of themselves. East and West will come together by a slow approach, as cap- ital accumulates where now it is only bor- rowed, as industrial development makes its way westward in a new variety, as life gets its final elaboration and detail throughout all the great spaces of the continent, until all the scattered parts of the nation are drawn into real commu- nity of interest. Even the race problem of the South will no doubt work itself out in the slowness of time, as blacks and whites pass from generation to gen- eration, gaining with each remove from the memories of the war a surer self-pos- session, an easier view of the division of labor and of social function to be arranged between them. Time is the only legis- lator in such a matter. But not every- thing can be left to drift and slow accom- modation. The nation which has grown to the proportions almost of the continent within the century lies under our eyes, unfinished, unharmonized, waiting still to have its parts adjusted, lacking its last lesson in the ways of peace and concert. It required statesmanship of no mean sort to bring us to our present growth and lusty strength. It will require lead- ership of a much higher order to teach us the triumphs of cooperation, the self- possession and calm choices of maturity. Much may be brought about by a mere knowledge of the situation. It is not simply the existence of facts that governs us, but consciousness and comprehension of the facts. The whole process of states- manship consists in bringing facts to light, and shaping law to suit, or, if need be, mould them. It is part of our present danger that men of the East listen only to their own public men, men of the West only to theirs. We speak of the West as out of sympathy with the East: it would be instructive once and again to reverse the terms, and ad- mit that the East neither understands nor sympathizes with the West, and thorough nationalization depends upon mutual understandings and sympathies. There is an unpleasant significance in the fact that the East has made no serious attempt to understand the desire for the free coinage of silver in the West and the South. If it were once really probed and comprehended, we should know that it is necessary to reform our currency at once, and we should know in what way it is, necessary to reform it; we should know that a new protective tariff only marks with a new emphasis the contrast in economic interest between The Naking of the Nation. 11 the East and the West, and that nothing but currency reform can touch the cause of the present discontents. Ignorance and indifference as between section and section no man need wonder at who knows the habitual courses of history; and no one who comprehends the essential soundness of our peoples life can mistrust the future of the na- tion. He may confidently expect a safe nationalization of interest and policy in the end, whatever folly of experiment and fitful change he may fear in the mean- while. He can only wonder that we should continue to leave ourselves so ut- terly without adequate means of formu- lating a national policy. Certainly Provi- dence has presided over our affairs with a strange indulgence, if it is true that Providence helps only those who first seek to help themselves. The making of a nation has never been a thing deliber- ately planned and consummated by the counsel and authority of leaders, but the daily conduct and policy of a nation which has won its place must be so planned. So far we have had the hopefulness, the readiness, and the hardihood of youth in these matters, and have never become fully conscious of the position into which our peculiar frame of government has brought us. We have waited a whole century to observe that we have made no provision for authoritative national lead- ership in matters of policy. The Pre- sident does not always speak with au- thority, because he is not always a man picked out and tested by any processes in which the people have been participants, and has often nothing but his office to render him influential. Even when the country does know and trust him, he can carry his views no further than to recoin- mend them to the attention of Congress in a written message which the Houses would deem themselves subservient to give too much heed to. Within the Houses there is no man, except the Vice- President, to whose choice the whole country gives heed; and he is chosen, not to be a Senator, but only to wait upon the disability of the President, and preside meanwhile over a body of which he is not a member. The House of Representatives has in these latter days made its Speaker its political leader as well as its parliamentary moderator; but the country is, of course, never consulted about that beforehand, and his leader- ship is not the open leadership of discus- sion, but the undebatable leadership of the parliamentary autocrat. This singular leaderless structure of our gove~rnment never stood fully re- vealed until the present generation, and even now awaits general recognition. Peculiar circumstances and the practical political habit and sagacity of our peo- ple for long concealed it. The framers of the Constitution no doubt expected the President and his advisers to exer- cise a real leadership in affairs, and for more than a generation after the setting up of the government their expectation was fulfilled. Washington was accepted as leader no less by Congress than by the people. Hamilton, from the Trea- sury, really gave the government both its policy and its administrative struc- ture. If John Adams had less author- ity than Washington, it was because the party he represented was losing its hold upon the country. Jefferson was the most consummate party chief, the most unchecked master of legislative policy, we have had in America, and his dynas- ty was continued in Madison and Mon- roe. But Madisons terms saw Clay and Calhoun come to the front in the House, and many another man of the new gen- eration, ready to guide and coach the President rather than to be absolutely controlled by him. Monroe was not of the calibre of his predecessors, and no party could rally about so stiff a man, so cool a partisan, as John Quincy Adams. And so the old political function of the presidency came to an end, and it was left for Jackson to give it a new one, instead of a leadership of counsel, a 12 The Naking of the Nation. leadership and discipline by rewards and punishments. Then the slavery issue began to dominate politics, and a long season of concentrated passion brought individual men of force into power in Congress, natural leaders of men like Clay, trained and eloquent advocates like Webster, keen debaters with a logic whose thrusts were as sharp as those of cold steel like Calhoun. The war made the Executive of necessity the nations leader again, with the great Lincoln at its head, who seemed to embody, with a touch of genius, the very character of the race itself. Then reconstruction came, under whose leadership who could say? and we were left to wonder what, henceforth, in the days of ordinary peace and industry, we were to make of a gov- ernment which could in humdrum times yield us no leadership at all. The tasks which confront us now are not like those which centred in the war, in which pas- sion made men run together to a common work. Heaven forbid that we should ad- mit any element of passion into the de- licate matters in which national policy must mediate between the differing eco- nomic interests of sections which a wise moderation will assuredly unite in the ways of harmony and peace! We shall need, not the mere compromises of Clay, but a constructive leadership of which Clay hardly showed himself capable. There are few things more disconcert- ing to the thought, in any effort to fore- cast the future of our affairs, than the fact that we must continue to take our executive polley from presidents given us by nominating conventions, and our legislation from conference committees of the House and Senate. Evidently it is a purely providential form of govern- ment. We should never have had Lin- coln for President had not the Republi- can convention of 1860 sat in Chicago, and felt the weight of the galleries in its work, and one does not like to think what might have happened had Mr. Sew- ard been nominated. We might have had Mr. Bryan for President, because of the impression which may be made upon an excited assembly by a good voice and a few ringing sentences flung forth just after a cold man who gave unpalatable counsel has sat down. The country knew absolutely nothing about Mr. Bry- an before his nomination, and it would not have known anything about him afterward had he not chosen to make speeches. It was not Mr. McKinley, but Mr. Reed, who was the real leader of the Republican party. It has become a commonplace amongst us that conven- tions prefer dark horses, prefer those who are not tested leaders with well- known records to those who are. It has become a commonplace amongst all na- tions which have tried popular institutions that the actions of such bodies as our nominating conventions are subject to the play of passion and of chance. They meet to do a single thing, for the plat- form is really left to a committee, and upon that one thing all intrigue centres. Who that has witnessed them will ever forget the intense night scenes, the fe-. verish recesses, of our nominating con- ventions, when there is a running to and fro of agents from delegation to delega- tion, and every candidate has his busy headquarters, can ever forget the shout- ing and almost frenzied masses on the floor of the hail when the convention is in session, swept this way and that by every wind of sudden feeling, impatient of de- bate, incapable of deliberation? When a conventions brief work is over, its own members can scarcely remember the plan and order of it. They go home un- marked, and sink into the general body of those who have nothing to do with the conduct of government. They cannot be held responsible if their candidate fails in his attempt to carry on the Executive. It has not often happened that can- didates for, the presidency have been chosen from outside the ranks of those who have seen service in national politics. Congress is apt to be peculiarly sensitive The .Jfaking of the Nation. to the exercise of executive authority by men who have not at some time been members of the one House or the other, and so learned to sympathize with mem- bers views as to the relations that ought to exist between the President and the federal legislature. No doubt a good deal of the dislike which the Houses early conceived for Mr. Cleveland was due to the feeling that he was an out- sider, a man without congressional sym- pathies and points of view, a sort of irregular and amateur at the delicate game of national politics as played at Washington; most of the men whom he chose as advisers were of the same kind, without Washington credentials. Mr. McKinley, though of the congressional circle himself, has repeated the experi- ment in respect of his cabinet in the ap- pointment of such men as Mr. Gage and Mr. Bliss and Mr. Gary. Members re- sent such appointments; they seem to drive the two branches of the government further apart than ever, and yet they grow more common from administration to administration. These appointments make cooperation between Congress and the Executive more difficult, not because the men thus appointed lack respect for the Houses or seek to gain any advantage over them, but because they do not know how to deal with them, through what persons and by what courtesies of approach. To the uninitiated Congr~ss is simply a mass of individuals. It has no responsible lead- ers known to the system of government, and the leaders recognized by its rules are one set of individuals for one sort of legislation, another for another. The Secretaries cannot address or approach nitlier House as a whole; in dealing with committees they are dealing only with groups of individuals; neither party has its leader, there are only influential men here and there who know how to manage its caucuses and take advan- tage of parliamentary openings on the floor. There is a master in the House, as every member very well knows, and even the easy-going public are beginning to observe. The Speaker appoints the committees; the committees practically frame all legislation; the Speaker, ac- cordingly, gives or withholds legislative power and opportunity, and menibers are granted influence or dep~4ved of it much as he pleases. He of course administers the rules, and the rules are framed to prevent debate and individual initiative. He can refuse recognition for the intro- duction of measures he disapproves of as party chief; he may make way for those he desires to see passed. He is chair- man of the Committee on Rules, by which the House submits to be governed (for fear of helplessness and chaos) in the arrangement of its business and the ap- portionment of its time. In brief, he is not only its moderator, but its master. New members protest and write to the newspapers; but old members submit, and indeed the Speakers power is inevitable. You must have leaders in a numerous body, leaders with author- ity; and you cannot give authority in the House except through the rules. The man who administers the rules must be master, and you must put this mastery into the hands of your best par- ty leader. The legislature being sepa- rated from the executive branch of the government, the only rewards and pun- ishments by which you ca~i secure party discipline are those within the gift of the rules, the committee appointments and preferences: you cannot administer these by election; party government would break down in the midst of personal ex- changes of electoral favors. Here again you must trust the Speaker to organize and choose, and your only party leader is your moderator. He does not lead by debate; he explains, he proposes nothing to the country; you learn his will in his rulings. It is with such machinery that we are to face the future, find a wise and mod- erate policy, bring the nation to a com 13 14 Jbhr~ Sterling. mon, a cordial understanding, a real unity of life. The President can lead only as he can command the ear of both Congress and the country, only as any other individual might who could secure a like general hearing and acquiescence. Policy must come always from the de- liberations of the House committees, the debates, both secret and open, of the Senate, the compromises of committee conference between the Houses; no one man, no group of men, leading; no man, no group of men, responsible for the out- come. Unquestionably we believe in a guardian destiny! No other race could have accomplished so much with such a system; no other race would have dared risk such an experiment. We shall work out a remedy, for work it out we must. We must find or make, somewhere in our system, a group of men to lead us, who represent the nation in the origin and responsibility of their power; who shall draw the Executive, which makes choice of foreign policy and upon whose ability and good faith the honorable exe- cution of the laws depends, into cordial cooperation with the legislature, which, under whatever form of government, must sanction law and policy. Only un- der a national leadership, by a national selection of leaders, and by a method of constructive choice rather than of com- promise and barter, can a various nation be peacefully led. Once more is our pro- blem of nation-making the problem of a form of government. Shall we show the sagacity, the open-mindedness, the mod- eration, in our task of modification, that were shown under Washington and Madi- son and Sherman and Franklin and Wil- son, in the task of construction? Woodrow Wilson. JOHN STERLING, AND A CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN STER LING AND EMERSON. How much the world owes, how little it credits, to the Illuminators. King Ad- metus bad one of these nominally tending his herds for a time, but who did more than this for him; and the story has been remembered the better because it has been the fortune of many men to fall in with one of the herdsmans descendants. However dark the times and unpromising the place, these sons of the morning will appear, and their bright parentage shows through life, for the years let them alone. In Rome in her decline Juvenal found this saving remnant, and rightly told their lineage in the verses, Juvenes qileis arte benigna Et meliore into fiuxit pnucordia Titan. Blest youths, though few, whose hearts the God of Day Fashioned with loving hand and from a nobler clay. Where they have come, they have gilded the day for those around, and warmed their hearts, and made the dim way plain; and when they suddenly passed, a bright twilight has remained, and the voice has rung for life in the ears that once knew it. And because the twilight does not last, and the echo perishes with the ears that heard it, and the gain of these lives is of a kind less easily pointed out to the com- mon eye than if it had taken form in goods, or inventions, or institutions, or even laurels, men often lament and count such lives as lost. In presenting the words of good cheer that passed between John Sterling, the poet, and a friend, never seen, beyond the ocean,. I wish to urge that here was one whose nobility and sympathy illumi- nated in his short day the lives of his friends; and though he died before his

14 Jbhr~ Sterling. mon, a cordial understanding, a real unity of life. The President can lead only as he can command the ear of both Congress and the country, only as any other individual might who could secure a like general hearing and acquiescence. Policy must come always from the de- liberations of the House committees, the debates, both secret and open, of the Senate, the compromises of committee conference between the Houses; no one man, no group of men, leading; no man, no group of men, responsible for the out- come. Unquestionably we believe in a guardian destiny! No other race could have accomplished so much with such a system; no other race would have dared risk such an experiment. We shall work out a remedy, for work it out we must. We must find or make, somewhere in our system, a group of men to lead us, who represent the nation in the origin and responsibility of their power; who shall draw the Executive, which makes choice of foreign policy and upon whose ability and good faith the honorable exe- cution of the laws depends, into cordial cooperation with the legislature, which, under whatever form of government, must sanction law and policy. Only un- der a national leadership, by a national selection of leaders, and by a method of constructive choice rather than of com- promise and barter, can a various nation be peacefully led. Once more is our pro- blem of nation-making the problem of a form of government. Shall we show the sagacity, the open-mindedness, the mod- eration, in our task of modification, that were shown under Washington and Madi- son and Sherman and Franklin and Wil- son, in the task of construction? Woodrow Wilson. JOHN STERLING, AND A CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN STER LING AND EMERSON. How much the world owes, how little it credits, to the Illuminators. King Ad- metus bad one of these nominally tending his herds for a time, but who did more than this for him; and the story has been remembered the better because it has been the fortune of many men to fall in with one of the herdsmans descendants. However dark the times and unpromising the place, these sons of the morning will appear, and their bright parentage shows through life, for the years let them alone. In Rome in her decline Juvenal found this saving remnant, and rightly told their lineage in the verses, Juvenes qileis arte benigna Et meliore into fiuxit pnucordia Titan. Blest youths, though few, whose hearts the God of Day Fashioned with loving hand and from a nobler clay. Where they have come, they have gilded the day for those around, and warmed their hearts, and made the dim way plain; and when they suddenly passed, a bright twilight has remained, and the voice has rung for life in the ears that once knew it. And because the twilight does not last, and the echo perishes with the ears that heard it, and the gain of these lives is of a kind less easily pointed out to the com- mon eye than if it had taken form in goods, or inventions, or institutions, or even laurels, men often lament and count such lives as lost. In presenting the words of good cheer that passed between John Sterling, the poet, and a friend, never seen, beyond the ocean,. I wish to urge that here was one whose nobility and sympathy illumi- nated in his short day the lives of his friends; and though he died before his John Sterling. 15 noon, leaving little lasting work, yet was not the light lost, for the seemingly more enduring work of his friends was done in a measure in its rays. Poor Sterling, such is the ever recurring burden of Carlyles tribute to his friend, which he seems to have been pricked into writing largely because Sterlings other loyal friend and biogra- pher, Archdeacon Hare, who had loved and labored with him in the Church of England, deplored overmuch his throw- ing off its rule and vestments. Though Carlyle has no sympathy for Sterlings knightly efforts to help the exile and the slave, and for his apostolic labors among the poor of England, scouts his verses and makes light of his essays and romance, and ever chafes because this fine courser was not a mighty dray-horse like him- self, yes, sad and soured by physical ailments, he more than half blamed his brave friend for having the cruel and long disease through which he worked, even to his censors admiration, yet, in spite of all, Carlyles Life of Sterling shows in every page that this mans short, brave course lifted and illuminated all about him, even that weary and sad-eyed Jeremiah himself as he sat apart and prophesied and lamented. One recoils at much of Carlyles expression in this work, but, with all its blemish of pity and Philistinism and pessimism, it stands remarkable, a monument built by such hands, I will not say planned by such a mind, for the mind protested; but never- theless the hands, obedient to the spirit, built it with the best they could bring in gratitude to helpful love whose sun- light had reached an imprisoned soul. John Sterling died half a century ago. Little of what he wrote remains. His fine Strafford, a Tragedy, is now hard to obtain, and few people even know Die- dalus, the best of his poems. His work is noble in thought and often in expres- sion, as befitted a man who bravely turned away from his church, with all it then meant of opportunity and vantage- ground, saying simply to his pleading friends, No, I cannot lie for God. I will briefly recall the few outward events of Sterlings life. He was born in 1806, in the Island of Bute, of gentle Scotch blood warmed and spiced by the sojourn of his immediate forerunners in Ireland, and his first years were passed in Gaelic and Cymrian lands; it is no wonder that the growth of the young mind and spirit was determined rather in the direction of bold and free and fine imagination than along paths of unremit- ting and faithful toil. Moreover, he had that quick sympathy and entire generosi- ty which, as prompting to turn aside for others interests, do not favor the con- centration of effort. These and the other good traits of the Celtic races, their un- questioning courage, loyalty, gayety, elo- quence, gave Sterling his brilliancy, which was saved from the faults that usually go with the artistic temperament by a delicate conscience and the controlling moral sense and principle, the best Saxon heritage. He did not undergo the time-honored and Philistine methods of the great pub- lic schools, so prized as a foundation of manhood and grammar for an English gentleman. He did not need that rude schooling; the fire and manhood were there, and he took to letters by nature. He studied with various tutors, and be- came a student at Cambridge. Here he was a light in the brightest under- graduate society of his day, among whom were men destined to impress their gen- eration. The best of these Frederick Maurice, John Trench, John Kemble, Richard Monckton Milnes, Charles Bul- ler, and others were his friends. He did not value the English university as it was in his day. After leaving the university, and after some false starts like an attempt at read- ing law and a temporary secretaryship of a sort of politico-commercial associa- tion, he soon came to his natural destiny, a literary life, and of course gravitated 16 John Sterling. to London, where his father, a man of spirit and ability, was already a power in the Times newspaper. Sterling joined with Maurice in con- ducting The Athemeum. Its high tone was distinctive while Sterling was con- nected with it, says Archdeacon Hare; and of his literary firstfruits, Essays and Tales, many of them cast in a Greek mould, even Carlyle, mainly contemptu- ous of anything artistic, has to say that they are singularly beautiful and at- tractive. Everywhere the point of view adopted is a high and noble one, and the result worked out a result to be sympathized with, and accepted as far as it will go. The outward life among the highest literary society in London, in which his fine - spirited personality soon gave him prominence, was much to his taste, but meanwhile his inner life was growing richer with the days. The simple no- bility of Arnold, the master of Rugby, had early interested him; even in Streaming Londons central roar the voice of Wordsworth from the West- moreland hills reached him, created a calm, and brought happiness; above all, Coleridge, incomprehensible save to a few, and now growing dim in age, but to Sterlings eager soul illuminating the mists in which he lived, became a pow- er in his life. Indeed, of some of his own Athen~eum papers Sterling modestly wrote that he was but a patch of sand to receive and retain the Masters foot- print. The gospel of th~ low place of the understanding, and of faith as the highest reason, lighted on their way the disciples of this high priest strangely arisen in the England of that day. Sterlings youthful chivalry led him to befriend and help the Spanish polit- ical refugees, of whom a numerous band were in London. Among others, he in- terested in this cause an adventurous young kinsman, lately resigned from the army, and keen for some daring enter- prise, and, with the means and zeal which this ally brought, a descent on the coast of Spain, to raise the revolutionary stan- dard there, was planned. Sterling for- warded this scheme as he could, and meant personally to share in it, but was dissuaded because of ill health and his recent engagement of marriage. The vessel was seized at the point of rendez- vous on the Thames, the day before it was to sail, with Sterling on board help- ing in the preparations. He escaped with cool audacity, warned the adven- turers, saved them from capture, and got the now sorely crippled and disarmed ex- pedition otherwise started. But disaster dogged it, and after some tedious and ineffectual attempts to promote a rising, General Torrijos and his helpers, includ- ing Sterlings young relative, were cap- tured, and summarily shot on the plaza of Malaga. Because he had aided the rash venture, but had not shared its dan- gers, the blow was almost overwhelm- ing to a man of Sterlings high honor, and it was a subject that could never be spoken of in his presence. Before the final blow came, he had gone, because of alarming lung threaten- ings, to assume the care of an inherited family property in the Isle of St. Vin- cent, in the West Indies, carrying his young wife with him. There he met slavery, and, sharing the responsibility for it, began to consider, with both con- science and- common sense, what could be done for the poor degraded bonds- men; but his residence there was short, only fifteen months, and his improved health seemed to warrant an ending of this exile, so he returned to England in 1832. Though his genius called him to other works than professed philanthropy, and these and all of his works had to be done as they might with the sword of Azrael hanging over him, wounding him grievously many times before its final fall, he did not forget the slaves, and hoped he might yet serve their cause. John Sterling. Once more at home in England, and rejoicing in this, and yet more in the blessing of wife and child, Sterling, now maturing with richer experience, desiring to serve his kind, and with new hope and faith, essayed his hand in a thought- ful novel, Arthur Coningsby, in which he tried to show that the Church might still have life and help hidden under its externals. In this serious frame of mind he chanced to meet his friend, Julius Hare, a good man and a servant of the Lord in the Church of England, who well knew the nobility that lay in Ster- ling; and soon after he became Hares curate at Hurstmonceaux, in Sussex. Into the high and the lowly duties of his calling Sterling threw himself with the zeal of the loved disciple, during the few months that his health allowed him to labor; though the zealous Paul was rather his model, he said, and the village cottages were to be to him his Derbe and Lystra and Ephesus, a place where he would bend his whole being, and spend his heart for the conversion, pu- rification, elevation, of the humble souls therein. In that time he found much happiness, and blessings followed his steps in the village. But his physicians told him that he could not do this work and live, so with much regret he left the post in which he had given such promise of being helpful. It was a station on his journey, a phase in his life; but he passed on, and soon his growing spirit found it- self cramped by walls built for men of other centuries and other stature. Yet for the remaining years of his maimed and interrupted life he was a noble sol- dier of the Church militant and univer- sal, a helper and a light. Through ten years, with his life in his hands, under continual marching orders, cruelly separating him from his loved and loyal wife and little children, to Ma- deira, Bordeaux, the southern towns of England, and finally the Isle of Wight, he never lost courage or faith, and worked while yet there was day for him. VOL. LXXX. NO. 477. 2 And though long disease wore out the body, it could never touch his soul. Sterling and Emerson never met face to face, but there was so strong a like- ness in some part of their lives both the events and the spiritual experience and growth that their friendship was, as it were, ordained above. Both men, born with a commanding call to letters; brought under the awakening influences that moved England, Old and New, in their generation; helped first by Cole- ridge and charmed by Wordsworth, ear- nestly hoped to serve their fellow men by living work in the church in which they found themselves, though it seemed well - nigh lifeless then. Both, after a short service, found their growth resisted by the walls around them, and at once passed fearlessly out of the Church par- tial to be workers in the Church uni- versal. Disease added its burden to each at this time, and was bravely borne. The words of Carlyle came to them, and moved them so strongly that each stretched a joyful and grateful hand to him at a time when it seemed as if none heeded; and this their service to his soul bound him for life to them, though his sad and stormy spirit chafed at their singing and chided their hope. Brought into relation with each other by him, they met in their honor for him, and in that other part of their lives to which he was deaf and blind, their yearning to express their respective messages in lasting verse; and in this especially, in the five short years of their friendship, their hands, held out across the sea to each other, gave to both happiness and help. In Mr. Emersons journal for the year 1843 is written the following pleasant account of the coming together, along lines of sympathy, of Sterlings life and his own In Roxbury, in 1825,1 read Cottons translation of Montaigne. It seemed to 17 18 John Sterling. me as if I had written the book myself in some former life, so sincerely it spoke my thought and experience. No book before or since was ever so much to me as that. How I delighted afterwards in reading Cottons dedication to Halifax, and the reply of Halifax, which seemed no words of course, but genuine suifrages. Afterwards I went to Paris in 1833, and to the Pare le Chaise and stumbled on the tomb of , who, said the stone, formed himself to virtue on the Essays of Montaigne. Afterwards, John Ster- ling wrote a loving criticism on Mon- taigne in the Westminster Review, with a journal of his own pilgrimage to Mon- taignes estate and ch& teau; and soon after Carlyle writes me word that this same lover of Montaigne is a lover of me. Now I have been introducing to his genius two of my friends, James and Tappan, who both warm to him as to their brother. So true is S. G. W.s say- ing that all whom he knew, met. Here is the passage in the letter of Carlyle above alluded to, written from Chelsea on the 8th of December, 1837: There is a man here called John Sterling (Reverend John of the Church of England too), whom I love better than anybody I have met with, since a certain sky-messenger alighted to me at Craigen- puttock, and vanished in the Blue again. This Sterling has written; but what is far better, he has lived, he is alive. Across several unsuitable wrappages, of Church- of-Englandism and others, my heart loves the man. He is one, and the best, of a small class extant here, who, nigh drown- ing in a black wreck of Infidelity (light- ed up by some glare of Radicalism only, now growing dim, too) and about to per- ish, saved themselves into a Coleridgian Shovel-hattedness, or determination to preach, to preach peace, were it only the spent echo of a peace once preached. He is still only about thirty; young; and I think will shed the shovel-hat yet, Left blank; the name probably forgotten. 2 Throngh the courtesy of Colonel John Bar- perhaps. Do you ever read Blackwood? This John Sterling is the New Contrib- utor whom Wilson makes such a rout about, in the November and prior month: Crystals from a Cavern, etc., which it is well worth your while to see. Well, and what then, cry you? Why, then, this John Sterling has fallen overhead in love with a certain Waldo Emerson, that is all. He saw the little Book Nature lying here; and, across a whole silva silvaruns of prejudices, discerned what was in it; took it to his heart, and indeed int his pocket; and has car- ried it off to Madeira with him, whither, unhappily (though now with good hope and expectation), the Doctors have or- dered him. This is the small piece of pleasant news: that two sky-messengers (such they were both of them to me) have met and recognized each other; and by Gods blessing there shall one day be a trio of us; call you that no- thing? The news of this new friend and fel- low worker was joyfully welcomed by Emerson in his answer. After reading the prose and verse in Blackwood, he says, I saw that my man had a head and a heart, and spent an hour or two very happily in spelling his biography out of his own hand, a species of palmis- try in which I have a perfect reliance. The letters to Carlyle written during the next year and a half tell of his growing interest in the man and his writings. Emerson had sent to Sterling at vari- ous times, through the hands of their friend Carlyle, his orations, The Ameri- can Scholar and Literary Ethics, deliv- ered respectively before the Phi Beta Kappa Society at HarVard University, August 31, 1837, and the literary so- cieties at Dartmouth College, July 24, 1838; and probably also his Address to the Senior Class at the Divinity School at Cambridge. These cumulative gifts drew from Sterling the first letter.2 ton Sterling, of London, I am permitted to publish the following letters of his father. John Sterling. 19 I. STEELING TO EMERSON. CLIFTON, September 30, 1839. Mv DEAR SIR, It is a horrible ef- fort to do at last what one ought to have done long ago, were it not still more horrible to postpone it longer. But hav- ing a conscience, or something nameless that does the work of one, I feel it some consolation that I have wronged myself most by my silence, and especially if I have let you suppose me insensible to the beauty and worth of the discourses you sent me, and to the still more valu- able kindness which led you to favour me with them. Unhappily, I am a man of ill health and many petty concerns, of much locomotion and infinite laziness and procrastination; and though my failures towards you are infinite, they are, if possible, more than infinite to my other friends, not better, but of longer standing, and whose claims have therefore increased at compound interest to be still more serious than yours. One of the worst results of my neglect is that I can no longer offer you, in return for your books, the first vivid impres- sions which they made on me. I shall only now say that I have read very, very little modern English writing that has struck and pleased me so much; among recent productions, almost only those of our friend Carlyle, whose shaggy-browed and deep-eyed thoughts have often a likeness to yours which is very attractive and impressive, neither evidently being the double of the other. You must be glad to find him so rapidly and strongly rising into fame and authority among us. It is evident to me that his suggestions work more deeply into the minds of men in this country than those of any living man: work, not mining to draw forth riches, but tunnelling to carry inwards In writing to Carlyle himself Emerson said, I delighted in the spirit of that paper, lov- ing you so well, and accusing you so conscien- tiously. In Carlyles Life of Sterling, Part U. Cap. ii., it is hard to tell which to admire more, Ster- lings just criticism of Carlyles (Teufels the light and air of the region from which he starts. I rejoice to learn from him that you are about to publish some- thing more considerable, at least in bulk, than what I have hitherto seen of yours. I trust you will long continue to diffuse, by your example as well as doctrine, the knowledge that the Sun and Earth and Plato and Shakespeare are what they are by working each in his vocation; and that we can be anything better than mounte- banks living, and scarecrows dead, only by doing so likewise. For my better as- surance of this truth, as well as for much and cordial kindness, I shall always re- main your debtor, and also, Most sincerely yours, JOHN STERLING. IL EMERSON TO STERLING. CONCORD, MAss., 29th May, 1840. Mv DEAR SIR, I have trusted your magnanimity to a good extent in neg- lecting to acknowledge your letter, re- ceived in the Winter, which gave me great joy, and more lately your volume of poems, which I have had for some weeks. But I am a worshipper of Friend- ship, and cannot find any other good equal to it. As soon as any man pro- nounces the words which approve him fit for that great office, I make no haste: he is holy; let me be holy also; our re- lations are eternal; why should we count days and weeks? I had this feeling in reading your paper on Carlyle, in which I admired the rare behaviour, with far less heed the things said; these were opin- ions, but the tone was the man.1 But I owe to you also the ordinary debts we incur to art. I have read these poems, and those, still more recent, in Black- wood, with great pleasure. The ballad of Alfred2 delighted me when I first read driickhs) attitude to the universe, so bravely yet kindly expressed, or the simple and friend- ly way in which Carlyle presents it, uncombat- ed, to his readers. 2 Alfred the Harper, included later in Em- ersons Parnassus. 20 John Sterling. it, but I read it so often to my friends that I discovered that the last verses were not equal to the rest. Shall I gos- sip on and tell you that the two lines, Still lives the song though Regnar dies! Fill high your cups again, rung for a long time in my ear, and had a kind of witchcraft for my fancy? I confess I am a little subject to these ab- errations. The Sextons Daughter is a gift to us all, and I hear allusions to it and quotations from it passing into com- mon speech, which must needs gratify you. My wife insists that I shall tell you that she rejoices greatly that the man is in the world who wrote this poem. The Aphrodite is very agreeable to me, and I was sorry to miss the Sappho from the Onyx Ring. I believe I do not set an equal value on all the pieces, yet I must count him happy who has this delirious music in his brain, who can strike the chords of Rhyme with a brave and true stroke; for thus only do words mount to their right greatness, and airy syllables initiate us into the harmonies and secrets of universal na- ture. I am naturally keenly susceptible of the pleasures of rhythm, and cannot believe but that one day I ask not where or when I shall attain to the speech of this splendid dialect, so ardent is my wish; and these wishes, I suppose, are ever only the buds of power; but up to this hour I have never had a true suc- cess in such attempts. My joy in any other mans success is unmixed. I wish you may proceed to bolder, to the best and grandest melodies whereof your heart has dreamed. I hear with some anxiety of your ill health and repeated voyages. Yet Carlyle tells me that you are not in danger. We shall learn one day how to prevent these perils of dis- ease, or to look at them with the seren- ity of insight. It seems to me that so great a task is imposed on the young men of this generation that life and health have a new value. The problems of reform are losing their local and sec tarian character, and becoming gener- ous, profound, and poetic. If, as would seem, you are theoretically as well as ac- tually somewhat a traveller, I wish Amer- ica might attract you. The way is shorter every year, and the object more worthy. There are three or four persons in this country whom I could heartily wish to show to three or four persons in yours, and when I shall arrange any such in- terviews under my.own ~roof I shall be proud and happy. Your affectionate servant, R. WALDO EMERSON. III. STERLING TO EMERsON. CLIFTON NEAR BRISTOL, July 18, 1840. M~ DEAR FRIEND, Your cordial letter is the pleasantest of transatlantic greetings, and reminds me of the de- light with which Columbus breathed the air and saw the flowers of his New World, which, though I have not dis- covered either it or anything, salutes me through you as kindly as if I too had launched caravels and lighted on new Indies. And so, in a sense, I have. Treasures and spice islands of good will and sympathy blow their airs to me from your dim poetic distance. In fancy I ride the winged horse you send me, to visit you in return, and though prosaic and hodiernal here, dream that I live an endless life of song and true friend- ly communion on the other side of the great water. In truth, literature has procured not one other such gratifica- tion as your letter gives mc. Every other friend I have and I am not unfurnished with good and wise ones I owe to outward circumstances and personal intercourse, and I believe you are the only man in the world that has ever found any printed words of mine at all decidedly pleasant or profitable. I heartily thank you for telling me the fact, and ~lso for the fact itself. There are probably at least fifty persons in England who can write better poetry than mine, but I confess it pleases me Jdhn Sterling. 21 very much that, independently of com- parisons, you should see in it the thought and feeling which I meant to express, in words that few except yourself have perceived to be anything but jingle. I have lately read with much satis- faction an American poem called What- Cheer,1 which you probably know. Why did not the writer take a little more pains? It is more like my notion of a real American epic on a small scale than anything I had before imagined. With us poetry does not flourish. Hartley Coleridge, Alfred Tennyson, and Henry Taylor are the only younger men I now think of who have shown anything like genius, and the last perhaps the most remarkable has more of volition and understanding than imagination. Milnes and Trench are friends of mine, as Taylor is, but their powers are rather fine than truly creative. Carlyle, with all the vehement prejudice that becomes a prophet, is the great man arisen in later years among us, and is daily more and more widely felt, rather than understood, to be so. I have just come from London, where I saw a good deal of bim during the five or six days I was there. He is writing down his last course of lectures, and will no doubt publlsh them. You will be amused by the clever and instructed obtuseness of the criticism on him in the Edinburgh Review, by I know not whom. I was very near going to America by the Great Western, a few days ago, to take care of a sister-in.law bound for Canada, where her husband, my brother, is. I should have paid you a visit inevitably. My wife greets you and yours, as my children would, were they sufficiently en- lightened. The doctors have made me dawdle myself away remedially, and per- chance irremedially, into a most unpro- fitable eidolon. Revive me soon with a book of yours, and believe me faithfully and gratefully yours, JOHN STERLING. 1 What-Cheer, or Roger Williams in Banish- ment, by Job Durfee, LL. D., Chief Justice of IV. EMERSON TO STERLING. CONCORD, 31st March, 1841. Mv DEAR SIR, You gave me great content by a letter last summer, which I did not answer, thinking that shortly I should have a book to send you; but I am very slow, and my Essays, printed at last, are not yet a fortnight old. I have written your name in a copy, and send it to Carlyle by the same steamer which should carry this letter. I wish, but scarce dare hope, you may find in it anything of the pristine sacredness of thought. All thoughts are holy when they come floating up to us in magical newness from the hidden Life, and t is no wonder we are enamoured and love- sick with these Muses and Graces, until, in our devotion to particular beauties and in our efforts at artificial disposition, we lose somewhat of our universal sense and the sovereign eye of Proportion. All sins, literary and aesthetic and scien- tific, as well as moral, grow out of un- belief at last. We must needs meddle ambitiously, and cannot quite trust that there is life, self-evolving and indestruc- tible, but which cannot be hastened, at the heart of every physical and metaphy- sical fact. Yet how we thank and greet, almost adore, the person who has once or twice in a lifetime treated anything sublimely, and certified us that he be- held the Law! The silence and obscuri- ty in which he acted are of no account, for everything is equally related to the soul. I certainly did not mean, when I took up this paper, to write an essay on Faith, and yet I am always willing to declare how indigent I think our poetry and all literature is become for want of that. My thought had only this scope, no more: that though I had long ago grown ex- tremely discontented with my little book, yet were the thoughts in it honest in their first rising, and honestly reported, but that I am very sensible how much Rhode Island, published in 1832, and later in his Works in 1849. 22 John Sterling. in this, as in very much greater matters, interference, or what we miscall art, will spoil true things. I know not what sin of mine averted from you so good a purpose as to come to Canada and New England. Will not the brother leave the sister to be brought again? We have some beautiful and excellent persons here, to whom I long to introduce you and Carlyle, and our houses now stand so near that we must meet soon. Your affectionate servant, R. W. EMERSON. I have left for my Postscript what should else be the subject of a new let- ter. A very worthy friend of mine, bred a scholar at Cambridge, but now an iron- manufacturer in this State, named writes me to request that I will ask you for a correct list of your printed pieces, prose and verse. He loves them very much, and wishes to print them at Bos- ton: he does not know how far our taste will go, but he even hopes to realize some pecuniary profit from the Pheeni- cians, which he will eagerly appropriate to your benefit. Send me, I entreat, a swift reply. V. STERLING TO EMERSON. PENZANCE, April 30, 1841. M~ DEAR Sin, It is nearly a fort- night since the receipt of your welcome letter of March31, in which you were good enough to express a wish for a speedy re- ply. The state of my health has, how- ever, been such as to excuse some delay; and, moreover, during this very time I have been employed in seeking for a house somewhere in these western regions of ours, as near as possible to America, finding it impossible to live longer in the dry, sharp, dogmatic air of Clifton. At last I have made a bargain for a dwell- ing at Falmouth. My family will pro- bably be removing in June, and until then it may be feared that I shall have but little quiet for any of the better ends of life, which indeed the frailty of my health in a great degree withdraws me from. One of the disadvantages of our future abode is the remoteness from Lon- don, whichproducesmanyinconveniences, and among others delay and difficulty in procuring books. Even now I feel the mischief in the want of the copy of your Essays which your kindness designed for me. I console myself by reflecting that I have a hid treasure which will come to light some day. There are at this hour, in the world, so far as I know, just three persons writing English who attempt to support human nature on anything bet- ter than arbitrary dogmas or hesitating negations. These are Wordsworth, Car- lyle, and you. The practical effect, how- ever, of Wordsworths genius, though not of course its intrinsic value, is much di- minished by the extreme to which he carries the expedient of compromise and reserve; and the same was even more true of my dear and honoured friend Cole- ridge. Neither Carlyle nor you can be charged with such timidity, and I look for the noblest and most lasting fruits from the writings of both, to say nothing of the profit and delight which they yield to me personally, who am already at one with those friends on many points that most divide them from their contempora- ries. Nothing seems more difficult than to ascertain what extent of influence such work as yours and his are gaining among us, but in my boyhood, twenty years ago, I well remember that, with quite insignifi- cant exceptions, all the active and daring minds which would not take for granted the Thirty-Nine Articles and the Quarter- ly Review took refuge with teachers like Mackintosh and Jeffrey, or at highest Ma- dame do Sta~l. Wordsworth and Cole- ridge were mystagogues lurking in cav- erns, and German literature was thought of with a good deal less favour than we are now disposed to show towards that of China. Remembering these things, and seeing the revolution accomplished among a part of the most instructed class and affecting them all, and also the blind, John Sterling. 23 drunken movements of awakening intel- ligence among the labourers, which have succeeded to their former stupid sleep, one can hardly help believing that as much energetic and beneficial change has taken place among us during the last quarter of a century as at any former pe- riod during the same length of time. As to me, I certainly often have f an- cied that, with longer intervals of health, I might be a fellow worker with you and the one or two others whose enterprise has alone among all the projects round us at once high worth and solid perma- nence. But the gods have this matter in their hands, and I have long discov- ered that it is too large for mine. Lat- terly I have been working at a tragedy, but with many intimations that my own catastrophe might come before that of my hero. It may perhaps be possible to complete the tangled net before the next winter weaves its frostwork among the figures and numbs the workmans hand. Mr. , whom you wrote of, deserves and has all my thanks. It is a true sun- ny pleasure, worth more than all medi- cine, to know of any one man in the world who sees what one means, and cares for it, and does not regard ones hearts blood as so much puddle water. It would be a great satisfaction to me to have my things reprinted as a whole in Amer- ica. Forgive this random gossip, and the emptiness of a letter which ought to have expressed much better how truly and af- fectionately I am yours, JOHN STERLING. vi. STEELING ro EMERSON. FALMOUTH, December 28th, 1841. M~ DEAR FRIEND, Your Oration of the 11th August1 has only just reached me. Pray accept my thanks for it. Without this new mark of your kind re- The Method of Nature, delivered before the Society of the Adeiphi in Waterville College, Maine. collection I should have written to you at this time, for, after much work and much illness, I have been looking for- ward to the end of the year as a time when the last twelvemonth might be pleasantly rounded off with letters to several friends for a long while past too much neglected. These are mostly per- sons with whom I have once been in more familiar intercourse than at pre- sent; years and saddening experiences and local remoteness having a good deal divided me of late from most of my for- mer Cambridge and London intimates. You are the only man in the world with whom, though unseen, I feel any sort of nearness; all my other cordialities hav- ing grown up in the usual way of per- sonal intercourse. This sort of anoma- lous friendship is owing, I t~ink, even more to your letters than to your books, which, however, are always near my hand. The Essays I have just read over again, with new and great pleasure. It also often occurs to me to look back with joy at the kindness you have expressed in writing to me, and to say, after all, our clay has been mixed with something happier than tears and blood; for there is a man beyond the Atlantic whom I never saw, and who yet is to me a true and understanding friend. By the way, your Essays on Love and Friendship are to me perhaps more delightful than any- thing you have written. In this last Oration there is much that I feel strong- ly; much, also, that makes me speculate on the kind of Church or Public that you address, which must be very un- like anything among us; much, again, which does not find me, specially that abnegation of individualism which has become less possible for me as I have gone on in life, and which, by the way, is perhaps the most striking doctrinal difference between you and Carlyle. As to your audience or church, I doubt whether there are anywhere in Britain, except in London, a hundred persons to be found capable of at all appreciating 24 John Sterling. what seems to find, as spoken by you, such ready acceptance from various bodies of learners in America. Here we have not only the same aggressive material element as in the United States, but a second fact unknown there, name- ly, the social authority of Church Ortho- doxy, derived from the close connection between the Aristocracy (that is, the Rich) and the Clergy. And odd it is to see that, so far as appears on the surface, the last twenty-five years have produced more of this instead of less. Incomparably our most hopeful phe- nomenon is the acceptance of Carlyles writings. But how remarkable it is that the critical and historical difficulties of the Bible were pointed out by clear- sighted English writers more than a cen- tury ag~ and thence passed through Voltaire into the whole mind of Conti- nental Europe, and yet that in this coun- try both the facts and the books about them remain utterly unknown except to a few recluses! The overthrow of our dead Biblical Dogmatism must, however, be preparing, and may be nearer than ap- pears. The great curse is the wretched and seemingly hopeless mechanical ped- antry of our Monastic Colleges at Oxford and Cambridge. I know not whether there is much connection between these things and the singular fact, I believe quite unexampled in England for three hundred years, that there is no man liv- ing among us, literally, I believe, not one, under the age of fifty, whose verses will pay the expense of publica- tion. Nevertheless I have been work- ing in that way, remembering what Cor- nelius, the German, the greatest of mod- ern painters, said lately in London, that he and Overbeck were obliged to starve for twenty years, and then became famous. I am far from having forgotten my promise to you to examine and revise all my past writings. But I find little that I am at present at all prepared to reprint. The verses I have carefully corrected, and these would form a volume about the size of the last. But as only about a hundred copies of that have been sold, I dare not propose printing any more, even under favour of my kind and muni- ficent friend the Iron Master, to whom and to you I hope to be able to send soon Strafford, a Tragedy, in print. It has cost me many months of hard work, and I have some hope of finding a book- seller rash enough to print it. It ispos- sible that I may see you early in summer, as there seems a chance of my having to go on business to St. Vincent, and I would try to take you and Niagara on my way home. Believe me your affectionate JOhN STERLING. vii. EMERSON TO STERLING. CONCORD, 1st April, 1842. M~ DEAR SIR, I will not reckon how many weeks and months I have let pass since I received from you a letter which greatly refreshed me, both by its tone and its matter. Since that time I have been sorely wounded, utterly im- poverished, by the loss of my only son, a noble child a little more than five years old, and in these days must beguile my poverty and nakedness as I can, by books and studies which are only a diversion; for it is only oblivion, not consolation, that such a calamity can admit, whilst it is new. You do not in your letter distinctly say that you will presently send me with the Tragedy of Strafford, which I look for, the promised list of prose and verse for Mr. . Yet you must; for I read a few weeks ago, in a Southern newspaper, the proposals of a Philadelphia bookseller to print all your poems. I wrote imme- diately to the person named as editor in the advertisement, to inform him of our project and correspondence with you, and of the Tragedy that should come; and as I have heard nothing further, I presume that he has desisted. So far, then, his movement is only a good symp John Sterling. 25 torn, and should engage you to send the list, with such errata or revisions as you have, with the Strafford, to which may the Muse grant the highest success, the noblest conclusion. I read with great pleasure that per- haps you will come to New England this ensuing summer. Come, and bring your scroll in your hand. Come to Boston and Concord, and I will go to Niagara with you. I have never been there; I think I will go. I am quite sure that, to a pair of friendly poetic English eyes, I could so interpret our political, social, and spiritual picture here in Massachu- setts that it should be well worth study as a table of comparison. And yet per- haps, much more than the large pictures, I fancy that I could engage your interest in the vignettes and pendants. However, about this time, or perhaps a few weeks later, we shall send you a large piece of spiritual New England, in the shape of A. Bronson Alcott, who is to sail for London about the 20th April, and whom you must not fail to see, if you can compass it. A man who cannot write, but whose con- versation is unrivalled in its way; such insight, such discernment of spirits, such pure intellectual play, such revolutionary impulses of thought; whilst he speaks be has no peer, and yet, all men say, such partiality of view. I, who hear the same charge always laid at my own gate, do not so readily feel that fault in my friend. But I entreat you to see this man. Since Plato and Plotinus we have not had his like. I have written to Carlyle that lie is coming, but have told him nothing about him. For I should like well to set Alcott before that sharp-eyed painter for his portrait, with- out prejudice of any kind. If A. comes into your neighborhood, he will seek you. Your picture of England I was very glad to have. It confirms, however, my own impressions. Perhaps you have formed too favorable an opinion of our freedom and receptivity here. And yet I think the most intellectual class of my countrymen look to Germany rather than to England for their recent culture; and Coleridge, I suppose, has always had more readers here than in Britain. Your friend, R. W. EMERSON. VIII. STERLING TO EMERSON. FALMOETTH, June 6th, 1842. Mv DEAR FRIEND, I have just re- turned after a two months absence, forced by ill health to the South. Three weeks in Naples, which I had never seen before, and one in Rome, have renewed a thousand old impressions, given sub. stance to many fancies, and confirmed a faith in ancient Art which has few sharers in this country, but is perhaps as good notwithstanding as some other faiths we know of. Your letter spiced my welcome home, and must be at once acknowledged. Thanks, and again thanks. Of A. Bron- son Alcott I have heard indirectly from London; and as I must go there soon, I hope to see him there in Carlyles shadow. It seems too clear that actual England will only a little more than pain and confuse him, as it does every one not swimming with that awful mud- dy stream of existence which dwindles your Mississippi to a gutter. Very plea- sant, however, it will be to hear of this from himself, and still more to find him a real and luminous soul, and not a mere denier and absorbent of the light around. As to my proceedings you must hear a long story. Since my little volume of poems I have written and published one called the Election, of which a kind of secret was made, partly as a condition of Murrays agreeing to publish it, otherwise you should have had a copy. It seemed a work to give much offense, but gave none, nobody reading it at all. Besides this, I corrected the printed vol- ume, and rewrote all that appeared in Blackwood of my verses. Also a new 26 John Sterling. poem, a Bernesque satire called Oceur de Lion. Finally, the Tragedy of Strafford, which Carlyle says is trash, but I know not to be that, in spite of certain inevi- table faults. ~Now all these things are in the hands of Lockhart, of the Quarterly Review, he having proposed to deal with them as if privately printed, and expressing an opinion of them that would have made his article an astonishment to his readers and a comfort to my wife. Thus mat- ters stood when I left, two months ago. I have just written to him to know whe- ther he still designs giving me publicity through his huge trumpet. If, as seems probable, he repents of his dangerous good nature, I shall have no so satisfac- tory course as to send to you the papers now in his hands, to be used or suppressed at your discretion. Immediately on re- ceiving his answer I will write to inform you of its purport. Whatever he may do, I foresee no chance of being able to print in this country, and shall be most glad to find efficient patronage beyond the Atlantic. Illness and business have as yet stopped any sufficient revision of my prose matters, ~which, however, I now intend looking into and doctoring. The pleasantest chance acquaintances of my recent journey were Americans, a Mr. and Mrs. M (he, a lawyer), of Albany. His enjoyment of works of art is, for a man who had never seen any before, really wonderful. My future movements most uncertain, not point- ing, I fear, towards you; perhaps Ma- deira next winter. Yours, JOHN STERLING. I have said nothing of the painful part of your letter. You will know that I grieve for you and Mrs. Emerson. IT. STERLING TO EMERSON. June 13th, 1842. Mv DEAR FRIEND, Lockharts ill- ness has prevented him doing anything about my matters. But he still expresses the same decided good will and purpose for the future. Meanwhile I have asked him for the MSS., and shall send you very soon (probably within a fortnight) a volume of prose tales, of which the Onyx Ring is the principal (none of them new), and about as much verse, including the Sextons Daughter, Miscel- laneous Poems, and the Election. Of course I will write with them. But it may be said now that they must not be printed among you unless with a fair prospect of the expenses being paid. No doubt they are better Than a thousand things that sell largely, but something in them that would interest you and other thinkers unfits them for the multitude who have other business than thinking. At all events, believe me always yours, JOHN STERLING. X. STERLING TO EMERSON. LONDON, June 28th, 1842. Mv DEAR FRIEND, At last I have been able to make some progress among my papers, and am about to despatch a parcel to you, consisting of two main divisions: the first containing eight Tales, of which the largest and most important is the Onyx Ring; and the other of five sections of Poems: first, The Sex- tons Daughter; 2, Miscellaneous Poems (those already published in my vol- ume); 3, Hymns of a Hermit (greatly altered); 4, Thoughts in Rhyme (cor- rected) ; 5, The Election. These things, if it be thought worth doing anything with them, might appear either in two small volumes, first verse, second prose, or in one. If I am able to put together a lot of strays and prose thoughts, you shall have them by and by. But as to the whole, I must earnestly beg that you and my other kind friends in America will feel yourselves at perfect liberty to take no further step in the matter. With my MSS. I shall put up a Tra- gedy by a friend of mine, which strikes me as singularly fine. The last fortnight I have been in Lon- don in the midst of bustle, but with the Jo/zn Sterling. 27 great delight of seeing Carlyle, who is more peaceful than I have ever known him. He is immersing himself in Pu- ritanism and Cromwell, matters with which you Americans have almost a closer connection than we. If he writes our Civil War, the book will have a pro- digious advantage over his French Revo- lution, that there will be one great Egyp~ tian Colossus towering over the temples, tribes, and tents around. Yesterday, on his table, I found the newspaper report of certain lectures, which, however, I could only glance at. A deep and full phrase that, The Poet is the man without impediment. Mr. Alcott has been kind enough to call on me, but I was out (out indeed then), and he would not leave his ad- dress. Otherwise no engagement would have prevented my finding him. Thought is leaking into this country, even Strauss sells. I hear his copy- right is worth more in Germany than that of any living writer. His books selling like Bulwers novels among us. Some one else has arisen there who at- tacks Strauss for being too orthodox; but the Prussian governmejt has taken Strauss under its wing, and forbidden his opponents books. Forgive this random undiplomatic stuff from Your affectionate JOHN STERLING. XI. 5TERLING TO EMERSON. FALMOUTH, March 29th, 1843. MY DEAR FRIEND, I have for many months been leading a dream-life, fruit- ful in no result. For a long part of the time I was lying in bed very ill, and indeed, as it seemed, near to death. The prospect was indistinct enough, but far from frightful, and at the worst of the disease it never occurred to me as possi- ble that ones thoughts would terminate with ones pulse. On the whole, though a great deal of time has been quite lost, the experience is worth something. In the last summer, also, I had a long and severe illness. And the upshot seems to me that I must live, if at all, on the terms of the various mythical personages doomed for alternate halves of their year to be lost in Hades. Even the half is more than I can count on in this upper- living air. What uncertainty this gives to all ones projects and arrangements you can well imagine. In the midst of this confusion, it is some, though rather a melancholy amuse- ment to continue ones lookout over the world, and to see the daily mass of mis- ery, nonsense, and non-consciousness shap- ing itself into an historic period that will some time or other have its chronicler and heroic singer, and look not quite so beggarly. Of the properly spiritual, Eng- land, however, still shows almost as lit- tle as the camps of the Barbarians who deluged Rome. Carlyle is our one Man, and he seems to feel it his function, not to build up and enjoy along with his Age, as even a Homer, a Herodotus, could, but to mourn, denounce, and tear in pieces. I find nothing so hard as to discover what effect he really produces. Proba- bly the greater part of his readers find in him only the same sort of mock-turtle nutriment as in Macaulay. Our mechan- ical civilization, with us as with you, of course, goes on fast enough. The Time spins daily more and bigger teetotums with increasing speed and louder hum, and keeps on asking if they be not real- ly celestial orbs, and that the music of the spheres. Of anything much higher, the men of your and my generation, from whom ten years ago I hoped much, seem hardly capable. A good many of them, however, I do think wish for something better than they are able to conceive distinctly, much less to realize. Of the last age, one respectable relic, you will see, is just removed forever: Southey is dead, with the applause of all good men, but with hardly much deeper feeling from any. Strange proof enough of the want of poems in our language, that he should ever have been held a 28 John Sterling. writer of such. Partly, perhaps, because his works had what one finds in so few English, the greatness of plan and stead- iness of execution required for a master- work, though these were almost their only merits. I never saw him, and do not much regret it. One living man in Europe whom I should most wish to see is Tieck, by far, I think, the greatest poet living. His Vittoria Accorambona is well worth your reading. It repro- duces in the sixteenth century and in Italy something like the crimson robe, the prophetic slain Cassandra, and the tragic greatness of the Agamemnonian Muse, but this combined at once with the near meanness and the refined culti- vation of our modern life. My own literary matters lie in mag- netic sleep. Strafford is there finished. But I have not been able to open it for many months, and there are a couple of minor scenes which I fancy I could mend; and I can do nothing in the matter till I look at these, which has not yet been possible. In the meanwhile, during my illness, I have entangled myself in the fancy of a long Orlandish or Odyssean poem, of which I have written some eight cantos, and can promise you at least some amuse- ment from it a hundred and fifty years hence, by the time England discovers that it is farther from having a religion and America a constitution than either country now supposes. Believe me with, true affection yours, JOHN STERLING. Eli. EMERSON TO 5TERLING. CONCORD, 30th June, 1843. M~ DEAR FRIEND, I was very sorry to let the last steamer go to England without an acknowledgment of your last letter, whose nobleness under such ad- verse events had moved nay admiration; but I waited to hear again from until it was too late. I have twice charged that amiable but slow Morti- mer to write you himself a report of his doubts and projects, and I hope he does so by the packet of to-morrow. Lest he should not, I will say that I have twice heard from him since I sent him your box of printed sheets and MSS. last sum- mer (with my selected list of imprimen- da), but both letters expressec~, a great indecision as to what he should do. In truth, our whole foreign - book market has suffered a revolution within eighteen months, by the new practice of printing whatever good books or vendible books you send us, in the cheapest newspaper form, and hawking them in the streets at twelve, eighteen, and twenty-five cents the whole work; and I suppose that fears, if his book should prove popular, that it would be pirated at once. I printed Carlyles Past and Present two months ago, with a preface beseeching all honest men to spare our book; but already a wretched reprint has appeared, published, to be sure, by a man unknown to the Trade, whose wretchedness of type and paper, I have hope, will still give my edition the market for all per~ sons who have eyes and wish to keep them. But, beside the risk of piracy, this cheap system hurts the sale of dear books, or such whose price contains any profit to an author. Add one more unfavorable incident which damped the design, that a Philadelphia edition of Sterlings Poems was published a year ago, though so ill got up that it did not succeed well, our booksellers think. must be forgiven if he hesitated, but he shall not be forgiven if he do not tell you his own mind. I am heartily sorry that this friendly and pleasing design should have arrived at no better issue. We shall have better news for you one day. I am touched and stimulated by your heroic mood and labours, so ill as you have been. Please God, you are better now, and, I hope, well. But truly I think it a false standard to estimate health, as the world does, by some fat man, in- stead of by our power to do our work. John Sterling. If I should lie by whenever people tell me I grow thin and puny, I should lose all my best days. Task these bad bodies and they will serve us and will be just as well a year hence, if they grumble to- day. But in this country this is safer, for we are a nation of invalids. You English are ruddy and robust, and sick- ness with you is a more serious matter. Yet everything in life looks so different- ly before and behind, and we reverse our scale of success so often, in our retrospec- tions at our own days and doings, that our estimate of our own health, even, must waver when we see what we have done and gained in the dark hours. I fancy sometimes that I am more practi- cally an idealist than most of my com- panions; that I value qualities more and magnitudes less. I must flee to that re- fuge, too, if I should try to tell you what I have done and do. I have very little to show. Yet my days seem often rich, and I am as easily pleased as my chil- dren are. I write a good deal, but it is for the most part without connection, on a thousand topics. Yet I hope, with- in a year, to get a few chapters ripened into some symmetry and wholeness on the topics that interest all men perma- nently. Carlyles new book, which on some ac- counts I think his best, has given even additional interest to your English prac- tical problem; and if your conservatism was not so stark, an inertia passing that of Orientalism, the world would look to England with almost hourly expectation of outbreak and revolution. But the world is fast getting English now; and if the old hive should get too warm and crowded, you may circumnavigate the globe without leaving your language or your kindred. In the hope that my salutations may find you stronger, and strong, and full of good thoughts and good events, I am yours affectionately, R. W. EMERSON. XIII. STERLING TO EMERSON. VEETNOR, I. OF WIGHT, October 7th, 1843. M~ DEAR FRIEND, At last on this Saturday evening there is some cessation of the din of workmen, and I can sit down to write to you. The last three months have been all one muddle of car- penters and other materialists, who have hardly left me an hour, and certainly not a day, quite undisturbed by their practi- cal nonsense. Now I can draw breath (till Monday morning) in a house which promises to be as good as a wise man needs, and far better than most wise men have ever enjoyed on earth. It is adjoining a small new stone - built town, on the south coast, and close to the sea, and I have some acres (half a dozen) of field and shrubbery about me. One inducement for me is the shelter and mild climate. But a thousand times I have lamented my folly in engaging myself with a pest of improvements, etc., which has swallowed up all my summer. Would that I could hope to be ro- warded by such a pleasure as having you sometime under my thatched roof! In the midst of these mechanical arrange- ments, all higher thoughts have been like birds in an aviary looking up through squares of wire that cut across the sky, whose winged children they imprison. The birds are there, and the heavens also, and how little it is, but how insu- perable, that divides them! If any good has grown upon me strongly, it is the faith in a Somewhat above all this, a boat within reach of us at our worst. Every soul on earth, says Mahomet, is born capable of Islam. But you, per- haps, though having your own difficul- ties, hardly know the utter loneliness of a Rational Soul in this England. Ex- cept Carlyle, I do not know one man who sees and lives in the idea of a God not exclusively Christian: two or three lads, perhaps; but every grown man of nobler spirit is either theoretical and 29 80 John Sterling. lukewarm, or swathed up in obsolete sec- tarianism. On Sunday last I had indeed a visit from an old Friend who delighted me by his cordial candour, John Mill, son of the historian of India, and in many ways notable among us now. His big book on Logic is, I suppose, the highest piece of Aristotelianism thatEngland has brought forth, at all events in our time. How the sweet, ingenuous nature of the man has lived and thriven out of his fathers cold and stringent atheism is wonderful to think, and most so to me, who dur- ing fifteen years have seen his gradual growth and ripening. There are very few men in the world on whose generous affection I should more rely than on his, whose system seems at first (but only seems) a Code of DeniaL I was more struck, not long ago, by the mists of one of the most zealous of the new Oxford School, like Newman, a fellow of Oriel, and holding Newman the first of teachers. Yet this man, who fan- cies he can blot a thousand years out of Gods Doings, has a zeal, a modesty, a greatness of soul, that I have hardly found in more than half a dozen others on earth. He is, I hear, sometimes half mad with ill health and low spirits; a schol- ar, a gentleman, a priest, if there is any true one living, and would let himself be racked or gibbeted to help any suffering or erring brother with less self-compla- cence than most of us feel in giving away a shilling. Strange, is it not, to find Ege- na still alive, and in this shape, too, in fwce Romuli? I rejoice that you have something more in store for us; I shall look out eagerly for your lights ahead. Life with me has grown empty and dim enough, and needs what comfort other mens faith is capable of supplying. Yours, JOHN STERLING. I do not know if the bookseller has sent you a copy of a Ventuor Tragedy which I ventured to decorate with your name. The Strafford was thus dedicated: TO RALrI[ WALDO EMERSON. Teacher of starry wisdom high serene, Receive the gift our common ground supplies; Red flowers, dark leaves, that neer on earth had been Without the influence of sidereal skies. VENTNOR, ISLE o~ wIeRT, Midsummer Day, 1843. J. S. XIV. EMERSON TO STERLING. CONCORD, October 11th, 1843. M~ DEAR FRIEND, You have done me an honour to which I have not the least title, and yet it is very dear and animating to me, in putting my name in purple lines before this rich and wise poem of Strafford. I blushed to read, and then thought I should nevermore be unworthy, and these loving words should be an amulet against evil ever- more. I might easily mistrust my judg- ment of the Play in my love of the Poet, and, if you think so, may be whol- ly wrong, for I read it with lively inter- est, like a friends manuscript, from end to end, and grew prouder and richer in my friend with every scene. The sub- ject is excellent, so great and eventful a crisis, and each of the figures in that history filled and drunk with a national idea, and with such antagonism as makes them colossal, and adds solemnity and omens to their words and actions. I was glad to find the Countess of Carlisle in poetry, whom I had first learned to know by that very lively sketch from Sir Toby Matthew, which I read in one of Forsters Lives. I do not yet know whe- ther the action of the piece is sufficiently stout and irresistible, alarming and vic- timizing the reader after the use of the old purifiers; it seems to me, as I has- tily read, managed with judgment and lighted with live coals; but I am quite sure of the dense and strong sentences whose energy and flowing gentleness at the same time give the authentic expres- sion of health and perfect manhood. I rejoice when I remember in what John Sterling. 31. sickness and interruption, by your own account, this drama had its elaboration and completion. As soon as I had read it once, Margaret Fuller, our genius and Muse here, and a faithful friend of yours, seized the book peremptorily and carried it away, so that I am by no means master of its contents. Mean- time, may the just honour of all the best in Old and in New England cherish the poem and the Poet. Send me, I pray you, better news of your health than your last letter contained. I observe that you date from the Isle of Wight. Two letters (one from and one from me) went to your address in Fal- mouth, in the course of the last summer, which I hope, for the exculpation of your friends here, you received. I am, I think, to sit fast at home tbis winter coming, and arrange a heap of materials that much and wide scribbling has collected. I shall probably send this letter by Mr. James, a man who adds to many merits the quality of being a good friend of both you and me, and who, pro- posing with his family to spend a win- ter in England, for health and travel, thinks he has a right to see ~rou. He is at once so manly, so intelligent, and so ardent that I have found him excellent company. The highest and holiest Muse dwell with you always. Yours affectionately, H. W. EMERSON. My friend and near neighbor, W. El- lery Channing (a nephew of the late Dr. C.), desires me to send you his little volume of poems. I love Ellery so much as to have persuaded myself long since that he is a true poet, if these lines should not show it. Read them with as much love in advance as you can. Mr. J. will bring them. xv. EMERSON TO STERLING. CONcORD, October 15th, 1843. M~ DEAR STERLING, Henry James, of New York, a man of ingenious and liberal spirit, and a chief consolation to me when I visit his city, proposes to spend a winter in England with his f am- ily, for his health and other benefit, and desires to see you, for whom he has much affection. I am quite sure that I shall serve you both by sending him to you. Yours, R. W. EMERSON. Xvi. EMERSON TO STERLING. CONCORD, 31st January, 1844. M~ DEAR FRIEND, The mercury has been at zero at my door, with little variation, for more than a week. Boston harbour is frozen up for six miles down to the forts, yet the newspapers tell me this morning that the merchants have resolved to saw through these miles a passage for your royal steamer and other sea-going ships to-morrow, and I must not wait another hour if I would speed my good wishes to the Isle of Wight. By an unhappy chance, the January Dials did not sail as they ought in last months steamer, and you should receive by this, via London and Carlyle, a copy of No. XV., which contains a critique, written by Margaret Fuller, on Straf- ford, and other children of genius, both yours and other mens. I heartily hope you will find something right and wise in my friends judgments, if with some- thing inadequate, and if her pen ramble a little. It was her own proposition to write the piece, led by her love both of you and of me. After she began it, she decided to spread her censure so wide, and comprise all dramas as well as Strafford. She was full of spirits in her undertaking, but, unhappily, the week devoted to its performance was exani- mated, may I say, by cruel aches and illness, and she wrote me word that she was very sorry, but the piece was ruined. However, as you are by temper and habit such a cosmopolitan, I hope one day you shall see with eyes my wise woman, hear her with ears, and see if you can escape the virtue of her en- chantments. She has a sultry Southern nature, and Corinna never can write. 32 I learned by your last letter that you had builded a house, and I glean from Russell all I can of your health and aspect; and as James is gone to your island, I think to come still nearer to you through his friendly and intelligent eyes. Send me a good gossiping letter, and prevent all my proxies. What can I tell you to invite such retaliation? I dwell with my mother, my wife, and two little girls, the eldest five years old, in the midst of flowery fields. I wasted much time from graver work in the last two months in reading lectures to Ly- ceums far and near; for there is now a lyceum, so called, in almost every town in New England, and, if I would accept every invitation, I might read a lecture every night. My neighbors in this village of Concord are Ellery Chan- ning, who sent his poems to you, a youth of genius; Thoreau, whose name you may have seen in the Dial; and Haw- thorne, a writer of tales and historiettes, whose name you may not have seen, though he too prints books. All these three persons are superior to their writ- ings, and therefore not obnoxious to Kants observation, Detestable is the company of literai~y men. Good as these friends are, my habit is so solitary that we do not often meet. My literary or other tasks accomplished are too little to tell. I do not know how it happens, but there are but seven hours, often but five, in an American schol- ars day; the twelve, thirteen, fifteen, that we have heard of, in German libra- ries, are fabulous to us. Probably in England you find a mean between Mas- sachusetts and Germany. The perform- ances of Goethe, the performances of Scott, appear superhuman to us in their quantity, let alone their quality. Some- times I dream of writing the only his- torical thing I know, the influence of old Calvinism, now almost obsolete, upon During the year Sterlings mother and wife had died within three days. Sorrowful and sick, he had moved with his six children, two JOA?~ Sterling. the education of the existing generation in New England. I am quite sure, if it could be truly done, it would be new to your people, and a valuable memoran- dum to ours. I have lately read George Sands Con- suelo, of which the first volume pleased me mightily, the others much less, and yet the whole book shows an extraordi- nary spirit. The writer apprehends the force of simplicity of behaviour, and en- joys, how greatly, the meeting of two strong natures. But I have gossiped to the end of my line, and so do commend myself affectionately to you. R. W. EMERSON. XVII. STERLIEG TO EMERSOR. VENTROR, February 20th, 1844. M~ DEAR FRIEND, I had proposed a letter to you as this mornings work, and now down the throat of my purpose jumps your own of January 31. Long since I ought to have thanked you for the previous one, but have been too sick and sad. Your reception of Strafford was a great pleasure, so far as any- thing is so now. The work has become altogether distant and distasteful to me, but I can enjoy your kindness. I got from an English bookseller the October Dial, which is pleasant reading. If one could have the whole of the former num- bers it would be good for me, but I own that, except your own doings, there is lit- tle in it thali comes home. Channing, I suppose, I must thank for his friendly gift; but the volume perhaps from my own deadness gave me little true comfort. It seemed to show abundant receptivity, but of productivity little. Everything can too easily be referred to some other parent. If he would read diligently the correspondence of Schiller and Goethe, he would learn much, and would either cease to be a poet or be- come a good one. At least one hopes of them infants, to his last earthly home, the house in Ventuor. John Sterling. 33 so. That book has to me greater value than any or all those on the theory of art, besides the beautiful, mild, and solid humanity which it displays in every word. There are hardly perhaps three Englishmen living with the slightest thought of what art is, the unity and completeness of the Ideal. The crowd, when weary of themselves and their own noisy choking Reality, take refuge in Fiction, but care not how lazy, coarse, and empty. The few among us who look higher, generally the young, seem satisfied, not with the Ideal, but their own feelings and notions about it, which they substitute for the thing itself; ser- mons on the Incarnation instead of the Incarnate God. Hence all the dreamy Shelleyan rhapsodies and rhetorical Wordsworthian moralizings. But who seriously strives to create images? Who does not waste himself in hunting shad- ows, forgetting that you cannot have them without first getting the substance, and that with it you can never be in want of them? So it stands with us in England: is it otherwise in America? I fear not. Tennyson does better, but does little, and they say will hardly wake out of tobacco smoke into any sufficient activity. Car- lyle, our far greater Tacitus, in truth hates all poetry except for that element in it which is not poetic at all, and aims at giving a poetic completeness to historic fact. He is the greatest of moralists and politicians, a gigantic anti-poet. As far as I know, there is not a man besides, on either side of the Atlantic, writing in English, either in prose or verse, who need be spoken of. Your friend James pleased me well. Would that he could have stayed here longer and let me know more of him! But after all regrets, Life is good, to see the face of Truth, and enjoy the beauty of tears and smiles, and know ones self a man, and love what belongs to manhood, all this is a blessing that VOL. LXXX. NO. 477. 3 may console us for all wants, and that sickness and sorrow, and, one may trust, Death, cannot take away. Yet I wish I could have talk with you some day. I am yours, JOHN STERLING. This is a miserable scrap to send in the track of Columbus and Raleigh. But I have been too ill in body, and am still too sad in mind. XVIIL STERLING TO EMERSON. VEETNOR, I. OF WIGHT, June 14th, 1844. M~ DEAR FRIEND, Perhaps you may have heard that for the last three months I have been a dying man. It is certain that I never can recover. But there seems a melancholy possibility that I may have to drag on a year or two of helplessness, cut off from all Society and incapable of any exertion. It is a case for submission, but hardly for thankful- ness. The beginning of the illness was a violent and extensive bleeding from the lungs, of which, however, I have had prelibations for many years. It was strange to see the thick crimson blood pouring from ones own mouth while feeling hardly any pain; expecting to be dead in five minutes, and noticing the pattern of the room-paper and of the Doctors waistcoat as composedly as if the whole had been a dream. At present I am quite incapable, as indeed I was when I wrote last, of send- ing you anything worth your reading. On both sides of Eternity (the out and in), Your affectionate JOHN STERLING. XIX. EMERSON TO STERLING. CONCORD, 5th July, 1844. M~ DEAR FRIEND, What news you send me, how dark and bitter, and how unlooked for, and so firmly and sol- dierly told! I got your letter yesterday, and in it the first hint I have had of this disaster. I dream of you and of Car- 34 John Sterling. lyle, whenever steamers go or come, but easily omit to write; and this is the pun- ishment of my luxury, that you should be threatened, and I should know no- thing of your danger and mine. I cling now to the hope you show me that these symptoms may not be so grave or of so instant sequel as their first menace. Yesterday I thought I would go to Eng- land, and see you alive; it seemed prac- ticable and right. But the same hour showed inextricable engagements here at home, and I could not see your man- ly strength, which is so dear to me, and I might easily make injurious demands on a sick man. You are so brave you must be brave for both of us, and suffer me to express the pain I feel at these first tidings. I shall come soon enough to general considerations which will weigh with you, and with me, I suppose, to reduce this calamity within the sphere. I, who value nothing so much as charac- ter in literary works, have believed that you would live to enjoy the slow, sure homage of your contemporaries to the valor and permanent merits of your Muse; and I have pleased myself how deeply with a certain noble emulation in which widely separated friends would bear each other in constant regard, and with months and years augment the benefit each had to confer. This must now be renounced, and the grand words I hear and sometimes use must be verified, and I must think of that which you re- present, and not of the representative beloved. Happy is it whilst the Blessed Power keeps unbroken the harmony of the inward and the outward, and yields us the perfect expression of good in a friend! But if it will disunite the pow- er and the form, the power is yet to be infinitely trusted, and we must try, un- willing, the harsh grandeurs of the spirit- ual nature. Each of us more readily - faces the issue alone than on the account of his friend. We find something dis- honest in learning to live without friends: whilst death wears a sublime aspect to each of us. God send you, my dear bro- ther, the perfect mind of truth and heart of love, however the event is to fall! Thousands of hearts have owed to you the finest mystic influences: I must and will believe in happy reactions which will render to you the most soothing music at unawares. If you have strength, write me, if only your name. But I shall continue to hope to see your face. And so I love you and I thank you, dear Friend! Yours, R. WALDO EMERSON. XX. STEELING TO EMERSON. HILLSIDE, VENTNOR, August 1st, 1844. M~ DEAR FRIEND, I am very ill to-day, but, as I am likely to be worse rather than better, I make the effort of writing a few words to thank you for your letter, and also for your care about my papers. You and I will never meet in this world. Among my friends you are an Unseen One, but not the less valued. Heaven help you to realize all your in- spirations. They will be a blessing to many as well as yourself. My struggle, I trust, is nigh over. At present it is a painful one. But I fear nothing, and hope much. Your affectionate and grateful JOHN STERLING. In the last days of September Carlyle wrote to tell Emerson of the death of their friend; how calm he had been, and brave, and how to the very last he worked alone, setting his house in or- der and sending farewells to his friends, whom he preferred not to see. Carlyles verdict on his friends life, in his Memoir, is that it was a tragedy; high hopes, noble efforts; under thick- ening difficulties and impediments, ever new nobleness of valiant effort; and the result death with conquests by no means corresponding. But even while he is The Decline of Legislatures. 35 writing this dismal summary, the beauty and help that this short life had for those who saw and felt it, and for those who should later consider it, sweeps over him, and, the human heart breaking through the crust, he admits its claim, and more, the call of Nature, and thus ends: The history of this long-continued prayer and endeavour, lasting in various figures for near forty years, may now and for some time coming have something to say to men! Nay, what of men, or of the world? Here, visible to myself for some while, was a brilliant human presence, distin- guishable, honourable, and lovable amid the dim, common populations; among the million little beautiful, once more a beautiful human soul, whom I, among others, recognized and lovingly walked with, while the years and hours were. Sitting now by his tomb in thoughtful mood, the new times bring a new duty for me. Why write a Life of Ster- ling? I imagine I had a commission higher than the worlds, the dictate of Nature herself to do what is now done. Sic prosit. Edward Waldo Emerson. THE DECLINE OF LEGISLATURES. I. THE Roman Senate was the proto- type of all modern legislatures. It had two great functions, auctoritas and con- silium. The former was practically what we call the veto; that is, the Senate could forbid any legislation not originat- ing with itself, whether proposed by the people in the comitia or by the magis- trates. Nothing became a law without its sanction. The latter, consilium, was nearly what we call advice and con- sent; that is, the Senate had to pass on all proposals submitted to it by the exec- utive officers, and approve or amend, as the case might be. In considering the proposals of the people, it decided whe- ther they were wise and Roman; but it consulted with the magistrates concern- ing every important action or enterprise about to be undertaken. In all this it act- ed under two powerful restraints, partly like the theocracy in the early days of New England, partly like our constitu- tions to-day, namely, the mos rnajorum and the auguries. It saw that every- thing was done in the Roman or ancient way, and that the unseen forces were likely to favor it. Now, how did this system succeed? On this point I cannot do better than quote the testimony of Mommsen : Neyertheless, if any revolution or any usurpation appears justified before the bar of history by exclusive ability to govern, even its rigorous judgment must acknowledge that this corporation duly comprehended and worthily fulfilled its great task. Called to power, not by the empty accident of birth, but substantially by the free choice of the nation; con- firmed every fifth year by the stern moral judgment of the worthiest men; holding office for life, and so not depen- dent on the expiration of its commission or on the varying opinion of the people; having its ranks close and united even after the equalization of its orders; em- bracing in it all the political intelligence and practical statesmanship that the peo- ple possessed; absolute in dealing with all financial questions and in the con- trol of foreign policy; having complete power over the executive by virtue of its brief duration and of the tribunitian Willems S~nat et R4publique Romaine, pp. 34, 35.

The Decline of Legislatures. 35 writing this dismal summary, the beauty and help that this short life had for those who saw and felt it, and for those who should later consider it, sweeps over him, and, the human heart breaking through the crust, he admits its claim, and more, the call of Nature, and thus ends: The history of this long-continued prayer and endeavour, lasting in various figures for near forty years, may now and for some time coming have something to say to men! Nay, what of men, or of the world? Here, visible to myself for some while, was a brilliant human presence, distin- guishable, honourable, and lovable amid the dim, common populations; among the million little beautiful, once more a beautiful human soul, whom I, among others, recognized and lovingly walked with, while the years and hours were. Sitting now by his tomb in thoughtful mood, the new times bring a new duty for me. Why write a Life of Ster- ling? I imagine I had a commission higher than the worlds, the dictate of Nature herself to do what is now done. Sic prosit. Edward Waldo Emerson. THE DECLINE OF LEGISLATURES. I. THE Roman Senate was the proto- type of all modern legislatures. It had two great functions, auctoritas and con- silium. The former was practically what we call the veto; that is, the Senate could forbid any legislation not originat- ing with itself, whether proposed by the people in the comitia or by the magis- trates. Nothing became a law without its sanction. The latter, consilium, was nearly what we call advice and con- sent; that is, the Senate had to pass on all proposals submitted to it by the exec- utive officers, and approve or amend, as the case might be. In considering the proposals of the people, it decided whe- ther they were wise and Roman; but it consulted with the magistrates concern- ing every important action or enterprise about to be undertaken. In all this it act- ed under two powerful restraints, partly like the theocracy in the early days of New England, partly like our constitu- tions to-day, namely, the mos rnajorum and the auguries. It saw that every- thing was done in the Roman or ancient way, and that the unseen forces were likely to favor it. Now, how did this system succeed? On this point I cannot do better than quote the testimony of Mommsen : Neyertheless, if any revolution or any usurpation appears justified before the bar of history by exclusive ability to govern, even its rigorous judgment must acknowledge that this corporation duly comprehended and worthily fulfilled its great task. Called to power, not by the empty accident of birth, but substantially by the free choice of the nation; con- firmed every fifth year by the stern moral judgment of the worthiest men; holding office for life, and so not depen- dent on the expiration of its commission or on the varying opinion of the people; having its ranks close and united even after the equalization of its orders; em- bracing in it all the political intelligence and practical statesmanship that the peo- ple possessed; absolute in dealing with all financial questions and in the con- trol of foreign policy; having complete power over the executive by virtue of its brief duration and of the tribunitian Willems S~nat et R4publique Romaine, pp. 34, 35. 36 The Decline of Legislatures. intercession which was at the service of the Senate after the termination of the quarrels between the orders, the Ro- man Senate was the noblest organ of the nation, and in consistency and political sagacity, in unanimity and patriotism, in grasp of power and unwavering courage, the foremost political corporation of all times; still even now an Assembly of Kings, which knew well how to combine despotic energy with republican self-de- votion. Never was a state represented in its external relations more firmly and worthily than Rome in its best days by its Senate. 1 As I have said, the Senate was the pro- totype of all modern legislatures; but only two, since the fall of the Roman Empire, have at all resembled it, the Venetian Grand Council and the British Parliament. No others in the modern world have attempted to discharge so great a variety of duties, such as holding large extents of conquered territory and ruling great bodies of subject population, or carrying on foreign wars. Its chief distinction was that, as a rule, subjects for consideration, on which it had to take positive action, did not originate with it, but were brought before it by the exec- utive officers engaged in the active con- duct of the government. So that it may be called a consultative rather than a legislative body. How this came about and how it continued, it is not necessary to discuss here. The general result was that, through the whole course of Roman history, the administrative officers re- mained actually in charge of the govern- ment, subject to the advice and control of the legislature. The same system has prevailed in the British Parliament ever since it became a real power in the state. Its proceedings are controlled and regu- lated by the executive officers. They submit measures to it, and ask its advice and consent; but if they cannot carry them, the matter drops and they resign, and others undertake the task. Practi- 1 History of Rome, vol. i. pp. 410412. cally, a private member cannot originate a bill, or get it discussed, or procure its passage, except with their consent. In- deed, as a legislator he is always in a certain sense an intruder. The function of the two Houses is essentially, not the drafting or proposing of laws, but seeing that no law is passed which is not ex- pedient and constitutional; consti- tutional being in the British sense what the Romans meant by being in accord- ance with the mos majorum and having the approval of the auguries. The Brit- ish ministry, in fact, legislates as well as administers. Every bill is fathered by the man who is engaged in the active work of the department which it touches. If it relate to the finances, it is framed and introduced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer; if it relate to shipping, by the President of the Board of Trade; if to the army, by the Secretary of War, and so on. Any private member who should attempt to regulate these things would be frowned down and silenced. His business is to hear what the ministry proposes, and to pass judgment on it. Until the French Revolution there ex- isted no real legislature in Europe except that of England. After the sixteenth century the Grand Council of Venice had sunk into insignificance. There was in France, when the Revolution broke out, hardly even a memory left of legisla- tive or consulting bodies. Dumont tells of his going to Paris in 1789, when the country was busy trying to elect dele- gates to the States General, and stopping for breakfast at Montreuil - sur - Mer, where he found that three days had been wasted in confusion by the electors, be- cause they had never heard of such things as a president, a secretary, or vot- ing tickets. He and his friend, almost by way of joke, drew up rules of pro- cedure, for which the people were very grateful and under which they acted. On arriving in Paris, he found that the body of the nation there saw nothing more in the assembling of the States General The Decline of Legislatures. 37 than a means of diminishing taxes, and the creditors of the state, so often deprived of their dividends by a viola- tion of public faith, considered the States General as nothing more than a rampart against a government bankruptcy. He attended some meetings of the reform- ers, which might be called caucuses, held in private houses. In one at Brissots the subject under discussion was a con- stitution or charter for the city of Paris. A M. Palessit moved for a special ar- ticle on the right of representation, as one of the most precious attributes of liberty. Dumont and the Genevans present thought of course he meant repre- sentation in the legislature; what he did mean was the right of producing plays at the theatre without the interference of the censor. In short, the idea of a legislating assembly, one might say, had perished from the European continent. It was less familiar to the peoples of modern Europe than it had been to the ancients. The reason why the English have been able to preserve what is called the cabinet system in theirproceedings that is, the dominance of he executive officers in the deliberation of Parliament is, I need hardly say, historical. Par- liaments may be said to have originated as a check on the royal authority. In the House of Commons government was re- presented by the king. The ministry was emphatically his ministry; the op- position was held together partly by fear and partly by dislike of him. It never reached the point of seeking to take the administration of the government out of his hands or out of those of his officers, except in the rebellion of 1640. Its high- est ambition was to be consulted about what was going to be done, and to be al- lowed to ask questions about it and to vote the money for it. It never thought of taking on itself the function of ad- ministration. It confined itself to the exercise of a veto. The ministry never Recollections of Mirabean, pp. 6165. parted with its power of initiation, and, it strengthened its position by what may be called the solidarity of the cabinet; that is, the practice of treating each act of any particular minister as the act of the whole body, and standing or falling by it as such. The occasions have been rare, in English history, in which any one member has been surrendered to the dissatisfaction or reprobation of the op- position. When Puritan and Cavalier were succeeded by Whig and Tory, or Whig and Tory by Conservative and Lib- eral, the new order merely substituted one executive for another in the House of Commons, and did not create a new kind of executive. No matter what the relative strength of parties in the coun- try might be, the dominant party ap- peared in the House of Commons sim- ply as administrative officers, seeking and taking advice and approval from the representative body. Now, the value of the preservation of the consultative rather than the legisla- tive function by the House of Commons, the auctoritas and consilium rather than the initiative, has been brought out more clearly than ever by the history of legis- lative bodies on the Continent since the revival of popular government in 1848, and by the history of legislatures in this country sincethe war. The English House of Commons, one may say, has grown up under the consultative system. No other system has ever been seen or thought of. Private members have learnt to sit and listen, to have their opinions asked for on certain proposals, and, if their advice is not taken, to seek their remedy in choosing other agents. They act on all proposals submitted by the ministry, in parties, not singly. The experience of three centuries has taught each member to be of the same mind, in every cas& , as those with whom he ordinarily agrees. When the House of Commons was taken as a model on the Continent, especially after 1848, what was set up was not really the English Parliament, but a set 38 The Decline of Legislatures. of councils for discussion, in which every man had the right of initiative, or, at all events, the right to say his say without sharing with any one the responsibility for what he said. It was the Witenctge- mote, or the Landesgemeinde, or the town meeting, over again. The new govern- ments all had ministries, after the Eng- lish fashion, but no one in the legisla- ture felt bound to approve, or felt bound to join others in disapproving, of their policy. In other words, the cabinet sys- tem did not take root in the political manners. In his Journals, during a visit to Turin in 1850, Senior records a con- versation with Cesare Balbo, a member of the Chamber in the first Piedmontese Parliament, in which Balbo said, after an exciting financial debate: We have not yet acquired parliamentary discipline. Most of the members are more anxious about their own crotchets or their own consistency than about the country. The ministry has a large nominal majority, but every member of it is ready to put them in a minority for any whim of his own. 1 This was probably true of every legislative body on the Continent, and it continues true to this day in Italy, Greece, France, Austria, Germany, and the new Australian democracies. Parliamentary discipline has not gained in strength. On the contrary, the ten- dency to give new men a taste of par- liamentary life, which is very strong par- ticularly in France and Italy, has stimu- lated the disposition to form groups, or to act independently: A man who is likely to serve for only one term is unwilling to sink himself either in the ministerial majority or in the opposition. He wishes to make a reputation for him- self, and this he cannot do by voting silently under a chief. A reputation has to be made by openly expressed criticism, or by open hostility, or by the individ- nal exercise of the initiative. To make an impression on his constituents, he has to have a programme of his own 1 Seniors Journals, voL i. p. 323. and to push it, to identify himself with some cause which the men in power either ignore or treat too coolly. As a rule, the Continental legislatures, while modeled on the British or cabinet sys- tem, have really not copied its most im- portant feature, the dominance of the executive in the legislative body. In Austria and Germany, where the king or emperor is still a power, this is not so apparent, but in France and Italy and in Australia, where the Parliament is well-fiigh omnipotent, the result is in- cessant changes of ministry, and a great deal of legislation, intended not so much to benefit the country as to gather up and hold a majority. In America, we have never tried the cabinet system, partly because our legis- latures were started before this system became fairly established in England, and partly because, in colonial times, the executive was never in thoroughly friend- ly relations with the legislative depart- ment of any colony. Americans entered on their national existence with the only sort of legislature that was then known, a council of equals, where one man had as much right to originate legislation as another, subject, of course, to the general policy of the party to which he belonged. The device with which we have striven to meet the confusion thus created is the formation of committees to examine and report upon every project of law sub- mitted by individual members. Every legislature, including Congress, is now divided into these committees. With the executive it has no open or official relations, for purposes of discussion. No executive officer is entitled of right to address, or advise, or consult it. He is exposed to constant criticism, but he cannot explain or answer. His presence, even, in the legislative chambers is an intrusion. He can communicate in writ- ing any information which the legisla- ture demands, but this is the limit of his relations with it. The President and every governor of a State have the right The Decline of Legislatures. 39 to send what we call messages to the legislature, directing its attention to cer- tain matters and recommending certain action, but it is very rare for these recom- mendations to have much effect. The messages are rhetorical performances, intended to give the public an idea of the capacity and opinions of the writers rather than to furnish a foundation for law-making. There is nothing more striking in our system than the perfunctoriness which has overtaken both these documents and the party platforms, and there can be no better illustration of the effect of the ab- sence of the executive from the legisla- tive chambers. If there were a ministry, or if there were members of a cabinet sitting in the chambers and charged with the initiation of legislation, they would naturally be charged also with the duty of carrying out the Presidents or the Gov- ernor s recommendations, and embody- ing the party platform in laws. But under the committee system nobody is burdened with this duty, and after the messages and platforms have been print- ed they do not often receive any further attention. Few can remember what a party platform contains, a month after its adoption, and it is very seldom that any legislative notice is taken of it, ex- cept by the opposition press, which oc- casionally uses it to twit the party in power with its inconsistency or negli- gence. In fact, legislation, both in Con- gress and in the state legislatures, may be said to have become government by committee. The individual member has hardly more to do with it than is the case in England. Yet this does not pre- vent his making attempts to legislate. He does not ask permission to introduce bills, but he introduces them by thou- sands every session. His right to legis- late is recognized as good and valid, but the rules which regulate the course of his bill through the House make the right of little more value than that of the private member of the House of Coin- mons. His bill, as soon as it is present- ed, passes into the custody of one of the committees. He is not allowed to say a word in its behalf, and he has no know- ledge of what its fate will be. He is literally cut off from debate no less by the rules than by the Speakers favor. This functionary, by simply refusing to see him, can condemn him to perpetual silence, and has no hesitation in exercis- ing his power to advance or retard such business of the House as he approves or dislikes. It seems, at first sight, as if the pri- vate member were in much the same condition in America and in England. In neither country is legislation within his control. But there is this difference: In England, the persons who take his bill out of his hands, or refuse him per- mission to introduce it, are themselves engaged in the work of legislation. They are responsible for the conduct of the government. They profess to be supply- ing all the legislation that is necessary. They simplydeny the private member any participation in their work. In America, the committee which takes his bill from him and seals its fate is composed of his own equals. They have no more to do with the executive than he has. They are no more charged with legislation on any particular subject than he is. Their main function is to examine and re- port, but whether they will ever report is a matter entirely within their discre- tion. They are not bound to substi- tute anything for what they reject or ignore. They have so much to pass upon that their duty of initiation is re- duced to a minimum. Moreover, when they report favorably on any bill in their custody, or originate one of their own, they are not bound to allow full discus- sion of it in the open House. All need- ful discussion of it is supposed to have taken place in their chamber. If any one is allowed to say much about it in the House, it is rather as a matter of grace; and unless he is an orator of re 40 The Decline of Legi8latures. putation, but few listen to him. Conse- quently, there is in practice a wide dif- ference between the control of legislation in the British Parliament and the control in our Congress. With us it is exercised by an entirely different class of persons. They are not accountable for the fate of any bill. If they choose not to report it, they are not bound to give their rea- sons. The function of the British minis- try is to provide the necessary legislation, and as a rule the ministry is composed of men well known to the public and of more than usual experience. The func- tion of the American committee, on the other hand, is simply to sift or impede the efforts of a large assembly, composed of persons of equal authority, to pass laws, with the execution of which, if they were, passed, they would have no- thing to do. As everybody has a right to introduce bills, without being in any way responsible for their working, there must be some power to examine, revise, choose, or reject, and this need is sup- plied by the committee system. The great change in the position and powers of the Speaker in Congress and in all American legi~latures has been due to the same causes as the institution of the committees. He has been changed from his prototype, the judicial officer who presides over debates in the House of Commons, into something like the European prime minister, so that be has charge of the legislation of his party. He appoints the various committees, and can in this way make himself feared or courted by members. By his power of recognition he can consign any mem- ber to obscurity. He can encourage or hinder a committee in any species of legis- lation. He can check or promote extra- vagance. He makes no pretension to im- partiality; he professes simply to be as impartial as a man can be who has to look after the interests of his own party and ~ The working of this system and the actual functions of the Speaker are well described in Wilsons Congressional Government, and in Miss see that its policy is carried out. In fact, he differs but little from the lead- er of the House of Commons, except that he has nothing to do with the execution of the laws after he has helped to make them. He may have to hand them over to a hostile Senate or to a hostile exec- utive, after he has secured their passage in his own assembly, and the country does not hold him responsible for them. No matter how badly they may work, the blame is laid, not on him, but on the House or on the party. He has no- thing personal to fear from their failure, however active he may have been in se- curing their enactment. But the steady acquiescence in his increased assumption of power in every session of Congress or of the legislatures is clearly an ad- mission that modern democratic legisla- tures are unfit for the work of legislation. We attach importance to stronger and more imperative leadership than has been provided by any constitution. There are two committees which may be said to be charged with the work of legislation, and these are the Committee of Ways and Means and the Commit- tee on Appropriations. But neither of them supplies whatmaybe called abud- get; that is, a statement of necessary expenditure and of probable revenue. These calculations are made, it is true, in the various administrative offices, but the committees are not bound to take notice of them. The Committee of Ways and Means fixes the revenue, as a rule, mainly with regard to the state of pub- lic opinion touching the principal source of revenue, the taxes on imports. If the public is deemed to be at that moment favorable to protection, these taxes are put high; if favorable to free trade, they are put low. The relation to the public outlay is not made the chief considera- tion. In other words, taxation for re- venue only is not an art practiced by Folletts Speaker of the ilonse of Representa. tives. The Decline of Legislatures. 41 either party. Taxation is avowedly prac- ticed as the art of encouraging domestic industry in some degree. The Commit- tee on Appropriations has no relations with the Ways and Means Committee. It does not concern itself about income. It adds to the necessary expenditure of the government such further expen- diture as is likely to be popular, as for river and harbor improvements and for pensions. In this way, neither commit- tee is responsible for a deficit, for neither is bound to make ends meet. This absence of connection between the levying and the spending authorities would work speedy ruin in any Europe- an government. The danger or incon- venience of it here has been concealed by the very rapid growth of the country in wealth and population, and the result- ing rapid increase of the revenue under all circumstances. It is not too much to say that the first serious deficiency of revenue was experienced on the out- break of the civil war. After the war, there was no difficulty in meeting all reasonable expenses until the yearly re- curring and increasing surplus bred the frame of mind about expen~1iture which led to enormous appropriations for pen- sions and domestic improvements. These have at last brought about, and for the first time in American history, a real difficulty in devising sources of revenue. At this writing the question under debate is what taxes will be most popular in the country, when it ought to be what taxes will bring in most income. This has been largely due to the appropriations for pur- poses not absolutely necessary, but the Committee of Ways and Means is com- pelled to treat them as if they were le- gitimate expenses. This separation be- tween the power which lays taxes and the power which spends them is proba- bly the boldest of our experiments, and one which has never before been tried. Its inconveniences are likely to be felt increasingly, as the habits bred by easy circumstances become more fixed. - The tendency to lavish expenditure has been stimulated, too, by the tempta- tion of the protective system to make a large revenue collected from duties on imports seem necessary. All govern- ments are prone to make taxation serve some other purpose than to raise reve- nue; that is, to foster or maintain some sort of polity. It was used for ages to promote inequality; now it is frequently used to promote certain special interests. In England, the import duties on corn were meant to benefit the landed inter- est and foster large estates. In Ameri- ca, the duties on imports are meant to benefit native manufactures indirectly; but by showing that they are also essen- tial to the government, a great deal of the opposition to them as a benefit to the manufacturers is disarmed. In no way can the needs of the government be made so conspicuous as by keeping the treasury empty. Since protection for industry was, after the war, incorporated in the fiscal system of the government, therefore, it has begotten extravagance almost as an inevitable accompaniment. The less money there is on hand, the higher does it seem that duties ought to be; and the way to keep little on hand is to spend freely. The difficulty of getting rid of the protective system, in any modern coun- try, is to be found in part in the growth of democracy. To the natural man, protec- tion for his products against competition is one of the primary duties of government. Every citizen or mechanic would fain keep the neighboring market to himself, if he could. The shoemaker wishes to make all the shoes of his village, the carpenter to do all the -carpentering. In fact, protection is the economical creed which the uninstructed political economist always lays hold of first. Its benefits seem clearest, and its opera- tion in his own interest is most visible and direct. This undoubtedly goes far to account for the failure of the free-trade theory to make more way in the world 42 The Decline of Legislatures. since the days of its early apostles. The arguments by which it is supported are a little too abstract and complex for the popular mind. The consequence is that a distinct revival of protectionism has accompanied the spread of popular gov- ernment both in Europe and Australia, and in this country. The use of the gov- ernment to keep the market for his pro- ducts, and the theory that the market is a privilege for the seller which he ought not to be expected to share with an alien, will long meet with ready acceptance from the workingman; so that the pro- tective system will probably pass away only under the influence, whether acci- dental or intentional, of a signal prosper- ity, which is clearly not due to the system. Whatever be its industrial or economical merits or demerits, its effect politically, in stimulating expenditure in the United States, has been plain; and as long as taxpayers respond so readily to pecuniary demands on them as they have always hitherto done, close calcula- tion of outgoings and incomings will not be easy to bring about. At present, the elasticity of our revenue, owing to the rapid increase ~f our population and the magnitude of our undeveloped re- sources, is one of the great wonders of European financiers, and renders the edu- cation of financial experts difficult. Any source of taxation which even the most inexperienced of our economists reaches is apt to pour forth results so abundant- ly as to make the caution, the anxiety, and the nice adjustments on which the financial system of the Old World is based appear unnecessary or even ridicu- lous. But the most serious defect in the com- mittee system, and the one that is hardest to remedy, is the stopper it puts on de- bate. The objection is often made, and with a show of reason, to the cabinet system, and its practice of deciding things only after open discussion, that it un- duly stimulates mere talk, and postpones actual business for the purpose of allow- ing a large number of persons to state arguments which are found not to be worth listening to and which have no real influence on the results. This is true, in particular, of all countries in which, as on the Continent, an attempt has been made to govern assemblies with- out parliamentary discipline and without practice in acting by parties rather than singly or in groups. Various forms of closure have been invented in order to check this habit. It may be found in an extreme degree in our own Senate, which has no closure, and in which ir- relevant speeches are inflicted by the hour, and even by the day, on unwilling listeners. But our demand on legisla- tive bodies for business has carried us to the other extreme, which may be seen in the House of Representatives. There is nothing, after all, more impor- tant to the modern world than that the intelligence and character of the nation should find their way into the legisla- tures; and for this purpose the legisla- tures should be made something more than scenes of obscurity, hard work, and small pay. The English House of Com- mons owed its attractiveness for two cen- turies, in spite of the non-payment of members, to the fact that it was the pleasantest club in Europe. It was also a place in which any member, how- ever humble his beginnings, had a chance to make fame as an orator. In recent days, legislatures in all the democratic countries have been made repulsive to men of mark by the pains taken to get business done and to keep down the flood of speech. Everybody who enters a legislature now for the first time, espe- cially if he is a man of talent and char- acter, is bitterly disappointed by find- ing that the rules take from him nearly every opportunity of distinction, and, in addition, condemn him to a great deal of obscure drudgery. It is only by the rarest chance that he finds an opening to speak, and his work on the commit- tees never shows itself to the public. It The Decline of Legislatures. 43 consists largely in passing on the mer- its of the thousands of schemes concoct- ed by inexperienced or ignorant men, and has really some resemblance to a college professors reading of themes. In fact, the committee room may be called the grave of honorable ambition. We find, accordingly, that only few men of real capacity, who have once gone to the legislature or to Congress, are will- ing to return for a second term, simpl3r because they find the work disagreeable and the reward inadequate; for it is one of the commonplaces of politics that, in every country, the number of able men who will serve the public without either pay or distinction is very small. Even the most patriotic must have one or the other; and to set up legislatures, as all the democratic countries have done, in which no one can look for either, is an experiment fraught with danger. If I am not greatly mistaken, the natural re- sult is beginning to show itself. There is not a country in the world, living under parliamentary government, which has not begun to complain of the decline in the quality of its legislators. More and more, it is said, the work of governments is falling into the hands of men to whom even small pay is important, and who are suspected of adding to their income by corruption. The withdrawal of the more intelligent class from legislative du- ties is more and more lamented, and the complaint is somewhat justified by the mass of crude, hasty, incoherent, and un- necessary laws which are poured on the world at every session. It is increasingly difficult to-day to get a man of serious knowledge on any subject to go to Con- gress, if he have other pursuits and other sources of income. To get him to go to the state legislature, in any of the pop- ulous and busy States, is well-nigh impos- sible. If he has tried the experiment once, and is unwilling to repeat it, and you ask him why, he will answer that the secret committee work was repulsive; that the silence and the inability to ac complish anything, imposed on him by the rules, were disheartening; and that the difficulty of communicating with his constituents, or with the nation at large, through the spoken and reported word, deprived him of all prospects of being rewarded by celebrity. It is into the vacancies thus left that the boss steps with full hands. He sum- mons from every quarter needy young men, and helps them to get into places where they will be able to add to their pay by some sort of corruption, however disguised, perhaps rarely direct bri- bery, but too often blackmail or a share in jobs; to whom it is not necessarythat the legislature should be an agreeable place, so long as it promises a livelihood. This system is already working actively in some States; it is spreading to others, and is most perceptible in the great cen- tres of affairs. It is an abuse, too, which in a measure creates what it feeds upon. The more legislatures are filled wiih bad characters, the less inducement there is for men of a superior order to enter them; for it is true of every sort of pub- lic service, from the army up to the cabi- net, that men are influenced as to enter- ing it by the kind of company they will have to keep. The statesman will not associate with the boy, if he can help it, especially in a work in which conference and persuasion play a large part. If it be true that the character and competency of legislators are declining, the evil is rendered all the more serious by the fact that the general wealth has increased enormously within the present century. Down to the French Revolu- tion, and we might almost say down to 1848, the western world, speaking broad- ly, was ruled by the landholding or rich class. Its wealth consisted mainly of land, and the owners of the land carried on the government. In commercial com- munities, like Genoa or Venice, or the Hanse Towns, the governing class was made up of merchants, but it was still the rich class. Within fifty years a great 44 The Decline of Legislatures. change has occurred. The improvement in communication has brought all the land of the world into the great mar- kets, and as a result the landowners have ceased to be the wealthy, and the demo- cratic movement has taken the govern- ment away from them. From the hands of the wealthy, the power, as a rule, has passed or is passing into the hands of men to whom the salary of a legislator is an object of some consequence, and who are more careful to keep in touch with their constituents than to afford ex- amples of scientific government, even if they were capable of it. Probably no greater revolution has taken place any- where, during the past century, than this change in the governing class. It can- not be said, in the light of history, that the new men are giving communities worse government than they used to have, but government in their hands is not progressing in the same ratio as the other arts of civilization, while the complexity of the-interests to be dealt with is stead- ily increasing. Science and literature are making, and have made, much more con- spicuous advances than the management of common affairg. Less attention is given to experience than formerly, while the expectation of some new idea, in which the peculiarities of human nature will have much slighter play, is becom- ing deeper and more widespread. No effect of this passage of legislative work into less instructed hands is more curious than the great stimulus it has given to legislation itself. Legislators now, apparently, would fain have the field of legislation as wide as it was in the Middle Ages. The schemes for the regu- lation of life by law, which are daily submitted to the committees by aspiring reformers, are innumerable. One legis- lator in Kansas was seeking all last win- ter to procure the enactment of the Ten Commandments. In Nebraska, another has sought to legislate against the wear- ing of corsets by women. Constant ef- forts are made to limit the prices of things, to impose fresh duties on com- mon carriers, to restrain the growth of wealth, to promote patriotic feeling by greater use of symbols, or in some man- ner to improve public morals by artifi- cial restraints. There is no legislature in America which does not contain mem- bers anxious to right some kind of wrong, or afford some sort of aid to human char- acter, by a bill. Sometimes th& bill is in- troduced to oblige a constituent, in full confidence that it will never leave the committee room; at others, to rectify some abuse or misconduct which hap- pens to have come under the legislators eye. Sometimes, again, the greater ac- tivity of one member drives into legisla- tion another who had previously looked forward to a silent session. The laurels of Miltiades will not let him sleep. Then it has to be borne in mind that, under the committee system, which has been faithfully copied from Congress in all the legislatures, the only way in which a member can make his constit- uents aware that he is trying to earn his salary is by introducing bills. It does not much matter that they are not finished pieces of legislation, or that there is but little chance of their passage. Their main object is to convince the dis- trict that its representative is awake and active, and has an eye to its interests. The practice of log-rolling, too, has become a fixed featuie in the procedure of nearly all the legislatures; that is, of making one members support of another members bill conditional on his receiv- ing the other members support for his own. In the attempted revolt against the boss, during the recent senatorial elec- tion in New York, a good many mem- bers who avowed their sense of Platts unfitness for the Senate acknowledged that they could not vote against him openly, because this would cause the de- feat of local measures in which they were interested. This recalls the fact that many even of the best men go to the legislature for one or two terms, not so The Decline of Legislatures. 45 much to serve the public as to secure the passage of bills in which they, or the vo- ters of their district, have a special con- cern. Their anxiety about these makes their subserviency to the majority com- plete, on larger questions, however it is controlled. You vote for an obviously unfit man for Senator, for instance, be- cause you cannot risk the success of a bill for putting up a building, or erect- ing a bridge, or opening a new street, in your own town. You must give and take. These men are reinforced by a large number by whom the service is ren- dered for simple livelihood. The spoils doctrine that public office is a prize, or a plum, rather than a public trust has effected a considerable lodgment in legislation. INot all receive their places as the Massachusetts farmer received his membership in the legislature, a few years ago, because he had lost some cows by lightning, but a formidable number young lawyers, farmers carrying heavy mortgages, men without regular occupa- tion and temporarily out of a job find service in the legislature, even for one term, an attractive mode of tiding over the winter. The mass of legislation or attempts at legislation due to this state of affairs is something startling. I have been unable to obtain records of the acts and resolu- tions of all the States for the same year. I am obliged to take those of Arkansas for the year 1893, four other States for 1894, ten for 1896, and the rest for 1895. But I have taken only one year for each State. The total of such acts and re- solutions is 15,730, and this is for a population of 70,000,000. In addition, Congress in 189596 passed 457 acts and resolutions. But the amount of work turned out is really not very surprising, when we consider the number of the legis- lators. There are no less than 447 nation- al legislators and 6578 state legislators, in all 7025, exclusive of county, city, and all other local authorities capable of passing rules or ordinances. At this ratio of legislators to population, 4000 at least would be engaged on the laws of Great Britain, without any provision for India and the colonies, 3800 on those of France, about 5000 on those of Ger- many, and 3000 on those of Italy. It will be easily seen what a draft this is on the small amount of legislative capacity which every community contains. No- thing like it has ever been seen in the history of the world. There is no coun- try which has yet shown itself capable of producing more than one small first-class legislative assembly. We undertake to keep going forty-five for the States alone, besides those for Territories. All these assemblies, too, have to do with interests of the highest order. As a general rule, in all governments the chief legislative body is entrusted with the highest func- tions. Its jurisdiction covers the weight- iest interests of the people who live un- der it. The protection of life and pro- perty, the administration of civil and criminal justice, and the imposition of the taxes most severely felt are among its duties. All minor bodies exist as its subordinates or agents, and exercise only such powers as it is pleased to delegate to them. This brings to the superior as- sembly, as a matter of course, the lead- ing men of the country, and by far the larger share of popular attention. In the formation of our federal Constitu- tion, this division, based on relative im- portance to the community, was not pos- sible. The States surrendered as little as they could. The federal government took what it could get, and only what seemed absolutely necessary to the cre- ation of a nation. The consequence is that, though Congress appears to be the superior body, it is not really so. It is more conspicuous, and, if I may use the word, more picturesque, but it does not deal with a larger number of serious pub- lic interests. The States have reserved to themselves the things which most con- cern a man s comfort and security as a citizen. The protection of his property, 46 The Decline of Legislatures. the administration of civil and criminal justice, the interpretation of contracts and wills, and the creation and regulation of municipalities are all within their ju- risdiction. Most of the inhabitants pass their lives without once coming into con- tact with federal authority. As a result, an election to Congress is only seeming political promotion. It gives the candi- date more dignity and importance, but he really has less to do with the every- day happiness of his fellow citizens than the state legislator. If he were deprived of the power of raising and lowering the duties on foreign imports and of bick- ering with foreign powers, his influence on the daily life of Americans would be comparatively small. When he goes to Washington, he finds himself in a larger and more splendid sphere, but charged with less of important governmental work. The grave political functions of the country are discharged in the state legislatures, but as a rule by inferior men. In so far as Congress makes a draft on the legislative capacity of the nation, it makes it at the expense of the local gov- ernments. For this anomaly it would be difficult to suggest a remedy. The division of powers between the Confederation and the States, though not a logical one, was probably the only possible one at the time it was made. The main work of government was left to the States, but by its conspicuousness the field at Washing- ton was made more attractive to men of talent and energy in politics; so that it may be said that we give an inordinate share of our parliamentary ability to af- fairs which concern us in only a minor degree. This, however, can hardly be considered as the result of a democrat- ic tendency. The federal arrangement has really nothing to do with democra- cy. It was made as the only practicable mode of bringing several communities into peaceful relations, and enabling them to face the world as a nation, though it might as readily have been the work of aristocracies as of democracies; but in so far as it has in any degree lowered the character of legislative bodies, demo- cracy has been made and will be made to bear the blame. This opinion has been strengthened by the discredit which has overtaken two very prominent features of the federal arrangement, the election of the Pre- sident by the electoral college, and the election of Senators by the state legisla- tures. The fact is that the complete disuse of their electoral functions within forty years after the adoption of the Constitu- tion was one of the most striking illus- trations that history affords of the fu- tility of polltical prophecy. Here is the judgment on this feature of their work by the framers of the Constitution, as set forth in The Federalist As the select assemblies for choosing the President, as well ~as the state legis- latures who appoint the Senators, will in general be composed of the most en- lightened and respectable citizens, there is reason to presume that their attention and their votes will be directed to those men only who have become the most dis- tinguished by their abilities and virtue, and in whom the people perceive just grounds for confidence. The Constitu- tion manifests very particular attention to this object. By excluding men under thirty-five from the first office, and those nnder thirty from the second, it confines the electors to men of whom the people have had time to form a judgment, and with respect to whom they will not be liable to be deceived by those brilliant appearances of genius and patriotism which, like transient meteors, sometimes mislead as well as dazzle. If the obser- vation be well founded, that wise kings will always be served by able ministers, it is fair to argue that as an assembly of select electors possess, in a greater de- gree than kings, the means of extensive and accurate information relative to men and characters, so will their appoint- ments bear at least equal marks of dis The Decline of Legislatures. 47 cretion and discernment. The inference is that President and Senators so chosen will always be of the number of those who best understand our national inter- ests, whether considered in relation to the several States or to foreign nations, who are best able to promote those in- terests, and whose reputation for integri- ty inspires and merits confidence. With such men the power of making treaties may be safely lodged. 1 And here is the opinion of the earli- est and most philosophic of our foreign observers, M. de Tocqueville When you enter the House of Re- presentatives at Washington, you are struck with the vulgar aspect of this great assembly. The eye looks often in vain for a celebrated man. Nearly all its members are obscure personages, whose names suggest nothing to the mind. They are for the most part village law- yers, dealers, or even men belonging to the lowest classes. In a country in which education is almost universal, it is said there are representatives of the people who cannot always write cor- rectly. Two steps away opens the hall of the Senate, whose narrow area in- closes a large part of the celebrities of America. One hardly secs there a sin- gle man who does not recall the idea of recent fame. They are eloquent advo- cates, or distinguished generals, or able magistrates, or well - known statesmen. Every word uttered in this great assem- bly would do honor to the greatest par- liamentary debates in Europe. Whence comes this strange con- trast? Why does the 6lite of the na- tion find itself in one of these halls more than in the other? Why does the first assembly unite so many vulgar ele- ments, while the second seems to have a monopoly of talents and intelligence? Both emanate from the people and both are the product of universal suffrage, and no voice, until now, has been raised in the United States to say that the The Federalist, No. LXIII. Senate was the enemy of popular inter~ ests. Whence comes, then, this enor- mous difference? I see only one fact which explains it: the election which produces the House of Representatives is direct; that which produces the Sen- ate is submitted to two degrees. The whole of the citizens elect the legisla- ture of each State, and the federal Con- stitution, transforming these legislatures in their turn into electoral bodies, draws from them the members of the Senate. The Senators, then, express, although in- directly, the result of the popular vote; for the legislature, which names the Sen- ators, is not an aristocratic or privileged body, which derives its electoral rights from itself; it depends eventually on the whole of the citizens. It is, in general, elected by them every year, and they can always govern its decisions by elect- ing new members. But the popular will has only to pass through this chosen as- sembly to shape itself in some sort, and issue from it in a nobler and finer form. The men thus elected represent, then, always exactly the majority of the na- tion which governs; but they represent only the more elevated ideas which cir- culate among them, the generous in- stincts which animate them, and not the small passions which often agitate them and the vices which disgrace them. It is easy to foresee a time when the Amer- ican Republic will be forced to multiply the two degrees in their electoral sys- temp on pain of wrecking themselves miserably on the shores of democracy. I do not hesitate to avow it. I see in the double electoral degree the only means of bringing political liberty with- in the reach of all classes of the people. Those who wish to make of it the ex- clusive weapon of a party, and those who fear it, seem to me to fall into the same error. 2 It is more than half a century since the electoral college, thus vaunted by its inventors, exerted any influence in the 2 De la D~mocratie en Am~rique, t. ii. p. 53. 48 The Decline of Legislatures. choice of the President. An attempt on the part of one of its members to use his own judgment in the matter would be treated as an act of the basest trea- chery. It has become a mere voting ma- chine in the hands of the party. The office of elector has become an emp- ty honor, accorded to such respectable members of the party as are unfit for, or do not desire, any more serious place. The candidates for the presidency are now chosen by a far larger body, which was never dreamed of by the makers of the Constitution, rarely bestows any thought on fitness as compared with popularity, and sits in the presence of an immense crowd which, though it does not actually take part in its proceedings, seeks to influence its decisions by every species of noise and interruption. In fact, all show of deliberation has been abandoned by it. Its action is settled beforehand by a small body of men sit- ting in a private room. The choice of the delegates is prescribed, and may be finally made under the influence of a se- cretly conducted intrigue, of a deal, or of a wild outburst of enthusiasm known as a stampede. A more thor- ough departure from the original idea of the electoral college could hardly be imagined than the modern nominating convention. It exemplifies again the un- fitness of a large body of equals, with- out discipline or leadership, for any de- liberative duty. As little as possible of the work of the convention is left to the convention itself. When the proceedings begin in the general assembly, each de- legate, as a rule, knows what he is to do. When the members break away from this inner control, under a sudden impulse, as at Chicago in 1896, they are quite likely to nominate a completely unknown man like Bryan through admiration for something like his cross of gold me- taphor, which throws no light whatever on his fitness for the office. The last two conventions illustrated strikingly the two dangers of these enormous as- semblies. The one at Chicago nominat- ed a man of whom the mass of the nation had never heard, and the other simply registered a decision which had been carefully prepared by politicians a year or two beforehand. In neither case was there anything which could be called de- liberation. Much the same phenomena are to be witnessed in the case of the election of Senators by state legislatures. The ma- chinery on which Tocqueville relied so confidently, the use of which he expect- ed to see spread, has completely broken down. The legislators have not continued to be the kind of men he describes, and their choice is not governed by the mo- tives he looked for. There is no longer such a thing as deliberation by the legis- latures over the selection of the Senators. The candidate is selected by others, who do not sit in the legislature at all, and they supply the considerations which are to procure him his election. He is given the place either on account of his past electioneering services to the party, or on account of the largeness of his contribu- tions to its funds. The part he will play in the Senate rarely receives any atten- tion. The anticipations of the framers of the Constitution, as set forth in the pas- sage from The Federalist which I have quoted, have been in no way fulfilled. The members of the legislature, as a gen- eral rule, when acting as an electoral col- lege, are very different from those whom the fathers of the republic looked for. In fact, the break-down of their system is widespread, and appears to have ex- erted such a deteriorating influence on the character of the Senate that we are witnessing the beginnings of an agita- tion for the election of Senators by the popular vote. Yet it is plain to be seen that no change whatever in the quality of the candidates can be expected from this as long as our nominating system remains what it is. The same persons who now prescribe to the legislature whom to elect would then prescribe to The Decline of Legislatures. 49 the party whom to elect, and their orders would be only occasionally disobeyed by means of a popular rising, when the candidates unfitness became more than usually conspicuous. I. Why the founders and Tocqueville were mistaken about the double election as a check is easily explained. The founders knew little or nothing about democracy except what they got from Greek and Roman history; Tocqueville saw it at work only before the Eng- lish traditions had lost their force. De- mocracy really means a profound belief in the wisdom as well as the power of the majority, not on certain occasions, but at whatever time it is consulted. All through American history this idea has had to struggle for assertion with the inherited political habits of the An- glo-Saxon race, which made certain things English or American just as to the Romans certain things were Roman, for no reason that could be easily stated except that they were prac- tices or beliefs of long standing. In England these habits have always com- posed what is called the British Consti- tution, and in America they have made certain rights seem immemorial or in- alienable, such as the right to a speedy trial by jury, the right to compensation for property taken for public use, the right to the decision of all matters in controversy by a court. This vague and ill-defined creed existed before any con- stitution, and had to be embodied in every constitution. The nearest approach to a name for it, in both countries, is the common law, or customs of the race, of which, however, since it formed or- ganized civilized societies, th~ courts of justice have always been the fountains or exponents. We have had to ask the judges in any given case what the com- mon law is, there being no written statement of it. It was consequently a comparatively easy matter, in America, VOL. Lxxx. NO. 477. 4 to get all questions in any way affecting the life, liberty, or property of individuals put into a fundamental law, to be inter- preted by the courts. Against this no- tion of the fitness of things, democracy, or the wisdom of the majority, has beaten its head in vain. That it should be hindered or delayed in carrying out its will by a written instrument, expounded and applied by judges, has, therefore, al- ways seemed natural. In all the countries of Continental Eu- rope, at the beginning of this century, it would have appeared a scandal or an ano- maly, that everybody should be liable to be called into court, no matter what of- fice he held, on the plaint of a private man. With us the thing has always been a simple and inherent part of our system. But in the matter of appoint- ment to office, which could have no effect upon or relation to private rights, pure democracy has never shown any dispo- sitioa to be checked or gainsaid. It has never shown any inclination to treat pub- lic officers, from kings down, as other than its servants or the agents of its will. It revolted very early against Burkes definition of its representatives, as statesmen set to exercise their best judgment in watching over the peoples interests. The democratic theory of the representative has always been that he is a delegate sent to vote, not for what he thinks best, but for what his constit- uents think best, even if it controverts his own opinion. The opposition to this view has been both feeble and incon- stant ever since the early years of the cen- tury. The delegate theory has been gaining ground in England, and in America has almost completely succeed- ed in asserting its sway, so that we have seen many cases recently in which mem- bers of Congress have openly declared their dissent from the measures for which they voted in obedience to their constit- uents. It was this determination not to be checked in the selection of officers, but to 50 The Decline of Legislatures. make the peoples will act directly on all nominations, which led to the early re- pudiation of ihe electoral college. That college was the device of those who doubted the wisdom and knowledge of the majority. But the majority was de- termined that in no matter within its jurisdiction should its wisdom and know- ledge be questioned. It refused to ad- mit that if it was competent to choose electors and members of Congress, it was not competent to choose the President. It accordingly set the electoral college ruthlessly aside at a very early period in the history of the republic. Tocque- villes idea that, in recognition of its own weakness and incompetence, it would spread the system of committing the ap- pointing power to small select bodies of its own people, shows how far he was from comprehending the new force which had come into the world, and which he was endeavoring to analyze through ob- servation of its working in American in- stitutions. It may seem at first sight as if this explanation does not apply to the fail- ures of the legislatures to act upon their own judgment in. the election of Sena- tors. But the election of Senators has run exactly the same course as the nom- ination of Presidents ; the choice has been taken out of the hands of the legislatures by the political party, and in each polit- ical party the people are represented by its managers, or the machine, as it is called. They insist on nominating, or, if in a majority, on electing the Sena- tors, just as they insist on nominating, or, if in a majority, on electing the Presi- dent. Nearly every legislator is elected now with a view to the subsequent elec- tion of the Senators whenever there is a vacancy. His choice is settled for him beforehand. The casting of his vote is a mere formality, like the vote of the presi- dential electors. The man he selects for the place is the man already selected by the party. With this mans goodness or badness, fitness or unfitness, he does not consider that he has anything to do. Nothing can less resemble the legisla- ture which filled the imagination of the framers of the Constitution than a legis- lature of our time assembled in joint convention to elect a Senator. It has hardly one of the characteristics which the writers of The Federalist ascribed to their ideal; it is little affected by any of the considerations which these gentle- men supposed would be predominant with it. This has already led to the begin- nings of an agitation for the direct elec- tion of Senators by the people; but such election, as I have tried to show, would really, as long as our present system of nomination continues, have very little or no effect on the situation. The result of their election by the people would be in no respect different from the result of their present election by the legislature, except in the omission of the legislative formality. They would still be designat- ed by the party managers, and the choice of the party managers would be set aside by the public only on rare occasions. Any change, to be effective, must be a change in the mode of nomination. All attempts to limit or control the direct choice of the people, such as the use of the lot or of election by several degrees, as in Venice, must fail, and all machin- ery created for the purpose will probably pass away by evasion, if not by legisla- tion. The difficulties of constitutional amendment are so great that it will be long before any legal change is made in the mode of electing Senators. It is not unsafe to assume that if any change be made in the mode of nomination, one of its first uses will be the practical impo- sition on all legislatures of the duty of electing to the Senate persons already designated by the voters at the polls. It must not be forgotten that democracy has everywhere only recently begun to rule, and that it is reveling in the enjoy- ment of the power which has now first come into its hands, and which it most envied kings and emperors through long The Decline of Legislatures. 51 ages, the power, that is, of appointing to high offices. It is this novelty more than aught else which fills all democratic lands with a rage for place, and makes the masses resent any attempt to inter- fere with their freedom of choice. The pleasure of seeing every place accessible to any sort of man is one which will decline but slowly, and will not be ex- hausted completely without some long experience of its disastrous effects; so that we can hardly expect any very sud- den change. As regards the state legislators them- selves, it is well to remember that all political prophets require nearly as much time as the Lyell school of geologists. It is difficult enough to foresee what change will come about, but it is still more difficult to foretell how soon it will come about. No writer on politics should forget that it took five hundred years for Rome to fall, and fully a thousand years to educe modern Europe from the media~val chaos. That the present le- gislative system of democracy will not last long there are abundant signs, but in what way it will be got rid of, or what will take its place, oi~ how soon democratic communities will utterly tire of it, he would be a very rash speculator who would venture to say confidently. The most any one can do is to point out the tendencies which are likely to have most force, and to which the public seems to turn most hopefully. At present, as far as one can see, the democratic world is filled with distrust and dislike of its parliaments, and sub- mits to them only under the pressure of stern necessity. The alternative appears to be a dictatorship, but probably the world will not see another dictator chosen for centuries, if ever. Democracies do not admit that this is an alternative, nor do they admit that legislatures, such as we see them, are the last thing they have to try. They seem to be getting tired of the representative system. In no country is it receiving the praises it re ceived forty years ago. There are signs of a strong disposition, which the Swiss have done much to stimulate, to try the referendum more frequently, on a larger scale, as a mode of enacting laws. One of the faults most commonly found in the legislatures, as I have already said, is the fault of doing too much. I do not think I exaggerate in saying that all the busier States in America, in which most capital is concentrated and most industry carried on, witness every meet- ing of the state legislature with anxiety and alarm. I have never heard such a meeting wished for or called for by a se- rious man outside the political class. It creates undisguised fear of some sort of interference with industry, some sort of legislation for the benefit of one class, or the trial of some hazardous experiment in judicial or administrative procedure, or in public education or taxation. There is no legislature to-day which is controlled by .scientiflc methods, or by the opinion of experts in jurisprudence or political economy. Measures devised by such men are apt to be passed with exceed- ing difficulty, while the law is rendered more and more uncertain by the enor- mous number of acts passed on all sorts of subjects. Nearly every State has taken a step to- wards meeting this danger by confining the meeting of its legislature to every second year. It has said, in other words, that it must have less legislation. In no case that I have heard of has the op- position to this change come from any class except the one that is engaged in the working of political machinery; that is, in the nomination or election of can- didates and the filling of places. The rest of the community, as a rule, hails it with delight. People are beginning to ask themselves why legislatures should meet even every second year; why once in five years would not be enough. An examination of any state statute - book discloses the fact that necessary legisla- tion is a rare thing; that the communi 52 The Decline of Legislatures. ties in our day seldom need a new law; and that most laws are passed without due consideration, and before the need of them has been made known either by popular agitation or by the demand of experts. It would not be an exaggera- tion to say that nine tenths of our mod- ern state legislation will do no good, and that at least one tenth of it will do posi- tive harm. If half the stories told about state legislatures be true, a very large proportion of the members meet, not with plans for the public good, but with plans either for the promotion of their person- al interests or for procuring money for party uses or places for party agents. The collection of such a body of men, not engaged in serious business, in the state capital is not to be judged simply by the bills they introduce or get passed. We have also to consider the immense opportunities for planning and scheming which the meetings offer to political job- bers and adventurers; and the effect, on such among them as still retain their po- litical virtue, of daily contact with men who are there simply for illicit purposes, and with the swarm who live by lobby- ing and get together every winter to trade in legislative votes. If I said, for instance, that the legislature at Albany is a school of vice, a fountain of polit- ical debauchery, and that few of the younger men come back from it without having learned to mock at political puri- ty and public spirit, I should seem to be using unduly strong language, and yet I could fill nearly a volume with illustra- tions in support of it. The temptation to use their great power for the extor- tion of money from rich men and rich corporations, to which the legislatures in the richer and more prosperous North- ern States are exposed, is immense; and the legislatures are mainly composed of very poor men, with no reputation to maintain or political future to look after. The result is that the country is filled with stories of scandals after every ad- journment, and the press teems with abuse, which legislators have learned to treat with silent contempt or ridicule, so that there is no longer aiiy restraint upon them. Their reAection is not in the hands of the public, but in those of the party managers, who, as is shown in the Payn case in New York, find that they can completely disregard popular judgments on the character or history of candidates. Side by side with the annual or bien- nial legislature we have another kind of legislature, the Constitutional Conven- tion, which retains everybodys respect, and whose work, generally marked by care and forethought, compares credit- ably with the legislation of any similar body in the world. Through the hun- dred years of national existence it has received little but favorable criticism from any quarter. It is still an honor to have a seat in it. The best men in the community are still eager or willing to serve in it, no matter at what cost to health or private affairs. I cannot re- call one convention which has incurred either odium or contempt. Time and social changes have often frustrated its expectations, or have shown its provi- sions for the public welfare to be inad- equate or mistaken, but it is very rare indeed to hear its wisdom and integrity questioned. In looking over the list of those who have figured in the conven- tions of the State of New York since the Revolution, one finds the name of near- ly every man of weight and prominence; and few lay it down without thinking how happy we should be if we could secure such service for our ordinary legislative bodies. Now what makes the difference? Three things, mainly. First, the Con- stitutional Convention, as a rule, meets only once in about twenty years. Men, therefore, who would not think of ser~- ing in an annual legislature, are ready on these rare occasions to sacrifice their personal convenience to the public in- terest. Secondly, every one knows that The Decline of Legislatures. 58 the labors of the body, if adopted, will continue in operation without change for the best part of ones lifetime. Thirdly, its conclusions will be subjected to the strictest scrutiny by the public, and will not be put in force without adoption by a popular vote. All this makes an American state constitution, as a rule, a work of the highest statesmanship, which reflects credit on the country, tends pow- erfully to promote the general happiness and prosperity, and is quoted or copied in foreign countries in the construction of organic laws. The Constitutional Con- vention is as conspicuous an example of successful government as the state legis- latures are of failure. If we can learn anything from the history of these bodies, therefore, it is that if the meetings of the legislature were much rarer, say once in five or ten years, we should secure a higher order of talent and character for its membership and more careful de- liberation for its measures, and should greatly reduce the number of the latter. But we can go further, and say that in- asmuch as all important matter devised by the convention is submitted to the people with eminent success, there is no reason why all grave measures of ordi- nary legislation should not be submitted also. In other words, the referendum is not confined to Switzerland.1 We have it among us already. All, or near- ly all our state constitutions are the pro- 1 Oberholtzers Referendum in America, p. 15. duct of a referendum. The number of important measures with which the le- gislature feels chary about dealing, which are brought before the people by its di- rection, increases every year. Upon the question of the location of the state cap- ital and of some state institutions, of the expenditure of public money, of the es- tablishment of banks, of the maintenance or sale of canals, of leasing public lands, of taxation beyond a certain amount, of the prohibition of the liquor traffic, of the extension of the suffrage, and upon sev- eral other subjects, a popular vote is of- ten taken in various States. In short, there is no discussion of the question of legislatures in which either great restriction in the number or length of their sessions, or the remission of a greatly increased number of subjects to treatment by the popular vote, does not ap~iear as a favorite remedy for their abuses and shortcomings. If we may judge by these signs, the representative system, after a century of existence, un- der a very extended suffrage, has failed to satisfy the expectations of its earlier promoters, and is likely to make way in its turn for the more direct action of the people on the most important ques- tions of government, and a much-dimin- ished demand for all legislation what- ever. This, at all events, is the only remedy now in sight, which is much talked about or is considered worthy of serious attention. E. L. Godkin. 54 One Fair Daughter. ONE FAIR DAUGHTER. I. Mn. REGINALD DORSEY not only re- cognized the unique distinction of being the father of such a girl as Edith, but he felt as well the responsibilities of the position. Mr. Dorsey had never taken any responsibility lightly. He carried a habit of high discretion into the least detail of his mental operations. It must be dazzling high noon before he would fully admit that the day was likely to be fine. He made no investment or pur- chase until he had permitted the sun to go down many times upon his indecision. His ultimate opinion was watched, waited for, and acted upon. Nine different cor- porations boasted that he was one of tkeir directors, and that single circumstance made each enterprise known as both pay- ing and safe, like that tower instanced by Dante which, firmly fixed, shakes not its head for any blast that blows. Edith had been motherless since she was a child of three, and Mr. Dorsey had been left unaided to grapple with the crucial questions which rose at each stage of the girls development. He had not only to arrive at some solution of purely ethical and intellectual problems, but to meet the climbing wave of femi- nine evolution and to experiment with modern ideas. Should Edith go in for the higher education? Should Edith attend dancing-classes? Should Edith be permitted to learn to ride the bicycle? Each of these questions had in turn to be met, looked at in all lights, and final- ly decided by a conscientious and con- sistent theory. Mr. Dorsey wished to preserve in his daughter what he recog- nized as her distinctive attributes: an old-time modesty, seriousness, and sim- plicity which raised her so far above van- ity and caprice as to efface both. Still, although it was his duty, his function, the reason of his existence, to foster in her the tendencies he loved and believed in, what he tried to keep in mind was her ultimate good. She was not only his child, but the child of her age. Since she had been born in the last quarter of the century, he must meet its requirements for her. Thus Edith took the prepara- tory college course; she rode the bicycle, but round dances she did not learn. She was brought up in almost conventual se- clusion, and up to the age of nineteen, ex- cept her father and her professors, she had not one single acquaintance among the opposite sex. Nevertheless, Mr. Dorsey, who thought of every possible emergency for Edith, had thought of her marriage, a marriage which was to crown a brilliant social career after her education was complete, always with compressed lips and a knitting of the brows, which meant that no man would ever become Ediths husband until he had been weighed in the balance and not found wanting, had gone through the needles eye, in short, submitted to a series of rigid tests. Thus when, soon after Ediths nine- teenth birthday, Mr. Dorsey received a proposal of marriage for his daughter, the effect upon his mind was abrupt and extraordinary. He had just returned from a journey, and, washed, shaven, and freshly dressed in his habitual suit of gray tweed, had sat down in his library to look over the letters which had ar- rived in his absence, when a card was brought to him, on which he read Mr. Gordon Rose. Who Mr. Gordon Rose might be Mr. Dorsey was comfortably far from having any idea. A strange young man was ushered in, who met the glance of the tall, slim, clear-eyed gen- tleman almost like a culprit as he stam- mered out a few faltering words to the effect that Edith had accepted him, and

54 One Fair Daughter. ONE FAIR DAUGHTER. I. Mn. REGINALD DORSEY not only re- cognized the unique distinction of being the father of such a girl as Edith, but he felt as well the responsibilities of the position. Mr. Dorsey had never taken any responsibility lightly. He carried a habit of high discretion into the least detail of his mental operations. It must be dazzling high noon before he would fully admit that the day was likely to be fine. He made no investment or pur- chase until he had permitted the sun to go down many times upon his indecision. His ultimate opinion was watched, waited for, and acted upon. Nine different cor- porations boasted that he was one of tkeir directors, and that single circumstance made each enterprise known as both pay- ing and safe, like that tower instanced by Dante which, firmly fixed, shakes not its head for any blast that blows. Edith had been motherless since she was a child of three, and Mr. Dorsey had been left unaided to grapple with the crucial questions which rose at each stage of the girls development. He had not only to arrive at some solution of purely ethical and intellectual problems, but to meet the climbing wave of femi- nine evolution and to experiment with modern ideas. Should Edith go in for the higher education? Should Edith attend dancing-classes? Should Edith be permitted to learn to ride the bicycle? Each of these questions had in turn to be met, looked at in all lights, and final- ly decided by a conscientious and con- sistent theory. Mr. Dorsey wished to preserve in his daughter what he recog- nized as her distinctive attributes: an old-time modesty, seriousness, and sim- plicity which raised her so far above van- ity and caprice as to efface both. Still, although it was his duty, his function, the reason of his existence, to foster in her the tendencies he loved and believed in, what he tried to keep in mind was her ultimate good. She was not only his child, but the child of her age. Since she had been born in the last quarter of the century, he must meet its requirements for her. Thus Edith took the prepara- tory college course; she rode the bicycle, but round dances she did not learn. She was brought up in almost conventual se- clusion, and up to the age of nineteen, ex- cept her father and her professors, she had not one single acquaintance among the opposite sex. Nevertheless, Mr. Dorsey, who thought of every possible emergency for Edith, had thought of her marriage, a marriage which was to crown a brilliant social career after her education was complete, always with compressed lips and a knitting of the brows, which meant that no man would ever become Ediths husband until he had been weighed in the balance and not found wanting, had gone through the needles eye, in short, submitted to a series of rigid tests. Thus when, soon after Ediths nine- teenth birthday, Mr. Dorsey received a proposal of marriage for his daughter, the effect upon his mind was abrupt and extraordinary. He had just returned from a journey, and, washed, shaven, and freshly dressed in his habitual suit of gray tweed, had sat down in his library to look over the letters which had ar- rived in his absence, when a card was brought to him, on which he read Mr. Gordon Rose. Who Mr. Gordon Rose might be Mr. Dorsey was comfortably far from having any idea. A strange young man was ushered in, who met the glance of the tall, slim, clear-eyed gen- tleman almost like a culprit as he stam- mered out a few faltering words to the effect that Edith had accepted him, and One Fair Daughter. that he had come to ask her fathers con- sent to their marriage. Your marriage to my daughter! ejaculated Mr. Dorsey. He went on to observe that never in his life had he heard of such presumption. He glanced at the card which he had crumpled in his hands. Mr. Gordon Rose, he de- clared witheringly, was a perfect stran- ger both to him and to Miss Dorsey. We have been together almost two weeks, gasped Gordon. Been together almost two weeks! Fa- tal two weeks, spent by Mr. Dorsey most reluctantly in a trip to the Southwest with a party of railway magnates to look after the interests of a railroad which had fallen into their hands. For the period of his absence he had confided Edith to the care of his aunt, Mrs. Car- michael, an old lady, who, with an inva- lid daughter, lived at Lenox. For almost the first time in his life taken unaware, Mr. Dorsey proceeded to put question after question to his visitor. The situa- tion became clear, painfully clear. Gor- don Rose had been visiting at a place adjoining Mrs. Carmichaels. He and Edith had met; he had taught her golf; they had played it together. Just twen- ty-four hours before he had asked her to marry him, and she had told him her father was then upon the point of reach- ing New York, and that she could do nothing without his consent. Without her fathers consent? Of course Miss Dorsey could never become engaged without her fathers consent. She could never become engaged at all except by the gradual development of an acquaintance of long years, the result of thorough experience, a perfect con- geniality. There is the most perfect congenial- ity! exclaimed Gordon in a tone almost of indignation. We fell in love on the instant it was Nonsense! absurd! said Mr. Dor- sey testily, and proceeded to define his ideas of love and marriage, no acci 55 dent, no haphazard outcome of spending a few days in the same neighborhood, but the irresistible evolution of a logical sit- uation, each step developed on a precon- ceived plan, in short, inevitable. This was inevitable, declared Gor- don, trying to assert himself against that freezing demeanor, that impenetrable face, that icy glance, that cold, critical tone which seemed not only unsympa- thetic, but final. We saw each other from morning until night; we A mere chance acquaintance, Mr. Dorsey insisted, founded on no reason, leading to no sequence.~~ I wish to marry Miss Dorsey, fal- tered Gordon. I can support her hand- somely. I can support my daughter without the aid of any man alive, said Mr. Dor- sey. Gordon murmured deprecatingly that he had no doubt of that. But, he added, Edith likes me, and She knows nothing, nothing what- ever, on the subject. She has been care- fully brought up. All her thoughts have been given to her books. Her educa- tion has hardly begun. She is to enter college next year. She has never gone into society. I consider twenty - three years of age the time for a girl to enter society. Edith is a mere child. If for a few days while I took a business jour- ney, leaving her, as I supposed, carefully guarded and chaperoned She was chaperoned, that is, Mrs. Carmichael had us always in view as we played golf; she said she liked to watch us through her opera-glass, Gordon ex- plained. I blush to think of an honorable mans taking advantage of such inno- cence, such inexperience. Gordon blushed for himself. Up to this moment he had been inclined to ac- cept a generous estimate of his circum- stances and position, not to say his per- sonal qualities, but he now felt himself dwindling to the vanishing point. 56 One Fair Daughter. Knowing as I only can Miss Dor- seys preeminence in family position, in social prestige, not to say in beauty, in intellect, in character, pursued Mr. Dor- sey, easily discerning the fact that the young man was each moment becoming more and more discomfited, naturally I have my own views regarding the alli- ance I shall deem fitting for her when she reaches the proper age.~~ Gordons gaze fastened eagerly upon the gray, grim, well-shaven face. I should like, Mr. Dorsey contin- ued, to see her the wife of an English statesman, of a man like Mr. Glad- stone. Gordons whole face expressed intense passionate indignation. Mr. Gladstone is more than eighty years old! he burst out. I mean a man of that sagacity, that distinction, that trained ability, that test- ed charaLcter. The matter of age I should regard very little, unless possibly it was too absolutely disproportionate. To my mind, few men under fifty years of age are safe guardians of a womans happi- ness. Gordon uttered an expressive gasp. Failing such a statesman as Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Dorsey proceeded more and more blandly, failing some English- man not only of high birth, title, ances- tral estates, but of the most unblemished moral character, I should like her to be- come the wife of one of our ambassadors. An American ambassador? An American ambassador such as Mr. Motley or Mr. Lowell, Mr. Dorsey explained. Gordon looked bewildered; he looked also in despair. But they are dead, he murmured. Mr. Dorsey did not gainsay the state- ment, nor the possible inference that what he demanded for Edith was some- thing wholly out of reach. What he needed to do was to nip this presumptu- ous young fellows aspirations in the bud, and from Gordons look and manner this seemed successfully achieved. Sitting in his familiar library chair, an elbow on each arm, his hands raised, fingers ex- tended as if ready to check off any dam- aging admission, Mr. Dorsey now began a series of categorical questions, and they were answered in this wise. Gordon Rose was the son of a Scotch- man, poor, but of good family, who had come to this couutry at the age of twen- ty, taken a position in a New England manufacturing concern, and five years later married the daughter of the chief partner. Both he and his wife had died early, leaving Gordon, their only child, to be brought up by his maternal grand- father, Elihu Curtis. Elihu Curtis had retired from business ten years before, and had settled down quietly in an in- land city. He had now been dead almost a year, and had left all lie possessed to his grandson. Had he, Gordon, been well educated? Gordon, recalling how only by dint of being crammed by three different experts he had finally passed his examinations at Harvard, said diffi- dently that he was afraid Mr. Dorsey would not think so. Had he failed to take a degree? Oh, he was a B. A., but no doubt the husband of Edith would be expected to have Ph. D. or LL. D. after his name. What was his age? Twenty- four; and the shake of the head showed that this was by far too young. What friends had he to vouch for him? Gor- don named half a dozen without receiv- ing more than a cold stare; but when he mentioned Bartram Van Kleeck, Mr. Dorsey was so good as to remark dryly that he believed Van Kleeck was engaged to marry a distant cousin of his own and a friend of Ediths. Bartram has known me all my life, Gordon was now ready to announce, when Mr. Dorsey went on to add that Van Klecck being, he feared, destitute of those qualities which command success, he was hardly in a position to permit his commendation to carry weight. At this point it occurred to Gordon to One Fair Daughter. interpose a plea for himself. He knew, he said, that he was altogether unworthy of Miss Dorsey; still Mr. Dorsey snapped at the admission as a hungry dog snaps at a bit of meat. He observed frigidly that he could not consent to his daughters accepting the attentions of a man who confessed him- self unworthy of her, and he seemed so ready to conclude the interview that Gor- don, bewildered, disappointed, chilled to the heart, with this denial reverberating in his heart and brain, got himself out of the house. Of course he was unworthy of Edith. It was not that he fell short of being Mr. Gladstone, an English peer, or an American ambassador, but because he was simply a man, while Edith was an angel. Hitherto Gordon had taken life only too happily; he had not known the meaning of despair. Now his de- spair was great, and he poured it forth in three letters to Edith. Mr. Dorsey had lost no time in going to Lenox and taking his daughter home to their country place on the North Riv- er, and these letters fell into his hands. They were written with convincing force and naturalness. He had seen Gordon, and knew the handsome, eager young face behind them, and they did not wholly dis- please him. In fact, in spite of the in- tense shock of feeling Gordon had given him, something in the way the young man had looked, listened, and spoken had touched the paternal chord. Mr. Dorsey had never had a son, but had al- ways felt a vague yearning for one. Of course this foolish young fellow was not a suitable husband for Edith; but then Mr. Dorsey did not desire any sort of a husband for Edith, not even an English statesman or an American ambassador, for at least ten years to come. He wished to keep his daughter to himself. But alas, he found that Edith was pining, pining for the lover, the friend, her father had denied her. Mr. Dorsey set himself to the task of finding out all he could about Gordon Rose. Gordon 57 had done as many foolish things as most other young fellows, but perhaps he had been led into them, and left to find his own way out of the scrapes. They were faults which a nervous, bilious, over-con- scientious father might make out as big as a steeple, but they were still the sort of foibles which a man who longed to see his daughter cease pining could put in his sleeve. Mr. Dorsey sent for Bar- tram Van Kiceck and had a talk with him. Van Kleeck was conscientious to the core, and no mere feeling of camara- derie, of so to speak helping a lame dog over a stile, could make him say that he considered Gordon a model. To his thinking, Gordon was spoiled, had had too much of everything. No man amount- ed to much who had never borne the yoke in his youth, and no yoke had galled Gor- dons shoulders; indeed, old Elihu Cur- tis had said that he wanted to see how a young fellow would turn out who had al- ways had a good time. Too high spirits; he overdoes the thing, said Van Kleeck. Still, when pressed for facts, he admitted that Gor- dons high spirits had not led him into anything worse than absurdity. If I had his money and his leisure for diver- sions, I should require them huge, said Van Kleeck. He is only a boy; he may safely be forgiven a good deal. Mr. Dorsey decided to go to Gordons rooms and have a talk with him. It was such a pity, with his fortune, with his advantages generally, to throw away his chances without looking at them serious ly. Life is full of opportunities for re- nunciation. Let him renounce. Let him apply to himself a series of rigid tests. Burning to impress these truths upon Gordon, Mr. Dorsey tapped at his door. He had chosen an unfortunate moment. II. It is all over, Gordon said next day in a sepulchral voice, looking up as 58 One Fair Daughter. Bartram Van Kleeck entered his room. Van Kleeck had dropped in to tell some important news of his own, but, finding Gordon plunged in the depths of de- spair, was obliged to listen to an account of Mr. Dorseys visit. It s all over, Gordon said again. He would nt hear a word I told him. He simply ejaculated, This is incredi- ble, this is incredible! Unless I had seen it with my own eyes, I could never have believed it! I confess I cant blame him, said Van Kleeck. How a man deeply in love, and in love too with a girl like Edith Dorsey, as you profess to be Profess to be? should lower his dignity by dan- cing a skirt-dance I was nt dancing a skirt-dance. You just told me that when Mr. Dorsey entered the room he found you executing a pas seul. I explained to you how it happened, I explained to Mr. Dorsey, but neither of you will listen to me. It was Alexis Brown, who was coming to my rooms to take a lesson of Madame Bonfanti. She and her daughter had arrived. I heard the elevator, then a step in the hall. I supposed it was Alexis. I slipped on the skirt, raised one foot in air the door opened And instead of Alexis Brown it was Mr. Dorsey, said Van Kleeck, when Gordon paused and uttered a groan. He must have been surprised. He saw Madame Bonfanti? Saw her? He looked at her as if she had been a cobra. You should have heard her after he had gone out. She went away in dudgeon, poor woman! She should nt have come. No doubt she should nt have come; but Alexis wanted to dance the skirt- dance at an entertainment he and some other fellows are getting up, and as he assured me there was nt room to swing a cat in his quarters, I told him he might come to mine and welcome. Certainly, said Van Kleeck, with a shake of his grave, capable head, it was most unlucky. Unlucky! If I could lay it to luck! If I did not have to lay it to my being a fool! I had little or no hope before of winning Edith; now I ye lost her irretrievably, and the rest of life is no- thingness and void, darkness and gnash- ing of teeth. I did it all myself, but yet I m not such an idiot as I seem. Bart, I give you my word of honor I m not. It s your confounded high spirits, said Van Kleeck. The two young men had been friends from their boyhood, but they were in all respects opposites. Van Kleeck had al- ways been poor, while Gordon was rich. Gordon was fair, with golden-brown hair, a bright chivalrous face, his whole look and manner showing love of life and capacity for enjoyment. Van Kleeck was dark, sallow, saturnine, with deeply set gray eyes under penthouse brows, and a heavy jaw giving extra firmness to his proud, well-curved lip. Every- thing in his appearance suggested solid- ity; that he was a decided fellow, never taken unaware; with unerring judgment, determined aims, and developed capaci- ties. He had made his way through college chiefly by gaining prizes and fellowships; but in spite of high degrees in mathematics, physics, and chemistry, at twenty - eight years of age he had found nothing more profitable than an instructorship. His phrase for two years had been, I must have money, and his object in coming to-day was to tell Gordon of a golden opportunity at last presented. Self-denial and self-restraint had always been the law of Van Kleecks existence, and accordingly he offered his sympathy, and waited for his own chance to come. It s your confounded high spirits, he reiterated, sitting down opposite Gor- don, and speaking with his usual air of understanding the whole subject. High spirits! repeated Gordon in- A One Fair Daughter. 59 credulously. If I had nt been so utter- ly wretched, so utterly broken in spirit, I could nt have permitted the thing to happen. It was a mere stop-gap. I confess I have sometimes envied you your high spirits, Van Kleeck con- ceded, with an air as if his companion had made no disclaimer. I shall never have any more high spirits. I m out of conceit with exist- ence. I understand to-day why men comrnit suicide. It s the irony of life, of circumstances, that makes men cyn- ical. You have nt the faintest notion of what cynicism means, retorted Van Kleeck, who began to feel that he had done his duty. How do you suppose you would have borne what I have had to bear, what I shall have to bear for a long time yet? I consider you just the happiest fel- low in the world, engaged to the girl you love, nobody and nothing to hinder! Nothing to hinder, when we have been engaged for two years, and are still too poor to marry! Oh, the mere question of money The mere question of money! It s the only question. Here it is driving me to a climate which may very possibly kill me. Have you really got that pffer you were telling me about? Got it, and accepted it. I sail for Southampton a week from to-day; go to London for instructions, then to South Africa. I must have money, and this is the only chance I know of getting it. Are you going to be married, and take your wife with you? No, answered Van Kleeck, knitting his brows. Cerise flung herself into the idea at first with her usual ardor; but her uncle objects, and, upon reflec- tion, it seems the best thing for me to go out alone, make and save all I can, and wait another two years. Married life is so expensive. It is hard, said Gordon in a tone of commiseration. Still, if I knew I was sure to have Edith at the end even of two years, I should be willing to work like a galley-slave. I see you working like a galley- slave! You dont know what is in me, Gordon declared. Nobody except Edith knows what is in me. Edith could do anything with me. As Ediths hus- band, I do believe even Mr. Dorsey would never have occasion to find fault with me. She could keep me straight. Without her I shall go to the devil. A man walking upright, and not a swine running headlong into the sea, has no business to talk in that way, said Van Kleeck, with impatient disgust. Whether you marry Edith or dont marry Edith, you are yourself answer- able to your Maker and to society for your actions. If you could be a man with her, you can be a man without her. Besides, you do yourself injustice. I have told you that I said to Mr. Dorsey that if I were Gordon Rose with his money and his leisure, instead of being tied by the leg by poverty and overwork, I should have done twenty foolish things, not to say worse, where he has done one. The push is in me, only I have no money. Mr. Dorsey believes the worst of me, you may be sure of that. Nonsense! I will go and see him. If you really care about Edith, and she cares about you, this absurdity will not stand in the way. But show a little sense, a little discrimination; prove to Mr. Dorsey that as his son-in-law He will never give me the chance. You should have seen his eyes, you should have heard his tone, as he said, I have come to return these letters, with the re- quest that there shall be no more. It froze the very heart within me. You had written to Edith? Naturally I had written to her. You dont suppose I Did he intercept the letters? I dare say she handed them over to 60 One Fair Daughter. him. That s Edith, all honor, all de- votion, all duty! She said to me that her father had only her, and that she had had only her father. Ah! the look she gave me as she said this, the look which told me he was no longer every- thing to her! It goes through me like a knife, it is an actual physical pain. And now her father will tell her Tell her you were dancing a skirt- dance with a hideous old Frenchwoman. It was only a pretense. I was not dancing it. But you had on the skirt. Gordon groaned. I fancy, from certain things Cerise has dropped, that Edith is a little au- stere. No more austere than a woman ought to be. I want a woman austere. That s why I love Edith, thats why I long to marry Edith, that she may be my conscience-keeper. I confess I prefer to take care of my own conscience, and my wifes too, said Van Kleeck. It s the law of con- traries that draws us, he pursued philo- sophically. Now, you, who are perhaps too mercurial, nee4 a woman to brace you up. I m a little dry and serious, and I require relaxation and amusement; Cerise is such a fascinating mixture of high spirits and submissive childlike sim- plicity, she just suits me. There is an infinite variety about Miss Gale, I should judge, from what lit- tle I have seen of her, returned Gordon, willing to humor his friend. She may not be beautiful like Edith, but she is I consider her the most beautiful girl I know, explained Van Kleeck, with warmth. Such a shimmer of radiance, such endless variety. Certainly most attractive, Gordon conceded. I confess my ideal is of a woman who is always the same. Van Kleecks ideal was exactly the opposite. The subject was most suggest- ive. Each saw his beloved in the hues of his desire for her. Each tried to de fine to the other just where lay the over- mastering charm. In the mere fact that the two girls were cousins (thrice re- moved) was some piquancy. Miss Dor- sey offered a sense of tranquillity, of re- pose; Miss Gale, on the other hand, stimulated. In Miss Dorseys dress and manner were no lures, no traps to the imagination: her gowns were plain; she wore no curl, no flower, hardly a ribbon. What especially bewitched Van Kleeck was that Miss Gale and her frizzes, her gowns, her ribbons, her laces, shoes, and gloves all played into each other, as it were. It was no easy matter to define what was chiffon and what the woman. But, poor child, she will be terribly lonely in that dreary suburb, said Van Kleeck. I do wish you would go and see her once a week or so, Gordon. It would be something to do, said Gordon; that is, if She can tell you about Edith. Where Van Kleeck was everything fell into order. He had rallied Gordon out of despair. Gordon had come to New York to study law. He was to have a desk in Judge Grahams office and attend the law school, and now it was settled that he should apply himself with all his might and main, and show Mr. Dorsey there was stuff in him. Just use a little judgment, a little tact, insisted Van Kleeck. These rich men dont yearn to hand over their money and their daughters to foolish young fellows who will take no care of either. Always be on your guard. Some- body is always watching you, weighing you. Now there was Macalpine, the capi- talist, coming home from Mount Desert, and somewhere the party he belonged to missed a connection. Their tickets were limited, and either they had to pay two dollars extra, or sit down and wait for a couple of hours for their own train. I dont know any easier way of making two dollars than sitting down here and waiting for two hours, said old Macal- pine. But there was Linsley Crooke, One Fair Daughter. who had been attentive to Mary Macal- pine all that month at Mount Desert: he said he could nt afford to wait two hours for two dollars, so jumped into the unlimited and went on. That young man is too high-priced an article, said Macalpine. And so it appeared, for, three days after, Mary Macalpine refused Linsley point-blank. There s a Provi- dence that watches over these things. Good heavens, murmured Gordon in a tone of awe, what pitfalls there are for fellows! With Edith along, I would sit down cheerfully and wait for a week; but otherwise Yet really, now, Bartram, a business man might lose a small fortune by sitting down and wait- ing two hours. I know; I thought of that when I heard the story, Van Kleeck admitted, wrinkling his forehead slightly. These distinctions are subtle. I simply wished to warn you to be on guard, study hard, gain the good opinion of solid men, and your chance will come. Edith will be faithful, like a rock, and finally Mr. Dorsey is likely to give in. Still, Van Kleeck added, with a sudden far-reach- ing vista of thought, it s p~ little singu- lar how apt a man who has one only daughter is to sacrifice her. Look at Agamemnon. And Jephthah! Gordon exclaimed, aghast. Then there was the Merchant of Venice, Van Kleeck pursued; and just recall how Portias father limited her free choice by means of those caskets. And how that horrible old Polonius played with Ophelia! It s the instinct of a man, if he has one daughter and loves her devotedly, to sacrifice her, no doubt of that, said Van Kleeck. Perhaps it is just as well he should do so, for if he does not sacri- fice her, she is likely to sacrifice him. Look at Desdemona, for example. Gordon tried to adjust these wide gen- eralizations to personal particular mean- ings. Van Kleeck could reduce his own experience to a formula, but Gordons ex- perience always seemed chaotic, defying fixed rules. In the present case, it turned out that at this very hour, three oclock in the afternoon, while the two friends were discussing the best means of propi- tiating Mr. Dorsey, that gentleman and his daughter had already embarked for Europe. Before Gordon was aware of the fact, there were some hundreds of miles of unplumbd, salt, estranging sea between him and Edith. What was she thinking of him? What was she doing? Talking to others, devoting her- self to others, while he himself was re- jected, condemned unheard, pushed out of sight, left to suffer. What was life worth under these circumstances? Van Kleeck, sailing just one week later than the Dorseys, bade Gordon study law and go to see Miss Cerise Gale. III. Miss Gale was an orphan, and lived with her uncle and aunt, who had a plea- sant place at Capua, fifteen miles from New York. To pay visits in the suburbs requires no little premeditation. It necessitates the study of time-tables; it is a sacrifice of time, also of money; but above all, it leads to intimacy by the shortest route. In town, a man rings his friends door-bell, enters, and stays ten minutes or an hour, as the spirit moves him. In a remote suburb, his first in- voluntary movement towards picking up his hat is met by the precise statement that one train has just gone, but that there will be another in thirty-seven min- utes. Those thirty-seven minutes have altered the destiny of many a man. The 4.03 train from town reached Capua at 4.31. To return by the 4.58 gave Gordon exactly sixteen minutes to spend with Miss Gale. Could this frac- tion of an hour have been devoted solely to inquiries about whether she had news from Edith and her answers, he might, 61 62 One Fair Daughter. after greedily snatching at this refresh- ment, have flown to the station and caught the last car of the 4.58. It was, however, essential that he should endea- vor to console Miss Gale for the absence of Van Kleeck: thus he was obliged to prolong his stay for a whole hour. I know what a sacrifice it is, Miss Gale said, with appreciation. I tell Bartram, every time I write, what cour- age you show. You are the most de- voted friend to him! Actually, if any pne has the supreme good fortune to live in town, I dont consider life long enough to live in a suburb. Life seems pretty long to me just at present, Gordon answered, with a sigh. It s a distinct relief to come out here and Talk about Edith, Miss Gale made haste to suggest, with her half-arch, half- pleading glance and smile. It s just too awfully good of you. I know what an effort it is, for my whole life has been spoiled by the necessity of catching trains. I never expect to sit through a whole play or a whole concert; and if I go to a party, I miss the supper and the dances with the partners I really care about, for aunt whisks me away. Embarked on this subject, Miss Gale went on to describe the difficulties Bar- tram had found in the way of taking her to places of amusement, and how glad he had been to give it all up, declaring that a quiet talk before the fire and a good book were so much more satisfactory. We have learned to do things inex- pensively, she added, sighing. Bar- tram is always praising economy. She confided to Gordon the pathetic fact that she cried herself to sleep every night. He naturally improved this chance of as- suring her that it was sure to be a brief parting. Van Kleeck would make a for- tune; his salary was large, his chances for investment were good. If it were but a question of money which divided him from Edith! Cerise had no alternative but to cheer up the despondent lover. Although cousin Reginald was jealous of every man who came near Edith, still he had actually but one wish, which was to make the dear girl happy. I have not the least doubt but that you and Edith will be married long before Bartram and I are! she burst out, with strong feeling. We have been engaged already for two years.~~ Gordon said that to be engaged, really engaged, must of itself be such a hap- piness; and he went on to quote Van Kleecks observation, that a long engage- ment was an admirable discipline. It is, returned Cerise. It makes one so sure of ones own heart. Bar- tram said when he was going away, If our love for each other were a thing of days, of weeks, even of months, I might tremble, but you have belonged to me for two years.~ With delightful candor, she described the incidents of their love affair: her impressions of Bartram, his impressions of her; the gradual leading up of their acquaintance to their engagement. Gor- don waited impatiently for her to finish, then gave the story of his thirteen days with Edith, every day about sixteen hours long. Each lent an outward atten- tion to the other, eager for a chance to pour out his or her personal revelations. It is loves instinct to halo the absent, and when Gordon wished to have Miss Gale sing the praises of Edith lie would begin thus: Van Kleeck has none of the petty vices, the love of idleness and luxury, which undermine the character of most men. No, indeed. He says that most of us manufacture our own indigestion and laziness by eating bonbons. He does nt approve of bonbons. What I admire in him is that he carries the same consistent economy, the same conscientious thrift and indepen- dence, into the least detail of his conduct. Now when I occasionally ask him to dine with me, he insists on ordering his One Fair Daughter. 68 own meal and paying for it. I should rather enjoy doing the thing handsome- ly, but it ends in our having each a chop or beefsteak, a boiled potato, and a glass of beer. He is not only abstemious himself, but he makes other people abstemious! Miss Gale would exclaim, with admira- tion. I have given up everything I really like. I try to be a Spartan. He will not want you to be a Spar- tan, Gordon would insist. Quite the contrary. He stints himself to be lavish in other directions. He is always plan- ning for a happy future. I said to him once, Van Kleeck, what do you do with your old clothes? and he replied, I wear them. Now I call that heroic. Is nt it grand? It s what makes me adore him. I only wonder how he can stoop to care about poor little me. A compliment was of course dropped in here, just as a wise landowner pops an acorn out of his pocket into a vacant place on his estate, wishing it to grow and flourish for five hundred years. Gor- don, however, improved the occasion sim- ply to fill up the gap which yawned for it. He was not insincere, and there was a certain zest, even in his present state of desolation, in offering some mild form of flattery to Miss Gale. She took it with such artless joy. She seemed so surprised. Her whole face lighted up with such naive childish pleasure. At first Gordon had coldly, critically said to himself, Of course she could never be pretty with that nose. But after taking a liking to a woman, one can ac- cept her nose, even when it spoils the outline of her face, as a circumstance over which she has no controL Edith Dorsey was faultlessly beautiful; to compare Cerise to her would be doing the latter injustice. Yet there was, es- pecially when she was happy and ani- mated, a radiance, a shimmer about Ce- rise, an impression of color, which made one forget that she was plain. Her little head was set in a golden glory, as it were, for her hair was fluffy and of the most peculiarly beautiful shade, her cheeks were like the sunny side of a peach, her blue eyes were bright, and her slight fig- ure was always charmingly arrayed. Gordon having done handsomely by Van Kleeck, it was clearly Miss Gales duty to praise Edith. Edith, she said, was an angel; so lofty, so high-minded, so indifferent to what others of her age and sex were pining for. Once when cousin Reginald had taken both girls to Tiffanys and bidden them choose each some pretty ornament, Edith had given Cerise the first choice; then, making her own selection, had bestowed the jewel on Cerise. Take them both, dear, she said. I have too many things al- ready. Edith had no vanity, no world- liness; she was a saint. She is two years younger than I am, Cerise continued, bubbling with en- thusiasm, but she seems to me ten years older. Dont you look up to her with reverence and awe? Like Dante to Beatrice, Gordon af- firmed, with emotion. At Lenox, one rainy day, he had found her reading Dante. Of late she had forgotten her duty, she told him, but she always in- tended to read eighteen lines a day. I held the dictionary for her, said Gordon, deeply moved. It was one of the coincidences which were all the time cropping up in the two very different love affairs that Van Kleeck and Cerise had also been read- ing the Divine Comedy together. But not in Italian, Cerise explained. It s quite sufficiently hard in English. Bartram never told me I was like Bea- trice, in a tone of poignant regret. Gordon said he was sure Van Kleeck wished her to resemble no one, to be simply herself. On the contrary, Van Kleeck was certain to find some. trait in every hero- ine which he wished her to take example by, all the girls in the Waverley novels, all Shakespeares women. Then there 64 was Ethel Newcome, and iDorothea in Middlemarch. Finally he halted be- tween Marcella and Trilby. Cerise had thrown herself with zeal into the for- mers part, had delighted in visiting slums; but after she had brought home three different diseases to the children, her aunt objected. Then she tried to talk politics and humanitarianism, and her uncle objected; and when one of the class of workingmen to whom she read Shakespeare took to bringing her flow- ers, Bartram objected. As to Trilby, Cerise had decided that the charm of Trilby lay chiefly in the environment; at least it seemed incompatible with the limitations of her aunts house. And Bartram, when he saw that she was try- ing to find an outlet and escape from every-day prosaic duties, was rather se- vere, said it was the essential woman- ly charm of Trilby which a man longed for, and wished to enshrine in the wo- man he loved. Essential womanly charm, said Ce- rise, extending one taper finger, Mar- celias lofty ideals and social earnest- ness, a second finger joined the first, Dorotheas belief in people, Ethel New- comes brilliance and fascination, then ali Shakespeares heroines and Scotts. She paused. I can be one woman, she pursued, I can be two women, I can, at a pinch, be three women, but I cant be all the women in all the books, can I ? That s ohly Bartrams love of high ideas. He likes the best, the best that is known and thought in the world. I fancy it s a phrase he picked up some- where. I ye heard it, said Cerise mourn- fully. Sometimes I feel such a failure. He always made a schedule of my time. I was to read so much, practice so much, sew so much. He insists that I shall get myself into orderly habits by keeping a list of my expenses. They never add up right, and I hate to see my mistakes glaring me in the face. Dont you? He wanted me to go to a cooking-school. One Fair Daughter. Oh, what a wife he has in training! But he said the dishes I learned to make gave him dyspepsia, and that, after all, we ought to be able to afford a good plain cook. Bartram has a way of sit- ting silent and wrinkling up his forehead, chewing the cud of conversation, he calls it, and then bursting out with a question: Cerise, have you any idea how much it costs to keep a table, a fairly generous table, you know, for a week, say, coffee, chops or beefsteak, for breakfast, a dainty little luncheon for you, then a dinner with a good soup, a joint of meat, two vegetables, a salad, and a light dessert? I answered that I thought a hundred dollars ought to do it; but these figures gave him such a shock I made haste to say I fancied my estimate was too high, and that it might be done for five. Did that please him? Not at all. He was more unhappy than ever. We had a sort of quarrel. I told him I hated these sordid, practi- cal considerations; that I wanted a little room for imagination in the world. But you finally made up? Oh yes. When we quarrel, I always give way. That s why I adore Bartram. He s 50 strong. I worship force. Yes, Van Kleeck is strong. I ad- mire his force. So presently I tell him that I know I am all wrong, that he is right. I have the habit of being right before I begin, he answers, and so it is all made up. She brought the scene to Gordon; it was alive. Iv.. By the end of March it had become the chief social occupation of Gordon Rose to go to Capua t~vice a week. He had not been contented with a bare perfunctory performance of his duty to- wards his absent friend, but had tried to infuse into it something which should give relief from the flatness and ennui One Fair Daughter. which a charming girl necessarily suffers when parted from the man she loves. Van Kleeck could very well discard trivial attentions; could label bonbons as poisonous, cut flowers as unprofitable, and tickets for the theatre and opera as unsatisfactory. When Gordon carried these slight offerings to Miss Gale, he would say, Van Kleeck can afford to despise these things, but then I am not Van Kleeck. He felt, in fact, that he owed Cerise a debt of gratitude. With- out this resource he would have been absolutely shut out of Ediths world; but the two cousins wrote to each other occasionally, and thus he had news of the girl he loved. She was in London pursuing her studies; was to pass the coming examinations, and then decide what college to enter. Gordon pon- dered much on the question of whether he ought or ought not to break the silence between them. He had stuck in- defatigably to his routine of work, both at the law school and in Mr. Grahams office. He had begun to like it, not as a mere grind, but finding order, reason, logic, evolve out of what had seemed to him at first nothing but a wordy chaos. He had a sense that he was mastering difficulties. He had heard that Mr. Dorsey was obliged to be in New York in April, and Gordon began to feel that he could point to his winters record and ask if it might not balance that absurd mistake of the preceding autumn; if it could not, indeed, atone for it and make promise for the future. Mondays, Tues- days, Thursdays, and Fridays the young man patiently glued his eyes to the pages before him, opened his ears to the wisdom imparted, and wrote as he was required, giving resounding phrase to commonplace and locking subtleties into impenetrable mystery. But on Wednes- days, Saturdays, and Sundays there was a sensible lightening in his whole demean- or. It has been observed by philosophers and naturalists, who like to stretch a simple fact until it covers a theory, that VOL. LXXX. NO. 4Th 5 65 mules whose task it once was to draw street cars in certain towns became used to making five journeys from one end to the other of the route before they were released, and went four times content- edly, but setting out on the final track they brayed with joy. Thus Gordon, on these three days, was kindled with a sense of joyful expectation. Wednesday and Sunday he went to Capua. On Saturday it might be said that Capua came to him, for on the morning of that day Miss Gale almost invariably took the 11.58 train to town, and Gordon was almost certain to meet her, and, with the sort of paternal tenderness a mature young fellow of twenty-four can feel in giving pleasure to a sweet little girl of one-and-twenty, take her to some matin~e performance of opera or play. There was a real satisfaction in thus answering the passion, the enthusiasm, the ardent curiosity which belonged to Cerise, which had been hitherto starved on meagre fare. However, one Sunday night late in March, when Gordon was on his way back to town after spending six hours in Miss Gales society (for, as was not infrequent in these days, he had been in- vited to remain and partake of the even- ing meal of the family), his heart and conscience were both brought up sudden- ly by a sharp pull. It was a singular circumstance that neither he nor Miss Gale, in all those hours of intimate conversation, had once alluded either to Bartram Van Kleeck or to Edith Dorsey. Never had Cerise been so entertaining. On the Saturday before the two had had a very successful day together; she was in the highest spirits, and the piquancy and audacity of her criticisms, the feli- city of her droll little hits, had made him put off any mention of the absent dear ones until it was too late, for he had been obliged to run for the train. This omission of Ediths name and of Van Kleecks had happened once before, but Gordon now said to himself it must not happen again. It meant neither for- 66 getfulness nor disloyalty, of course; per- haps it was the inevitable reaction after their early outpourings of confidence. The shallows murmur, but the deeps are dumb. He recalled one significant circum- stance which showed that it was actually Cerises generous disposition to make the best of things which kept her from harp- ing on her desolate position. When, the week before, he bad alluded to South Africa, she had exclaimed, with a sort of shuddering sigh, Dont talk about South Africa! A fellow must have some subject, he had replied. What shall I talk about? Talk about me, she retorted, with her pretty childish air of petulance. That s a charming subject, I admit, Gordon had observed inevitably. He had noticed at times a sort of ex- citement in Cerise, and he had said to himself that she put on her blitheness for Van Kleecks sake. She wished to please his friend, to make the hours pass. The artless and spontaneous way in which she discussed her own char- acteristics, her impressions, her crying wishes, and her imperious needs was all a part of her devotion to Van Kleeck, came from the instinct to seem gay and happy and content. On Gordons side, it was his office to applaud the delightful little creature; for Van Kleecks sake, to keep her up to high-water mark, not per- mit her to dwindle into dullness and low spirits. Yet on this particular Sunday, in spite of such a plain deciphering of duty, it seemed to Gordon fiat disloyalty to his absent friend to have been sitting easy and comfortable, listening to Cerise talk- ing of everything that came into her head, silent about her betrothed husband, who was toiling and sweating in a climate which exposed him to every sort of peril. No, Gordon was not content, and when, on the following Wednesday, he presented himself at Capua, he carried in his hand a bunch of violets, together One Fair Daughter. with some jonquils. He gave the latter flowers to Cerise, but retained the violets. They remind me of Edith, he said. There was a shady spot at Lenox where they bloomed all summer. Oh, said Cerise, you are always thinking of Edith. Of course I am, Gordon retorted; just as you are always thinking about Van Kleeck. Indeed I am not always thinking about Bartram. I think about a great many other things, Cerise declared, with a vivid spot of color burning on each cheek. Why should I not? He is thinking of all sorts of things and doing all sorts of things I know nothing about. But they all refer to you. I would wager a considerable sum that he thinks of you when he eats, when he works, when he sleeps. Will Cerise like this? Would Cerise be able to stand that? When shall I see Cerise? Gordons voice lingered on these questions. He asked them with a lovers insistence. She gave him a soft little glance. There was an odd droop at the corners of her lips. A man is bound to attend to his busi- ness, he resumed. And is a woman not bound to attend to hers? cried Cerise, smiting his ar- gument with relentless logic. He is in South Africa, and I I am in Capua. Her glance perplexed Gordon. It seemed almost to include him in this iso- lation, this separation from Van Kleeck It seemed to say, You and I are here. His letters ought to account for a good deal of his time, Gordon sug- gested. You say he writes you twelve pages twice a week. They are all statistics. I dont care in the least about statistics. Bartram is so fond of giving information, and at least eleven pages of each letter are devoted to an account of the climate, productions, and inhabitants of the gold region. But the other page no doubt makes up for the rest. One Fair Daughter. 67 On the other page, said Cerise blandly, he praises economy, tells how little he can live on in that climate, one requires so few clothes, and he hopes I like a vegetable diet, for it enables one to save so much. Gordon felt a rebellious rush of sym- pathy for Cerise. He had indeed expe- rienced it more than once before. Van Kleeck was the noblest fellow in the world, but he overdid the thing. A man who loves a girl must not disregard the life, the passion, the aspiration, which are the essence of the creature. Certainly, if he, Gordon, had a chance to write to Edith, little enough of statistics and eco- nomies would he try to give her. Nev- ertheless, what he now observed to Miss Gale was: The truth is, money to Van Kleeck means his happiness. Two thou- sand a year is having you on the nar- rowest possible margin; three thousand, with a little more comfort; five thousand and upward, with ease, elegance, luxury. I hate those material ideas. I dont want to measure all the world by sordid considerations, Cerise burst forth im- petuously. Bartram is never sordid. His prac- tical forethought is all for you. His only wish is to have you for his wife. I dont want to be his wife. I dont want to go to South Africa. Do you mean Gordon began; then broke off aghast at the very sugges- tion of such perfidy. Yes, that is what I mean, she said, quite understanding. He thinks you love him devotedly! I did nt like to hurt his feelings. Never in his life had Gordon experi- enced such wretched discomfort. The two were looking at each other intently, both flushed, both tremulous, both wearing an air of being a good deal frightened. But besides this half-terror Gordon was con- scious of something else in the look and tone of Cerise, of elation, of having found an outlet, an escape, from what had cramped and thwarted her. Her bright, fluffy little head was poised like a birds. He gazed at her with dire consternation, feeling in his heart some vibrating re- sponsive chord answering her, and angry with himself for feeling it. You should nt say such things! he exclaimed, as if with intense indignation. You should stop and think. I dont want to stop and think. You ought to have told me long ago to stop and think, Cerise retorted, also with an air of being exasperated to the last de- gree. You have let me go on and on you have brought me flowers you have I dont want to stop and think. It would make me miserable. I have nt thought for a long time. I have just put every idea away except except Except what? demanded Gordon. Except that you would be here, if not today, then to-morrow; if not to- morrow, next day. Gordon sat as if stunned. He was conscious of a strong current of emotion through his veins, but could not define the different sensations which seemed to rush together and gather in a blow that stupefied him. He saw that tears filled her eyes and brimmed over. He pitied her with all the strength of his nature. We have been so happy, she faltered, bending forward and with her wet face near his, speaking.in a tone which addressed his heart rather than his ear. He jumped up, with a feeling of wrenching himself away from a position of extrem~ peril. You dont think of Van Kleeck. You dont think of Edith, he said. Feeling had roughened his voice so that it was unrecognizable. You did nt think of Edith !~ I always think of Edith. Were you thinking of her last Sat- urday, when we were going about to- gether? Cerise asked this eagerly; then without waiting for him to answer she went on: You were not thinking of her at all. You have not thought of her of late. Why should you think of 68 One Fair Daughter. her? There is nothing for you to think of. It is not as if you had actually been engaged to her. If I can give up Bar- tram after after being everything to him for two years, and he everything to me, why, it ought to be nothing, no- thing in the world, to give up Edith, who does not really care for you, who never in her life cared for anybody but her fa- ther, who is wrapped up in binomial the- orems, who Dont, dont, Cerise! cried Gordon, raising his hand as if to ward off a blow. She is cold she is But no, no, I will not be so unfair. She is greater than I am, sweeter than I am, but oh, Gordon, she does nt care about you as I do. The charm, the tyrannous actuality of the real presence of a lovely girl close beside one, her tearful eyes raised, her moist red lips quivering, her whole face, tone, gesture, eloquent alike! At such a moment a mans heart must respond in some measure to what is so palpable, so absolute; the absent must become more or less vague, shadowy, problematical. And you dont really care about Edith, the voice went on in that terrible whisper. I saw that long ago. If I had not seen it, if I had not known it was a fiction, a pretense, I could nt have begun to feel that Her tone thrilled him; her look drew him. Her quick sobbing breath the tears on her cheek He hardly knew what had happened, but somehow his own face was wet. He felt as if blinded and scorched by pure flame. Yet in another moment he was out of doors, on his way to the station. Who knows whether destiny bade Mrs. Gale stand sentinel that day? Was it simply because for domestic or economi- cal reasons a guest would have been an- welcome? Or did she feel as if her niece s t~te-~t-t~te with the friend of her ftane6 were somewhat unduly prolonged? At any rate, this happy accident was the re- sult of her glance at the clock. Harold, a lively boy of five, suddenly threw open the parlor door, and called at the top of his lungs, Mr. Rose, mamma says, if you want to take the 5.58 train, you will have to make haste! V. I feel absolutely stuck fast in the mire! Gordon said to himself at least a hundred times in the course of the next forty-eight hours. Did this exclamation come from a feeling of being entangled, from a longing for deliverance? And if so, a longing for deliverance from what? From Edith? From Cerises snares and nets? That last interview remained a fixed impression, a speechless and sombre load upon his heart and sense. He could not shake it off. He could not understand what had happened, why he felt wrenched away, separated from what he loved most. He put out his hands to meet Edith, but they fell empty. Hither- to, even with the ocean rolling between them, she had been near, her heart beat- ing with his, her faith answering his. Now she was cold, remote; imagina- tion flapped a leaden wing and could not soar: absolutely, it seemed to him he had forgotten Ediths very look and fea- tures. But close beside him, too importunate to be banished, too sweet, too seductive, to be denied, was Cerise, flattering his longing to be beloved, to love somebody. The pathos of the situation was so deep. Her cry for happiness, for freedom, for the emancipation which lies in having a hatful of money to spend, was one which he could answer so ungrudgingly. It was so pitiful that the charming little creature could not have free play, she had been so limited, so hindered! They had already enjoyed so much together. Yes, Cerise no doubt had come close, irresistibly close. She had made everything so clear. Her sequences had One Fair Daughter. been appalling in their logic. The idea that an imperative duty called him to her thrilled his heart and imagination, worked upon him like a spell, fevered him with a restless happiness. He felt himself to be a man pushed by destiny. But there was not only Cerise in the world. He might argue that no tie bound him to Edith, that Edith could not accuse him of duplicity. There was Van Kleeck, and thinking of Van Kleeck, Gordon loathed his own hollow and hypocritical pretense of friendship. I dont think, Gordon nevertheless argued to himself, with an effort at high moral indignation, that a man ought to hand over his betrothed wife to another mans keeping and go to the other end of the world. I dont think it s safe. Here the inward monitor took up the argument. It is true it might be safe with a loyal, honorable fellow, and Van Kleeck supposed I was loyal and honorable. He thought I loved Edith, that nothing would make me unfaithful to Edith. He believed Cerise, poor child, loved him. He had spoken of the discipline of a long engagement. He said it was the supreme test that ought always to be im- posed. But then Van Kleeck is not a pendulum, vibrating first to the right, then to the left. These reflections did not pursue each other coherently; rather, like the occa- sional bubble from the depths of a trou. bled pool, each welled up as by irresisti- ble pressure. More than once, in the two nights which followed the Wednesday, he started out of his sleep, with some new, perverse, self-scrutinizing, nervous tre- mor over the dilemma he was in. When he was awake, his conscience was not so much his monitor as his accomplice; it pointed to duty, but that duty was to Cerise. The sensations she stirred in him of inconsequent enjoyment, of plea- sure in the lucky accident of their being 69 together, of his marching to her orders and rather liking it, belonged to the re- veries of his waking hours. In his sleep his soul made its claim; it was then that his love for Edith asserted its power. I told Van Kleeck that without Edith I should go to the devil, Gordon would say to himself in despair. I have am rived. In spite of all his thinking, he grew hour by hour to know less and less what he really thought. He had postponed any absolute decision as to his future course of conduct until Saturday, for on that day he was to see Cerise again. In this inter- val of irresolution it was a relief to fasten with a fresh grip to his work. He liked the hard, cold, remorseless logic of the argument he was studying. What had heretofore been dry, colorless, pedantic, suddenly became infused with the decree of the fixed, the immutable; it gave him intense satisfaction. A thing himself of shreds and patches, of ideas starting from no fundamental principle and leading to no conclusion, it was a comfort to find that human conduct is not to be based on sentiment, on taste, even on passion. He began dimly to feel that there must be a tribunal before which he might state his predicament and find some sort of deliv- erance. On that Friday afternoon Gordon was sitting at his desk in Judge Grahams office, working with a sort of fury at an abstract which he had been asked to pre- pare, oblivious of everything that was going on about him, when all at once there appeared on the sheet of foolscap over which he was bending a very small limber square of pasteboard, on which was engraved, Mr. Reginald Dorsey, Gramercy Park. Gordon stared at the card, as if some inner spasm of feeling, of conscience, of memory, had suddenly taken visible shape and risen to accuse him. While he was trying his wits at the riddle, the clerk whispered in his car, Mr. Dorsey 70 is in Judge Grahams private office. He wants to see you. Gordon sprang to his feet. With a beating heart he strode down the long room, went out into the lobby, and, with a feeling of being confronted with some new trial whose difficulties he could not measure, turned the handle of the sec- ond door. Judge Graham was sitting talking to Mr. Dorsey as the young man entered. I must go, the judge said, rising. I have been telling Mr. Dorsey good things about you, Rose. When you first took a desk here, I thought to myself it was a lucky thing for you you had nt to make your living by the law. Now I ye changed my opinion; I have decided that with the requisite push of poverty you would go far. But Gordon heard nothing. Mr. Dor- sey, shaking his hand and looking into his face, was puzzled. The young fellow was pale, but his eyes were burning; his lips were compressed; altogether he had an air as if bracing himself for a grapple with an enemy. All he said in response to Mr. Dorseys greeting was, I supposed that you were in Europe. Graham cabled for me. There was important business. I came at an hours notice. I only got in last night. Gordons eyes had an eager question in them, his lips seemed ready to utter it; but then he dropped his glance to the floor, shut his mouth firmly, and said not a word. He had wanted to ask if Edith had come, but of course Edith had not come. Are nt you well, Rose? Mr. Dor- sey inquired. Oh yes, Im well; that is, physically. Mr. Dorseys instinct, sounding the young man through, discovered some- thing amiss, something wanting. But after all, might it not be that Gordon had something to forgive? Had not his claims been treated with ignominy? Had not his suit been dismissed, Edith One Fair Daughter. carried off, and he himself left to eat out his heart with empty longing? Sit down, said Mr. Dorsey. I want to talk with you. I decided last fall that if you were really in love with my daughter you ought to be able to endure a six months test. Afterwards when I went to see you but we 11 pass that over I never wondered that you despised me, Gordon broke in. I feel that if you told Edith how I did not tell her. I saw Van Kleeck in London, and he made it clear to me how it happened. Rose, my dear boy, I did not mean to be too rigid. But a fathers position is one of terrific re- sponsibility. All Ediths future happi- ness depends on the character of the man she marries. Gordon heaved a deep sigh, but for a long moment answered not a word. Mr. Dorsey looked surprised, almost displeased. Something, everything he expected was lacking in the young fel- low. After such a concession from the father of the girl he was prepared to love eternally, he ought not to stand dull, inert, staring as if at a blank wall; then, when aghast at the silence, answering in the most perfunctory way, Yes. It is not yet six months, observed Mr. Dorsey succinctly, since you pre- sented yourself as Ediths suitor. It was on the twenty-second day of last October. Precisely, hardly more than five months. You told me then that you loved my daughter devotedly. I loved her with all my heart, said Gordon, with an energy in his accent which suggested some bitterness of feel- ing. Has there been any change in your regard for her? Any- change in my regard forher? I mean, do you love her still? I adore her. One Fair Daughter. 71 You love her as you loved her then, with all your heart and soul ? With all my heart and soul. As he spoke a gleam crossed Gordons fea- tures. It was the first sign of the passion- ate gladness of the lover he had evinced to Mr. Dorseys disappointed eyes. But just as this belated instinct of manly feel- ing began to move him he pulled him- self up, as it were. That is, he added hastily, I should love her still with all my heart and soul unless Unless what? Dont ask me, sir. To enter into ex- planations would lead to madness. Let me try to understand, said Mr. Dorsey, endeavoring to command his baffled and wrathful temper. Do you wish me to believe that you still love my daughter? I never loved anybody else, I never could really love anybody else, said Gordon mechanically, all the fervor of a lover absent from his look and tone. There is some one else, said Mr. Dorsey sternly. Gordon gave him a glance, a word- less confession, but enough. There is some one else, Mr. Dorsey reiterated. Gordon drew his hand across his fore- head. Im utterly stupefied at the po- sition in which I find myself, he mur- mured blankly. Are you engaged to some one else? Oh no, sir, not engaged. Have you been making love to some one else ? Gordon shuddered. His conscience was on edge. Not intentionally, he muttered; still You told me just now that you loved Edith. I do love her. Do you love the other? Gordon drew a deep breath. If I did not, I should be the most ungrateful cur alive. It is impossible, Mr. Dorsey now exclaimed in a tone of intense exaspera tion, for a man to be in love with two women at once. I used to think so, said Gordon in a hollow voice. It is, at any rate, impossible for a man to be married to two women at once. I know it, Gordon conceded, with a sigh, and I have become convinced that most of the tragedies in life are due to that circumstance. Mr. Dorsey, confounded, gazed at the young man. The situation was incon- ceivable. Here had he come back from England feeling at last that the just and right thing to do was to let Edith have the lover she had not forgotten, whom she could not forget; who, in fact, Mr. Dorsey had gradually grown to believe, was the one man on earth whom he de- sired for her husband and his own son. He himself had hankered after the young fellow almost if not quite as much as had Edith. When he had heard how well Gordon was behaving, how he fastened to his desk like a bur, the older mans heart had yearned over him. He had come to love Gordon; he repented his hardness on Gordons little naughtinesses and naturalnesses. Still, he had been right in the main. It was better that he should not have given his consent at once. Engaged to Edith, Gordon would not have shown the stuff that was in him. So firm had been Mr. Dorseys faith, he had thought of no possibility except that, at the first mention of Edith, Gor- don would be on fire with longing to see her. If you have been false to Edith, if she is replaced in your affections, the father now said, I will go away on the instant. If she is still anything to you, I have, I think, a right to under- stand I wish with all my heart you did un- derstand! Gordon burst out. If some one only knew just what has happened how I am placed Tell me about it. I dont know how. But I have just 72 One Fair Daughter. begun to say to myself, If there were but some one to whom I could go for counsel! Why not to me? If I were the only one concerned But there is the otherthe woman? Two others! Two women? No, only one woman; the other is a man, my friend. It was an easy matter now to see that there was some form of fierce self-con- demnation in the young mans breast. Mr. Dorsey had not, in general, the faculty of reading the hearts and minds of other men, and it was this incapacity of swift insight which made him slow in making up his mind. But at this mo- ment, shaping itself little by little out of various vague suggestions, came a tan- gible idea. He remembered his cousin Cerise. Three years before, he himself had been for about forty-eight hours un- der her spell. He had been a little be- witched, he had almost thought of her as a mother for Edith. Then espying in himself such possibilities, he had rubbed his eyes and awakened. He could re- call now the fact l~hat Edith had about six weeks before been a little downcast after receiving a letter from her cousin; that since that time she had not men- tioned the name of Cerise, that is, not voluntarily; but when he alluded to Ce- rise, she had spoken of her as so charm- ing, so permeated with life and freshness, with audacity, with piquancy, with such an intense relish for life, she ought to have a chance to be happy, since some people were born to be happy, just as for others were appointed renunciations. With instant divination, Mr. Dorsey now observed quietly, You have been seeing a good deal of my cousin, Miss Gale? Gordon, sharply startled, assented. Has she broken her engagement to Van Kleeck? II~JIr. Dorsey inquired fur- ther, with clear significance. Not yet, Gordon responded, the color rushing violently to his face, then ebbing, leaving him suddenly more pale than before. I fancy I see your dilemma, Mr. Dorsey said, as if musing. The fact is, my cousin Cerise is a very charming girl; she is a girl, too, of unusual strength of mind, with plenty of will of her own. She has only one weakness, and that is a dislike to have any man near her who is not in love with her, at least a little in love with her. He said no more, his in- tuition telling him that discussion might kindle fires not easily extinguished. I want, he added, rising, to have you tell me the whole story. This is not the place. It will be better for you to dine with me to-night. VI. Gordon was in no state of mind to prepare his conversation skillfully. Still, in the interval between parting with Mr. Dorsey on Wall Street and presenting himself at the door of the house in Gra- mercy Park at twenty-five minutes past seven, he did try to decide what he him- self sincerely wished, and what he need- ed to say to Mr. Dorsey. He had to re- flect that Edith was well placed, happy, with a devoted father, every material thing she needed in the world within reach, loving her studies, ambitious to pursue them and excel. There was Ce- rise, who needed him, who was betrothed to a man not wholly congenial who had left her alone. If she actually wished to be released from her engagement to Van Kleeck, was it not Gordons duty to shield and serve her in this crisis ? He would entreat Mr. Dorsey to look at the matter dispassionately; to weigh the right and wrong of it; to tell him whether it would be an unmanly breach of faith for him to marry the womnn who had been for two years and more engaged to his friend. At least one grandiloquent, not to say pathetic phrase was to be pressed into service. One Fair I can give up the woman I love, but ought I to give up the woman who loves me This was the case in a nutshell. The visitor was admitted, and, pass- ing through the still dismantled hail, was ushered into the library, comfortably warmed and lighted. There was no one in the room, but easy-chairs were drawn up temptingly before the fire. He did not sit down. Comfort, ease, peace of mind, were not for him. He had an ominous vision of what Mr. Dorsey would say. Here in this room, which he had once entered with such very different feelings, conscience pinched him like an ill-condi- tioned garment. He would presently be sent away miserable, pining, again shut out as unworthy. The only consolation possible was that he, no matter how de- feated in sacredest hopes and wishes, could at least insure the happiness of Ce- rise. Poor little Cerise, who loved him! He heard a sound at the door. It was his host. It was also his censor, his judge, indeed his executioner. His heart was heavy with dread, but he turned. The room was only half lighted; that is, all the lights were veiled. He saw a figure entering, but not that of the gen- tleman of the house. Instead it seemed an apparition, a cloud of white that glimmered, that wavered, that hesitated to advance, that lingered in the far-off gloom. Was it a girl, a beautiful girl in a white gown? It was Gordon who advanced. It was Gordon who darted across the room, who. approached, who stood as if overcome by the exquisite and unexpected bliss of the moment, then gasped out, Edith? You here? The two stood looking each into the others face. There she was, tall, slen- der, full of grace and dignity; with that pure, proud, unspeakably beautiful face; the candid brow, the wide-open eyes, the tender lips that smiled in the corners. Daughter. 73 Have you actually remembered me all this ~ime? she asked, the little dim- ples playing in her cheeks. There came over Gordon, as he took a hand of hers in each of his, such a poi- gnant sense of happiness, of salvation, of deliverance, That he had but one resource, to clasp Edith in his arms; and that was what he did. Mr. Dorsey presently followed his daughter. If he had used his wits to prepare a brilliant counterstroke, he had been successful. He had never before seen Gordon with Edith. Now that he saw them togethcr, he felt that he wished never again to see them apart. If, he said with feeling, as Gordon rushed towards him, and wrung his hand over and over if you love her Love her? I worship her! cried Gordon, and this time nothing of pas- sionate gladness was missing in his look and tone. She is all I have. I m like the man in the play: One fair daughter, and no more, The which he loved passing well. You will have me, said Gordon. Later in the evening, Mr. Dorsey found a chance to ask, Did you tell Edith? There was nothing to tell her, an- swered Gordon with decision, no- thing. I have a dislike for beginnings, but once begun, I want things never to end. This shall never end. And by the way, said Mr. Dorsey, do you happen to know that Van Kleeck has sent for Miss Gale? He wants her to go to Paris with some friends who sail on the 6th of April. She will prepare her trousseau in Paris, and he will meet her there, and they will be married at the American ministers. Ellen Olney Kirk. 74 The Future of Rural New England. THE FUTURE OF RURAL NEW ENGLAND. THE township of Dickerman, in the in- terior of one of the New England States, has a large area, with a scattered pop- ulation of about fifteen hundred souls. Farming is the only industry of the peo- ple. The roads, bad at all seasons, and in the spring almost impassable, are so encroached upon by untrimmed brush that wagons have much ado to pass one another. Such guide-boards as are not prone and crumbling are battered and illegible. The mail-boxes at the cross- roads are as untrustworthy as worn-out pockets. The orchards are exception- ally picturesque, but they owe their pic- turesqueness to the unpruned, scraggly, hollow-trunked condition of the trees. The fields wear a disappointed, discour- aged air, and the stone walls and rail fences which outline them they can- not by any stretch of the imagination be said to inclose them sag at all possi- ble angles, uncertain in their courses as drunken men without guides. Piles of magnificent logs, valuable even where lumber is cheap, are rotting by the road- sides, and stacks of cord-wood, long ready to be transported, stand in the forests. Many of the farmhouses have been tenantless for years. Many of the oc- cupied houses are so gray, moss-grown, and dilapidated that they are only a tri- fle less ghastly than the tenantless ones. They are so weather-beaten as to retain only the faintest traces of the paint that once brightened them. Their windows have the traditional stuffed panes, and the blinds when there are any have broken slats. The chimneys, ragged of outline and almost mortarless, threaten to topple over in the first high wind. The outbuildings are flanked by fence- rail buttresses, lest they fall over or break apart. The door-yards are over- grown w.ith rank weeds and overrun with pigs and poultry; the few flowers, which fidelity to country tradition has planted there, being forced to seek refuge behind screens of rusty wire netting or palisades of unsightly sticks. The barn-yards are littered, miry, and foul-smelling, and the stock within them with the exception of the pigs, which thrive are lean and hungry. Even the few houses that have not been allowed to fall into disrepair have a sullen, forbidding appearance. The blinds are closed or the curtains are drawn at all but the kitchen windows. Seen for the first time, they suggest a re- cent death and an approaching funeral. Every day, however, year in and year out, it is the same with them; they are perpetually funereal. Spick-and-span- ness they have, but without brightness, and thrift, but without hospitality. Dickerman is traversed by a railway, with a station at the Corners, as that section of the township is called which contains the post-office, the town-house, two stores, two churches, and a squalid hotel, and which therefore comes a lit- tle nearer than any other part to being the village proper. Here are also a de- serted store, abandoned saw and grist mills, a long-disused academy, a neglect- ed cemetery, and rather more than a due proportion of empty and dilapidated dwellings. The deserted store has never been deprived of. its fittings; the dust- coated shelves, counters, and glass show- cases, the rust-incrusted scales, the cen- tre stove and the circle of armchairs about it, all remaining in their places, as any one may see who takes the pains to clean a spot for peering through one of the bedaubed windows. It is more than twenty years since the wheel of the village mill stopped because of the death of its owner, who left no children. The mill is a sad ruin now, almost roofless, two of its side-walls prone

74 The Future of Rural New England. THE FUTURE OF RURAL NEW ENGLAND. THE township of Dickerman, in the in- terior of one of the New England States, has a large area, with a scattered pop- ulation of about fifteen hundred souls. Farming is the only industry of the peo- ple. The roads, bad at all seasons, and in the spring almost impassable, are so encroached upon by untrimmed brush that wagons have much ado to pass one another. Such guide-boards as are not prone and crumbling are battered and illegible. The mail-boxes at the cross- roads are as untrustworthy as worn-out pockets. The orchards are exception- ally picturesque, but they owe their pic- turesqueness to the unpruned, scraggly, hollow-trunked condition of the trees. The fields wear a disappointed, discour- aged air, and the stone walls and rail fences which outline them they can- not by any stretch of the imagination be said to inclose them sag at all possi- ble angles, uncertain in their courses as drunken men without guides. Piles of magnificent logs, valuable even where lumber is cheap, are rotting by the road- sides, and stacks of cord-wood, long ready to be transported, stand in the forests. Many of the farmhouses have been tenantless for years. Many of the oc- cupied houses are so gray, moss-grown, and dilapidated that they are only a tri- fle less ghastly than the tenantless ones. They are so weather-beaten as to retain only the faintest traces of the paint that once brightened them. Their windows have the traditional stuffed panes, and the blinds when there are any have broken slats. The chimneys, ragged of outline and almost mortarless, threaten to topple over in the first high wind. The outbuildings are flanked by fence- rail buttresses, lest they fall over or break apart. The door-yards are over- grown w.ith rank weeds and overrun with pigs and poultry; the few flowers, which fidelity to country tradition has planted there, being forced to seek refuge behind screens of rusty wire netting or palisades of unsightly sticks. The barn-yards are littered, miry, and foul-smelling, and the stock within them with the exception of the pigs, which thrive are lean and hungry. Even the few houses that have not been allowed to fall into disrepair have a sullen, forbidding appearance. The blinds are closed or the curtains are drawn at all but the kitchen windows. Seen for the first time, they suggest a re- cent death and an approaching funeral. Every day, however, year in and year out, it is the same with them; they are perpetually funereal. Spick-and-span- ness they have, but without brightness, and thrift, but without hospitality. Dickerman is traversed by a railway, with a station at the Corners, as that section of the township is called which contains the post-office, the town-house, two stores, two churches, and a squalid hotel, and which therefore comes a lit- tle nearer than any other part to being the village proper. Here are also a de- serted store, abandoned saw and grist mills, a long-disused academy, a neglect- ed cemetery, and rather more than a due proportion of empty and dilapidated dwellings. The deserted store has never been deprived of. its fittings; the dust- coated shelves, counters, and glass show- cases, the rust-incrusted scales, the cen- tre stove and the circle of armchairs about it, all remaining in their places, as any one may see who takes the pains to clean a spot for peering through one of the bedaubed windows. It is more than twenty years since the wheel of the village mill stopped because of the death of its owner, who left no children. The mill is a sad ruin now, almost roofless, two of its side-walls prone The Future of Rural New England. 75 on the ground, its machinery oxidizing and falling to pieces, and the piles of sawed and unsawed lumber decomposing around it. It is longer still more than thirty years since the academy closed its doors to pupils. The academy build- ing was used for a variety of purposes afterwards even as a dwelling be- fore the ultimate and complete desertion that is now its lot. Its sign has remained in place through all its vicissitudes, and, though badly weather-beaten, would still be legible to an expert decipherer of in scriptions. There are Catholic communities, both in America and in the Old World, where an extreme wretchedness in the dwell- ings is at once partially explained by the richness and beauty of the churches. But not so in Dickerman. On the con- trary, both the Dickerman churches are of a piece with their surroundings. The Congregational Church, more than a cen- tury old ( Orthodox is the name it still goes by), was a worthy structure in its day, and would be so yet had it been kept in good repair. Alas, it is only the ghost of its former pretentious self! Its sills are badly rotted. Its spire and belfry have been shattered by lightning, and imperfectly restored. Its roof is leaky, the clapboards of its walls are warped and blistered, and its heavy bell, once sweet of tone, is cracked and dis- sonant. The Baptist Church, built only a few years ago, mainly at the expense of a church building society, is one of the shoddily constructed, many-gabled atrocities due to the malign influence of the so-called Queen Anne restoration. Its original coat of paint of many colors has mostly soaked into the surrounding soil. Its panes of stained glass, as they have been broken from time to time, have been replaced by ordinary window-glass, with piebald, uncanny results. The pre- sent town-house (the original town-house was burned several years ago), the only public building in the place, comports well with the churches, being a square, squat, unpainted thing, with so striking a resemblance to a barn that it would surely be taken for one, were it not for its lack of barn doors, its isolated and honorable position in the centre of the village common, and its adornment by a bulletin-board thickly plastered with lists of voters, town-meeting warrants, and legal notices in large variety. In a word, a stranger entering Dick- erman for the first time could not fail to be astounded by the marks of desolation and decay on every hand. To him, the most conspicuous evidence that it was or had been a populated town would be the closeness of the gravestones in the graveyard; the best evidence of business enterprise, a freshly painted undertakers sign, bearing the brisk announcement that coffins, caskets, and burial-robes are always ready; the one touch of beauty, a magnificent double row of aged elms leading up to the forsaken academy; and the one patch of warm color visible, the flaming circus posters with which both the outside and the inside of the Ortho- dox Church sheds perennially bloom. When first I saw the crumbling croft- ers huts of the Scottish Highlands, I felt that I could never see anything sadder. I had not then seen the deserted farms of my own New England hills. When I visited them, I recognized instantly a sadder sight than the crofters huts; de- cay in a new country being as much more appalling than decay in an old country as the loss of faculties in youth is more appalling than the loss of them in age. What Dickerman is in appearance, a desolate, destitute community, that it is in reality. To begin with homely and material conditions, even at the risk of seeming pettiness, a word must be said regarding the food of its inhabitants. The Dickerman diet is the most un- wholesome possible. Pork in one form or another is its staple, meat and pork, hearty food and pork, are used as synonyms; and pork is supplemented mainly with hot cream-of-tartar and sal- 76 The Future of Rural New England. eratus biscuit, doughnuts, and pies. The sanitary, not to mention the epicurean possibilities of the meats, vegetables, mushrooms, and fruits within easy reach, either are not known or are ignored. The results are just what might be ex- pected. The men are listless, sullen, stolid. Chronic dyspepsia and other in.. ternal disorders are common. That their constitutions are not completely under- mined is due largely to the power of re- sistance that life in the open air gives them. The women, who have not the advantage of outdoor living, who indeed are by necessity or choice quite as much confined within doors as their sisters of the cities, suffer frightfully. They take refuge (as men would turn to drink) in floods of unwholesome patent medicine, and in the nostrums of quacks who ap- pear at regular intervals in the village, only to make a bad state of health a worse one. Small wonder that as a class they are pale, haggard, prematurely old, shrill, ill-tempered, untidy, and inefficient in their housekeeping. To the physical and sensuous delights of the country a little fishing and hunting on the part of the men excepted one sex is as in- different as the other. The social life is pinched and bare. The only organizations are the churches and a moribund lodge of Good Templars. Of neighborliness there is little, and that little consumes itself so entirely in the retailing of petty scandal that there is nothing left for beneficence. To the sights and sounds of nature the spring flowers, the summer insects, the autumn foliage, the winter chiaroscuro, the chants of birds, brooks, and woodlands the people are deaf and blind. The fresh- ness of the morning and the glowing colors of the sunset stir no more emo- tion in them than in their kine. The schools are held in poorly equipped buildings, taught by girls without train- ing or enthusiasm, and attended by chil- dren devoid of ambition. One might al- most say they are as bad as they could be. The Sunday-schools are even worse. Except the two Sunday-school libraries, which are little better than nothing, there is no circulating library in the whole township. Memoirs of martyr mission- aries and antiquated books of devotion are among the heirlooms of many fam- ilies; they are held in profound respect, but are never read. Such other books as appear on the tables are those the owners have been wheedled into purchas- ing by clever book agents, subscription books all: campaign Lives of candidates for the presidency, county histories, cook- books, sermons of evangelists and emo- tional preachers, Home Treasuries of prose and poetry; above all, books of eti- quette. The denominational religious weeklies, the cheaper fashion aud house- keeping periodicals, the fifty-cent story papers (whose real business is a traffic in notions by post), and the stanch old par- ty organs (daily, semi-weekly, and week- ly) enter some of the households. But the real, the typical reading of Dicker- man, the reading of men and women, young and old, is the sensational news- paper of the worst kind, especially the Sunday edition, which is sold at every cross-roads in New England, even where the railway has not yet penetrated. One is not surprised to find a dearth of public spirit. The civic sense of Dick- ,erman manifests itself once a year only, at town-meeting, chiefly in reducing the regular and necessary appropriations to the lowest possible limit, in protesting against innovations on the ground of burdensome taxes, and in quarreling over trifles. In fact, were it not for the icars of each of the several sections of the township that it would get less than its share of the public moneys, and for the widespread desire to hold office, which finds profit in encouraging these petty sectional jealousies, there would hardly be any public appropriations whatever in Dickerman. Civic honesty, naturally enough, is at the same low ebb as civic spirit. The buying and selling of votes The Future of Rural New England. 77 has been in vogue for years, and has not been as much lessened by the intro- duction of the secret ballot as in larger communities, where secrecy of any sort is more practicable. Only lately, the chairman of the board of selectmen was kept from foreclosing a mortgage solely by the threat of his mortgagee to make public the amounts that he and others had received from the official for their votes in the preceding election. Liquor- selling under a state prohibitory law is condoned by the selectmen for pecuniary considerations, these being tacitly under- stood to be legitimate perquisites of the office of selectman. The two churches of Dickerman are not the dispensing centres of sweetness and light that we would fain believe all religious organizations to be. The Orth~dox Church, as immutable in its methods as in its doctrines, is cold, un- aggressive, self-righteous, and contempt- uous of everything religious or anti-re- ligious that is not part and parcel of its tradition. The Baptist Church, equally conservative in matters of doctrine, is nevertheless committed to sensationalism of method, and it is a poor year indeed when it does not manage to produce at least one genuine excitement. It indulges in fierce and frequent tirades against free-thinking, worldly amusements, and Sabbath-breaking, and, for purposes of edification, imports evangelists, Bible readers, leaders of praying bands, total abstinence apostles, refugee Armenians, anti-Catholic agitators, educated freed- men, and converted Jews. The church- goers, while they are sadly lacking in the positive virtues of honesty, generosity, and brotherly love, are as a class fairly faithful to the code of a conventional negative morality that makes it incum- bent upon them to be temperate and or- derly, at least in public. The churches are thus a valuable restraining force. Furthermore, they discharge an impor- tant social function in bringing together, regularly, people who would otherwise not be brought together at all in an or- ganized way. Barren, then, as the life of Dickerman is with its churches, it would be still more barren without them. The social immorality of rural New England is a subject that does not fall directly in our way, but it ought to be said that the good people who take it for granted that country life develops social purity pro- bably do not know the true condition of country life anywhere; certainly they do not know it in New England. If the whole truth were told about the people of Dickerman in this respect, it would be sad truth. An eminent American has recently been urging the protection of the morals of the city against the country. Novel as the argument seems, it is none the less a sound one. The foregoing description of life in Dickerman is not exaggerated. Its out- ward dilapidation and the emptiness of its inner life could not be exaggerat- ed. But there are, of course, individuals who are intelligent, honest, large-hearted. And things have not always been at such a pass there. The very dilapida- tion, destitution, and decay are eloquent, as tombstones are eloquent, of a life that has been, of a bygone golden age. Six- ty years ago Dickerman was one of the most flourishing farming communities in its State. It was an important coaching station on a main road, with a roomy and hospitable road-house, whose tap-room flip, jollity, and repartee enjoyed an in- terstate reputation. Then, as now, except that the sawmill and gristmill were al- ways buzzing, farming was its only indus- try. The farms were well tilled without the assistance of machinery, and thefarm- buildings were kept in good repair. The farmers were hard-working, thrifty, and alert; the farmers wives were efficient out of doors and within doors, and as well able as the men to withstand a pork diet, if that was then the fashion. Sons and daughters alike were expected to do their share towards the familys maintenance during the busy season, in recompense 78 The Future of Rural New England. for which they were allowed to devote themselves heartily to the winter school. This winter school was invariably taught by a man, usually a college student; the work of the colleges then being arranged to make teaching in winter possible. The relation of the teacher to his pupils was a highly personal one; hence the ready transmission of enthusiasm and the de- velopment of individuality. iDickerman Academy was the pride not only of the township, but of a large rural district fromwhich it drewboarding-pupils. Even to this day a few of the older citizens who still hold to the Dickerman tradition will name to you the eminent judges, members of Congress, Senators, and cler- gymen to whom Dickerman Academy was an alma mater. A weekly lyceum was held in the academy building during the winters months, and a singing-school in the schoolhouse. Neighborhood social events were frequent, hearty, and whole- some. The church (there was only one then) was so conducted as to afford, in- directly, large opportunities for the inter- change of courtesies, news, and ideas. It was generously supported, and so close was the union of its interests with those of the town that fidelity to the one meant practically fidelity to the other. Altogether it was a healthy, homogene- ous life, a little slow, perhaps, but far from lethargic, and productive of much that was worth while, especially of the thing the best worth while of all things, character. What has brought about the change in Dickerman? First, there was the dis- covery of gold in California, with its promises of large fortunes to all who were enterprising enough to go across the plains. Some went from Dicker- man, the most ardent and adventurous of those whose careers were not mapped out for them, a few even of those to whom a fair success in life was already assured. Those who were left behind had to be philosophers to remain serene under the fabulous stories that came to them, through the mails, from those who had gone among the first; and not all stood this test. Later, the railway came to Dicker- man, establishing quick connection with the manufacturing towns and cities, just then entering on a period of extraordi- nary activity, and with the New England metropolis. The reports of the high and steady wages to be earned in the shoe- shops and in the cotton and woolen mills made the young people even more rest- less than the reports from the gold-fields had made them, the shops and the mills were so much nearer, and many young women, as well as young men, went forth to try their fortunes. The civil war called a number away. Of these, some of course were killed in battle; others, after their discharge, yielded to the enticements of the tcities, and never went back to the farms. Of those who returned to Dickerman to live, a part were physically disabled, or were demoralized by dissipated habits con- tracted during their camp life. Finally, the emigration which set in from New England to the Western prai- ries, and which brought the relatively small and barren home farms into an ill- deserved contempt, took a large part of those who were left and were worth tak- ing. By these successive losses of popu- lation the town was at last so far im- poverished that no great attraction from without was necessary to keep up the drain, for the very deadness and dull- ness within exerted a strong expulsive force; depletion itself being a sufficient reason for further depletion. There was once a saying current to the effect that as soon as a boy was able to walk, he walked away from Maine. So it came to be at Dickerman, and has been ever since: as soon as a boy has become able to walk, he has walked away from Dick- erman. And, pray, why not? What inducemenl~ could he have to remain? Instead of leaving a good place to live in for one that might or might not be bet- The Future of Rural New England. 79 ter, as the first emigrants did, he was merely leaving a bad place to live in for a place that could not possibly be worse. The same influences that caused the depletion and the decay of Dickerman the rush to the gold-fields, the civil war, the emigration to the prairies, the large cities, and the manufacturing towns, and the feeling of isolation and lack of opportunity resulting from this emigra- tion have been operative throughout all rural New England with more or less disastrous results. Another influence, just as generally operative, has been an exaggerated notion of the luxury and gentility of city life. To hail from Bos- ton or from New York is to be both wealthy and aristocratic, according to the typical rural mind, which groups city people together in a single social stratum, without question as to where they live or how they live, and assigns farmers, whatever their individual qualities, to a social stratum lower by many degrees. This absurd notion has not only driven country people away from the country, but has also demoralized those whom it has not driven away. Hence has come the pathetic desire of such as find them- selves doomed to live elsewhere than in cities to imitate, as nearly as their imper- fect knowledge permits, the manner of life of city folk. They endeavor to dress as city people dress, to furnish their rooms as city people do, even to readjust their houses to the city mode. They remodel a fine, sensible old homestead into some- thing that is neither a farmhouse nor a town-house, but an ugly nondescript, with the disadvantages of both and the ad- vantages of neither; or they demolish a house honestly built to stand for gener- ations to make way for a gingerbread sham of a villa, as much out of place in the midst of farm surroundings as bric-~- brac would be in a stable. They discard their heirlooms handsome, heavy, an- tique furniture, and rare chinafor up- to-date gewgaws, with neither durabili- ty, usefulness, nor beauty to recommend them. The women waste no end of time and money, and fret and fuss their lives out into the bargain, in a vain and ludi- crous attempt to keep pace, from season to season, with the changing fashions in dresses and hats. Furthermore, this gro- tesque exaltation of city conduct has bred a contempt not only for the healthy out- door work that women formerly did, but also for menial labor of every sort even within doors. If these attempts to put away old country fashions were genuine reachings out towards a higher life, there would be no good reason for deploring them; but they are so plainly mere affecta- tions that they are thoroughly pernicious. The standards they are based upon are ready-made importations, not the natural and healthy outgrowth of rustic condi- tions. The result is glaring incongruity; and incongruity is invariably either ludi- crous or pathetic, never constructive. A farmer might as well try to plough in a dress suit as a farming community try to ape the manners of a metropolis. The undermining of character necessarily in- volved in such a proceeding is its worst consequence. Wasteful expenditure is an immediate result, for peddlers and sharp - dealing tradespeople know this rural weakness and take advantage of it. The country people, being hopeless- ly under the spell of the notion that they must have things exactly as city people have them, are easily beguiled by cleverly exaggerated advertisements and voluble chatter into believing that many unnecessary things are necessary, and that it costs nothing to buy on the ac- cursed installment plan. They purchase pianos and organs on which they never learn to play; reclining - chairs whose mechanism is so defective that they re- fuse to recline except at highly inoppor- tune moments; hanging - lamps, rarely lighted, which, when lighted, are unfit to read, to write, or to ~ew by; smart sets of parlor furniture, whose stuffing of Span- ish moss takes impressions and keeps 80 f/i/ic Future of Rural New England. them, as putty does; plush albums that will not hold color even in the dim light of the best room; spectacles and eye- glasses that do the eyes positive harm; ear-drums that give no aid to the deaf; and folding-beds and bed-lounges whose only possible excuse for existence is the lack of space in a city fiat, space, so dull is perversity, being the one thing above all others in which country people are privileged not to economize. It is surprising how much these foolish pur- chases cost. Only one who is familiar with living on a small margin can know how far the exchequer of the average country family is demoralized by them. A sixty-five-dollar cooking-stove that was not needed, whatever its merits, the or- gan that is never played, or the unlove- ly plush album may be the very thing that precludes the possibility of closing the year out of debt. When a young man, with only his hands or his untrained brain to depend upon for a living, deliberately refuses to accept an average farm from his father as a gift, subject to the condition that he shall live on it and work it, a thing that is constantly occurring in New Eng- land, the natural conclusion is that the young man sees no profit in farm- ing; and though in exceptional cases his refusal may have other than finan- cial reasons, the conclusion is generally a sound one. The fact that farming as ordinarily carried on does not pay is a highly important factor in the present situation. Most New England farmers are up to their eyes in debt; overbur- dened with real estate and chattel mort- gages which they can never hope to pay; constantly harassed by the insistence of a dozen other obligations which they can never hope to meet; more than satisfied if they are able to keep up the interest on their mortgages, keep the town wait- ing for their taxes, and get extension of time on their notes. But it would be in- structive to know whether the actual pro- fits on capital and labor invested in New England farming are any smaller to-day than they were formerly, or whether it is the foolhardy attempt to lead a city life in a country environment that makes them appear to be reduced. The farmers themselves believe the profits to be much smaller, but their belief is hardly conclu- sive, inasmuch as in the first place they are prejudiced observers, and in the sec- ond place, for what reason I know not, they are the most incorrigible grumblers in the world. The proverbial discontent of the laboring man is as nothing to theirs. Besides the government, which we all de- cry on occasion as a matter of habit, and which may therefore be left out of tIme account, the farmer has three favorite ob- jects of abuse, the railroads, the specu- lating capitalists, and the middlemen. That the speculating capitalists play with farm products as they would with cards is notorious. That railroads some- times impose exorbitant freights and bribe legislatures, to their own advantage and the farmers confusion, is well known. That the middlemen get more than their proper share of the profit, though not entirely clear in view of the risks they run, is not unlikely. If we grant that the farmer is right in believing himself the victim of these men, we see only the more clearly his own inferiority. In truth, the failure of the average New England farmer to make a good living is probably due quite as much to his incapacity as to the extravagance of his imitations of city life, on the one hand, and the impositions of his economic mas- ters, on the other hand. This incapacity is made up of unintelligence, shiftless- ness, and dishonesty in about equal parts. It is a trite saying, and only partially true, but true enough to bear repeat- ing, that if the average farmer did his work with the same intelligence that the average business man uses, he would suc- ceed as well as the latter. The farmer, instead of studying markets systemati- cally, makes wild hits at them. Because peas brought a good price a previous The Future of Rural New England. 81 season, owing to their scarcity, he plants ten times as many peas as usual; forget- ting that everybody else has planted peas for the same reason. If he lives near enough to a city to make dairying and market-gardening profitable, he is like- ly to become possessed with the desire to raise only one or two vegetables; or he ignores the proper rotation of crops; or he is constantly sacrificing permanent profit for ready cash, taking everything out of the land, and putting nothing into it. After leaving his wagons, tools, and machines exposed to all the elements, he is amazed and angry that he so often has to buy new ones, curses them for being poorly made, and inveighs boisterously against the dishonesty of the time. Such a farmer seems never to learn that clubs and families in cities are will- ing to pay a high price for thoroughly honest products; for when he finds per- sons who might easily be made perma- nent buyers from him, he estranges them by inflicting upon them dishonest things. Doing little to make his produce attrac- tive, he nevertheless devotes a great deal of ingenunity to arranging it dishonestly, deaconing it, to use the significant country phrase. He deacons his fruit, his vegetables, everything in fact, even his eggs, selling as fresh eggs that have been packed all winter, and taking it as a sort of personal affront that the men who stamp and guarantee their eggs can command a fancy price all the year. Al- though the farmer is perhaps not more dishonest than other men, it is proba- ble that he suffers more from his dishon- esty than most others: partly because he deals so largely with perishable materials, in which fraud is easily and quickly de- tected; and partly because he is less sub- tle in his deceits, and less apt in defend- ing himself against the consequences of detection. One year when the best ap- ples were hard to dispose of, a certain district Grange offered its members a chance to send apples to Liverpool. Some took advantage of the situation to get rid VOL. LXXX. NO. 477. 6 of their poor fruit. The Liverpool agents very naturally felt aggrieved, and the Liverpool market was closed to the farm- ers of that district for the rest of the season, during which many barrels of good fruit rotted. The prime cause of the impoverish- ment of the social life of rural New Eng- land has been, of course, the impairment of vital force by the loss of great num- bers of worthy people, but this cause alone does not entirely explain the de- cline. The large size of the townships and the long distances between dwellings have had much to do with making social coherence difficult. A single township may embrace four or five communities two or three miles apart, with no com- mon rallying-point but the annual town- meeting. Not only do these detached sections get nothing socially from the township as a whole, but they are not, as a rule, populous or compact enough to have any appreciable social activity of their own. In this respect our farming communities are at a distinct disadvan- tage as compared with those of France and most of the other countries of the Old World. There the tillers of the soil live closely together, in almost crowded vil- lages, from which they go forth to their work in the outlying fields. There is no- thing in their situation to prevent their life from being as highly organized as if they were not tillers of the soil at all. In Dickerman and Indian Ridge (as I described the latter in The Atlantic Monthly for May) two true if extreme types of contemporary New England ru- ral life have been presented; one show- ing progress at its best, the other show- ing decay at its worst. There are few Dickermans, there are still fewer Indian Ridges. Most New England farming towns range themselves between these two types in point of character; they are not so dead as Dickerman, and not so en- ergetic as Indian Ridge. That the coun- try in general, however, has slipped back, no one who knows it can doubt. But 82 Tlte Future of Rural New England. several influences which in a measure counteract the general tendency to decay must be mentioned. Village Improve- ment Societies, though varying greatly in their efficiency, have brought much bene- fit to many localities. The Grange, while doing little enough of the sort of service that was expected of it in the reform of economic conditions, is working social and intellectual miracles. The Home Culture Clubs and the Chautauqua Cir- cles and Assemblies must be admitted to have given an intellectual stimulus to country life. An educational unity, pro- ductive of better schools in towns of scattered population, has been effected by the simple device of free transpor- tation to and from a centrally located school. Public libraries have increased in number, and the Sunday-school libra- ries of some of the towns not yet provided with public libraries have been so far lib- eralized as to prove not unworthy substi- tutes. The beauty of the memorial libra- ry buildings and churches erected here and there by wealthy individuals, and the improvement that has taken place in the architecture of the railway stations, are doing something for the development of taste. I venture a few words, then, at the risk of blundering badly, as to the future. Farming communities which like Indian Ridge have held out successfully against the powerful disintegrating forces of the last half - century have thereby proved themselves possessed of so much inher- ent virility that their life may be de- pended upon to continue vigorous, what- ever transformations it niay undergo. Then the trolley roads are rapidly cov- ering Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut with a network that is slow- ly and surely redistributing the popula- tion; it seems almost inevitable that a The least important, perhaps, and yet to some of us the saddest thing about the decay of New England country life has been the dis- appearance of the hospitable wayside tavern. Something similar, it is hoped, may be brought great part of the present rural area of these three States will ultimately be in- cluded in the suburbs of their numerous and widely scattered industrial centres and of their dozen or more larger cities. When this condition arrives, if it does arrive, rural life will have become sub- urban, and farming, aside from mar- ket-gardening, will have practically dis- appeared. The bicycle and good roads are exerting a minor but considerable influence in the same direction. Equally important is the fact that large areas in all sections of New Eng- land are in process of transformation from farms to sites of country-seats. Residents of the cities are coming more and more to make their real homes in the country. They are building their country houses with more comfort and more solidity, and are living in them a much larger part of the year than for- merly. The country season extends al- ready from the first of May to the first of November, and is still lengthening. Improved railway and steamboat trans- portation, the multiplication of large for- tunes, greater leisure, above all a grow- ing appreciation of the sports and re- sources of country life, have contributed to this result. It looks very much as if our urban society were attaching itself primarily to the land, living on the land, and leaving it for the city only in the festive season. Whether this tendency will produce again a landed aristocracy instead of an aristocracy of other forms of wealth, who can say? One thing only is sure, it would produce thereby a new New England. During the hunt- ing and fishing seasons of the last few years, northern Maine, the wildest and most remote section of New England, has been visited by such numbers of sports- men that the income to the residents has in by the bicycle. It is much to be feared, how- ever, that the new bicycle road-house will be nothing more hospitable tban a mammoth stand- up lunch-counter. The Future of Rural New England. 83 been prodigious. If this region is not permanently reserved to sport (as it ought to be), its magnificent lake, moun- tain, and river districts will be crowded with summer hotels, as soon as they be- come a little more accessible by rail. From the summer hotel to the summer cottage is but a step, and from the sum- mer cottage to the solid country house is but another step. Considerable sections of Vermont, New Hampshire, and west- ern Massachusetts, and of the New Eng- land coast from Eastport to the New York line, have already been transfigured by this remarkable return to the soil. Curious indeed it would be if rural New England, which has been largely depop- ulated and impoverished by a movement of country people to the city, should be repopulated and enriched, should have its economic and social equilibrium re- stored, by a counter-movement of city people to the country. Finally, there is some hope for the New England farms as farms, for farms, although apparently destined to play a less important part than they formerly played, will hardly disappear from such sections as are neither adja- cent to the cities and industrial centres nor specially attractive for residence, and this hope seems to rest with our im- migrants. They alone are willing and able to lead simple farm lives, such as the pioneers of the West or the original New England settlers lived. The na- tive Americans are now too impatient, too extravagant, too proud, under the changed conditions, to be successful farmers. In many sections, this occupa- tion and rehabilitation of the soil by for- eigners has actually begun. Many of the abandoned farms which come into the market are bought by them at very low prices. Most of these newcomers pro- sper, just as the American settlers of a former period prospered when they held to the plain life of pioneers. If these immigrant farmers were crowding native Americans off the land, as immigrant laborers have from time to time crowded them out of the labor market, their ad- vent would be ominous; but since they step in to fill a vacuum, to do what oth- ers have failed to do, there is no good reason why they should not have a hearty welcome. The old New England, the New Eng- land of the farms, seems destined to dis- appear, if indeed it has not disappeared already. The people who gave it its character have long been away from the farms, building up and enriching the West, the Northwest, the Southwest, the interior, and the large cities and manu- facturing towns of the Atlantic coast States. The primitive, rugged, whole- some life of the fathers is gone forever. Nothing can bring it back. I have ven- tured to predict a new New England, composed of large cities and manufac- turing towns of greatly expanded sub- urbs, districts of country - seats, and a remnant of farms worked by immigrant farmers. The prophecy seems fair enough in the light of the most conspic- uous present conditions; but so seemed the prophecy, before the day of railways, that New Orleans would be one of the great cities of the world. As the rail- ways prevented the development of New Orleans and created Chicago, so such a simple and probable event as the deri- vation from the New England water- courses of electrical power, and its trans- mission for long distances, may of itself be sufficient to change the life and as- pect of all New England within a very brief period. The typical New England community of to-day, however, is neither the de- cayed farming town nor the prosperous farming town, but the manufacturing town. Such a community will be the subject of the next and final chapter of these studies. Alvan F. Sanborn. 84 Burke: A Centenary Perspective. BURKE: A CENTENARY PERSPECTIVE. JUST a hundred years ago there was laid to rest in the quiet country church at Beaconsfield one to whom we Ameri- cans owe a debt of gratitude that has never been fully paid. Edmund Burke, whom the world now recognizes as one of the few great men of all time, made his first appearance in public life in con- nection with American affairs. That early speech which won him instant fame as an orator was made in advocacy of the rights and privileges of Americans. In the course thus entered upon he per- sisted with untiring interest through long and discouraging years of ministerial wrong-headedness and incapacity. He brought to his service a deep and thor- ough knowledge of American conditions, a sound political philosophy, and a glow- ing genius; and yet Burke was little of a hero in American eyes during the struggle of the Revolution, and little of a guide in the formative period that suc- ceeded. There are certa~in outer and obvious reasons for this neglect, perceptible at once as we glance, for instance, from Burke to the one whom Americans did cherish in their hearts as their chief pro- tector and defender on English ground, Lord Chatham. Burke was a begin- ner in political life; Chatham had been for years a dominant figure in European politics. Chatham had rank and high social connection; Burke was an obscure young Irishman of no connection at all. Chatham was a strong and masterful party leader; Burke stood, as he always deliberately chose to stand when circum- stances permitted it, in the subordinate position of party follower. For the failure of our ancestors to re- cognize the value of Burkes services and to adopt his ideas, there were, however, other and deeper reasons, to be found in certain general currents of thought and feeling, opposing, crossing, and inter- mingling in the political and social life of the time. The anti-American party in English politics began its work of aggression un- der the cover of legal right, a right justifying any procedure that might be warranted by the letter of law or the wording of statute. Grenville, the man who, in concocting the Stamp Act, struck the match that set off the whole maga- zine of revolution, was the arch-type of the legal mind. The various celebrated pen portraits that we have of him show JIim to have been upright, painstaking, and honest, but oppressively literal, mak- ing no allowance for the disturbing force of human emotion in schemes constructed by the human intellect. Having, as he thought, a legal competency to tax the colonies, he saw no possible reason why he should not exercise his right, and he at once proceeded to do so. In oppo- sition to his policy, the party of Chat- ham and Camden, following the lines laid down by their teacher, Locke, urged the claims of a natural or moral right, which, they maintained, graven deeply and unmistakably in the individual con- sciousness, offered to every man an in- fallible test for determining when the commands o~ positive law embodied jus- tice, and when they did not. The doctrine of moral right is to be found in the colonies, also, in a state of vigorous and flourishing growth. Wrought out as it had been through ages of social conflict, by one minority party after another, as a weapon of de- fense against the established law of a hostile party in power, this doctrine was peculiarly at home in a community which, like colonial America, was largely peo- pled by such a minority party and their descendants. Nor was a doctrine of legal right unfamiliar there; but while

84 Burke: A Centenary Perspective. BURKE: A CENTENARY PERSPECTIVE. JUST a hundred years ago there was laid to rest in the quiet country church at Beaconsfield one to whom we Ameri- cans owe a debt of gratitude that has never been fully paid. Edmund Burke, whom the world now recognizes as one of the few great men of all time, made his first appearance in public life in con- nection with American affairs. That early speech which won him instant fame as an orator was made in advocacy of the rights and privileges of Americans. In the course thus entered upon he per- sisted with untiring interest through long and discouraging years of ministerial wrong-headedness and incapacity. He brought to his service a deep and thor- ough knowledge of American conditions, a sound political philosophy, and a glow- ing genius; and yet Burke was little of a hero in American eyes during the struggle of the Revolution, and little of a guide in the formative period that suc- ceeded. There are certa~in outer and obvious reasons for this neglect, perceptible at once as we glance, for instance, from Burke to the one whom Americans did cherish in their hearts as their chief pro- tector and defender on English ground, Lord Chatham. Burke was a begin- ner in political life; Chatham had been for years a dominant figure in European politics. Chatham had rank and high social connection; Burke was an obscure young Irishman of no connection at all. Chatham was a strong and masterful party leader; Burke stood, as he always deliberately chose to stand when circum- stances permitted it, in the subordinate position of party follower. For the failure of our ancestors to re- cognize the value of Burkes services and to adopt his ideas, there were, however, other and deeper reasons, to be found in certain general currents of thought and feeling, opposing, crossing, and inter- mingling in the political and social life of the time. The anti-American party in English politics began its work of aggression un- der the cover of legal right, a right justifying any procedure that might be warranted by the letter of law or the wording of statute. Grenville, the man who, in concocting the Stamp Act, struck the match that set off the whole maga- zine of revolution, was the arch-type of the legal mind. The various celebrated pen portraits that we have of him show JIim to have been upright, painstaking, and honest, but oppressively literal, mak- ing no allowance for the disturbing force of human emotion in schemes constructed by the human intellect. Having, as he thought, a legal competency to tax the colonies, he saw no possible reason why he should not exercise his right, and he at once proceeded to do so. In oppo- sition to his policy, the party of Chat- ham and Camden, following the lines laid down by their teacher, Locke, urged the claims of a natural or moral right, which, they maintained, graven deeply and unmistakably in the individual con- sciousness, offered to every man an in- fallible test for determining when the commands o~ positive law embodied jus- tice, and when they did not. The doctrine of moral right is to be found in the colonies, also, in a state of vigorous and flourishing growth. Wrought out as it had been through ages of social conflict, by one minority party after another, as a weapon of de- fense against the established law of a hostile party in power, this doctrine was peculiarly at home in a community which, like colonial America, was largely peo- pled by such a minority party and their descendants. Nor was a doctrine of legal right unfamiliar there; but while Burke: A Centenary Perspective. 85 in England law and na~ire, as political principles, were pitted against one an- other by party politicians, in the colonies they were used to support one another in a common cause of resistance to Eng- lish oppression. Two notable figures appear in colonial history, the minister of religion and the lawyer, the former the dominant per- sonage in the seventeenth century, the latter in the eighteenth; and while the former, as a true son of the Reformation, had developed, expounded, and typified the doctrine of moral right, until it had become ingrained in the thought of the people, the latter, when he came into prominence, was eager to show his fa- miliarity with the arts of his particular vocation, all devices of offense and defense that may claim as their warrant the letter of law. We are not, however, to regard the ministerial class in the concrete, at the Revolutionary period, as engaged in teaching a moral right ex- clusively, while the lawyers, on the oth- er band, devoted themselves entirely to legality. It was rather the case that the moral or natural right theory, developed and fostered in the period of theological influence, descended to the legal period to form part of a common stock of doc- trine which was drawn upon freely by any one at will, as occasion seemed to require. Burke, in the meantime, was conduct- ing his American campaign along quite other lines. Obedience makes govern- ment, he thought, and obedience can be secured only when the governor knows and will work in harmony with the forces of human motive actually in operation in the people to be governed. If men were beings of a simple nature, moved by reason entirely, or by some one funda- mental emotion such as fear, the moral right resting on logic, and the legal right resting on force, might do very well as sole principles of government. But Burke saw not only that men are curiously in- tricate complexes of feeling, reason, de sire, belief, passion, and prejudice, but that they are not even uniform in their complexity. The elements of human na- ture vary from race to race, from com- munity to community, even from person to person. The first task of the legisla- tor, then, if he wants to form a plan of government that will work successfully in practice, must be to study the peculiar temper and character of the particular people with whom he is to deal. Such a special study Burke made of the American people, of its original race traits, of its acquired characters, and of all the influences of climate, soil, geographical position, and social tradi- tion that might be counted on to modify those traits and to accentuate those char- acters still further. From this research into local conditions emerged certain psy- chological principles of general applica- tion, prominent among them the law of habit. Habit is the force, Burke thinks, that has consolidated the elements of feeling, instinct, and reason in the hu- man mind into a smoothly working whole. Habit gives to human action a strength, surety, and swiftness that seem unattain- able by any other means; and the long- er habit is at work, the greater will be the effect produced by it. Escape from the influence of habit is difficult, if not impossible. Even when a person or a community voluntarily determines wholly to ignore it, and to reconstruct in every detail the already established plan of life, the attempt will result either in a stoppage of action, or in a failure to break away from custom after all. Much less can habit be uprooted by external agency. The legislator who tries to run counter to the fixed customs of a people will meet with a strength of resistance that will be found insuperable. Rejecting, then, a legal right which he thought impracticable, and a moral right which he thought misleading, Burke founded his political philosophy upon that use and wont, that custom from time immemorial, which is the basis of 86 Burke: A Centenary Perspective. the English common law, and in great part of the English Constitution. So far, Burke might be merely the skillful politician, the Machiavelli of his time, studying without approval or dis- approval the complicated instrument he is trying to know only that he may play a tune of his own upon its stops. But a thorough belief in his chosen principle gives to Burkes philosophy an accent of greatness. Use and wont are means not only to easier but to better action. It is true that habit must be reckoned with by the legislator; a people cannot be permanently governed contrary to its in- clinations, and its inclinations become more firmly fixed and more definitely es- tablished by long-continued custom. The path is, however, to be kept not only be- cause walking is difficult outside of it, but because the track thus worn by the converging tread of countless feet, at the call of countless interests, desires, and calculations, leads more directly to the great ends of human society than any new road, laid out arbitrarily by the sin- gle speculator. And so innovation was, for Burke, the great political heresy, and his chief article of complaint against the Tory party of his day in England. Use and wont as a ground of doctrine had their place in colonial thought by right of inheritance from a long line of English ancestry. Custom, as well as moral and legal right, was freely alleged in justification of American claims. In the various addresses, petitions, and de- clarations issued by the colonists from time to time we may find expression of all these doctrines, either separately or in amicable even if somewhat incongru- ous combination. But as the contest went on, use and wont seemed to be found less and less available as a basis of argument. Hutchinson writes in 1774: The leaders here seem to acknowledge that their cause is not to be defended on constitutional principles, and Adams now gives out that there is no need of it; they are upon better ground; all men have a natural right to change a bad constitution for a better, whenever they have it in their power. If the princi- ple adopted by Burke was in reality a sound and fruitful one, why should it have been dropped from favor in this way. With the passage of time the substan- tial correctness of Burkes analysis of the American situation is seen more and more clearly. The revolt was brought about, as Burke said it was, by British violation of use and wont, by British con- tempt for American opinion and feeling. The condition of affairs in America was the result of natural growth and pre- vailing circumstance substantially as he depicted it in his various speeches and letters dealing with the American ques- tion. Burkes doctrine of use and wont, however, is a doctrine of the group; and the colonists were going all the time further and further along the way of individualism. The moral right so dear to the colonists was based upon individ- ual reason; and the legal right invoked so often both for and against them was based upon individual will, either of the one or of the many arbitrarily united. The use and wont that Burke appealed to, on the other band, are the work, not of some chance aggregation of unrelated individuals, but of a social group, unit- ed by ties of common descent, common names, and mutual affection, a group joining present, past, and future genera- tions in intimate and living union. Into this group, which Burke assumes as the fundamental unit of human society, mem- bers enter, as a rule, not by deliberate choice, but by the involuntary avenue of birth. It is made up, like the family group, of the weak and the strong, of the ignorant and the experienced; and as in the family group, the strong and the wise are the natural leaders, the weak and the ignorant are the willing and obedient followers, while all mem- bers work together, not for individual profit, but for the good of the whole. Burke: A Centenary Perspective. 87 Their plan of action is to be found in the wisdom of ancestors, the know- ledge gathered through ages of experi- ence, and the principles worked out and tested by the actual operation of events. It is all very well, however, to have recourse in this way to the wisdom of ancestors and to institutions that have stood the test of time and experience, so long as one is in unbroken connection with ancestors, and the conditions pro- vided for in their institutions remain the same; but when ancestors cast one off and circumstances change completely, what is to be done? The habit that connected the colonists with England and English institutions was necessarily some- what weakened, as Burke himself had shown, by the circumstances of coloniza- tion. He had in mind particularly, as causes of disconnection, the wide dis- tances that separated the colonists from their old home, and the necessity for hardihood and individual self-reliance arising in the settlement of a new and dif- ficult country. We may see, in addition, that the social group of early colonial times was not, to begin with, the natural group assumed by Burke as the unit of society and as the author of use and wont, but, consisting as it did mainly of adult men and women who had deliberately broken away from former local and so- cial ties, and had deliberately united in a new association by agreement, it was in great degree a concrete example of the artificial group assumed by Locke in his compact theory, a group formed by the free volition of independent and equal individuals. The tradition of in- dividual independence thus established was never quite lost sight of, even after long settlement had transformed the originally artificial groups into natural groups, which held largely to old Eng- lish lines of thought and belief, and ar- ranged themselves in the main under the old English social and governmental framework. In the struggle with the mother country, the necessity for independence of thought and action became once more pressing. More and more the colonists found themselves cut off from precedent and tradition; more and more they found it necessary to assert the rights of the individual against the power of the group as represented by an oppressive govern- ment; more and more they were forced into the position of revolt against all establishment and control, although, as Burke maintained, the establishment they contended against was itself an innova- tion, and the control was not the true expression of group opinion, but the violation of it. So, while Burke would undertake the work of politics with a total renunciation of every speculation of [his] own, and would put his foot in the tracks of our forefathers, where lie could neither wander nor stumble, the colonists, with Otis, were beginning to see in the inherited laws of nations nothing more than the history of an- cient abuses. While Burke thought that intemperately, unwisely, fatally, yoa sophisticate and poison the very source of government by prying too closely into its nature, the colonists were becom- ing ready (again in Otiss words) to examine as freely into the origin, spring, and foundation of every power and mea- sure in the commonwealth as into a piece of curious machinery. This fundamen- tal difference of attitude regarding gov- eminent and society was too great to be overlooked, and accounts clearly enough for an absence of strong sympathy on the part of the colonists for Burkes leading ideas, and indeed of any complete com- prehension of them. It would be natural to suppose that when the war of the Revolution was over, the constructive forces once at work in colonial life would resume their activity. The circumstances of the time seemed to call for principles and methods just the opposite to those found necessary in the struggle for independence. During that struggle, the first necessity was to 88 Burke: A (Jentei~ary Perspective. provide for the individual a way of es- cape from the group; now the individ- ual must be brought into group relations again, if the American people were to work together as a political society. At this time there did indeed arise a party that looked first to social order, opposed to a party that looked first to individual liberty; and in that party of order the party of Madison and Hamilton we might naturally expect to find some reflection caught from the great thinker who had expounded so wise- ly, and so favorably to the cause of the Americans, the fundamental principles of social order. But during the period of the formation and establishment of the federal Constitution there is little trace of the influence of Burke. Turning to The Federalist, that authoritative text- book of constitutional principle, we do, it is true, find some suggestions of Burkes thought and method. In it the com- plexity of social workings is recognized; it is felt that slender results are to be at- tained by the efforts of human sagacity; long adjustment of a system of govern- ment to its surroundings is regarded as necessary before it can work properly; function in government is more than form, and parchment barriers cannot pre- vent the encroachment of power; gov- ernment rests upon opinion, and requires for real stability that veneration which time bestows on everything. But whatever its authors may have held as personal opinion, the general direction of argumentation taken in The Federal- ist had to be along quite other lines than those laid down in Burkes philosophy. In urgingthe adoption of the Constitution, its advocates could not expect to reach a people in the full tide of individualism, after a successful revolt from the group, by any appeals to a group theory of use and wont; and besides, by a curious turn of affairs, so far as a doctrine of use and wont could be applied, it would work directly against their purposes. Our Constitutionhas been amply shown by numerous modern commentators to be, in its substance, as much the embodi- ment of actual experience as is the Eng- lish Constitution itself. We suffer, in- deed, from an embarrassment of riches in sources of practice, American, English, or Dutch, for its various formal provi- sions. And yet, while the substance and matter of the federal Constitution may be old, there is enough in it that was new in form at the time of its construction to distract attention from more familiar features. For example, popular thought could not take in without difficulty the idea of a political society made up of States that were independent, and at the same time under central control; nor could it understand a central control ex- cept under the old form of king and standing army. Furthermore, the circum- stances attending the forming and adop- tion of the Constitution were such as to make it appear a new construction. The meeting of a body of men representing a nation, with the deliberate intention of framing a fundamental law covering the entire field of government, was a new event in political experience. Although much might be said in the convention about English practice and the English Constitution, the fact of choice, of free- dom to adopt or reject, made even the following of custom in some sort an act of voluntary creation. This aspect of the conventions work, at any rate, was the aspect that impressed the imagination of the time most forcibly, and has continued to impress the imagination of succeed- ing generations until within very recent years. To this apparently new device of in- dividual creation were opposed those nat- ural groups which had been slowly form- ing out of the artificial groups of early colonial society, through a hundred years, more or less, of settlement, the differ- ent States of the new union. They ex- hibited the true characteristics of natural groups: peculiar local traits, particular local customs, differing local institutions, Burke: A Centenary Perspective. 89 and a general sympathy for all that was within the group, together with a gen- eral indifference or hostility to all that was without it. The framers of the Con- stitution, in trying to establish a uniform and stable system of government, found themselves obliged to get behind the col- lective personality of these groups to the group members as separate and inde- pendent individuals. The great and radical vice in the construction of the ex- isting confederation, says Hamilton in The Federalist, is in the principle of legislation for states or governments in their corporate or collective capacities, and as contradistinguished from the in- dividuals of which they consist. Lu- ther Martin, of the other party, com- plained bitterly that such disregard was paid in the Constitutional Convention to the claims of state groups: We had not been sent to form a government over the inhabitants of America considered as in- dividuals,.. . but in our proceedings we adopted principles which would be right and proper only on the supposition that there were no state governments at all, but that all the inhabitants of this exten- sive continent were in, their individual capacity, without government, and in a state of nature. The advocates of the Constitution, then, were obliged to meet the charge of violation of use and wont, that innovation which Burke saw as the great vice of political action, and they accepted the issue fairly and squarely on that ground. Madison asks in The Federalist: Is it not the glory of the people of America that, whilst they have paid a decent regard to the opinions of former times and other nations, they have not suffered a blind veneration for antiquity, for custom, or for names to overrule the suggestions of their own good sense, the knowledge of their own situation, and the lessons of their own experience? . . . Happily for America, happily, we trust, for the whole human race, they pursued a new and more noble course. They accomplished a revolution which has no parallel in the annals of human society. They reared the fabrics of governments which have no model on the face of the globe. During all this time Burke himself was becoming more and more openly and de- finitely a supporter of tradition and the group. While we were making and es- tablishing our Constitution, he was be- coming, by preoccupation with questions of English local policy, less conspicuous as a friend of American liberty; and a few years later he was seen occupying a position that apparently indicated him as the enemy of liberty in general. In the overturning in France Burke thought he saw the same spirit of innovation at work that he had deplored in the conduct of the English government in the American matter, and he urged in resistance to it the same considerations of use and wont, of long - continued custom, that he had urged on the former occasion; but the ap- plication of his doctrine made his course appear diametrically opposite in the two cases. What the unreflective mind saw in both instances was a people trying to win freedom, with Burke as their advo- cate in the one case, against them in the other. As a political philosopher, above and beyond the party politician and bril- liant orator, Burke first came into pro- minence by means of his Reflections on the Revolution in France, which was widely and eagerly read from the time of its publication. This work stamped him in popular thought as the stanch up- holder of royalty, of aristocracy, and of governmental control, a position that could hardly commend him in a country that had just shaken off royalty, and that had scarcely founded a gove~rnment. There was besides, in America, a natural feeling of sympathy for a country trying to work out its destiny on principles os- tensibly the same as those adopted in American practice. Jefferson expresses the feeling of the French party in his disdainful comment on the picture of roy- alty gaudily painted in the rhapsodies 90 Burke: A Centenary Perspective. of the Rhetor Burke, with some smart- ness of fancy, but no sound sense. Even the English party could not regard with open approval a defense of institu- tions that they themselves honestly felt were superseded and antiquated, while at the same time they had to suffer every day the imputation of trying to restore them. The development of the individual, the trust in his powers, the belief in his ca- pabilities, continued unchecked through the early years of our countrys exist- ence as a separate political society. Just as the last portion of land taken into cultivation fixes the rate of rent for all other land in use, so the ever advancing frontier fixed a general type of temper, character, and manner for the whole people. When the intricate network of social relation and institution that each individual has to fit himself to, in an old and compact society, began to form in the longer - settled communities, the young and enterprising, who felt themselves hampered by these growing restrictions, found an ample outlet for their energies in the boundless opportunities and wide spaces of the West. It is not possible to regard very seriously limitations from which escape is so easy; and so the free- dom of the West was an ever present influence in thought, even whore condi- tions were arising to prevent complete individual liberty in practice. The method of the pioneer the self-reliant, resourceful man who can at call turn his hand to anything was the method of the whole country, not only because a constant process of new settlement de- manded the continued use of that method somewhere, but because it had been hand- ed down by tradition from the days when the frontier was the Atlantic seaboard, as the way in which we were at one time accustomed to conduct our affairs everywhere. There was little or no re- spect for the expert in any line; a cer- tain native shrewdness, unaided by spe- cial training, long practice, or social sup- port, was thought to be the entire outfit needed by the free-born American to ac- complish anything. To outsiders, too, the typical American was the fron- tiersman, because he was the superlative degree of American tendencies, and be- cause he afforded the most complete con- trast to the European type of charac- ter, and contrast always attracts; so this figure, reflected back through the opinions of others, was fixed even more firmly in the self - consciousness of the American as his own true image. This individualism of a society domi- nated by the frontier ideal flourished, until in the war of secession it attained its culminating moment. The abstract theory avowedly held by a whole people, that all men are equal, and, by virtue of bare humanity, endowed with certain natural rights to certain desirabilities of existence, had not been completely car- ried out in practice, whatever legal cas- uists might say to the contrary, while human slavery existed as a social institu- tion. Although it is true that political and economic causes deeper than any abstract doctrine of rights had their powerful effect in bringing on the civil war, it is no less true that one of its causes was the constant discussion of rights and the constant appeal to ostensibly accept- ed principles, and that one of its great results was a more complete realization of those principles in the freeing of the slaves. Another victory, too, for indi- vidualism was won by the war. The nat- ural groups represented in the States, each with its own distinct social person- ality, the same natural groups that had resisted the adoption of a Constitution which threatened to dissolve them into their individual elements, were, in the civil war, again arrayed against a power that menaced group customs and habits. The result of that war was still further to reduce the power of those groups, to violate local custom and local feeling, and to establish a more general relation of individuals with individuals, regard- Burke: A centenary Perspective. 91 less of state lines and of state author- ity. At this very moment of individualistic triumph~ however, group influence began to assert itself again, and with ever in- creasing power. In the South, the rain of the war was aggravated by the pre- sence of a population recently freed from a .position of legal dependence, but as yet unfitted for a position of econom- ic and social independence. It had to be admitted by the warmest lovers of liberty that even for the enfranchised class itself freedom from outer control was not the unmixed blessing it had been supposed to be; and so the abstract the- ory of moral or natural right got a blow. The beautifully balanced Constitution we took such pride in had been juggled with by advocates and opponents of sla- very, by Whigs and Democrats, until we came to think that even the letter of a law might not be a certain safeguard; and so an abstract theory of legality was weakened. Large numbers of foreign- ers were already coming among us, and inequalities of intelligence, varieties of social condition and local characteristic, were made so prominent that it was in- creasmgly difficult to think of men as man, but we were obliged to regard them as particular kinds of men living in particular ways. Pressure of a popu- lation growing rapidly by immigration and by natural growth brought a greater degree of social control, men cannot act with perfect freedom when they are closely elbowing one another; and from this growing social control escape was less and less easy to a frontier that was offer- ing ever narrowing possibilities. Pres- sure of population brought the large in- dustry, which requires a wide and stable market for its product; and the large industry brought a still further expansion of social control. The large industry makes men unequal and dependent, by fitting them into a great system of un- like and interlocking parts. They can no longer stand in the individual single- ness of the frontiersman, but are united in mutual subordination in a group. Since the war American society has been arranging itself more and more group-wise; and, iii consequence, Ameri- can thought is becoming more conscious of an inadequacy in the individualistic theories of society that flourished so nat- urally and so vigorously in an individu- alistic stage of social life. About the time that individualism in this country was at its highest point, there emerged into notice, on the other side of the water, a philosophy of the group which had been long prepared for in various movements of thought, and which was soon to be the dominant in- tellectual influence of the time. That philosophy, eagerly ~taken up in this country, was the general doctrine of evo- lution. According to older theories of the universe, each thing worked out its own unimpeded course as a result of qualities inherent from the beginning, which made up its nature, a nature completely expressible in the logical de- finition of the thing. The evolution phi- losophy represents things in systems of interaction, as a result of which charac- ters are developed and qualities acquired; and nature is not an abstract concep- tion, but a concrete process. The ele- ments in this process are indefinitely nu- merous; their reactions are perplexingly intricate. The result of group action in the process of evolution is unlikeness; it is not conceivable that all particles in a system can be acted upon in the same way at the same time, and the result of unlike action is unlike quality, which in its turn becomes the ground for a further differentiation of elements. This theory makes the group the controlling force, the individual the result, and a result varying in character as the conditions of group action vary. The application of this general idea to political theory ~s obvious, and has been widely made. We are now begin- ning to regard human society as the re 92 Burke: A Centenary Perspective. suit of numberless actions and reactions of elements, not always perceptible in all the detail of their working, but obey- ing fixed and constant laws. We are beginning to recognize as a normal and necessary process the control exerted by a social group over its parts, its action in assigning each to an appropriate place and function, and its influence in estab- lishing in them appropriately varying characters. We are learning that rea- son, logic, and abstract truth are not the only elements to be considered in the political process, but that the social emo- tions, instincts, feelings, and impulses caused by a long course of group actions and reactions, differing in their charac- ter with the peculiar circumstances and conditions of each social group, are just as important, if not more so. With a growing prominence of the group as an actual concrete fact in our country, and with the growing preva- lence of the group doctrine of evolution as a theory, it seems as if the time were now ripe for the great political philoso- pher of the group, so long neglected, to take his rightful place among us as a source of theory and a guide to prac- tice. The doctrine of natural selection, the corner-stone of the evolution philo- sophy, has two aspects, or two stages of logical development, the struggle for existence and the survival of the fittest. For the former partial principle, Darwin himself, the teacher of natural selection to our generation, acknowledges his debt to Malthus But almost a century be- fore Darwin, and a half-century before Malthus, a distinct exposition of the lat- ter principle was made. Burkes entire political philosophy, from beginning to end, is a copious, powerful, and infinitely varied treatment of the doctrine of the survival of the fittest. This is the funda- mental principle of his conservatism, the conservatism that he taught during the American war as well as at the time of the French Revolution, that he fol- lowed in the matter of economical re form as well as in the matter of parlia- mentary representation. It is hard to catch any set formulation of this prin- ciple in Burkes utterances, by reason of a peculiarity that is itself the best ex- pression of a principle, a dislike for stating principle except in its concrete application. But we may come pretty near to such a formulation in this de- scription of the British Constitution: And this is a choice not of one day or of one set of people, not a tumultuary and giddy choice; it is a deliberate election of ages and of generations; it is a con- stitution made by what is ten thousand times better than choice; it is made by the peculiar circumstances, occasions, tempers, dispositions, and moral, civil, and social habitudes of the people, which disclose themselves only in a long space of time. It is a vestment which ac- commodates itself to the body. Nor is prescription of government formed upon blind, unmeaning prejudices; for man is a most unwise and a most wise being. The individual is foolish. The multitude for the moment is foolish, when they act without deliberation; but the species is wise, and when time is given to it, as a species it almost always acts right. On nearly every page of Burkes work is to be found some touch of detail, some contributory figure to fill up and adorn this outline. His insistence upon the ne- cessity of dealing with men according to their special tempers and characters is an insistence upon the great principle of adaptation, so important in the evolution- ary doctrine; his constant reminder that temper and character differ in different groups of men is a reminder of the vary- ing influences at work in the adaptive pro- cess. His appeal to the feelings and even the prejudices of men, as a surer guide and stronger force than reasoned calcu- lation, is an appeal to a wisdom gathered and proved in long experience, until, through habit; the conscious process of thought has been consolidated into the un- conscious process of instinct. For Burke, Burke: A Centenary Perspective. 93 as for the modern evolutionist, sur- vival is group survival. The end of the process of selection in the physical organism is the preservation or destruc- tion of the whole group of related traits and characters, forces and elements, that we know as the living creature. With Burke, the survival of the social whole, not of any one element in it, nor of all its elements taken out of relation to it, was the great end to be sought in the social process. This was, in practi- cal affairs, the final ground of reform or of conservatism, of action or of refusal to act. The urgent necessity that Burke allows as a valid plea for the breaking of all bonds of legal and po- litical institution is the necessity for so- cial continuance; the menacing danger against which all barriers of law and or- der, of instinct, reason, and feeling, must be set up, is the danger of social, not individual dissolution. In short, Burke is found possessed in a remarkable de- gree of the fundamental conceptions of organic life long before any general re- cognition of them. He approaches his object of study the social group in the very spirit of the biological student yet to come, looking at it with a fine in- stinct for the flowing, merging, and blend- ing of subtle elements that make up the life-process; feeling in it, as it were with sensitive finger-tips, the warmth and pul- sation, the inexpressibly delicate and ir- regular ramification of fibre and inter- lacement of tissue, of the living thing. Steeped as we are to-day in evolution- ary conceptions, Burkes thought speaks to us in the language we understand best; it speaks besides with a power that makes it more than a simple parallel to already existing influences. Modern evolution~ ary philosophy has produced no master of political science worthy to be com- pared for a moment to Burke, in depth of thought, wealth of observation, experi- ence, and research; and above all, in that primal energy of mind which, baffling all explanation or formulation, in its mighty outflow bears along with it the minds and feelings of men in enforced but willing subdual. Although Burke has much to tell us of bygone political complications that have little or no living interest for us, he has also much to tell us that we may put to immediate practical use. He can help us particularly in our endeavor to deal with the problems presented as a result of the growing power of the so- cial group, by showing us the true na- ture of social groups and their normal laws of action. We may thank him for offering in these laws and principles a test by which we may see that the so- cialism we are half tempted into, in our feeling that the individualism of an ear- lier day is outworn, is in reality no group theory at all, but simply another individualism in disguise. The schemes for group action, laboriously contrived by the social theorist and enforced by the legislator to serve the interests of the social whole, are, Burke shows us, but clumsy hindrances to true group action, to the fine and delicate processes of so- cial adjustment that go on by means of the spontaneous growths and natural in- tertwinings of all the interests, feelings, sentiments, habits, and necessities of men, a whole too complex ever to be seen by one man in all its parts, much less to be controlled and adjusted by one mans calculation and forethought. The same objection applies to tltat form of socialism known as regulation of trade. Here Burke may give us direct assistance, because he dealt with that spe- cial problem in his own practical polit- ical work. In the heyday of the mer- cantile system, before Adam Smith had spoken, Burke was a free-trader, in com- plete consistency with his own theory of the group. It is just because the group as a whole is so sure to work out its own processes, because the wants and desires of men will arrange themselves so inevitably in an industrial system of mutual demand and supply, that we need 94 Burke: A Centenary Perspective. not form any artificial plan for their guidance. Indeed, if we do adopt such a plan, we shall lose the very good we are aiming at. Under the influence of Burkes teaching, we shall not so much fear the natural and unimpeded develop- ment of an industrial system, the grow- ing complexity of which has caused a certain alarm, as we shall fear to meddle with it on every occasion by an ignorant tinkering that will invariably do real and serious harm, even when it brings a little apparent good. Much difficulty is felt, in our political system, because of a lack of organization along the lines of natural groups united by common character, common interests, and common sympathies. Recent polit- ical studies have pointed out the oppor- tunities for political corruption, or, to say the least, for political ineffectiveness, offered in the attempt to work as a po- litical whole an artificial group that em- braces inharmonious natural groups, or cuts groups away from their natural al- liances. One such instance may be a large and compact city group, of distinct type and character, united artificially with a large and scattered country group, of opposed type and character; another may be an upland, infertile district, with certain needs and supporting certain in- dustries, united with a lowland, alluvial district, of quite other needs and sup- porting quite other industries. From Burke we may learn the advantages of leaving natural groups as far as possible to work out their own problems within their own limits. Most healthful for us would be that respect for the expert that Burke teaches not only in his theory, but by his practice. All his attempts to deal with the work of government were preceded by long and careful study of each matter he took up, even to the point of exhaustion. The time-honored American theory that any man can take up any task, with any or no degree of preparation, is showing it- self more and more inadequate in a more and more complicated state of society and government. The parliamentary system under which our political affairs are managed was the development, not of democracy, but of that eighteenth- century English oligarchy in which Burke saw with too glowing idealization, per- haps the type of a true aristocracy. Is it not possible that the faults and fail- ures we find occasion to deplore every day in the working of that system with us are to be provided for, its dangers and perils met, only by recourse to the prin- ciple on which it was originally based, the principle taught by Burke, that lead- ership by right belongs only to those of sufficient ability and training to deal skillfully with complicated affairs, and with sufficient sense of responsibility to the community to use their skill for the common good? It is, in fact, one of the most necessary lessons we have to learn, that the welfare of the state and the suc- cessful conduct of affairs depend upon personal integrity and ability, under the guidance of which any form of govern- ment will work, and without which no form of government can work. After all, the best good we may get from Burke is contact with his lofty spi- rit. The bare and naked truths of philo- sophical doctrine he clothes in the gleam- ing garments of the imagination, and sets walking before us in all the glow and flush of life, radiant forms that cap- ture our dearest affections and claim our deepest devotion. The state, for Burke, is not a certain tract of bare ground from which to wrest the material supplies of physical existence; it is figured under the image of a relation in blood, con- straining love, reverence, and duty. It is not for bare life alone, but for the best life; it is a partnership in all science, a partnership in all art, a partnership in every virtue and in all perfection; it comprehends all the charities of all. This generous ardor is contagious. Civic enthusiasm, slightly out of fashion with us for some time, is coming in again, Jowett and the University Ideal. 95 though largely under the form of belli- cose ebullitions of temper against foreign nations. But the civic enthusiasm that Burke inspires is for right living at home, just dealing in internal as well as external concerns, and regard for social duties as well as for social rights. To his mind, the due and faithful adminis- tration of civil office, the honest and eco- nomical disbursement of public money, the painstaking adjustment of borough, township, and city affairs, are as vital to the state, as much matters of interest and concern, as brilliant leadership in the daring raids, the spectacular campaigns, and the noisy victories of party politics or foreign war. From Burke we may catch not only the spirit of duty, but the spirit of cour- age and hope. Humanity as he sees it, with all its imperfections on its head, has within it certain strong life-forces, that work often through crooked and dubious ways, but that, if we give our dis- interested service to their guidance, will finally bring the race to higher levels. With this fundamental conviction im- planted in us, we need not despair of the state: when theories break down, we may simply think that growth is taking a new direction; when conditions become perplexingly involved, we may trust that after we have reached the limit of oar powers of reason and calculation to un- ravel them they will work out their own best answer; when forms of government and society seem hopelessly rotten and bad, we may feel that there is always a remedy to be found in the plain, good intention, the good faith and honor, which cannot be entirely absent from a people, and which need only encourage- ment and a showing of the way to enter helpfully into public affairs. Kate Holladay Claghorn. JOWETT AND TUE UNIVERSITY IDEAL. THE expansion of American univer- sities which has been so conspicuous a feature of the last quarter of a centu- ry is evidently slackening just now, un- der the strain of business depression. Academic revenues are shrinking; new endowments are rare; the number of students, instead of advancing by leaps and bounds, is well-nigh stationary; and it is pretty generally recognized that any enlargement of teaching or improvement of surroundings that calls for further ex- penditure must be postponed to a more propitious season. During this quarter of a century of ex- pansion there has not only been material growth; new ideals of study, new meth- ods of instruction, have been introduced, which have already exerted no small in- 1 The Life and Letters of Benjamin Jowett, Master of Balliol College, Oxford. By EvELYN fluence on several generations of under- graduates. Yet one cannot mingle much with the younger generation of Ameri- can professors without perceiving a cer- tain uneasiness among them as to some features of the new system, a certain ten- dency to revert to older and apparent- ly abandoned conceptions of academic duty. The lull in things external seems likely to be utilized for reflection on things internal. In this time of halt, of return upon ourselves, we cannot fail to greet with peculiar interest the record of the life-work of a great Academic in another land. It is from this point of view, and this only, that I shall here con- sider Jowett. First a word or two as to the chro- nology of his life. Born in 1817, he ABBOTT and LEwIs CAMPBELL. iR two vol- umes. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co. 1897.

Jowett and the University Ideal. 95 though largely under the form of belli- cose ebullitions of temper against foreign nations. But the civic enthusiasm that Burke inspires is for right living at home, just dealing in internal as well as external concerns, and regard for social duties as well as for social rights. To his mind, the due and faithful adminis- tration of civil office, the honest and eco- nomical disbursement of public money, the painstaking adjustment of borough, township, and city affairs, are as vital to the state, as much matters of interest and concern, as brilliant leadership in the daring raids, the spectacular campaigns, and the noisy victories of party politics or foreign war. From Burke we may catch not only the spirit of duty, but the spirit of cour- age and hope. Humanity as he sees it, with all its imperfections on its head, has within it certain strong life-forces, that work often through crooked and dubious ways, but that, if we give our dis- interested service to their guidance, will finally bring the race to higher levels. With this fundamental conviction im- planted in us, we need not despair of the state: when theories break down, we may simply think that growth is taking a new direction; when conditions become perplexingly involved, we may trust that after we have reached the limit of oar powers of reason and calculation to un- ravel them they will work out their own best answer; when forms of government and society seem hopelessly rotten and bad, we may feel that there is always a remedy to be found in the plain, good intention, the good faith and honor, which cannot be entirely absent from a people, and which need only encourage- ment and a showing of the way to enter helpfully into public affairs. Kate Holladay Claghorn. JOWETT AND TUE UNIVERSITY IDEAL. THE expansion of American univer- sities which has been so conspicuous a feature of the last quarter of a centu- ry is evidently slackening just now, un- der the strain of business depression. Academic revenues are shrinking; new endowments are rare; the number of students, instead of advancing by leaps and bounds, is well-nigh stationary; and it is pretty generally recognized that any enlargement of teaching or improvement of surroundings that calls for further ex- penditure must be postponed to a more propitious season. During this quarter of a century of ex- pansion there has not only been material growth; new ideals of study, new meth- ods of instruction, have been introduced, which have already exerted no small in- 1 The Life and Letters of Benjamin Jowett, Master of Balliol College, Oxford. By EvELYN fluence on several generations of under- graduates. Yet one cannot mingle much with the younger generation of Ameri- can professors without perceiving a cer- tain uneasiness among them as to some features of the new system, a certain ten- dency to revert to older and apparent- ly abandoned conceptions of academic duty. The lull in things external seems likely to be utilized for reflection on things internal. In this time of halt, of return upon ourselves, we cannot fail to greet with peculiar interest the record of the life-work of a great Academic in another land. It is from this point of view, and this only, that I shall here con- sider Jowett. First a word or two as to the chro- nology of his life. Born in 1817, he ABBOTT and LEwIs CAMPBELL. iR two vol- umes. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co. 1897. 96 Jowett and the University Ideal. received his early education at St. Pauls School, and, after winning a Balliol schol- arship in 1835, went up to Oxford in 1836. In 1838, while still an undergrad- uate, he was elected to the Balliol Fel- lowship, which he held until he became Master. After taking his degree in 1839, he became Assistant Tutor of his college in 1841; was ordained in 1842, and was appointed to the Tutorship which thence- forward engaged most of his attention until he exchanged it for the Master- ship, itself, in his eyes, a sort of glo- rified Tutorship. In 1855 appeared his edition of three Epistles of St. Paul, and in the same year he was appointed by the Crown to the Regius Professorship of Greek. The theological antagonism awakened by his book on the Epistles led to the salary attached in equity, if not legally, to the Greek chair be- ing withheld for a decade. Clerical hos- tility was inflamed still further by the appearance of Essays and Reviews in 1860, which contained a paper from Jow- etts pen on the Interpretation of Scrip- ture. In 1870 he was chosen Master of Balliol; and the translation of Platos Dialogues, which was his most consider- able literary work, appeared on the very day of his election. In 1881 was issued his translation of Thucydides; in 1885 his translation of the Politics of Aristotle; and from 1882 to 1886 he served the usual term of four years as Vice-Chan- cellor of the university. He died on October 1, 1893. The reader who has glanced over this short list of landmarks in Jowetts life may be surprised to learn that in the Ox- ford and England of our own time his reputation rests almost entirely on his ac- tivity as Master of his college. His the- ological writings first attracted to him the notice of the world at large; his transla- tions have opened the treasures of Greek thought to thousands who could profit by them, and to whom they would other- wise h~e remained sealed. But more than thirty years before his death Jowett abandoned all attempts to guide the reli- gious thought of the country. He long dreamt of writing a Life of Christ; but when, in his later years, he was asked why he did not carry out the plan, he replied, falling back in his chair, with tears in his eyes, Because I cannot; God has not given me the power to do it. And his biographers assure us that after the harsh reception of his theological work, he was haunted by the fear that, by writ- ing, he might do harm as well as good. His translations, again, appeal more to the general public than to the scholar; Jowett was not a great classical scholar, in either the German or the English sense of the word. In the field of university politics, moreover, he does not seem to have initiated any one movement of the first importance. But as Master he was a great and brilliant success, and in the college and through the college he exer- cised enormous influence. Early in his reign he wrote to a friend, I want to hold out as long as I can, and hope to make Balliol into a really great college if I live for ten years. He lived for twenty years, and died knowing that h~ had accomplished his purpose. Never was there a Head so bound up with his college; so keenly attached to its inter- ests, its members, and its associations. Without wife or child, and for the last few years of his life without a single near relative, the college was his only home, and took the place of family ties. Never, in return, was there a Head of whom his college was so proud as Balliol was of old Jowler, or who was regarded with the same mingled feeling of awe and ad- miration and protecting affection. How, then, did Jowett esteem his own work? What did lie consider the pe- culiar functions of the university or the colleges? It will be observed by every attentive reader of the Life, first, that Jowett hardly assigned any specific func- tion to thc~ university as such, as distinct from the colleges; and secondly, that both for the college and for the univer Jowett and the University Ideal. sity he laid almost exclusive stress on the two tasks of promoting education and of bringing about social intercourse. In his first sermon in Balliol Chapel af- ter his election to the Mastership, he spoke of the college, first, as a place of education; secondly, as a place of society; thirdly, as a place of religion. He was accustomed to use very similar language about the university: There are two things which distinguish a uni- versity from a mere scientific institu- tion: first of all, it is a seat of liberal education; and secondly, it is a place of society. Both education and society he conceived of nobly. He sought to impress upon each generation of under- graduates the unspeakable importance of the four critical years of life between about eighteen and twenty-two, when the task before each young man is to improve his mind, to eradicate bad men- tal habits, to acquire the power of order and arrangement, to learn the art of fix- ing his attention. The object of read- ing for the schools the final honor examinations is not chiefly to attain a first class, but to elevate and strengthen the character for life. As against those who declare examinations injurious, he maintained that they give a fixed aim, towards which to direct our efforts; they stimulate us by the love of honorable dis- tinction; they afford an opportunity of becoming known to those who might not otherwise emerge; they supply the lead- ing-strings which we also need. Neither freedom nor power can be attained with- out order and regularity and method. The restless habit of mind which passes at will from one view of a subject or from one kind of knowledge to another is not intellectual power. On the value of social intercourse he laid almost equal stress. His ideal of the work and of- fice of the university was that it should form a bridge which might unite the different classes of society, and at the same time bring about a friendly feeling in the different sects of religion, and that VOL. LXXX. NO. 477. 7 97 might also connect the different branches of knowledge which were apt to become estranged one from another. He was anxious to bring men of different classes into contact, for the benefit es- pecially of those who had had no social advantages. Jowett observed that men of very great ability often failed in life, because they were unable to play their part with effect. They were shy, awk- ward, self-conscious, deficient in man- ners, faults which were as ruinous as vices. And the supreme end which Jowett kept in mind for all this training of every kind was usefulness in after- life. Towards promoting social intercourse much was done by college life itself, by the mere juxtaposition of undergradtm- ates in hall and chapel and quadrangle, by spontaneous association in sports and debating clubs; towards education much was done by the stimulus and guidance of a properly devised scheme of exam- ination. But both together were insuffi- cient, left to themselves; another force was necessary, and that force Jowett found in the tutorial system. I doubt whether it is possible to give anything like an accurate impression of the Oxford tutorial system to those who have not seen it at work. There is the initial difficulty of framing any brief generalization which shall be reasonably true for all the studies of the place and all the colleges. The practice varies from college to college; and in several colleges it has not seemed possible to ex- tend tutorial supervision to the recently introduced studies in physical and biolo- gical science. It may be said with suffi- cient accuracy that all save a small minor- ity of undergraduates, during the greater part of their university career, work un- der the immediate oversight and direc- tion of a college tutor, whether he actu- ally bears that name or the more humble designation of lecturer. The system is more highly developed with honor men than with pass men, and it can be best 98 Jowett and the University Ideal. studied in the two honor schools of Liter~e Humaniores and Modern Histo- ry, which attract perhaps four, out of five honor students. Colleges prefer to am point their tutors from among their own Fellows; and in spite of all the recent changes, the majority of the tutors still reside within the college walls. The tutors of the last fifty years have been among the most industrious of men, taking their duties very seriously, and watching with sedulous care the progress of their pupils from week to week, and from term to term. As a rule, each un- dergraduate has a regular appointment with his tutor every week; he is seen alone for half an hour or three quarters, and exhibits a piece of work, usually in the form of an essay, which is then and there read and criticised; and these weekly pieces of work are so arranged that the undergraduate may acquaint himself, during the allotted time, with the whole field on which he proposes to be examined. This conception of tutorial duty has been a growth of the present century, and indeed would seem first to have made itself visible about 1830 and in Oriel College. Very different was the condition of things when Gibbon went up to Magdalen in 1752. His first tu- tor, he tells us, was one of the best of the tribe, but even he was satis- fied, like his fellows, with the slight and superficial discharge of an important trust. When the young Gibbon began to make excuses they were received with smiles. The slightest motive of laziness or indisposition, the most trifling avoca- tion at home or abroad, was allowed as a worthy impediment; nor did my tutor appear conscious of my absence or neg- lect. No plan of study was recommend- ed for my use; no exercises were pre- scribed for his inspection. His next tutor was even worse. Dr. well remembered that he had a salary to re- ceive, and only forgot that he had a duty to perform. Excepting one volun tary visit to his rooms, during the eight months of his titular office the tutor and pupil llved in the same college as stran- gers to each other. Even after the reformed scheme of examination for degrees was introduced in 1802, largely owing to the efforts of Eveleigh, the Provost of Oriel, some time elapsed before college teach- ing came to be directed towards fitting men to obtain honors. That was the day, says Mark Pattison in his Me. moirs, speaking of 1830, of private tu- tors; it was the coach, and not the col- lege tutor, who worked a man up for his first. The originality of the first set of energetic college tutors at Oriel Newman, Hurrell Froude, and Robert Wilberforce consisted precisely in this, as a contemporary put it: that they bestowed on their pupils as much time and trouble as was usually only expected from very good private tutors. When Jowett went up to Balliol, the new tutorial enthusiasm had already made its way thither, and his predecessor as tutor, A. C. Tait (afterwards Arch- bishop of Canterbury), had made a great impression on the college by his assidu- ity and his charm of manner. Jowett, in spite of the shyness which hampered him throughout life, applied himself with extraordinary energy to the tutori- al task; and it was thus that, after a few years, he began to gain influence, and to win for himself the enthusiastic esteem of scores of undergraduates. Varying accounts are given of his early tutorial years; but it is certain that his devo- tion to his pupils was, at this time, some- thing unique in Oxford. One distin- guished pupil of his between 1852 and 1854 tells us that he often took compo- sition to Jowett at half past twelve at night. Jowett early established the custom of taking half a dozen men of ability away with him in the vacations, to work under his eye for a few weeks, a practice he maintained till almost the end of his life. Such zeal soon pro- Jowett and the University Ideal. 99 duced a crop of first classes for Balliol, and raised the intellectual reputation of the college; the infection was caught by such of his own pupils as became tutors at Balliol or at other colleges; and tu- torial ardor, once introduced, was fanned by intercollegiate rivalry. As soon as he became Master, Jowett added the coping-stone to the fabric by establish- ing weekly tutorial meetings, at which he never failed to attend, going through the whole list of undergraduates, and sat- isfying himself by inquiry about the work of every man, two hundred or more; and other colleges, again, imitated, with various modifications, the new machin- ery. Among the qualities desirable in the Head of a college, set down in some cu- rious memoranda of Jowetts, occurs this requirement: He should know how to put pressure upon everybody. His own Mastership left nothing to be de- sired in this respect. Jowett was thus, in large measure, the creator of the modern tutorial ideal. What that involves may be readily ga- thered from a phrase used in passing by one of the writers of the Life, himself an eminent Balliol tutor. College tutors, he tells us, are held ~ responsible for the position of a pupil in the class list. Yet as tutor he was more than an in- structor. He wished to know his under- graduates personally, to influence the de- velopment of their characters in every possible way for good, to promote socia- bility and bring men together. Hospi- tality was therefore a duty as well as a pleasure, and he was the most hospi- table of men. When his stipend as Greek professor was increased, the fact was brought home to us his pupils by the increase in the plates and dishes which his servant piled up on the stairs lead- ing to his room. He had undergradu- ates with him at almost every meal; he wished to know as much of them as pos- sible. What Jowett did, his disciples who were tutors did in their turn; when he became Master, lie urged the Balliol tutors to do the same. In later years, he rejoiced to fill the Masters Lodge, from Saturday to Monday, with visitors of distinction, and many a joke has been cracked about this little hobby. But he never, in anything that he did, for- got the college or the undergraduates, and nothing was more remarkable in him than the pains which he took about the future careers of his young men. This was, in his opinion, one of the chief duties of the head of a college. So the ideal of the tutor was still fur- ther enlarged and grew to be what we know it: that combination of authority and comradeship, of dignity and 6onho- mie, which is often presented in forms of infinite attractiveness, and which has ex- cited the longing admiration of so many American observers. There is a significant passage in Pat- tisons Memoirs where he explains the reasons which led the Provost of Oriel to get rid of the three energetic and suc- cessful tutors before mentioned: New- man insisted upon regarding his relation to his pupils as a pastoral one. Unless he could exercise the function of tutor on this basis, he did not think that he, being a priest, could be a tutor at all. . The Provosts proposal that all under- graduates should be entered under one common name, and no longer under re- spective tutors, interfered with New- mans doctrine of the pastoral relation. This was the point which Newman would not give up, and for which he resigned. Pattison remarks, in his unsympathetic fashion, that if Newman had succeeded, a college would have become a mere priestly seminary. But seven ov eight years later we find Tait, at Balliol, a most unpriestly tutor, turning over in his mind what can be done to make more of a pastoral connection between the tutors and their pupils. In fact, through all the changes that the last six- ty years have brought, with most of the tutors laymen, and many by no means orthodox, with every effort to wear vel 100 Jowett and the University Ideal. vet gloves and to keep serious purposes well in the background, the ideal of the relation has continued to be, in a very real sense, a pastoral one. So much, then, for the theory; now as to the results. None but a fanatical and unobservant adversary can deny that the system is in many respects highly beneficial to the undergraduates. The abler men are taught to work rapidly and consecutively; they acquire a great deal of information; they learn the art of presenting their knowledge in lucid and forcible shape. The stupid and the idle are made to do some systematic work; and an enthusiastic tutor will suc- ceed in striking a spark of genuine in- terest out of perhaps one in ten even of them. But there are some deductions to be made from the verdict of success. The tutorial system often does for the undergraduate more than is good for him. In one of his sermons of 1885, Jowett compares the present Balliol un- dergraduate with his predgcessor forty or fifty years ago, not altogether to the advantage of the former: There is greater refinement and greater decorum; there is also more-knowledge and steady industry. On the other hand, there was more heartiness and originality and force among the youth of that day. In that entertaining and witty book, Aspects of Modern Oxford, by a Mere Don, there is the same lament: There are certain indications that the undergraduate is less of a grown-up person than he was in the brave days of old. It takes him a long time to forget his schooldays. Only ex- ceptionally untrammeled spirits regard independent reading as more important than the ministrations of their tutor. If the intellectual results are not whol- ly satisfactory, what of the social? Under Jowett, Balliol grew in numbers, till it outstripped all other colleges except Christ Church; and the undergraduate body be- came more and more composite in social origin, from the earl down, or up, to the clever son of the artisan. Jowetts dream was that the earl and the artisans son should fraternize; but as a matter of fact, they did not. It was notorious in Oxford that Balliol was one of the most cliquy of colleges. Jowett did his best to fight against the growing evil. He induced Mr. John Farmer to come from Harrow and establish Sunday - evening concerts of classical music, and Monday- evening smoking - concerts with college songs, as a means of binding the college together. But, with all his shrewdness, he failed to realize that a large and di- versified college is incompatible with real acquaintance with one another on the part of the undergraduates. No quantity of college songs or tutorial tea and toast can make headway against the centrifu- gal forces. This is the undergraduates side of the account; now for the tutors. The Oxford tutor his admirers, like a Mere Don, regretfully acknowledge it has become a schoolmaster, with the qualities and the defects of the qualities. Other and external causes have contrib- uted to make him the overworked school- master he is; for the number of tutors has by no means increased, as it should have done, in proportion to their labors. Professor Freeman used to point out as his recent biographer tells us that the university was becoming less and less a centre for learning, and sinking more and more into a mere education- al machine; and that meanwhile the ablest works in philosophy and history proceeded from university men, indeed, but not, as a rule, from those who were resident, but from the cabinet minister, the banker, or the country clergyman. This is not hard to account for. Let any one read the humorous Diary of a Don, in Aspects of Modern Oxford, with its picture of perpetual bustle from morning to night, and he will understand how exceedingly difficult it must be to get much time for steady reading or quiet thought. Did Jowett realize any part of this? Jowett and the University Ideal. 101 Hardly. And still there are some sig- nificant phrases in his letters. Writing to Stanley in 1852, and urging him to take the headship of a proposed Bal- liol Hall, he was careful to point out that the position was not that of a drudging college tutor. In 1870 he confessed to the same friend that he was glad to reach the Mastership, be- cause I want more rest and leisure to think, and I have been overworked for many years past. Among his Memo- randa has been found a little set of Maxims for Statesmen and Others, wherein Never spare and Never drudge stand cheek by jowl. The pressure of duty upon the tutor has been very considerably increased by the growth of the combined lecture plan. Many of the tutors, besides giving instruction to their college pupils, lecture two or three times a week, to all under- graduates who choose to attend. As a result, some of them perform what one may describe as professorial functions in addition to their strictly tutorial ones. As Freeman put it less kindly, they have become mongrel beings, neither pro- fessor, nor college tutor, nor private coach. It needs but little reflection to see how severe must be the strain upon the teacher who, besides being responsi- ble for the examination feats of a couple of dozen undergraduates, tries to keep abreast of the l~test investigations in the special subject on which he is lecturing. Jowett viewed the outcome of these tendencies with much disquietude, but, characteristically enough, on account of the lecturer, not of the hearer. The sub- stitution of pr~lections for the older catechetical instruction, be declared in his later years, was utterly bad for the students, though flattering to the teach- er. Often the mere listening to a lec- ture is no intellectual discipline at all. Yet the combined lecture was in two ways the result of Jowetts action and that of men like him. It was the inevitable result of the intercollegiate combination; it was also the outlet which the professo- rial instinct, insuppressible in a great mod- ern university, found for itself under the tutorial r6gime. In his evidence before the University Commission in 1877, Jow- ett urged the necessity of enlarging the professoriate in order to create a career to which college tutors can look forward, now that they no longer look to prefer- ment in the Church. But nowadays men are hardly likely to be appointed to pro- fessorships unless they have done some more or less original work in the subject of the chair; how men are to do that original work, and at the same time be college tutors of the kind Jowett would have had them, it is not easy to see. Up to this point, it will be observed, I have abstained from criticising the tu- torial ideal as Jowett cherished it, and the preceding remarks as to its deficien- cies have been based chiefly on Jowetts own observations. The readers of this paper probably do not need to be told that another university ideal has had its champions in Oxford, and that the tuto- rial system has not been without its critics. Of these the most vigorous and emphatic was Mark Pattison, the late Rector of Lincoln. According to Pattison, the col- leges were never intended by their found- ers to be establishments for the educa- tion of youth, schools for young men who had outgrown school, but rather to be retreats for study. The original object of their foundation was the pro- motion of learning, the endowment of knowledge. So far from its being the intention of a fellowship to support the Master of Arts as a teacher, it was rather its purpose to relieve him from the drudgery of teaching for a mainte- nance, and to set him free to give his whole time to the studies of his faculty. It was the Jesuits who first introduced the principle of perpetual supervision, of repeated examinations, of weekly ex- ercises, that is, the tutorial method, at first greeted as a reform, but found in the endto produce starved and shriveled 102 Jowett and the University Ideal. understandings. Pattison demanded a return to the old ideals, an endowment of research in some shape or other, even if it could take no better form than the creation of a body of professors whose true purpose was veiled from the sneers of Philistinism by the thin disguise of setting them to deliver terminal courses of lectures to empty benches. That Oxford should do nothing but educate, and educate for examinations,was bad, he declared, for both teacher and taught, and fatal to the university as a place of learning. He had himself been a highly successful tutor, and in his earlier days had done for Lincoln something like what Jowett, his contemporary, was do- ing for Balliol. I have never ceased, he declared in the closing days of his life, to prize as highly as I did at that time the personal influence of mind upon mind, the mind of the fully instructed upon the young mind it seeks to form. But I gradually came to see that it was impossible to base a whole academical system upon this single means of influ- ence. Jowett, meanwhile, as his bio- graphers tell us, had no sympathy with the organized endowment of research, and he was strongly opposed to any measures which were likely to lessen the influence of the colleges. Nor was he afraid to exclaim, How I hate learn- ing! Whatever the purposes of the original founders may have been, we may be pretty sure that the English universities will never become primarily places of original investigation or homes of learned leisure. There is the crowd of under- graduates to be dealt with somehow; there is the obvious benefit that can be conferred upon the students, and the in- fluence for good that can be exercised through them upon the nation. On the other hand, it can hardly be maintained that Oxford does as much as might fairly be expected of her for the advancement of knowledge; and it is scarcely seemly for her to be so very dependent for fresh ideas and new conclusions upon German universities and private scholars. Of course it is good for most scholars to be compelled from time to time to take stock of their labors and to put their results into teachable shape. It is equally true that academic teaching is bound, in the long run, to deteriorate unless it is inspired by the consciousness of widening know- ledge and the hope of personally advan- cing the cause of science. No Oxford man who has had any experience in American universities will be inclined to underestimate the incalculable service done to the undergraduate by collegiate life and discipline. It is rather a case of These ye ought to have done, and not to have left the other undone. Perhaps even now forces are at work which will restore the balance. The professorships established by the last University Com- mission are beginning to make them- selves felt; the number of schools, or curricula for honors, is being increased; two scholarly journals, comparable with the best of any country, the English His- torical Review and the Economic Jour- nal, are being edited in Oxford; and the ideas of graduate studies and re- search degrees are in the air. Oxford has already much to offer the serious American graduate student; and per- haps his resort thither will in some slight measure help Oxford herself to return to her older traditions. When we turnfrom Oxford and Jowett to the university problem in America, our first impression, maybe, is of the to- tal dissimilarity of conditions, and of the hopelessness of deriving any lessons from English experience. Yet the American reader of Jowetts biography will be sin- gularly irresponsive if it does not prompt some consideration of the functions of the university in this country. In what I have left to say, I shall confine myself to Harvard, with which alone, among American universities, I have any inti- mate acquaintance. The peculiarity in the position of Har Jowett and the University Ideal. 103 yard is that while the professorial ideal has definitelytriumphed among the teach- ing body, the tutorial ideal is still cher- ished by the constituency. Most of the professors care first of all for the advancement of science and scholarship; they prefer lectures to large audiences to the catechetical instruction of multiplied sections, and they would leave stu- dents free to attend lectures or neglect them, at their own peril; they would pick out the abler men, and initiate them into the processes of investigation in small research courses or seminaries and, to be perfectly frank, they are not greatly interested in the ordinary un- dergraduate. On the other hand, the university constituency represented, as I am told, by the Overseers insists that the ordinary undergraduate shall be looked after; that he shall not be al- lowed to waste his time; that he shall be pulled up by frequent examina- tions, and forced to do a certain mini- mum of work, whether he wants to or not. The result of this pressure has been the establishment of an elaborate ma- chinery of periodical examination, the carrying on of a vaster book-keeping for the registration of attendance and of grades than was ever before seen at any university, and the appointment of a le- gion of junior instructors and assistants, to whom is assigned the drudgery of reading examination-books and conduct- ing conferences. So far as the professors are concerned, the arrangement is as favorable as can reasonably be expected. Of course they are all bound to lecture, and to lecture several times a week; they exercise a general supervision over the labors of their assistants ; they guide the studies of advanced students; they conduct the examinations for honors and for higher degrees; they carry on a ceaseless corre- spondence; and each of them sits upon a couple of committees. But they are not absolutely compelled to undertake much drudging work in the way of instruction, and if they are careful of their time they can manage to find leisure for their own researches. As soon as a course gets large, a benevolent Corporation will provide an assistant. The day is past when they were obliged, in the phrase of Lowell, to double the parts of profes- sor and tutor. But the soil of America is not as pro- pitious as one could wish to the plant of academic leisure. It is a bustling at- mosphere; and a professor needs some strength of mind to resist the temptation to be everlastingly doing something obvious. The sacred reserves of time and energy need to be jealously guard- ed; and there is more than one direction from which they are threatened. Uni- versity administration occupies what would seem an unduly large number of men and an unduly large amount of time; it is worth while considering whe- ther more executive authority should not be given to the deans. Then there is the never ending stream of legislation, or rather, of legislative discussion. I must confess that when I have listened, week after week, to faculty debates, the phrase of Mark Pattison about Oxford has sometimes rung in my ears: the tone as of a lively municipal borough. It would be unjust to apply it; for, after all, the measures under debate have been of far-reaching importance. Yet if any means could be devised to hasten the progress of business, it would be a wel- come saving of time. Still another dan- ger is the pecuniary temptation hardly resistible by weak human nature to repeat college lectures to the women stu- dents of Radcliffe. That some amount of repetition will do no harm to teachers of certain temperaments and in certain sub- jects may well be allowed, but that it is sometimes likely to exhaust the nervous energy which might better be devoted to other things can hardly be denied. The present Radcliffe system, to be sure, is but a makeshift, and an unsatisfactory one. 104 Jowett and the University Ideal. The instructors and assistants, on their ~part, have little to grumble at, if they, in their turn, are wise in the use of their time. It is with them, usually, but a few years of drudgery, on the way to higher positions in Harvard or elsewhere; and it is well that a man should bear the yoke in his youth. Let him remember that his promotion will depend largely upon his showing the ability to do inde- pendent work; let him take care not to be so absorbed in the duties of his tem- porary position as to fail to produce some little bit of scholarly or scientific achieve- ment for himself. I have occasionally thought that the university accepts the labors of men in the lower grades of the service with a rather stepmotherly dis- regard for their futures. Come now to the students, for whose sake, certainly, Harvard College was founded, whatever may have been the case with English colleges, and whose presence casts upon those responsible for academic policy duties which they can- not escape, if they would. Grant that education and education as Jowett un- derstood it, the training of character as well as mere instruction is the main business of a university, what is to be said of the situation of affairs? That we do as much here for the average man as the Oxford tutorial system accomplishes, it would be idle to affirm. The intro- duction of the tutorial system, however, is out of the question: it needs the small college for its basis; it requires that the tutor should enjoy a prestige which we cannot give him; and it is still further shut out by elective studies. Yet in its way the Harvard practice suffers from the same defects as the Oxford; it does too much for the men. Take the mat- ter of examinations, for instance. Sure- ly it would be better to relax the contin- uous pressure, which after all is not in any worthy sense effective, and to reinforce it instead at special points. It was the conviction, we are told, of Pro- fessor Freeman that if examinations were necessary evils, they should be few, searching, and complete, not many and piecemeal. At present, there are so many tests, of one sort or another, that no one examination sufficiently i4n- presses the undergraduate mind. The kind of work done by a student who is so persistently held up by hour examinations and conferences that he must be an ab- normal fool to fail at the end, cannot be regarded as really educational in any high sense of the word. By a great many men, the help showered upon them is re- garded merely as the means of discover- ing just how little they can do, and still scrape through. To sweep away all ex- aminations except the final annual one; to leave the student more to himself; to set a higher standard for passing, and ruthlessly reject those who do not reach it, would undoubtedly, in the long run, encourage a more manly spirit on the part of undergraduates, and a deeper re- spect for the university. This I say with the fuller confidence because, when I left Oxford, some nine years ago, I could see nothing but the evils of the examination system as it there affects students of promise. I am now convinced that it would be possible and salutary in Har- vard to add greatly to the awfulness of examination; and that much could be done in this direction without approach- ing within measurable distance of any results that need be feared. From a natural distrust of examina- tions and a desire to encourage indepen- dent thought, it has of late become the practice to prescribe two or more the- ses during the progress of a course.~~ The result is that many a man has half a dozen or more theses to write during the year, for two or three different teachers. This undoubtedly gets some work out of the men. But the too frequent con- sequence, with students who take their work seriously, especially with gradu- ates, is that they have no time for any- thing but to get up their lectures and prepare their theses. Any parallel read- Jowett and the University Ideal. 105 ing by the side of their lectures they find impracticable. But one of the best things a student can do is just to read intelli- gently. Certainly the graduate students, if not the undergraduates, would some- times be the better for being left more to themselves. These are, however, relatively minor matters. A good deal could be said about that corner-stone of Harvard aca- demic policy, the elective system. I must confess that I have hitherto failed to see the advantage of the completely elective plan (for any but exceptional students) over the plan of groups, or triposes, or schools, with some de. gree of internal elasticity to suit particu- lar tastes. That it is an improvement on the old compulsory curriculum is like- ly enough; but I do not know that any great American university has ever yet fairly tried the group arrangement. This, however, is too large a subject for the end of a paper, and I hurry on to my last point. Of all the educational agencies at Ox- ford, Oxford itself is the strongest. That sweet city with her dreaming spires She needs not June for beautys heighten- ing. Harvard, indeed, is truly fair at Com- mencement, and in the evening lights the Yard has always a sober dignity. But Harvard in the daytime sadly needs May or October for beautys heightening. The disadvantages of youth and climate may not be altogether surmountable; yet Cambridge surroundings could doubt- less be made more comely and restful with comparatively little trouble. There must be a certain atrophy of the nsthetic sense when luxuriously furnished dormi- tories have no difficulty in securing ten- ants though they face rubbish dumps, and when rowing-men can practice with equanimity beneath a coal-dealers main; moth advertisement. What is much to be desired for every young man most of all for those from homes of little cul- tivation is that he should live in the presence of grace and beauty and state- liness. The lesson of good taste cannot be learnt from lectures, and is imbibed unconsciously. Here we must turn to our masters, the Corporation, and to the worshipful Benefactors to come. Is all the thought taken that might be taken, all the pressure used that might be ex- erted, to increase the amenity of the neighborhood? And further, is it Uto- pian to imagine that some benefactor will yet arise who will enable Harvard to imitate the noble example of Yale, and erect dormitories that shall delight the eye? Is it too much to hope that the university may soon be enriched with at least one more building such as Memorial Hall? For many a Harvard student his daily meals in Memorial Hall, in that ample space, beneath the glowing colors of the windows and sur- rounded by the pictures of the Harvard worthies of the past, constitute the most educative part of his university career, though he may not know it. Only half the students can now be brought within this silent influence. A second dining- hall, of like dignity, is the most urgent educational need of Harvard, and the need most easily supplied. W. J. Ashley. 106 The Juggler. THE JUGGLER. XI. ROYCE waited over one day after this agreement with Tynes, and marked with satisfaction how thoroughly his will was subject to his own control. He had seen the Springs once. There was naturally a certain mundane curiosity on his part to be satisfied. Doubtless, after another excursion or so thither, it would all pall upon him and he would be more content, since there was no dream of unattain- able enchautments at hand upon which he dared not look. The place was singularly cheerful of aspect in its matutinal guise. The diago- nal slant of the morning sunshine struck through the foliage of the great oaks and dense shrubs; but there was intervenient shadow here, too, dank, grateful to the senses, for the day already betokened the mounting mercury. Across the valley the amethystine mountains shimmered through the heated air; ever and anon darkly purple simulacra of clouds went fleeing along their vast sunlit slopes be- neath the dazzling white masses in the azure sky. In the valley, a tiny space of blue-green tint amongst the strong full- fleshed dark verdure of the forests of July bespoke a cornfield, and through a field-glass might be descried the little log cabin with its delicate tendril of smoke, the home of the mountaineer who tilled the soil. Of more distinct value in the landscape was the yellow of the har- vested wheatfields in the nearer reaches of the Cove, where the bare spaces re- vealed the stage road here and there as it climbed the summits of red clay hills. There was no sound of music on the air, the band being off duty for the nonce. Even that instrument of torture, the ho- tel piano, was silent. The wind played through the meshes of the deserted ten- nis-nets, and no clamor of rolling balls thundered from the tenpin alley, the low long roof of which glimmered in the sunshine, down among the laurel on the slope toward the gorge. The whole life of the place was focused upon the ve- randa. Royce~ s reminiscent eye, gazing upon it all as a fragment of the past as well as an evidence of the present, dis- cerned that some crisis of moment in the continual conjugation of the verb samuser impended. The usual laborious idleness of fancy-work would hardly ac- count for the unanimity with which fem- inine heads were bent above needles and threads and various sheer fabrics, nor for the interest with which the New Helvetia youths watched the proceedings and self- sufficiently proffered advice, despite the ebullitions of laughter, scornful and su- perior, with which it was inevitably re- ceived. There was now and again an exclamation of triumph when a pair of conventionalized wings were held aloft, completed, fashioned of gauze and wire and profusely spangled with silver. He caught the flash of tinsel, and gratula- tion and great glee ensued when one of the old ladies, fluttered with the anxiety of the inventor, successfully fitted a sil- ver crown upon the golden locks of a poetic-faced young girl, a very Titania. The jocose hobbledehoy whom Royce had noted on the occasion of his previous ex- cursion sat upon a step of the long flight leading from the veranda to the lawn, surrounded by half a dozen little maidens, and, armed with a needle and a long thread, sewed industriously, rewarded by their shrieking exclamations of delight in his funniness every time he grotesque- ly drew out the needle with a great curve of his long arm, or facetiously but f utile- ly undertook to bite the thread. With zealous gallantry sundry of the young men plied back and forth be- tween the groups on the veranda to

106 The Juggler. THE JUGGLER. XI. ROYCE waited over one day after this agreement with Tynes, and marked with satisfaction how thoroughly his will was subject to his own control. He had seen the Springs once. There was naturally a certain mundane curiosity on his part to be satisfied. Doubtless, after another excursion or so thither, it would all pall upon him and he would be more content, since there was no dream of unattain- able enchautments at hand upon which he dared not look. The place was singularly cheerful of aspect in its matutinal guise. The diago- nal slant of the morning sunshine struck through the foliage of the great oaks and dense shrubs; but there was intervenient shadow here, too, dank, grateful to the senses, for the day already betokened the mounting mercury. Across the valley the amethystine mountains shimmered through the heated air; ever and anon darkly purple simulacra of clouds went fleeing along their vast sunlit slopes be- neath the dazzling white masses in the azure sky. In the valley, a tiny space of blue-green tint amongst the strong full- fleshed dark verdure of the forests of July bespoke a cornfield, and through a field-glass might be descried the little log cabin with its delicate tendril of smoke, the home of the mountaineer who tilled the soil. Of more distinct value in the landscape was the yellow of the har- vested wheatfields in the nearer reaches of the Cove, where the bare spaces re- vealed the stage road here and there as it climbed the summits of red clay hills. There was no sound of music on the air, the band being off duty for the nonce. Even that instrument of torture, the ho- tel piano, was silent. The wind played through the meshes of the deserted ten- nis-nets, and no clamor of rolling balls thundered from the tenpin alley, the low long roof of which glimmered in the sunshine, down among the laurel on the slope toward the gorge. The whole life of the place was focused upon the ve- randa. Royce~ s reminiscent eye, gazing upon it all as a fragment of the past as well as an evidence of the present, dis- cerned that some crisis of moment in the continual conjugation of the verb samuser impended. The usual laborious idleness of fancy-work would hardly ac- count for the unanimity with which fem- inine heads were bent above needles and threads and various sheer fabrics, nor for the interest with which the New Helvetia youths watched the proceedings and self- sufficiently proffered advice, despite the ebullitions of laughter, scornful and su- perior, with which it was inevitably re- ceived. There was now and again an exclamation of triumph when a pair of conventionalized wings were held aloft, completed, fashioned of gauze and wire and profusely spangled with silver. He caught the flash of tinsel, and gratula- tion and great glee ensued when one of the old ladies, fluttered with the anxiety of the inventor, successfully fitted a sil- ver crown upon the golden locks of a poetic-faced young girl, a very Titania. The jocose hobbledehoy whom Royce had noted on the occasion of his previous ex- cursion sat upon a step of the long flight leading from the veranda to the lawn, surrounded by half a dozen little maidens, and, armed with a needle and a long thread, sewed industriously, rewarded by their shrieking exclamations of delight in his funniness every time he grotesque- ly drew out the needle with a great curve of his long arm, or facetiously but f utile- ly undertook to bite the thread. With zealous gallantry sundry of the young men plied back and forth be- tween the groups on the veranda to The Juggler. 107 facilitate the exchange of silks and scis- sors,, and occasionally trotted on simi- lar errands, businesslike and brisk, down the plank walk to the store. Sometimes they asked here for the wrong thing. Sometimes they forgot utterly what they were to ask for, and a return trip was in order. Sometimes they demanded some article a stranger to invention, unheard of on sea or shore. Thus cruelly was their ignorance of fabric played upon by the ungrateful and freakish fair, and the little store rang with laughter at the discomfiture of the young Mercury so humbly bearing the messages of the dei- ties on the veranda; for the store was crowded, too, chiefly with ladies in the freshest of morning costumes, and Royce, as he paused at the door, realized that this was no time to claim the attention of the smooth-faced clerk. That function- ary was as happy as a salesman ever gets to be. There was not a yard of any material or an article in his stock that did not stand a fair chance of immedi- ate purchase as rearing apparel or stage properties. Tableaux, and a ball after- ward in the dress of one of the final pic- tures, were in immediate contemplation, as Royce gathered from the talk. This was evidently an undertaking requiring some nerve on the part of its projectors, in so remote a place, where no opportu- nities of fancy costumes were attainable save what invention might contrive out of the resources of a modern summer ward- robe and the haphazard collections of a watering-place store. Perhaps this add- ed element of jeopardy and doubt and discovery and the triumphs of ingenuity heightened the zest of an amusement which with all necessary appliances might have been vapid indeed. Royce could not even read the titles of the books on the little shelf at this dis- tance, above the heads of the press, and he turned away to await a more conve- nient season, realizing that he had at- tracted naught but most casual notice, and feeling at ease to perceive, from one or two specimens to-day about the place, that mountaineers from the immediate vicinity were no rarity at New ilelvetia; their errands to sell fruit to the guests or vegetables or venison to the hotel being doubtless often supplemented by a trifle of loitering to mark the developments of a life so foreign to their experience. As he strolled along the plank walk, his supersensitive consciousness was some- what assuaged as by a sense of invisibil- ity. Every one was too much absorbed to notice him, and he in his true self supported no responsibility, since poor Lucien Royce was dead, and John Leon- ard was merely a stray mountaineer, looking on wide-eyed at the doings of the grand folk. From the locality of the portion of the building which he had learned contained the ballroom he heard the clatter of ham- mer and nails. The stage was proba- bly in course of erection, and, idly fol- lowing the sound along a low deserted piazza toward one of the wings, he stood at last in the doorway. He gazed in list- lessly at the group of carpenters work- ing at the staging, the frame being al- ready up. A blond young man, in white flannel trousers and a pink-and -white- striped blazer, was descanting with know- ingness and much easy confidence of manner upon the way in which the cur- tain should draw, while the proprietor, grave, saturnine, with a leaning toward simplicity of contrivance and economy in execution, listened in silence. The wind blew soft and free through the opposite windows. Royce looked critically at the floor of the ballroom. It was a good floor, a very good floor. Finally he turned, with only a gentle melancholy in his forced renunciation of youthful amuse- ments, with the kind of sentiment, the sense of far remove, which might ani- mate the ghost of one untimely snatched away, now vaguely awaiting its ultimate fate. He continued to stroll along, en- tering presently the quadrangle, and not- ing here the grass and the trees and the 108 The Juggler. broad walks; the romping children about the band-stand in the centre, dainty and fresh of costume and shrill of voice; the chatting groups of old black mammies who supervised their play. One was pushing a perambulator, in which a pre- cocious infant, totally ignoring passing adults, after the manner of his kind, fixed an eager, intent, curious gaze upon another infant in arms, who so returned this interested scrutiny that his soft neck, as he twisted it in the support of his re- tiring nurse, was in danger of disloca- tion. Tun roun yere, chile! she admon- ished him as if he were capable of un- derstanding, while she shifted him about in her arms to cut off the vision of the object of interest. Twis off yer hade lak some ole owel, fus ting ye know; owel tun his hade ef ye circle roun him, an tun an tun till his ole fool hade drap off. Did n ye know dat, honey? Set disher way. Dat s nice! She almost ran against the juggler as she rounded the corner. He caught the glance of her eye, informed with that contempt for the poor whites which is so marked a trait of negro character, as she walked on, swaying gently from side to side and crooning low to the baby. He did not care to linger longer with- in the premises. He could not even en- joy the relapse into old sounds and sights in a guise in which he was thought so meanly of, and which so ill beseemed his birth and quality. When he issued ut last from the quadrangle, at the lower end of the veranda, he found he was nearer the descent to the spring than to the store. He thought he would slip down that dank, bosky, deserted path, make a circuit through the woods, and thus regain the road homeward without risking furtber observation and the la- ceration of his quivering pride. False pride he thought it might be, but ac- coutred, alas, with sensitive fibres and alert and elastic muscles for the writh- ings of torture, with delicate membranes to shrivel and scorch and sear as if it were quite genuine and a laudable pos- session. The ferns with long wide - spreading fronds, and great mossy boulders amongst the dense undergrowth, pressed close on either hand, and the thick interlacing boughs of trees overarched the precipi- tous path as he went down and down into its green-tinted glooms. Now and again it curved and sought a more lev- el course, but outcropping ledges inter- posed, making the way rugged, and soon cliffs began to peer through the foliage, and on one side they overhung the path; on the other side a precipice lurked, glimpsed through boughs of trees whose trunks were fifty feet lower on a slope beneath. An abrupt turn, the odor of ferns blended with moisture came deli- cately, elusively fragrant; a great frac- ture yawned amidst the rocks, and there, from a cleft stained deeply ochreous with the oxide of iron, a crystal - clear rill fell so continuously that it seemed to possess no faculty of motion in its limpid interlacings and plaitings as of silver threads; only below, where the natural stone basin hewn out by the constant beating on the solid rock overflowed, could its momentum and power be in- ferred by the swift escape of the water, bounding over the precipice and rushing off in great haste for the valley. The proprietor had had the good taste to preserve the woodland character of the place intact. No sign that civilization had ever intruded here did Royce mark, as he looked about, save that suddenly his eye fell upon a book, open and turned downward on a rock hard by. Some one had sought this sylvan solitude for a quiet hour in the fascinations of its pages. He hesitated a moment, then advanced cautiously and laid his hand upon it. How long, how long it seemed as if in another existence since he had had a book like this in his hand! He caught its title eagerly, and the name of the The Juggler. 109 author. They were new to him. He turned the pages with alert interest. The book had been published since the date of his exile. Once more he fluttered the leaves, and, like some famished, thirsting wretch drinking in great eager gulps, he began to absorb the contents, his eyes glowing like coals, his breath hot, his hands trembling with nervous haste, knowing that his time for this draught of elixir, this refreshment of his soul, was brief, so brief. It would never do, for a man so humbly clad as he was, to be caught reading with evident delight a scholarly book like this. When at last he threw himself down amongst the thick and fragrant mint beside the rock, his shoulders supported on an outcropping ledge, his hat fallen on the ground, he was not conscious how the time sped by. His eyes were alight, moving swiftly from side to side of the page. His face glowed with responsive enthusiasm to the high thought of the author. His troubles had done much to chasten its expres- sion and had chiseled its features. It had never been so keen, so intelligent, so frank, so refined, as now. He did not see how the shadows shifted, till even in this umbrageous retreat a glittering lance of sunlight pierced the green gloom. He was not even aware of another pre- sence, a sudden entrance. A young lady, climbing up from the precipitous slope below, started abruptly at sight of him, jeopardizing her already uncertain foot- ing, then stared for an instant in blank amazement. So uncertain was her footing where she stood, however, that there was no safe choice but to continue her ascent. He did not heed more the rustle of her garments, as she struggled to the level ground, than the rustle of the leaves, nor the rattle of the little avalanche of gravel as her foot upon the verge dis- lodged the pebbles. Only when the shaft of sunlight struck full upon her white piqu6 dress, and the reflected glare was flung over the page of the book and into his eyes with that refulgent quality which a thick white fabric takes from the sun, he glanced up at the dazzling apparition with a galvanic start which jarred his every fibre. He stared at her for one moment as if he were in a dream; he had come from so far, so very far! Then he grasped his troublous identity, and sprang to his feet in great embar- rassment. I must apologize, he said, with his most courteous intonation, for taking the liberty of reading your book. Not at all, she murmured civilly, but still looking at him in much surprise and with intent eyes. Those eyes were blue and soft and lustrous; the lashes were long and black; the eyebrows were so fine, so perfect, so delicately arched, that they might have justified the writing of sonnets in their praise. That delicate small Roman nose one knew instinctively she derived .from a father who had followed its prototype from one worldly advancement to anoth- er, and into positions of special financial trusts and high commercial considera- tion. It would give distinction to her face in the years to come, when her fresh and delicate lips should fade, and that fluctuating sea-shell pink hue should no longer embellish her cheek. Her com- plexion was very fair. Her hair, dense- ly black, showed under the brim of the white sailor hat set straight on her small head. She was tall and slender, and wore her simple dress with an effect of finished elegance. She had an air of much refinement and unconscious digni- ty, and although, from her alert volant poise, he inferred that she was ready to terminate the interview, she did not move at once when she had taken the book in her hand. I merely intended to glance at the title, he went on, still overwhelmed to be caught in this literary poaching, and hampered by the consciousness that he and his assumed identity had become strangely at variance. But I grew so 110 The Juggler. much interested that I I quite lost myself. She had some thought in her mind as she looked down at the book in her gloved hand, then at him. The blood stung his cheek as he divined it. In pity for his evident poverty and hanker- ing for the volume, she would fain have bid him keep it. If this stranger had been a woman, she would have bestowed it on the instant. As it was, with an ex- acting sense of conventionality, she said suavely, but with impersonal inexpres- siveness, It is no matter. I am glad it entertained you. Good-morning. He bowed with distant and unpresum- ing politeness, and as she walked, with a fine pose and a quick elastic gait, along the shadowy green path, vanishing at the first turn, he felt the blood beating in his temples with such marked pulsation that he could have counted the strokes as he stood. Did she deem him, then, only a com- mon mountaineer, a graceless unlettered lout? She rated him as less than the dust beneath her feet. He could not en- dure that she should think of him thus. How could she be so obtuse as to fail to see that he was a gentleman for all his shabby gear! It was in him for a msment to hasten after her and reveal his name and quality, that she might not look at him as a creature of no worth, a being of a different sphere, hard- ly allied even to the species she repre- sented. He was following on her path, when the reflex sentiment struck him. Am I mad? he said to himself. Have I lost all sense of caution and self-preser- vation? He stood panting and silent, the wounded look in his eyes so intense that by some subtle sympathetic influence they hurt him, as if in the tension of a strain upon them, and he passed his hand across them as he took his way back to the spring. Did he wish the lady to recognize his station in life, and speculate touching his name? He was fortunate in that she was so young, for to those of more ex- perience the incongruities of the inter- est manifested by an uncouth and igno- rant mountaineer in a metaphysical book like that might indeed advertise mystery and provoke inquiry. Was he hurt be- cause the lady, noting his flagrant pov- erty, had evidently wished to bestow upon him the volume which he had been read- ing with such delight, so little to her, so infinite to him? And should he not appreciate her delicate sense of the ap- propriate, that had forbidden this gen- erosity, considering her youth, and the fact that he was a stranger and seeming- ly a rustic clown? He rather wondered at the scholarly bent of her taste in lit- erature, and her avoidance of the mirth- ful scenes of the veranda, that she might spend the morning in thought so fresh, so deep, so expansive. It hardly seemed apposite to her age and the tale that the thermometer told, for this was a book for study. There was something simple- hearted in his acceptance of this high intellectual ideal which all at once she represented to him. A few months ago he would have scoffed at it as a pose; he would at least have surmised the fact, a mistake caused by a similarity of binding with a popular novel of the day with which she had hoped to while away the time in the cool recesses beside the spring, and thus the volume had been thrown discarded on the rock, while she climbed the slopes searching for the Chilhowee lily. The fire of humiliation still scorched his eyes, his deep depression was patent in his face and figure, when he reached the Sims house at last, and threw himself down in a chair in the passage. One arm was over the back of the chair, and he rested his chin in his hand as he looked out gloomily at the mountains that limit- ed his world, and wished that be had never seen them and might never see them again. The house was full of the The Juggler. ill odor of frying bacon, for there was no whiff of wind in the Cove. The rooms were close and hot, and the sun lay half across the floor, and burnt, and shim- mered, and dazzled the eye. The suffo- cating odor of the blistering clapboards, and of the reserves of breathless heat stored in the attic, penetrated the spaces below. Jane Ann Sims sat melting by degrees in the doorway, where, if a draught were possible to the atmosphere from any of the four quarters, she might be in its direct route. Meantime she nodded oblivious, and her great head and broad face dripping with moisture wab- bled helplessly on her bosom. Euphemia, coming out suddenly with a pan of peas to shell for dinner, and seek- ing a respite from the heat, caught sight of Royce with a radiant look of delight to which for his life he could not respond. She was pallid and limp with the heat and the work of preparing dinner, and even in the poetic entanglements of her curl- ing shining hair she brought that most persistent aroma of the frying-pan. The coarse florid calico, the misshapen little brogans which she adjusted on the rung of her chair as she tilted it back against the wall with the pan in her lap, her drawling voice, the lapses of her igno- rant speech, her utter lack of all the graces of training and culture, impressed him anew with the urgency of a fresh discovery. What air it ez ails you-uns? she demanded, with a certain anxiety in her eyes. Ye hey acted sorter curous all this week. Do you-uns feel seek enny- whars? Lord, no! exclaimed the juggler irritably; there s nothing the matter with me. She looked at him in amazement for a moment; he had had no words for her of late but honeyed praise. The change was sudden and bitter. There was an appealing protest in her fright- ened eyes, and the color rushed to her face. He had no affinities for the r6le of fickle-minded lover, and he was hardly likely to seek to palliate the cruelty of inconstancy. He took extreme pride in being a man of his word. The sense of honor, which was all the religion he had and was chiefly active commercially, was evident too in his personal affairs. Was it her fault, his poor little love, that she was so hopelessly rustic? Had he not sought her when she was averse to him, and won her heart from a man she loved, who would never have thought himself too good for her? He would not apo- logize, however. He would not let her think that he had been vexed into hasty speech by the sight of her, the sound of her voice. You just keep that up, he said, conserving an expression of animosity before which she visibly quaked, and you 11 have Mrs. Sims brewing her in- fernal herb teas for me in about three minutes and a quarter. I want you to stop talking about my being ill, short off. As she gazed at him she burst into a little trill of treble laughter, that had nevertheless the tone of tears ready. to be shed, in the extremity of her relief. I have walked twenty miles to-day, and it s a goodish tramp, over to New Helvetia and back; and I m fagged out, that s all. Her equilibrium was restored once more, and her eyes were radiant with the joy of loving and being loved. Yet she paused suddenly, her hand he winced tbat he should notice how rough and large it was, the nails blunt and short and broad resting motionless on the edge of the pan, as she said, I wisht ye would gin up goin ter that thar~hotel. Ye look strange ter-day, her eyes searched his face as if for an interpretation of something troublous, daunting, so strange! so strange ~ How? he demanded angrily, knit- ting his brows. Ez efef ye hed been witched some- 112 The Juggler. hows, she answered, like I low folks mus look ez view a witch in the woods an git under some unyearthly spell. The woods air powerful thick over todes New Heveshy, an folks low they air fairly roamin with witches an sech. I aint goin ter gin my cornsent fur ye ter go through em no She pressed a pod softly, and the peas flew out and rattled in the pan, and the tension was at an end. He felt that she was far too acute, however. He was sorry she had ever known of his visits to New Helvetia. She should suppose them discontinued. He certainly coveted no feminine espionage. He could not escape the thought of the place now. The face of the beautiful stranger was before his eyes every wak- ing hour; and these were many, for the nights had lost their balm of sleep. The tones of her voice sounded in his ear. The delicate values of her refined bear. ing, the suggestions of culture and charm and high breeding which breathed from her presence like a perfume, had in- thralled his senses as might the subtile and aerial potencies of ether. He had no more volition. He could not resist. Yet it was not, he argued, this stranger whom he adored. It was what she em- bodied, what she represented. He per- ceived at last that for him the artifi- cialities of life were the realities. Even his own cherished gifts were matters of sedulous cultivation of certain natural aptitudes, the training of wbich was more remarkable than the endowment; and indeed, of what worth the talent without that culture which gives it use, and in fact recognized being at all? The status had an inherent integral value, the hu- man creature was its mere incident. Na- ture was naught to him. The triumphs of the world are the uses man has made of nature; the force that has lifted him from plane to plane, and sublimated the mere intelligence, which he shares with the beast, into intellectuality, which is the extremest development of mind. As he argued thus abstractly, the long- ing to see her again grew resistless. Not himself to be seen, and never, never again by her! He would only look at her from afar, as one even so humble a wretch might gaze at some masterpiece of the artists craft, might kneel in abasement and self - abnegation before some noble shrine. He craved to see her in her splendid young loveliness and girlish en- joyment, in gala attire, at the grand fete on which the youth of New Helvetia were expending their ingenuity of in- vention and expansive energy. Even prudence could not say him nay. Did fate grudge him a glimpse that he might gain at the door, or while between the dances she walked with her partner on the moonlit veranda? Who would note a flitting ghost, congener of the shadow, lurking in the deep glooms beneath the trees and looking wistfully at the world from which he had been snatched away? It was with a lacerating sense of renun- ciation that he parted with each instant of the time during the momentous even- ing when he might have beheld her in the tableaux; for he could with certainty fix upon the place she occupied, having gathered from the talk at the store the date and order of the festivities. But he could not rid himself of the Sims family. It had been vaguely borne in upon Mrs. Sims that he was growing tired of them, and in sudden alarm lest Euphemias happiness prove precarious, and with that disposition to assume the blame not properly chargeable to ones self which is common to some of the best people, who perceive no turpitude in lying when it is only to themselves, she made herself believe that the change was merely because she had been remiss in her attentions to her guest, and had treat- ed him too much and too informally as one of the family. She smiled broadly upon him, with each of her many dimples in evidence, which had never won upon him, even in the days of his blandest contentment. She detained him in con- The Juggler. 113 versation. She requested that he would favor her with the exact rendition of the air to which he sang the words of Rock of Ages, one Sunday morning when he had heard the bells of the St. Louis church towers ringing from out of the misty west; and as he dully complied, his tones breaking more than once, she ac- commodatingly wheezed along with huin, quite secure of his commendation. For Jane Ann Sims had been a plumb spe- cial singer when she was young and slim, and no matter how intelligent a woman may be, she never outgrows her attractions in her own eyes. At last the house was still, and the jug- gler, having endured an agony of sus- pense in his determination to suppress all demonstrations of interest in INew Helvetia, lest the intuition of the two women should divine the cause from even so slight indicia as might baffle reason, found himself free from question and surmise and comment. He was off in the moonlight and the shadow and the dew, with a furtive noiseless speed, like some wild errant thing of the night, native to the woods. He had a sense of the shadow and of the sheen of a fair young moon in the wilderness; he knew that the air was dank and cool and the dew fell~ he took note mechanically of the savage densities of the wilds when he heard the shrill blood-curdling quaver- ing of a catamounts scream, and he laid his grasp on the handle of a sharp knife or dagger that he wore in his belt, which he had bought for a juggling trick that he had not played at the curtailed per- formance in the schoolhouse, and wished that it were instead Tubal Cains shoot- ing-iron. But beyond this his mind was a blank. He did not think; he did not feel; his every capacity was concen- trated upon his gait and the speed that he made. He did not know how soon it was that the long series of points of yellow light, like a chain of glowing topaz, shone through the black darkness and the misty tremulous dimness of the VOL. LXXX. NO. 477. 8 moon. His teeth were set; he was fit to fall; he paused only a moment, lean- ing on the rail of the bridge to draw a deep breath and relax his muscles. Then he came on, swift, silent, steady, to the veranda. Around the doors, outside the ballroom, were crowded groups of figures, whose dusky faces and ivory teeth caught the light from within and attested the enjoy- ment of the servants of the place as spectators of the scene. He saw through an aperture, as one figure moved aside, a humble back bench against the wall, on which sat two or three of the mountain- eers of the vicinity, calmly and stolidly looking on, without more facial expres- sion of opinion than Indians might have manifested. He would not join this group, lest she might notice him in their company, which he repudiated, as if his similarity of aspect were not his reliance to save all that he and men of his ilk held dear. The windows were too high from the ground to afford a glimpse of the interior; he stood irresolute for a moment, with the strains of the waltz music vibrating in his very heart-strings. Suddenly he marked how the ground rose toward the further end of the build- ing. The last two windows must be par- tially blockaded by the slope so close without, and could serve only purposes of ventilation. Responsive to the thought, he climbed the steep slant, dark, dewy, and solitary, and, lying in the soft lush grass, looked down ~mpon the illuminated ballroom. At first he did not see her. With his heart thumping much after the fashion of the bass viol, till it seemed to beat in his ears, he gazed on the details of a scene such as he had thought never to look upon again. He recognized with a sort of community spirit and pleasure how well the frolicsome youth had utilized their slender opportunities, so far from the emporiums of civilization. Great branching ferns had adequately enough supplied the place of palms, their fronds 114 The Juggler. waving lightly from the walls in every whirling breeze from the flight of the dance. Infinite lengths of vines the Virginia creeper, the ground ivy, and the wild grapetwined about the pillars, and festooned the ceiling, the band-stand, and the chandeliers. For the first time he was made aware of the decorative values of the blackberry, when it is red, and, paradoxically, green. The unripe scarlet clusters were everywhere massed amidst the green vines with an effect as brilliant as holly. All the aisles of the surrounding woods had been explored for wild flowers. Here and there were tables laden with great masses of delicate blos- soms, and from time to time young cou- ples paused in their aimless strolling back and forth, for the music had ceased for the nonce, and examined specimens, and disputed over varieties, and apparent- ly disparaged each others slender scraps of botany. The band, high in their cage, pro- sperous, pompous darkies, of lofty man- ners, but entertaining with courteous con- descension any request which might be preferred, in regard to the music, by the young guests of the hotel, looked down upon the scene complacently. Now and then they showed their ivory teeth in an exchange of remarks which one felt sure must be worth hearing. Against the walls were ranged the chaperons in their most festal black attire, enhanced by fine old lace and fragile glittering fans and a somewhat dazzling display of diamonds. The portly husbands and fathers, fitting very snugly iii their dress suits, hovered about these borders with that freshened relish of scenes of youthful festivity which somehow seems increased in proportion as the possibility and privilege of parti- cipation are withdrawn. Some of the younger gentlemen also wore merely the ordinary evening dress, the difficulty of evolving a fancy costume, or a secret aver- sion to the characters they had represent- ed in the tableaux, warranting this de- parture from the spirit of the occasion. Everywhere, however, the younger feminine element blossomed out in poetic guise. Here and there fluttered many a fairy with the silver~flecked gauze wings that Royce had seen a-making, and Tita- nia still wore her crown, although Bottom had thrown his pasteboard head out of the window, and was now a grave and sedate young American citizen. Red Riding- Hood and the Wolf still made the grand tour in amicable company, and Pocahon- tas, in a fawn-tinted cycling skirt and leg- gings and a red blanket bedizened with all the borrowed beads and feathers that the Springs could afford, was esteemed characteristic indeed. Davy Crockett had a real coonskin cap which he had bought for lucre from a mountaineer, and which he intended to take home as a souvenir of the Great Smokies, although he was fain to carry it now by the tail because of the heat; but he invariably put it on and drew himself up to his tableau estimate of importance whenever one of the el- derly ladies clutched at him, as he passed, to inquire if he were certainly sure that the long and ancient flintlock (borrowed) which he bore over his shoulder was unloaded. There had evidently been a tableau representing Floras court or sim- ilar blooming theme, since so many per- sonified flowers were wasting their sweet- ness on the unobservant and unaccus- tomed air. The wild rose was in several shades of fleecy pink, festooned with her own garlands. A wallflower a dashing blonde was in brown and yellow, and had half the men in the room around her. Suddenly Lucien Royces heart gave a great throb and seemed to stand still, for, on the arm of her last partner, com- ing slowly down the room until she stood in the full glow of the nearest chandelier, all in white, in shining white satin, with a grace and dignity which embellished her youth, was she whom he had so longed to see. Her bare arms and shoulders were of a soft whiteness that made the tone of the satin by contrast glazing and hard. Her delicate head, with its The Juggler. 115 black hair arranged close and high, had the pose of a lily on its stalk. Scat- tered amid the dense dark tresses dia- monds glittered and quivered like dew- drops. Her face had that flower-like look not uncommon among the type of the very fair women with dark hair from the extreme south. Over the white satin was some filmy thin material, like the delicate tissues of a corolla; and only when he had marked these liliaceous similitudes did he observe that it was the Chilhowee lily which she had chosen to represent. Now and again that most ethereal flower showed amongst the folds of her skirt. A cluster as fragile as a dream lay on her bosom, and in her hand she carried a single blossom, poetic and perfect, trembling on its long stalk. There rose upon the air a sudden welling out of the music. The band was playing Home, Sweet Home. She had moved out of the range of his vision. There was a murmur of voices on the veranda as the crowd emerged. The lights were abruptly quenched in dark- ness. And he laid his head face down- ward in the deep grass and wished he might never lift it again. XII. Owen Haines spent many a lonely hour, in these days, at the foot of a great tree in the woods, riving poplar shingles. Near by in the green and gold glinting of the breeze-swept undergrowth another great tree lay prone on the ground. The space around him was covered with the chips hewn from its bole, an illumi- nated yellow-hued carpet in the soft wa- vering emerald shadows. The smooth shingles, piled close at hand, multiplied rapidly as the sharp blade glided swiftly through the poplar fibres. From time to time he glanced up expectantly, vainly looking for Absalom Tynes; for it had once been the wont of the young preacher to lie here on the clean fresh chips and talk through much of the sunlit days to his friend, who welcomed him as a desert might welcome a summer rain. He would talk on the subject nearest the hearts of both, his primitive theology, a subject from which Owen Haines was otherwise debarred, as no other ministerial magnate would condescend to hold conversation on such a theme with the laughing-stock of the meetings, whose aspirations it was held to be a duty in the cause of religion to discourage and destroy if might be. Only Tynes understood him, hoped for him, felt with him. But Tynes was at the schoolhouse in the Cove, listening in fas- cinated interest to the juggler as he re- cited from memory, and himself reading in eager and earnest docility, copying his masters methods. Therefore, when the step of a man sounded along the bosky path which Haines had worn to his working-place, and he looked up with eager anticipation, he encountered only disappointment at the sight of Peter Knowles approaching through the leaves. Knowles paused and glanced about him with withering disdain. Tynes aint hyar, he observed. I dunno ez I looked ter view him, nuther. He dropped down on the fragrant car- pet of chips, and for the first time Haines noticed that he carried, after a gingerly fashion, on the end of a stick, a bun- dle apparently of clothes, and plentifully dusted with something white and pow- dery. Even in the open air and the rush of the summer wind the odor exhaled by quicklime was powerful and pungent, and the scorching particles, came flying into Hainess face. As he drew back Knowles noticed the gesture, and adroit- ly flung the bundle and stick to leeward, saying, Dont it pear plumb curous ter you-uns, the idee o a minister o the gorspel a-settin out ter larn how ter read the Bible from, a onconverted sin- ner? I hearn this hyar juggler - man low ez he warnt even a mourner, though he said he hed suthin ter mourn 116 The Juggler. over. An I 11 swar he hey, he add- ed significantly, an he may look ter hey more. The poplar slivers flew fast from the keen blade, and the workmans eyes were steadfastly fixed on the shingle growing in his hand. Peter Knowles chewed hard on his quid of tobacco for a moment; then he broke out] abruptly, Owen Haines, I knows ye want ter sarve the Lord, an thar s many a way o doin it besides preachin, else I d be a-preachin my- self. Such was the hold that his aspiration had taken upon Hainess mind that he lifted his head in sudden expectancy and with a certain radiant submissiveness on his face, as if his Masters will could come even by Peter Knowles! I brung ye yer chance, continued the latter. Then, with a quick change from the sanctimonious whine to an eager, suppressed voice full of excite- ment, What ye reckon air in that bundle? Haines, surprised at this turn of the conversation, glanced around at the bun- dle in silence. An whar do ye reckon I got it? asked Knowles. Then, as Owen Haines s eyes expressed a wondering question, he went on, mysteriously lowering his voice, I fund it in my rock-house, flung in thar an kivered by quicklime! Haines stared in blank amazement for a moment. I lowed ye hed plugged up the hole goin inter yer rock-house, ter keep the lime dry, with a big boul- der. Edzacly, edzacly! Knowles as- sented, his long narrow face and close- set eyes so intent upon his listener as to put Haines out of countenance in some degree. Haines sought to withdraw his glance from their baleful significant expression, but his eyelids faltered and quivered, and he continued to look wincingly at his interlocutor. I lowed t war too heavy for any one man ter move, he commented vaguely, at last. Thout he war holped by the devil, Knowles added. There was a pause. The young work- mans hand was still. His companions society did not accord with his mood. The loneliness was soft and sweet, and of peaceful intimations. His frequent disappointments were of protean guise. Where was that work for the Master that Peter Knowles had promised him? Owen Haines, cried Peter Knowles suddenly, hey that thar man what calls hisself a juggler-man done ennytliin but harm sence he hey been in the Cove an the mountings? Haines, the color flaring to his brow, laid quick hold on his shingle-knife and rived the wood apart; his breath came fast and his hand shook, although his work was so steady. He was all un- noting that Peter Knowles was watch- ing him with an unguarded eye of open amusement, and a silent sneer that left his long tobacco-stained teeth visible be- low his curling upper lip. But a young fools folly is often propitious for the uses of a wiser man, and Knowles was not ill pleased to descry the fact that the relations between the two could not ad- mit of friendship, or tolerance, or even in- difference. Fust, he continued, he gin that onholy show in the church-house, what I never seen, but it hey set folks power- ful catawampus an hendered religion, fur the devil war surely in it. Owen Haines took off his hat to toss his long fair hair back from his brow, and looked with troubled reflective eyes down the long aisles of the gold-flecked verdure of the woods. Then he tricked you-uns somehows outn yer sweetheart, what ye hed been keepin company with so long. Haines shook his head doubtfully. We-uns quarled, he said. I dunno ef he hed nuthin ter do with it. Did she an you-uns ever quarl fore The Juggler. 117 he kern ter Simss? demanded the sly Knowles. They had never quarreled before Haines got religion and took to prayin fur the power. He had never thought the juggler chargeable with their differences, but the fallacy now oc- curred to him that they might have been precipitated by Royces ridicule of him as a wily device to rid her of her lover. His face grew hot and angry. There was fire in his eyes. His lips parted and his breath came quick. He hey toled off Tynes too, resumed Knowles, with a melancholy intonation. He hey got all the lures and witch- ments of the devil at command. I kern by the church-house awhile ago, an I hearn him an Tynes in thar, speakin an readin. An I sez ter myself, sez I, Pore Owen Haines, up yander in the woods, hey got nuther his frien, now, nor his sweetheart. Him an Phemie keeps company no mo in this worl. There was a sudden twitch of Hainess features, as if these piercing words had been with some material sharpness thrust in amongst sensitive tissues. It was all true, all true. The iron was hot, and Peter Knowles struck. That ~aint the wust, he said, leaning forward and bringing his face with blazing eyes close to his companion. This hyar juggler hey killed a man, an flung his bones inter the quicklime in my rock-house. Haines, with a galvanic start, turned, pale and aghast, upon his companion. He could only gasp, but Knowles went on convulsively and without question: I spicioned him from the fust. He stopped thar whar I was burnin lime the night o the show, an holped ter put it in outer the weather, bein ez the rain would slake it. An he axed me ef quick- lime would sure burn up a dead body. An when I told him, he turned as he went away an looked back, smilin an sorten motionin with his hand, an looked back agin, an looked back. He reached out slowly for the stick with the bundle tied at the end, and dragged it toward him, the breath of the scalding lime perceptible as it was drawn near. Las week, one evenin late, he said in a lowered voice and with his eyes alight and glancing, hevin kep a watch on this young buzzard, an noticin him forever travelin the New Helveshy road what aint no business o hisn, I lowed I d foller him. An he kerries a bundle. He walks fast an stops short, an stud- ies, an turns back suddint, an stops agin, an whirls roun an goes on. An his face looks like death! An sometimes he stops short to sigh, ez ef he could nt get his breath. But he dont go ter New Helveshy. He goes ter my rock-house. An he hey got breath enough ter fling away that tormented big boulder, an toss in these gyarmints, an churn the lime over em with a stick till he hed ter hold his hand over his eyes ter keep his eyesight, an fling back the boulder, an run off faster n a fox along the road ter Simss. There was a long silence as the two men looked into each others eyes. What air ye tellin this ter me fur? said Haines at last, struggling with a mad impulse of hope of joy, was it? For if this were true, and true it must be, the spurious supplantation in Euphemias affections might soon be at an end. If her love could not endure ridicule, would it condone crime? All might yet be well; justice tardily done, the law upheld; the intruder removed from the sphere where he had occasioned such woe, and the old sweet days of loves young dream to be lived anew. Fur the Marsters sarvice, said the wily hypocrite. I sez ter myself, Owen Haines wont see the right tromped on. He wont see the ongodly flourish. He wont see the wolf a-lopin through the fold. He wont hear in the night the blood o Abel cryin from the groun agin the guilty Cain, an not tell the sherff 118 The Juggler. what air no furder off, jes now, ii Pos- sum Cross-Roads. Why dont you-uns let him know yersef? demanded Haines shortly. Waal, I be a-settin up nights with my sick nephews: three o them chiln down with the measles, an my sister an brother-in-law bein so slack-twisted I be feard they d gin em the wrong mcd- cine ef I warnt thar ter gin drections. His eye brightened as he noted Haines reaching forward for the end of the stick and slowly drawing the bundle toward him. It is stated on excellent authority that a leopard cannot change his spots, and, without fear of successful contradiction, one may venture to add to the illustra- tions of immutability that a coward can- not change his temperament. Now that Peter Knowles was a coward had been evinced by his conduct on several occa- sions within the observation of his com- patriots. His craft, however, had served to adduce mitigating circumstances, and so consigned the matter to oblivion that it did not once occur to Haines that it was fear which had evolved the subter- fuge of enlisting his well-known enthu- siasm for religion and right, and his nat- ural antagonism against the juggler, in the Masters service. On the one hand, Knowles dreaded being called to account for whatever else might be found uncon- sumed by the lime in his rock-house, did he disclose naught of his discovery. On the other hand, the character of inform- er is very unpopular in the mountains, owing to the revelations of moonshining often elicited by the rewards offered by the revenue laws. Persons of this class sometimes receive a recompense in an- other metal, which, if not so satisfactory as current coin, is more conclusive and lasting. It was the recollection of leaden tribute of this sort, should the matter prove explicable, or the man escape, or the countryside resent the appeal to the law, which induced Peter Knowles to desire to shift upon Haines the active responsibility of giving information: his jealousy in love might be considered a motive adequate to bring upon him all the retributions of the recoil of the scheme if aimed amiss. He watched the young man narrowly and with a glittering eye as, with a trem- bling hand and a look averse, he began to untie the cord which held the package together. He killed the man, Owen, ez sure ez ye air livin, an fiunged his bones in the quicklinie, an now he flunged in his clothes, Knowles was saying as the bun- dle gave loose in the handling. Drawing back with a sense of suffo- cation as a cloud of minute particles of quicklime rose from the folds of the material, Owen Haines nevertheless re- cognized upon the instant the garments which the juggler himself had worn when he first came to the Cove, the unaccus- toined fashion of which had riveted his attention for the time at the show at the church-house. With a certain complex duality of emo- tion, he experienced a sense of dismay to note how his heart sank with the ex- tinguishment of his hope that the man might prove a criminal and that this discovery might rid the country of him. How ill he had wished him! Not only that the fierce blast of the law might consume him, but, reaching back into the past, that he might have wrought evil enough to justify it and make the retribu- tion sure! With a pang as of sustaining loss he gasped, Why, these hyar gyar- mints air his own wear. I hey viewed him in em many a time whenst he fust kem ter the Cove! Knowles glared at him in startled doubt, and slowly turned over one of the pointed russet shoes. He hed em on the night he gin the show in the Cove, said Haines. I seen him that night, said Knowles conclusively. He hed on no sech curous clothes ez them, else I d hey re- marked em, sure! The Juggler. 119 Ye lowed t war night an by the flicker o the fire, an ye war in a corn- siderble o a jigget boutn yer lime. Naw, sir! naw, sir! he hed on no sech coat ez that, protested Knowles. Then, with rising anger, Ye air a pore shoat fur sense, Owen Haines! Ef they air his gyarmints, what s the reason he hid em so secret an whar the quicklime would deestroy em; hem so particlar ter ax o me ef t would burn boots an clothes an bone, bone, too? I dunno, said Haines, at a loss, and turning the black-and-red blazer vaguely in his hands. I do; them folks over ter New Hel- veshy wears sech fool gear ez these. Thar aint nobody missin at New Hel~eshy! Haines argued, against his lingering hope. How do you-uns know? exclaimed Knowles hurriedly, and with a certain alert alarm in his face. Somebody comm ez never got thar! Somebody goin ez never got away! He had risen excitedly to his feet. What ghastly se- cret might be hidden beneath the resi- due of quicklime in his rock-house, the responsibility possibly to be laid at his door! Owen Haines, looking up at him with childlike eyes, was slowly studying his face, a fierce face, with the savagery of his cowardice as predatory an element as the wantonness of his malice. These hyar air his clothes, Haines reiterated; I members em well. This hyar split buttonhole at the throat That s whar he clutched the mur- dered one, declared Knowles tumultu- ously. an these water-marks on these hyar shoes, they hed been soaked, an this hyar leather belt, whar two pints hed been teched through with a knife- blade, stiddier them round holes, ter draw the belt up tighter n it war made ter be wore, I could swar ter em, an this hyar Knowles looked down at him in angry doubt. Shucks, he interrupted, ye besotted idjit! I dunno what ailed me ter kem ter you-uns. I lowed ye war so beset ter do yer Marsters work! with a mocking whine. But ye aint. Ye seek yer own chance! The Lord tied yer tongue with a purpose, an he wasted no brains on a critter ez he did nt low ter hey gabblin round the throne. Ye see ter it ye say nuthin boutn this, else jestice 11 take arter you - uns, too, an ye wont be much abler ter talk ter the court o law n the court o the Lawd. He wagged his head vehemently at the young man, while kneeling to make up anew the bundle of garments, until the scorching vapor compelled him to turn aside. When he arose, he stood erect for one doubtful instant. Then, satisfied by the reflection that for the sake of his own antagonism toward the juggler the jeal- ous and discarded lover would do naught to frustrate the vengeance that menaced Royce, he turned suddenly, and, with the bundle swaying as before on the end of the stick, started without a word along the path by which he had come, leaving Owen Haines gazing after him till he disappeared amongst the leaves. How long Owen Haines sat there star- ing at the vanishing point of that bosky perspective he could hardly have said. When he leaped to his feet, it was with a repentant sense of the waste of time and the need of haste. His long, lank, slouch- ing figure seemed incompatible with any but the most languid rate of progression; and indeed it was not his habit to get over the ground at the pace which he now set for himself. This was hardly slackened through the several miles he traversed until he reached the schoolhouse, which he found silent and empty. After a wild- eyed and hurried survey, he set forth anew, his shoulders bent, his head thrust forward, his gait unequal, tired, breath- less; for he was not of the stalwart phy- sique common amongst the youth of the Cove. He reached the Sims cabin, pant- ing, anxious-eyed, and hardly remember- 120 The Juggler. ing his grievances against Phemie when he came upon her in the passage. She looked at him askance over her shoulder as she rose in silent disdain to go indoors. I aint kern hyar ter plague you-uns, Phemie, he called out, divining her in- terpretation of his motive. I want ter speak ter that thar juggler-man, he could not bring himself to mention the name. She paused a moment, and he per- ceived in surprise that her proud and scornful face bore no tokens of happi- ness. Her lips had learned a pathetic droop; her eyelids were heavy, and the long lashes lifted barely to the level of her glance. The words in a low voice, He aint hyar, were as if wrung from her by the necessity of the moment, so unwilling they seemed, and she entered the house as Mrs. Sims flustered out of the opposite door. Laws-a-massy, Owen Haines, she exclaimed, ye better lef be that thar juggler-man, ez ye calls him! He could throw you-uns over his shoulder. Ye 11 git inter trouble, meddlin. Phemie be plumb delighted with her chice, an a gal hey got a right ter make a chice wunst in her life, ennyhows. He sought now and again to stem the tide of her words, but only when a breath- less wheeze silenced her he found oppor- tunity to protest that he meant no harm to the juggler, and he held no grudge against Euphemia; that he was the bear- er of intelligence important to the jug- gler, and she would do her guest a favor to disclose his whereabouts. There were several added creases they could hardly be called wrinkles in Mrs. Simss face of late, and a certain fine network of lines had been drawn about her eyes. She was anxious, trou bled, irritated, all at once, and entertainell her own views touching the admission of the fact of the jugglers frequent and lengthened absence from his heloved. Euphemias fascinations for him were evidently on the wane, and although he was gentle and considerate and almost humble when he was at the house, he seemed listless and melancholy, and had grown silent and unobservant, and they had all marked the change. We-uns kin hardly git shet o the boy, said Mrs. Sims easily, lying in an able-bodied fashion. But I do blieve ter-day ez he hey tuk heart o grace an gone a-hnntin. Owen Hainess countenance fell. Of what avail to follow at haphazard in the vastness of the mountain wilderr~ss? There was naught for him to do but re- turn to his work, and wait till nightfall might bring home the man he sought. Meantime, the sheriff was as near as Possum Cross-Roads, only twelve miles down the valley. Peter Knowles would probably give the information which he had tried to depute to the supplanted lover. Haines did not doubt now the jugglers innocence, but the hiding away of those garments in so mysterious a manner might be difficult to explain, and might cost him at least a wearisome im- prisonment. It was within Hainess ob- servation that other men had found it well to be out of the way at a time of suspicion like this. He appreciated the cruel ingenuity of perverse circumstances, and he had felt the venom of malice. Thus it was that he had sought to warn the man of the discovery which Peter Knowles had made, and of the strange and forced construction he was disposed to place upon the facts, seeming in themselves, however, inexplicable. Charles Egbert Craddock. The Stony Pathway to the Woods. 121 THE STONY PATHWAY TO THE WOODS. The gods talk in the breath of the woods, They talk in the shaken pine. THE way to the woods was by an old road that wound around between the rocks to the top of the ledge, so long unused that it was given over to grass and flowers. Tall feathery meadow rue peeped out from the bushy growth of al- ders on one side; white-faced daisies, and buttercups with tiny polished urns held up, waved over the old wheel - track; while wild roses perfumed the air, and a little farther in, beneath dim aisles, in odorous beds, The slight Linxuea hung its twin-born heads. The woods into which the stony way plunged, the moment it left the main road, were Natures own. She had sown her spruces and pines and birches on a bit of the earth almost impassable to man. A jumble of rocks piled in dire confusion, presenting sharp edges at every possi- ble angle, or covered inches deep with soft moss yielding to the feet like a cushion, and all extremely slippery from the fallen spruce leaves of many years; trees growing wherever they could secure foothold; dead hanging branches and prostrate trunks bristling with jagged points, the whole impenetrable except to wings. It was one of Natures s inimi- table wild gardens, an unkempt zone Where vines and weeds and spruce-trees inter- twine, Safe from the plough. Thanks to the difficulties with which it was surrounded and the little tempta- tion it offered for clearing, it was abso- lutely untouched by man, excepting here and there in a more practicable spot, where he had made a small inroad. It was a paradise for birds and bird-lovers, though the latter were obliged to content themselves with what they could see on the edge and by looking in. Up that delectable path was my morn- ing walk. Along its rugged sides cer- tain approximately level rocks made rest- ing-places on which to pause and look about. The first halt was under a low cedar-tree, and in a warbler neighbor- hood. As soon as I became quiet my ears were assailed by faint notes almost like insect sounds, pip or tic, some- times whispered smacks or squeals, and I watched eagerly for a stirring leaf or a vibrating twig. Many times I was not able, with my best efforts, to see the least movement, for spruce boughs re- spond but slightly to the light touch of tiny creatures. But usually silence and absolute quiet had their reward. Here I saw the magnolia warbler in his gor- geous dress of black and gold, calling an anxious davy-davy! which is it? and bustling about after a restless youngster the size of a walnut, with the nestlings down still clinging to his head. Into a low tree across the pathway came often the black-and-white creeper, tiptoeing his way up the trunk and uttering his sib- ilant see-see! see-see! On one side ap- peared once or twice a redstart, prancing over the ground in his peculiar show- ing off manner, in which he folds and unfolds his twinkling tail in sport, and in his brilliant orange and black looks as much out of place in the simplicity of the woods as a fine lady in full dress. This was also the haunt of a myrtle war- bler in sombre black and white, quaint- ly decorated with four patches of bright yellow, and very much concerned about a nest somewhere in that lovely green world. In this nook I was visited daily by a chickadee family, droll folk quite in- nocent of dignity, ~s Dr. Coucs says, who fascinated me with their pretty ways and the many strange utterances of their queer husky voices. At first, on finding

The Stony Pathway to the Woods. 121 THE STONY PATHWAY TO THE WOODS. The gods talk in the breath of the woods, They talk in the shaken pine. THE way to the woods was by an old road that wound around between the rocks to the top of the ledge, so long unused that it was given over to grass and flowers. Tall feathery meadow rue peeped out from the bushy growth of al- ders on one side; white-faced daisies, and buttercups with tiny polished urns held up, waved over the old wheel - track; while wild roses perfumed the air, and a little farther in, beneath dim aisles, in odorous beds, The slight Linxuea hung its twin-born heads. The woods into which the stony way plunged, the moment it left the main road, were Natures own. She had sown her spruces and pines and birches on a bit of the earth almost impassable to man. A jumble of rocks piled in dire confusion, presenting sharp edges at every possi- ble angle, or covered inches deep with soft moss yielding to the feet like a cushion, and all extremely slippery from the fallen spruce leaves of many years; trees growing wherever they could secure foothold; dead hanging branches and prostrate trunks bristling with jagged points, the whole impenetrable except to wings. It was one of Natures s inimi- table wild gardens, an unkempt zone Where vines and weeds and spruce-trees inter- twine, Safe from the plough. Thanks to the difficulties with which it was surrounded and the little tempta- tion it offered for clearing, it was abso- lutely untouched by man, excepting here and there in a more practicable spot, where he had made a small inroad. It was a paradise for birds and bird-lovers, though the latter were obliged to content themselves with what they could see on the edge and by looking in. Up that delectable path was my morn- ing walk. Along its rugged sides cer- tain approximately level rocks made rest- ing-places on which to pause and look about. The first halt was under a low cedar-tree, and in a warbler neighbor- hood. As soon as I became quiet my ears were assailed by faint notes almost like insect sounds, pip or tic, some- times whispered smacks or squeals, and I watched eagerly for a stirring leaf or a vibrating twig. Many times I was not able, with my best efforts, to see the least movement, for spruce boughs re- spond but slightly to the light touch of tiny creatures. But usually silence and absolute quiet had their reward. Here I saw the magnolia warbler in his gor- geous dress of black and gold, calling an anxious davy-davy! which is it? and bustling about after a restless youngster the size of a walnut, with the nestlings down still clinging to his head. Into a low tree across the pathway came often the black-and-white creeper, tiptoeing his way up the trunk and uttering his sib- ilant see-see! see-see! On one side ap- peared once or twice a redstart, prancing over the ground in his peculiar show- ing off manner, in which he folds and unfolds his twinkling tail in sport, and in his brilliant orange and black looks as much out of place in the simplicity of the woods as a fine lady in full dress. This was also the haunt of a myrtle war- bler in sombre black and white, quaint- ly decorated with four patches of bright yellow, and very much concerned about a nest somewhere in that lovely green world. In this nook I was visited daily by a chickadee family, droll folk quite in- nocent of dignity, ~s Dr. Coucs says, who fascinated me with their pretty ways and the many strange utterances of their queer husky voices. At first, on finding 122 The Stony Pathway to the Woods. an uninvited guest in their quarters, they were very circumspect, and carried on their conversation overhead in the odd- est little squeaky tones, not to be heard ten feet away. Once an elderly bird got the floor and gave an address, per- haps pointing out the dangers to be feared from the monster sitting so silent under the cedar. The burden of his talk sounded to me like chit-it-it-day! day! but there were varied inflections, and it evidently meant something very serious, for every twitter was hushed, while the discourse was loud, urgent, and snapped out in a way I never thought possible to the Merry little fellow with the cheery little voice.~~ The sermon, or lecture, was ended by one of the audience interrupting with the plaintive little two-note song of the fami- ly, upon which they all broke out chat- ting again, and scurried over the trees with a thousand antics. As they grew accustomed to my presence they became more demonstrative and voluble, show- ing me unsuspected capabilities of chick- adese. Such squeaks and calls and re- markable notes, such animated discus- sions and such irrepressible baby-talk, were altogether enchanting. One infant sometimes came alone, talking to him- self, and at intervals essaying in a feeble, unsteady manner the pc-wee note of his race. On one occasion, the head of the family as I suppose flew down toward me, alighted just before my face not two feet away, and looked at me sharply. I spoke to him quietly in at- tempted imitation of his language, but my little effort at conversation was not a complete success, for after a short, not too civil answer he flew away. The crowning delight of my chickadee study was the song to which I was treated one day. A bird was singing when I arrived, so that I stopped short of my seat and listened. The song was so low that it could not be heard unless one were very near, and in a tone so peculiar that I could not believe it came from a chickadee until I saw him. It consisted of the usual utterances differently ar- ranged. There seemed to be, first, a succession of dee-dees followed by a solitary chick a third lower, then the same repeated and interrupted by the pc-wee, but all slurred together and given in tremolo style utterly unlike any chickadee performance I had ever heard. It was most bewitching, and was kept up a long time. Having at last settled myself in my usual place, and while waiting for the next caller to show himself, I had lei- sure to notice and admire the peculiar character of the woods; for Nature has infinite resources at command, and no two spots are arranged on the same plan. Spruces were most prominent, with birches and maples to soften their se- verity, lighten their sombreness, and give a needed touch of grace. The mixture was felicitous. The white stems of the birch, most shy and ladylike of trees, stood out finely against the dark spruces, just then decked with fresh tips to every twig, which gave somehow a rich velvety appearance to the foliage. The pic- turesque irregularity of the birch trunks was very noticeable. Hardly one was straight. Sonic leaned to one side, as if it had been hard to get the delicate branches in between the stiff and angu- lar boughs of the spruces among which they grew; others had turned this way and that, in wavering uncertainty, as if they had been unable to decide which way they would go, till they were full grown, and the indecisions of youth were perpetuated in a crooked trunk. There was no appearance of indeci- sion, past or present, about the spruces. Each stem stood as straight as a fresh West Point cadet. There was never an instants doubt in what direction one of those sturdy trees had set its heart. Straight up was the aim of every one, and straight up it went; stern, unbend- ing, self - willed, like some of our own The Stony Pathway to the Woods. 123 race, with branches at right angles on every side, let neighbors less strong of purpose fare as they could. The beauties and idiosyncrasies of these woods might be enjoyed at leisure, for they possessed one great advantage over any other I have found east of the Rocky Mountains. Through all this month of July which I spent among them, not a fly showed his impertinent head, and mosquitoes appeared but rare ly. When any of the latter did make themselves obvious, they presented their little bills in the most modest manner. They asked so very, very little, and asked it so gently, no one could refuse or re- sent it. It was darkly whispered by those who in the past had outstayed July that the whole season was not so blessed; that insect hordes were simply biding their time, and later they would come out in force. But later one need not be here. I noted also with relief that there was another absentee, the red - eyed vireo, common almost everywhere, to whose jerky, hurried, never ending song dis- tance lends enchantment in exact propor- tion to the number of rods it is removed. Not one of those lovely and well-mean- ing but woefully misguided birds did I see or hear in the woods of that happy island. Warblers, however bewitching, and I admit their claims, and woods, how- ever suggestive and delightful, could not content me long; for voices were calling from above, voices most potent of all, thrushes. After an hour under the cedar I resumed my stony way up the hill to the edge of an opening where trees had been felled, a cut-out, as it is called, and there, on a convenient- ly placed rock, I waited for who might come. One day, as I sat there, a royal guest appeared, alighted on a small tree, and threw up his tail in characteristic fashion; then his eyes fell upon me, perhaps thirty feet away. I remained motionless while the bird a hermit thrush took a long and close look at the intruder upon his grounds. Quiet as I might be, it was plain the beautiful creature was not for a moment deceived. He recognized me as one of the race against whom he must be on his guard. He wished to pass on, but panic or even vulgar haste is not in his nature. He stood a few moments, calmly answered a hermit call from the woods, then with- out hurry flew to the ground, ran lightly along to a rock, on the highest peak of which he paused again, tossed his tail, and looked at me; then on again to the next rock, where he repeated the pro- gramme. And so he proceeded, greet- ing me gracefully from the top of every eminence before he ran on to the next, until he gained the cover of the woods across the open, all in the most digni- fied way. This experience seemed to give the bird courage, for the next time he found me in my customary seat he mounted a stump, sang a snatch of his song, ran to a low bush and added a few more notes, came to the ground, where be f or- aged-among the dead leaves a minute, then up again on a bent sapling, bub- bling over in joyous notes; and thus he went on singing and eating in the most captivating way, and in apparent indif- ference to his unobtrusive but delighted spectator on the rock. I was surprised; this bird being one of our greatest sing- ers, I had a feeling that a certain amount of dress parade must accompany his performance. Indeed, those of his kind I had seen before had always taken a position to sing. If the hermit thrush could be per- suaded to end his chant with the second clause, he would be unapproachable as a musical performer, as he and his near relations are already in quality of voice. But he seems to be possessed of an un- fortunate desire to sing higher than his register, and invariably, so far as I have heard, he persists in this effort, and goes all to pieces on the high note. At least 124 The Stony Pathway to the Woods. so his song sounds to one listener, who finds the heavenly first clauses sadly marred by the closing one. Somewhere in this attractive place was hidden an oven-birds nest which I want- ed much to see. I never thought, how- ever, of undertaking the hopeless task of hunting for it; but one day, when I happened upon one of the birds with worms in her mouth, prepared to feed her brood, I was seized with the hope that she would be simple enough to point it out to me, and at once devoted my whole attention to watching her movements. Her tactics were admirable. When she first saw me she stood on a low bush and stared at me, head feathers erected like a crest, showing plainly the golden crown that gives the name, golden-crowned war- bler, and uttering her curious smack. In a few minutes she was joined by her mate, also with a mouthful of squirming provisions. For some time the pair stood still, doubtless waiting for me to pass on; but finding that I did not leave, they grew impatient and began moving about. The female would go to the ground with an air of the greate~t caution, run about among the leaves and fallen sticks as if she had important business, every mo- ment glancing at me, till she came to a slight ridge of earth, or a small rock or log, behind which she would straightway vanish. In vain did I watch intently for her to reappear on the other side. No doubt as soon as she found herself out of my sight she ran like a mouse, keeping the stone or log well between us as a screen. Meanwhile her mate aided her efforts nobly by making himself most conspicuous, fidgeting about on his bush, mounting a stump and singing teacher! teacher! teacher! at the top of his voice, as if calling for help, and in every way trying to keep my attention fixed upon him. After a while the other par- ty to the little game would fly up from a point far away from where she had dis- appeared. with an empty beak and an innocent air of never having dreamed of a nest, and begin to smack as when she first discovered me. Then it was her turn to keep me diverted while her mate slipped away. Sometimes they em- barrassed me further by separating wide- ly, so that I could not keep my eyes on both. In fact, after some hours given to the beguilements of this brave pair, and much searching among the dead leaves in places they had apparently pointed out, I was obliged to confess my- self outwitted by the clever little actors. But there was a stranger in the woods, a thrush, I judged from the voice and the manner of singing, who had tantalized me from the day I entered that enchant- ed isle on the coast of Maine. From the distant forest came a strange, loud call in the peculiar tremulous tones of the veery, sounding to me like wake up! Judy! the first two notes with falling, the last two with rising inflection. As evening of that first day drew on, the call to Judy was accompanied by other sounds uttered in the same voice, a loud ringing song or recitative composed of similar ejaculations, with varied modu- lations that gave it greater resemblance to conversation than to music. Indeed, while I sat and listened through the long twilight to two or three birds calling and answering one another from distant treetops, I could not rid myself of the fancy that they were exchanging opin- ions across their green world. The next morning I was wakened by an unfamiliar and remarkable bird note, a low liquid quit, sometimes followed by an ex- plosive sound impossible to characterize, a sort of subdued squawk, or what one might suppose to be as near a squawk as a refined, well - bred bird could accom- plish. Naturally, all this mystified me and aroused great interest, and now I was waiting and longing for an opporta- nity to see the mysterious unknown. As we have been told, and as some of us know, all things come in time to him who can wait. To me at last came The Stony Pathway to the Woods. 125 my chance. One afternoon there rolled in upon us, from our restless neighbor the sea, an all-embracing f